The Internationalist View: Marketing’s New Era of Technology Transformation

This issue’s cover story talks about how technology is transforming our notions of media — in terms of its consumption, delivery and measurement.

Bob Liodice, President of the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) in New York, recently opened his organization’s Brand Innovation conference with the following remarks that put the impact of technology into the clearest perspective I’ve yet heard: “Today the stakes for marketers are higher than ever — because building brands has become trickier than ever as a result of technology’s impact.”

According to Bob, “More than anything else, technology has had a huge impact on marketing. Some say that marketing has changed more in the last 5 years than in the previous 30.”

He outlines four key areas:

1. Technology has put the consumer in control. Today, consumers can get marketers’ messages when they want them, how they want them — and, most importantly — if they want them at all. The growing impact of TIVO and DVR’s, satellite radio, do not call lists, and the ad-blocking power of the Internet shows that the rules of this game have indeed changed. In many instances today, the consumer actually wants to be left alone. “Give me the tools and get out of my way,” is the new consumer cry.

2. Technology has changed the media landscape. It has spawned a vast array of new media alternatives and distribution channels or “connection channels,” available through the Internet, podcasts, blogs, social networking, I-pods and mobile. Even traditional media have been affected as video-on-demand, IPTV, addressable television, high definition, outdoor digital technology and overall interactivity have profoundly influenced the landscape.

3. Technology has changed how marketers manage brands and build brand equity. Entrenched brand loyalties that were once considered “givens” by product managers, are now being challenged by consumers’ extraordinary access to information through technology.

4. Technology has completely transformed the marketing measurement platform. That which was once considered to be beyond the scope of quantification has bowed to the reality that everything can, in fact, be measured. These phenomena — all influenced by technology — are forcing marketers to re-think the whole process of marketing … and to literally reinvent it for a new era.

For Bob Liodice, those marketers who have transformed their brand franchises by transforming their business systems, their branding, their media strategy, their product quality, their analytics and their people have also transformed their financial results. Interesting what the net effect of embracing technology can be. We’ll hear more of Bob’s views about how marketers have to adapt to technology in our next issue.

You can reach him at rliodice@ana.net

Deborah Malone, publisher