Consumer Engagement

The future of consumer engagement is not just about how brands can break through the clutter and better communicate to consumers, but how a brand environment can meaningfully connect with the consumer’s environment. Looking forward, understanding how brands shape communities and how communities will shape brands lays the answer to the next level of advertising agencies.
Consumer engagement is not a new concept. However, engaging the consumer is more important than ever in this rapidly changing world. Before, brands and advertisers could push their products and messages to consumers, but now, media has become more fragmented. No longer do companies control a single mass media channel. Consumers are more sophisticated and are driven by peer ratings and reviews. Word of mouth, which has always been the best and most effective marketing tool, is now even stronger with advanced information, communication & technology in this user-generation. The new era of marketing is built around online conversations of millions of people – people that are connecting, communicating, consuming and sharing information. Media consumption patterns have changed into multi-channels, and TV is what radio used to be – a background.
While traditional advertising agencies used to evolve around TV, how should advertising agencies innovate themselves, and where should they head towards to? Fortunately, advertising agencies have slowly adapted and created campaigns based on the new landscapes including Communitatinment, user-generated content and sites, and media fragmentation and engagement marketing. Advertising agencies should be enfolding innovative philosophies, ways of thinking, and creative ways of communication to remodel itself in this environment and consumer change.
Brands and advertisers are already making presence in online media and recognize the importance of finding the relevant contact point to the target consumer, but the context of usage and the significance is often neglected. Knowing that your target consumers log on to certain a website is simply not enough. What’s essential is learning why and how it plays a role in their lives, and the indications and meanings are more important than ever.
Going back to the basic concepts of advertising and marketing, understanding the consumer is critical, and this remains true in this changing media environment. Instead of just understanding the statistics of media usage, brands must invest in knowing the contextual usage of media channels, and the environments their target groups live in. With this understanding, the brand and the consumer will be able to willfully join and engage each other. It is to have the ability of the brand and the brand media environment to meaningfully connect with the consumer’s environment.

That said, the integration of marketing is more critical than ever.