Marketing Chapter 14 Owned Interactive And Earned Media The Various Media The Earned Category

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Chapter 14: Owned, Interactive, and Earned Media

The various media in the earned category carry conversations, complaints and criticisms,

praise, and questions—all of which can and should be monitored by brand stewards.

Most importantly, they all impact the brand reputation, which is determined by what

others say about the brand. That’s a critical concept in IMC, and media strategies are

particularly important in determining the strength of the brand’s reputation as well as a

positive impression.

Earned Publicity

 Publicity also is an important type of earned media. In publicity, media-relations

specialists seek to persuade media editors to carry stories about an organization or

brand. These experts have no control over the media but can only hope that their

stories are newsworthy and interesting enough to receive coverage.

 When a story or significant parts of it appear in the media, the result is a hit.

At another level, reporters may mention a company or brand in a story they are

 Because hits and mentions are not determined by the brand, they are seen as

having higher levels of credibility than advertising and other forms of owned media.

The reason is that publicity relies on an implied third-party endorsement—

communication that is not initiated by the company. The medium and its reputation

for credibility, which is based on its perceived objectivity, create a halo of respect for

the message.

Word of Mouth

 Interactivity starts with personal communication, and that’s why word of mouth has

caught the attention of brand communication planners. The point is that the closer the

medium is to a dialogue or the more users can generate or manipulate the content, the

more the brand communication moves away from traditional advertiser-controlled

one-way advertising. This section talks about the core of interactivity – personal

conversation, and why it is important in brand communication.

Chapter 14: Owned, Interactive, and Earned Media

 Rather than top down, word-of-mouth brand messages flow side to side, creating a

network of shared brand experiences and impressions that interconnect within

extended communication networks—both personal and professional. In other words,

Buzz and Viral Communication

 Brand communication planners have developed a growing respect for media that

generate buzz—a cycle of word-of-mouth interactions, either personal or online,

within a network of friends. The idea is to get people talking about a brand because

we recognize that the most important factor in consumer decision making, next to

personal experience with the brand, is the opinions of others.

 Buzz is best generated by disrupting common patterns of thinking—in other words,

the idea needs to be new and surprising. The information also generates buzz when it

is “interesting.” In face-to-face communication, the topics are more conversational

 The term viral communication describes the way a message spreads on the internet

through interconnected networks of acquaintances. The spread of messages depends

totally on consumers creating buzz through their own emails and social media chatter.

 What video content will spread worldwide? Companies such as Jukin Media analyze

viral videos and help companies understand how to achieve maximum exposure and

Business-to-Consumer-to-Consumer (B2C2C) Influence

 Some media plans are specifically designed to reach influential or early adopters

whose opinions are valued by others. These strategies focus on finding the right

individuals to deliver a message—that is, the best-connected people at the hub of

an extended social network who will like a brand or brand message and promote it

among the people they know.

Chapter 14: Owned, Interactive, and Earned Media

 An expansion and modification of the traditional B2C marketing concept proposes

that a marcom message may emanate from a business and then move to key

customers and influencers who then talk about it with other consumers in the target

market. The important part of this model of word-of-mouth influence is the C2C

aspect. Because of the interactive network, messages move back and forth between

 This B2C2C model illustrates the important role of a brand advocate—that key

customer or stakeholder—who has positive things to share about a brand within a

Social Media Mentions

 At its core, the social media platform is online word of mouth that allows users to

express themselves, interact with friends, publish their own content on the internet,

and refer to brands and products they like. Social networks, such as Facebook,

Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr, link people who share interests; LinkedIn connects

business contacts.

 Social media are all about relationships. Certain characteristics of social media—

personal content, user engagement, social relationships, and group dynamics—create

social engagement that helps individuals, particularly young people, develop a sense

of self. Li said that “sharing experience with others is integral to how we construct a

coherent yet often fragmented sense of self in a networked society.”

 Digital conversations among friends create opportunities for researchers to get raw,

unfiltered brand impressions from consumers, but how do we monitor these

conversations? The Burson-Marsteller agency monitors earned media as it tracks the

Chapter 14: Owned, Interactive, and Earned Media

Twitter or Microblogs

 The concept of a blog with diary and essay postings was reinvented in miniature by

Twitter, which permits posts of 140 characters or fewer. These mini-posts, called

tweets, invite users to share their daily doings and immediate thoughts with followers

of the microblog. Generally, the followers are people known to the tweeter, although

in the case of fans, they may approach the size and scale of a large mass audience.

 Twitter has become the medium of choice for complaints. Customers can spend many

minutes on the phone waiting to talk to customer service—or get lost in the menu

options; however, Twitter messages are quick and easy. Plugged-in companies follow

these tweets and are quick to respond— often with a telephone call, which beats

waiting in a phone queue for a customer service person to answer.

 Advertising messages also can appear on Twitter as part of a user’s stream of

messages. A growing group of tweeters have signed up to allow advertisers to send

commercial messages under their name. Sometimes the ads are testimonials

embedded in a person’s regular stream of tweets; others turn over their stream to an

ad broker that inserts messages for brands and organizations.

Reviews and Comments

 The development of social media has seen reviews pop up all over the web. Amazon

features customer-contributed reviews of its books and other products. A secondary

industry has even built up around paid reviews by ordinary people for e-commerce

sites. Another type of mention is the comments section that follows at the end of

The Media of Sharing

 People talk about brands online. Fan pages exist for many brands where communities

of people, usually loyal users, focus on or follow a favorite brand, and share good

brand experiences. Advertisers use video clips, quizzes, downloadable gifts like

ringtones and icons, and, of course, links to their own websites, on their fan pages.

Chapter 14: Owned, Interactive, and Earned Media

Online Communities

 Fans are an example of an online virtual community organized around a topic, brand,

or shared interest. Brand communities are also ways to develop loyalty and strong

brand relationships in partnership with the brand. The Harley Owners Group (HOGs)

is probably the best-known brand community and one of the biggest, with more than

1 million members. In addition to local groups, the HOG community is supported

with its own website, www.hog.com.

 Social media are international, and sites based on sharing are important. Sites that

engage communities include Flickr, which is an online image and video management

website; YouTube, the giant video posting service; and Tumblr, which is a blog-

hosting platform where millions of users post their blogs that get re-posted as

“tumblogs.” Instagram is a photo-sharing social network that is known for its photo-

 Social games are the most popular type of shared-interest app on Facebook, which

inspired Google+ to jump into this market. Facebook players spend, on average,

about 45 minutes with a game.

 Some of these online and mobile video games charge for a download, but many bring

in revenue from selling ads and sponsorships or selling products within the game. The

next change will see “cloud” games that live on the internet and are streamed to

computers or handheld devices.

Crowdsourcing

 This is a tool used by researchers for extended focus groups. The online encyclopedia

Chapter 14: Owned, Interactive, and Earned Media

Earned and Interactive Media Considerations

The opportunities brought to brand communication by word of mouth and social media

are exciting. However, there are some things to think about in deploying media strategies

in these new areas, such as dealing with negative communication, fake messages, and

also estimating the true price of digital media messages.

Dealing with Negatives and Fakes

 An unhappy customer is more than just one person’s bad experience, particularly

in retailing, because of the power of word of mouth. People share these experiences,

and those conversations get passed on.

 Research has found that although 6 percent of unhappy shoppers will contact the store

with their complaints, 31 percent will tell other people about the unhappy experience.

And, half of the people in the study reported that they have avoided a store because of

 Another problem is fake sites that can damage brand reputation. The internet in most

Western countries is a wide-open system with little policing. Phony likes and paid

reviews damage trust even if some brand supporter is behind the effort to puff up the

brand’s positive mentions. Fakes and phony likes also undermine the credibility of

the site.

Cheap but Not Free

 Charges for the use of digital media, particularly in the owned, interactive, and earned

categories, are relatively low compared to media budget busters like television. At the

same time, they don’t have the reach that mass media like television have. But that

doesn’t mean they are free. Most of the digital media demand resources, such as

 A word of caution: Social media opens up opportunities for those valuable referrals

where one friend talks to another about a brand. It’s hard to know, however, how

much that happens; however, many companies are finding ways to convert consumer

buzz into positive actions.

MULTIPLATFORM BRAND COMMUNICATION

 Media forms are constantly changing shape and moving across what used to be

commonly understood categories. It wasn’t that long ago that we would plan a

television campaign or an out-of-home campaign with a message strategy dominated

Chapter 14: Owned, Interactive, and Earned Media

by the strengths of a primary medium. But no longer. Owned and earned just aren’t

nice and neat like media categories were in the simpler eras of media planning. It’s a

messy business.

 Now we talk about how various media function and how these functions are

interrelated and can be used to extend each other’s reach and impact. We use the

word platforms—to talk about big functions, such as public relations, promotions,

 One of the biggest differences in 21st-century media is that media planning now

operates not only across a variety of media but also across a multitude of platforms

and marcom areas. The multiplatform use of blogs, linked social networks, and online

communities (sports and celebrity fans and brand communities), as well as traditional

Viral Marketing Programs

 Viral marketing combines the marketing perspective with social media to create

brand-focused viral communication strategies and campaigns. Designed to deliver a

groundswell of opinion, buzz, or marketplace demand for a product, viral marketing

initiates online communication to circulate a brand message among and between

family, friends, and other contacts.

 Depending on public interest in the topic, this practice can distribute a message to an

ever- widening network, and messages can flash across the internet like wildfire.

Viral video technology has made it possible for interesting videos from a variety of

sources (ads, films, and YouTube) to be sent from one friend to another in a vast

network of personal connections.

Social-Media Marketing

 Principle: Conversation-based social media through such sites as Facebook and

Twitter is word-of-mouth advertising on steroids.

Chapter 14: Owned, Interactive, and Earned Media

 Social media marketing mixes different kinds of media together in a strategy to drive

consumer interaction and build widespread brand visibility and awareness, in a way

similar to viral marketing. Brands can sometimes instigate the viral process, but

there’s no guarantee the word will spread, and the brand can certainly not control it.

 A limitation is that social media’s posts and conversations may not convert prospects

to customers as well as a more directly associated tool, such as search marketing.

Another aspect of social media and viral communication is that, for better or worse,

these media mentions and viral videos can live forever.

Integration of Platforms

 Brand communication is more diverse and complex than ever before. Not only do

brand messages move from one medium to another, but they start in one form, say

print or television, and wind up as a YouTube video that you can watch on your cell

phone.

 But we haven’t seen anything yet. A New York Times article described new media

forms, such as internet-connected glasses and wearable computers, not to mention

Chapter 14: Owned, Interactive, and Earned Media

END-OF-CHAPTER SUPPORT

REVIEW QUESTIONS

14-3. Explain the differences between owned and earned media. Give an example of

each.

Owned brand messages are delivered from a company to consumers through channels

controlled by the company, like a company website or brochure. These media represent a

constellation of contact points that can be strategically designed to present a consistent

14-4. What are branded media, and why are they important?

Branded media tools bear the brand’s name. To take advantage of the value-added power

of branding, companies find endless opportunities to put their name on anything from a

14-5. Explain how interactive owned media differ from owned media. Give an

example of interactive owned media and explain why the interactive element is

important.

Owned brand messages are delivered from a company to consumers through channels

controlled by the company. It can be anything from the environmental design of the

building, signage, branded media, games, or packaging. Interactive media are those

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14-9. What are online communities, and how are they used in brand

communication?

Fans are an example of an online virtual community organized around a topic, brand,

or shared interest. Brand communities are also ways to develop loyalty and strong brand

relationships in partnership with the brand. Other sites that engage communities include

Flickr, which is an online image and video management website; YouTube, the giant

14-10. Discuss multiplatform brand communication and how it is used.

We use the word platforms to talk about big functions, such as public relations,

promotions, and direct marketing, as well as big packages of media, such as print,

broadcast, social media, viral media, search media, and mobile media. They are all

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

14-11. Does your school have a naming rights program? Where do you see it operating

on campus? Can you find out how much revenue was or is produced by this program?

How does the association help or hinder the school or academic program’s image?

Chapter 14: Owned, Interactive, and Earned Media

334

Check out the names on stadiums, arenas, buildings/wings, and recreational areas.

Are they named after brands, companies, or people that have supported the school

financially? Check out annual reports for funding information. Also, surf the web to

find information, news articles, etc. (pro or con) on the naming rights at your school.

14-12. This chapter used the National Geographic social media example to illustrate a

brand personality online. Find another brand that uses YouTube to create a brand

personality. Critique the blog’s effectiveness.

14-13. Your small agency works for a local retailer (pick one from your community) that

wants to make the most effective use of its tool kit of owned media. The retailer has very

little money to use on advertising. Your agency team agrees that there might be more the

firm could do to strengthen the media it controls. Brainstorm among yourselves and come

up with a list of at least five ideas for making better use of these opportunities.

14-14. You are the media planner for a cosmetics company introducing a new line of

makeup for teenage girls. Your research indicates that the internet might be an effective

medium for creating awareness about your new product line. How do you design a brand

communication strategy that will reach your target market successfully using owned and

earned forms of social media? What other media would you recommend using as part of

this campaign and why?

Teens spend a lot of time online and texting. The internet advertising strategy would

include a combination of search ads with social media. A variety of teen health and

Chapter 14: Owned, Interactive, and Earned Media

The “Survivor” billboard for Xbox is a great example of a how a firm can use traditional

media to engage a lot of consumers in an interactive campaign and achieve tremendous

earned media attention. Eight contestants stepped up to survive 24 hours outdoors on a

London billboard in November while extreme weather conditions were simulated and

TRACE

NORTH AMERICA CASE

TRACE Multicultural Innovation

Read the TRACE case in the Appendix before coming to class.

14-18. Develop an idea that you believe would reach the TRACE target market of

Multicultural

Millennials (ages 18–29) for these media types:

Chapter 14: Owned, Interactive, and Earned Media

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

Assignments

Individual Assignments

1. Find two blogs that are part of an organization’s website. Evaluate each one. Then,

write a paper that describes the content and subject matter of each, and also addresses

the following questions: In what way(s) is this blog contributing to overall brand

communication? Which groups of stakeholders is it attempting to engage? Could this

blog be accused of “stealth advertising”?

Think-Pair-Share

1. Promotional efforts also involve campaigns for good causes. With a classmate, search

the internet for a social media project/campaign, then review the A Matter of Practice

2. With a classmate, review the A Matter of Principle feature entitled Advertising at the

Intersection of Digital and Physical Media in this chapter. Then, debate the main

concerns that David Rittenhouse outlines in it. One of you will assume the role of an

overwhelmed consumer, and the other will assume the role of a savvy advertiser. Is

there a possible intersection of interests or “middle ground” in this debate? If so, what

is it?

OUTSIDE EXAMPLES

1. The term corporate presence media refers to things you might not think of as media,

such as the design of a building or a delivery truck. Within each of three categories of

2. Find at least two examples of branded entertainment on the internet. (Do not use any