Integrated marcom and your ignorant friends

You know those people who say they hate marketers and never pay attention to ads? The ones who extol their imperviousness to calls-to-action and freedom when it comes to making their own decisions as consumers?

Imagine how much it stirs an anger deep inside you to just shake them and scream "it's not about selling you on something you don't need, it's about engaging with you in a relevant way that articulates the value proposition!"

Well, imagine how nice it would feel to hear that same person who pooh-poohed marketing talk about what a cool new P2P marketing strategy they interacted with. The same person who selfishly says that they're uninfluenced by marketing messages is now oblivious to the fact that an experiential campaign has made a real mark on them.

In Sydney, Australia, a social networking campaign has been launched to increase tourism to Alberta. It uses online social networking forums and street-based 'experiences'

A number of these unique mammals have been exported to Sydney, Australia, where they will be displayed in cages at Sydney’s Darling Harbour Nov. 20-22. On display will be: Western Party Animal—also known as Extremeous Winterous Dudeous Maximus—the Elusive Skier/Snowboarder Dude, and the Great Outdoors Lover. Every hour a “zookeeper” will bring one of the “animals” out of its cage to answer questions and interact with the crowd.

That's really cool.

It's also a terrific example of a integrated marketing campaign. Alan Middleton argues that with an increasing number of marketing campaigns utilizing different distribution channels, it's more important than ever to "integrate communication systems across this ever-increasing rane of target groups, distribution outlets, and media." Furthermore, "while the creative message will be strategically and conceptually similar, each medium will have create developed to optimize the message, and the role of the medium, and its contribution to the target's buying system."

BTW, how funny is it that Rogers is one of Canada's top marketers, as written in this week's Marketing Mag - a Rogers Media publication!

Shameless!