The world of marketing has changed dramatically over the past few years, largely due to the advent of new channels through which customers communicate with brands and each other. These channels are primarily the web (people accessing information via the Internet on computers and making purchasing decisions), mobile (people accessing information on mobile phones) and social (broadcast platforms where consumers are increasingly sharing their views on what they like and experience). There are at least 14 channels that people use – they are:

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Broadcast/TV
Events
Social Media
Digital (Web)
Mobile
Advertising/Billboards
Point of Sale
Packaging
Gaming

…..and

IoT (wearables and gizmos)
Email/campaigns
Call center/voice
Shops
Print

Being consistent across these channels, yet different is important. Some content has to be striking to create brand awareness, some has to be “rewarding” to encourage advocacy. Yet other assets have to be personalized.

Another noticeable trend is also the consumption of contextualized local content and information based on one’s whereabouts (as in “show me summer clothes if I am in a hot location, not winter wear”). This phenomenon is sometimes called Solomoco or the change that has come in the wake of Social, Local content, Mobile and Commerce.

There are thousands of marketing agencies that address the needs of marketing but many of them still focus on traditional channels such as broadcast/TV (as in adverts), billboards (out of home large format displays), radio, call centers, physical stores (point of sale), packaging, events, email campaigns and the like.

A smaller group of more modern agencies focus helping brands create a presence on the web, social and mobile. These agencies are primarily focused on creating branded, media content on these channels. They usually do not create immersive websites where consumers can buy merchandise on line. This is because eCommerce services are grounded deep in technology. There are many technology firms but only a handful of them possess creative design capabilities – the ability to create “pixel-perfect” visual designs, which every brand and retailer now demands.

Full Life-cycle Experience
The first identifiable trend is brands are increasingly attempting to offer a “full life-cycle” experience across the channels they invest in to access customers. Brands do not just have static websites that display content – without much exception, they offer customers the ability to engage with their brands through personalized content and loyalty programs hoping that the customer buys product and/or services on the channel (say, a website).

I call this the Brand Experience Wheel as depicted in Figure 1.

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Figure 1: From “Attract to React, through Interact and Transact”.

The experience wheel describes what a client typically wants – a beautiful, immersive website, services that generate traffic to the site, all of the media assets needed (video, copy, photos, audio, motion graphics), loyalty programs, digital marketing (personalized campaigns, outreach, brand activation), full eCommerce capabilities and finally the ability to solicit user feedback to arrive at commerce and digital insights to improve the brand experience.