Promotional Death Match: Digital Marketing vs. Traditional Media
Print (TV, Radio, etc.) may be down, but it is definitely not out for the count.
Someone recently asked me whether I preferred digital or traditional media. My automatic reply was:
A solid integrated marketing communications plan features traditional and digital media in ratios and across platforms according to the product’s target demographic.
No, seriously, that's what I thought. I'm a writer. I think in sentences.
Then I pictured Instagram and People Magazine in a Celebrity Death Match (The link takes you to S4 E13: The Beatles on YouTube).
Ugh! I forgot to tell Microsoft CoPilot to put Taylor Swift on the cover of that magazine!
More on generative AI and its place in copywriting and marketing later, when I’m not on deadline.
Personally, I'm an old-school print girl. I am a decades-long reader of and subscriber to People Magazine. My son's dad - Leading Husband #1 - worked for Bauer Publishing, now Bauer Media, in the 90s. At that time, Bauer had its US headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, and published Women's World, Soap Opera Update, and First for Women.
I haven't looked at Bauer in a long time and haven't read those titles in forever. Not since a few years after my divorce. My ex-husband was assistant comptroller for Bauer US, and it used to annoy him to see reminders of work at the grocery store checkout lanes and on my kitchen table when he’d pick my son up every other weekend (admittedly, that’s why I would buy them😊).
A360 Media acquired Bauer Media US and its brand assets in 2022. It looks like Soap Opera Update was discontinued in 2002.
I use social media for information, communication, promotion, and, occasionally, entertainment. For everything else, I prefer traditional advertising: radio, TV, print. Print has less of an influence on my purchasing behavior than TV or radio. I will also concede that, since I usually don’t crack open Facebook or Instagram until the end of the day, when I’m relaxing on the couch with a dog, digital advertising has the most influence on my purchasing behavior for low involvement (low cost) purchases.
However, while my personal buying behavior is most influenced by social (Temu impulse shopping, anyone?), when I'm developing a marketing campaign for a client, I use the entire media mix. How I use each element depends on the specific market segment I am trying to reach and the product or service I’m promoting.
The California Milk Advisory Board’s (CMAB) Real California Cheese comes from the Happy Cows campaign (I still haven't gotten out to Market Basket to grab some, darn it!) is a fantastic demonstration of blending traditional and digital media to create an evergreen marketing campaign. RCC used traditional media when the campaign began in the mid-1980s because Al Gore hadn't invented the Internet yet (0:50/1:29 on this ancient, very blurry, but actual video from 1999). This traditional print, radio, and TV advertising was appropriate for its target demographic: Baby Boomers (1946-1964).
As the generation of the campaign's target market segment, married women with kids, changed from Baby Boomers (who were now newly minted Empty Nesters) in the 1990s and early 2000s to GenX, and later, in the 2010s to Millennial moms, RCC updated its media mix. When the Internet took hold in the 1990s, the campaign added digital advertising to its portfolio because that's where it could reach those audiences.
Today, the Real California Cheese campaign uses traditional media combined with a significant social media component to reach Millennial and GenZ moms because that's where they are mostly found.
Traditional Media is Alive and Well
Both People Magazine and Bauer Media’s old women's magazine portfolio, still alive via A360 Media, augment their print strategy with digital media. Compare the print versions of both magazines with their websites, and you will find content and advertising that is exclusive to each. Another magazine publishing company that does a great job engaging audiences across print and social media is Stampington & Company, which publishes Bella Grace. Bella Grace is 100% contributor written. Stampington & Co. sources its writers and audience from Instagram.
As streaming TV services such as Hulu and Amazon seek to retain their subscribers by using advertising to augment their budgets and keep subscriber fees low (or lower), TV advertising is increasing. Hulu and many other streaming channels augment their television ads with a digital component, typically a code you can scan with your phone from the comfort of your own couch that will take you to a product's website.
A key advantage social media marketing offers over traditional media is lead time. Social media campaigns can be developed in minutes and go live immediately. Other forms of advertising have longer production times. Social media, particularly TikTok, can also be highly volatile in terms of how quickly new trends come and go. That is why many professional consultants stay away from TikTok. On the other hand, traditional media requires advanced planning and careful research into both new potential trends and cultural staples, such as baseball's popularity or the presidential election.
Which part of the advertising mix you emphasize and how you use it depends on the product, its industry, and the target market segment: who your ideal customer is. Real California Cheese uses different elements of the media mix to target each of its key market segments and influence their behavior by "meeting" them where they are: moms watching TV with their kids, or surfing the internet on their tablets while their kids watch TV, in People magazine where older moms are curled up in bed reading before shutting down for the night, or where newly empty nester dog moms are writing essays about the marketing mix and social media on their laptops after a crazy day at work.
At least the boxer is curled up on my lap.
Cheers,
Cris
