Marketing communication switches from Off to On mode

In the following you can learn what Tímea Mege, the marketing director of Rewart Kft. and Gábor Szigeti, the editor of budapestujsag.hu think about current trends in marketing communication.Tímea Mege: – Alongside classic media tools, the use of on-line tools is more and more widespread. There are more than 1,100,000 Hungarian users on Facebook and 50 percent of them log in daily. This is a great opportunity for brands with a relatively small marketing communication budget. How to start? For instance, in the case of an FMCG product besides ‘traditional’ on-line ads we give more emphasis to social networking sites to build trust and loyalty. In the off-line promotion that follows we can capitalise on this.
T. M.: – Is it necessary to involve off-line elements in the on-line strategy? M. T.: – Those elements are needed to be found by which we can reach consumers off-line and at the point of purchase. Internet penetration is growing rapidly, but not everyone can be reached via the Internet.
T. M.: – How much time do you need to build such a strategy before the introduction of the product? M. T.: – Minimum 2 months, but before launching a new product a much longer planning period is necessary; 2 months are only enough in the case of an established brand’s sub-brand.
T. M.: – Will on-line marketing replace classic media? M. T.: – I do not think so, but it will surely carve out a bigger slice of the cake. My view is that on-line marketing is a bridge that connects BTL with ATL.
T. M.: – In which jobs did you mix on-line and off-line elements? M. T.: – We worked for Sarantis Group on the STR8 brand and we had a great success with it last year. T. M.: – Do enterprises use the Internet for establishing partnerships? Sz. G.: – Heads of companies have become a bit wary of on-line services because on-line company directory service providers were too active in the past couple of years. Many of them do not have in-depth knowledge of the Internet and this also makes them more cautious.
T. M.: – How can they be convinced to use social networking sites? Sz. G.: – What we offer to companies is creating a data sheet that contains the most important information about the company, since the average Internet user only spends 17 seconds on a web page! We send the data sheet’s link to our 1,300 partners and those who wish to know more will surely visit the company’s website. We also send the data sheet to our several hundred thousand registered users.
T. M.: – Which marketing tools disappeared because of on-line communication?
Sz. G.: – The number of fliers fell first, and then came billboards and questionnaires.
T. M.: – What kind of danger is hidden in on-line communication?Sz. G.: – Fake news reaches several hundred thousand people via iwiw, Twitter and Facebook in just one day. It is a risky business to use this for advertising: it either works well or 200,000-300,000 users will hate you and never become your customers. We try to attract young users as they are the potential customers of the future!