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Private Media NetworksTM
The growing number of media-subchannels such as radio podcasts, mobile TV or RSS feeds is causing audiences to fragment both in space (number of media) and time (timeshifted media). Advertisers therefore need to explore alternative, longer-term media strategies to better protect their brands from competitors while creating a more unique, personalized and involving experience with consumers.
The real challenge for advertisers is to experiment with different media architectures that would give them greater control over how and when they deliver their communication.
A new communication architecture
Private Media NetworksTM is an innovative brand communication architecture in which an advertiser's product or service is turned into a media channel within a network of proprietary media. The role of each channel is to create a permanent connection with consumers by integrating the brand in their daily routines.
This model was developed by Arena|SMIL to offer marketers a test bed platform for testing new forms of brand communication.
Big brands have already started experimenting with the idea. Nike, for example, teamed up with Apple to develop a sensor that connects Nike shoes with the iPod. “Nike dreamed up the idea for the product and contacted Apple to develop the technology behind it, Nike CEO Mark Parker said at the news conference: "A while back we asked a big question: Could we harness the power of digital technology to improve a runner's experience?" It turns out the answer is a smart running shoe, equipped with a small sensor that can track motion and distance and other metrics that runners find important”.
Doing so enables Nike to “track” joggers who use the system and create an interactive and permanent relationship with them. Beyond the Nike+Apple product, Nike created a web application to help runners log their jogs while delivering a useful experience (music, social networking, jogging itineraries, etc.), an email program to discover new Nike equipment, promotions and a frequent reminder to visit to Nike stores.
All these consumer connections are “always on”, always available for Nike to provide entertainment, messages, data and for joggers a way to talk back to Nike and fellow runners. These private channels are networked together around the consumer with one single objective: deliver the most memorable and engaging jogging experience.
Nike is not the only brand to have created its own media product with Apple. Starbucks recently announced that it will progressively upgrade its Wifi service in every store to “talk” seamlessly with the iPhone and iPod touch.
By allowing its customers to instantly buy and download the music playing in the coffee store, Starbucks hopes to deliver an even greater experience thereby increasing the loyalty of its coffee drinkers. The fact that each Starbucks could potentially become a coffee-friendly music store is a concept in itself that it will share with Apple:
Build its own music store or partner with someone elses? Given that Starbucks already has an existing relationship with iTunes Music Store, Apple would make a perfect partner. Although Apple has plenty of stores of its own, being able to reach Starbucks' 40 million customers through its network of over 13,000 stores has to have appeal.
Prada is another example. Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Versace, Levi’s, Porche and much recently Georgio Armani all have their branded mobile phone. But Prada’s mobile, developed in partnership with LG, did not go for a classical co-branding but rather participated actively in the design of the phone’s functionality.
LG and PRADA have worked closely together on every aspect of the product, from handset development to marketing combining the attention to detail and uncompromising quality of PRADA design with the trademark technological innovation of LG mobile. Source 3g.co.uk
This marketing strategy now gives Prada the opportunity to build its own Private Media Network.
With physical stores, a web site and now a mobile phone, It becomes possible to create direct connections between Prada’s web site and the phone through Push/Pull communication or create a dedicated geo-localization service to attract Prada buyers when they are within walking distance of the store.
Although Nike, Starbucks+Apple and Prada are successfully building their private media strategies, there is a notable difference between the three products: Nike added technology to its own product, Prada branded and participated in the functionality of a new Prada product (a mobile phone) and Starbucks used Apple’s technology (Wifi Music Store) to browse Starbucks playlists and discover new music thereby co-creating with Apple a common music store.
These examples show how a media component can be plugged-in or created to turn a product into a private media channel and how this gives marketers the possibility to integrate the brand’s experience in the daily lifestyle of consumers in a far less intrusive fashion than using traditional advertising. Nonetheless a PMN architecture also requires public media as part of the dynamics of the entire network. Public media can be activated on and off depending on when the brand needs to boost its communication.
Advantages compared to public networks
The PMN model, contrary to traditional advertising, is not about reaching a target audience distributed over a multiplicity of contact points; it is about delivering a set of added-value experiences to the consumer. It is also about complementing traditional communication with a completely measurable set of private channels. The PMN’s primary objective is to recruit the brand’s audience over time and maintain both levels of consumer interest and satisfaction in a sustainable way. Private Media Networks differ from traditional communication by focusing on consumer experience and satisfaction on each of the contact points of the network thereby creating a global and seamless sense of involvement for consumers.
Advertisers may no longer have to find the right mix between public and private media but rather progressively experiment with new communication strategies. Implementing Private Media Networks is one potential direction which helps maintain visibility, develop greater engagement with consumers and ultimately generate new revenue streams.
Brand management and control
A Private Media strategy makes it easier to identify touch points that are unique and dedicated to a specific target group and a specific objective. For instance, a channel of the network such as a web application could serve a recruitment objective while a mobile service would aim to increase loyalty. The management of Private Media Networks is a little different from traditional advertising campaigns as it requires a more permanent monitoring of the performance of each channel and specifically the advertiser’s media product channel. Because Key Performance Indicators can be set for each media channel, the overall performance of the network can easily be calculated allowing for quick adjusting and optimizing of the brand communication. The free-form development of social networks and viral communication is a necessary ingredient of the PMN strategy in order to increase the recruitment of the network’s global audience but new metrics need to be developed to measure consumer involvement, interest and experience in complement to the usual site traffic data. Private Media Networks can also provide valuable data on the distribution of the audience over each individual contact point in the network. Finding out how strong is their involvement and ultimately their sales contribution. PMNs allow to track the behaviour and attitude of consumers throughout the purchase funnel which ultimately increases the overall knowledge about the brand. Lastly, the KPI or metrics associated with PMNs will not only account for the brand’s equity in terms of sales, awareness, loyalty or price/value ratio but can also measure the brand’s “permanent audience” which should help increase the company’s financial value.
Conclusion
Advertisers now need to focus on what they do for consumers as opposed to what they tell them. To do this they must integrate the brand in the daily routine of consumers. They must blend their brands in their target market’s lifestyles in the most satisfactory, non-intrusive manner.
Adding a media component to an advertiser’s product or creating an ad’ hoc media channel progressively help recruit new consumers as well as build a more loyal audience. More importantly, the advertiser’s new media product or service should become the most active communication channel and the strongest permanent link with the consumer. These newly proposed media products leverage the combined power of technology, media agency expertise and advertiser’s marketing knowledge to deliver a useful and enjoyable experience to customers while creating a permanent dedicated media channel. --Amelie Roujou de Boubee, Arena Media Communications 09:19, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
