PJA Blog: The Complex Brand

This is probably a prescient question for the last post of 2007, since the online world will dominate marketing next year in ways it just hasn’t before.

In what ways? PJA is asking some of our top clients and prospects precisely that question (well, 20 questions is more like it) at a series of informal lunches and dinners. As you might imagine, the first question back to us is typically: “What are my competitors doing?” That being said, here are some of the over-arching questions we’re setting out to answer:

• How are you thinking about interactive and marketing?
• If you feel that your rate of online adoption is slower than the norm, why is that?
• What should your agency’s role be as interactive guide and mentor?

From here, we generally move into 20 questions that more specific to the customer:

1. What does the universe of interactive look like at your company?
2. What exactly are you working on in interactive?
3. How is interactive work perceived and structured?
4. What are your biggest marketing goals and challenges?
5. Where do you think interactive can help with your goals?
6. How do these needs play out globally?
7. Where do you think interactive can help globally?
8. What kind of ROI are you getting or looking for?
9. What have been your successes and disappointments?
10. How do you handle measurement?
11. What do you wish you could measure?
12. How are you leveraging original and third-party/user-generated content?
13. Have you created co-branded content experiences?
14. Are you using rich media, or video and audio content?
15. Have you engaged with social media at all, using communities like Linked In or Facebook?
16. What kind of interactive services are you looking for in an agency?
17. What interests you most: interactive strategy, program design, creative, measurement, media, or optimization?
18. How do you want to use re-marketing programs (deep content, tracking, software & infrastructure)?
19. How do you approach integrated program design (online and off)?
20. What are you looking to PR firms to help you do?

As you might imagine, these are rich and interesting conversations, because with each passing month there is so much more we can achieve online. In a future post, we’ll report back.

All this said, the online world is still about solving marketing problems, and reaching targets effectively with communication that engages and drives behavior. Whatever the medium, a smart, compelling integrated program that you can measure will always drive successful marketing.

And on that thought, a happy and measurable new year to everyone.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 28th, 2007 at 9:45 am and is filed under Interactive, Marketing, Measurement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.