Connecting with Customers
Over the years the word media has become tightly associated with the word advertising, leading many to think that media are used only for advertising. Nothing could be further from the truth! All marketing communication messages are carried by some form of media. Brand publicity, sales-promotion offers, direct-response offers, and sponsorships all use various media to deliver messages to customers. These media include not only the obvious and traditional advertising media—radio, TV, outdoor boards and posters, newspapers, and magazines—but also the internet, telephone, mail services, coffee mugs, signs, company trucks and cars, package labels, Yellow Pages, company stationery and business cards, pens, T-shirts, and matchbook covers. These are all created touch points ( Chapter 1), and they offer a marketer the most control over the way the message connects with the customer.
Another myth is that the media's only job is to provide opportunity for message exposure. The reality is that companies are not satisfied just to have their messages sent or shown to target audiences. They demand that media add value to messages by increasing their impact on attitudes and behaviors; and this can happen only when media are viewed as touch points that create connections with customers.
In IMC the role of media is not only to deliver brand messages but also to help create, sustain, and strengthen brand relationships by connecting companies and customers. The difference between delivery and connection is significant. To deliver means "to take something to a person or place"; to connect means "to join together." Delivery is only the first step in connecting: it opens the door to touching a customer in a meaningful way with a brand message.
