New advertising paradigms

John Deighton (Harvard Business School, US) and Leora Kornfeld (Mobile MUSE Consortium, Vancouver, Canada) have published an interesting working paper on advertising. The paper is called Digital Interactivity: Unanticipated Consequences for Markets, Marketing, and Consumers.

One of the key claims their article highlights is that traditional direct marketing has been a poor role model for interactive marketing. They suggest that traditional advertising paradigms, broadcast paradigm and direct paradigm are not answering the challenges of new media environment. By following only them, one miss change in people’s behaviour.

Instead Deighton and Kornfeld introduce five new ones: 1) Thought tracing, 2) Ubiquitous connectivity, 3) Property exchange, 4) Social exchange and 5) Cultural exchange. Channels fulfilling these paradigms should have competitive edge.

The study states that words like viewer and listener are too limiting in present media environment. They don’t reflect the media consumption habits of public. Simultaneously they say that the consumer is not right expression, but they recommed to use person as people have more roles in life than just being a consumer. Deighton: “And as digital interactivity increases the contexts in which people use new media, it becomes less and less productive to think of people as consumers alone”.

According to Deighton’s and Kornfeld’s study, there is a bright future for interactive ubiquitous media where the user is more than customer. Reputation and reliability as well as communities and cultural buzz act in important roles in these successful marketing channels. But, the authors don’t promise bright future for media relying old paradigms.

Time of pure viewers, listeners and consumers are gone for good.

Picture above used under CC license. Credits Rocketeer.