“Media Vs Advertising”
Media advertising is often characterized by huge clutter. It may get awareness up – but rarely results in purchase intention,” suggests Dr Bernd Schmitt in Experiential Marketing. Research shows that WOM can be seven times more effective than print media, twice as effective as broadcast media and four times more effective than sales personnel. Why? Because the source of WOM communications is normally independent of the company – the person is offering his or her own candid opinion and therefore, the information appears credible. On the other hand, advertising is the renting of a medium to send out a carefully crafted message to a specific audience.
Regis McKenna, a well-known technology-marketing consultant, advisor to entrepreneurs, venture capitalist and author says, “People are deluged with promotional information, and they are beginning to distrust it [advertising]. People are more likely to make decisions based on what they hear directly from other people, including friends, experts, or even salespeople. These days more decisions are made at the sales counter than in the living room armchair.”
Management consultants Cap Gemini Ernst & Young found only 17 per cent of the 700 consumers it surveyed in the past six months said TV ads influenced their car-buying decisions. Ads on Internet search engines influenced 26 per cent of consumers. Nearly half, or 48 per cent, of the consumers said a direct-mail offer from a car dealer would influence their vehicle purchases, but the most influential measure was WOM, cited by 71 per cent of consumers.
The findings are significant because, as a group, automotive marketers in the US are the largest purchasers of advertising and skew heavily toward TV advertising. In a report in Advertising Age, Mike Wujciak, a vice president who oversees Cap Gemini’s auto practice said, “We think manufacturers and their dealers are wasting money on broad-based TV advertising instead of a direct-marketing approach.” While he’s not suggesting that carmakers should entirely ditch their TV ad budgets, he does urge them to re-evaluate their media mix, because TV is such a big part of their budgets
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