It's All About Real-Time Marketing, People
The times they are a-changin'. The world seems to spin faster with every passing moment and everything we used to know has evolved overnight. With the rise of technology occurring at a dizzying rate, came Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and the like. As you begin to browse through these social platforms, it should come as no surprise that you've noticed there are a lot of creative people out there. I mean, a lot. If your job requires you to be witty, charming or artfully skilled in any way, you're probably feeling the stress of the competition and the stress of the new deadline - which is, as soon as you can get it out, as of yesterday.
We're constantly being bombarded with literally too much information for our brains to process and it's because of this that our attention spans have dropped by a whopping 58% within the last 10 years. If it's not right in front of our faces, we don't see it. Or even look for it. As the largest globally recognized public relations firm, Edelman, has stated,
"...there's 60 times more content from brands in our newsfeeds than just two years ago. News, memes and trends are traveling faster than ever, as our attention spans get shorter. We're focused on images - which have 5x more engagement on Facebook than non-visual posts - and what's trending NOW." (Source)
Then comes Oreo, who not only set the bar higher, but launched the bar into another dimension with the tweet seen 'round the world, in the middle of a 30-minute power outage, during the most watched annual sporting event in the entire world - the 2012 Super Bowl.
Real-time marketing, newsjacking, conversational marketing - whatever you'd like to call it, had been born; and it was a large baby.
A simple explanation for real-time marketing is a creative marketing or advertising response (usually social) to a mass occurrence, event or moment in real time. News or trending stories come and go very quickly so the closer the response is sent out to the public from the exact moment of occurrence, the better. Or in Oreo's case, as it was unfolding. The longer you wait to send your response, the more irrelevant it becomes to the public and more importantly, your brand audience.
In order for your real-time marketing strategy to be effective, it's imperative your response must also resonate with your brand audience's lifestyles and interests. Otherwise, it will just become noise and blend in with everything else. For example, if your brand audience is interested in contact sports, it's very possible they won't understand your response to something that happened in the world of bird watching. To avoid becoming white noise, make it entertaining and visually appealing as well. If there's nothing to make your response memorable or stand out, it won't. Lastly, there's no need to be someone you're not - and people can easily tell if that's what you're doing - so, stick to your brand priorities and persona.
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