Social Media Marketing For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Chapter 23

Moving Toward Real-Time Marketing

In This Chapter

Understanding real-time marketing

Distribution of real-time marketing

Engaging consumers in real-time marketing

Imagine for a moment that you’re a consumer standing in front of one of the many billboards in Times Square. Chances are that you’re staring at a billboard that was months in the making. The original consumer insights that drove the advertising campaign were probably researched at least eight months earlier. The core creative idea for the campaign that the billboard along with other advertising represent was probably conceived at least four or five months ago. And the specific billboard itself was probably designed no less than two months earlier, with the media being finally bought within the last month or two.

Does something about this image strike you as odd? Well, it should. As a consumer, you’re being asked to favorably respond to a message on a billboard that has little immediate relevance to your life in the very moment that you’re staring at it. In fact, the insights that drove the creative on the billboard may not have any immediate applicability to who you are as a consumer, either. The billboard that ...