COM 656 1-2 Short Paper
Real-time marketing is the practice of reacting almost instantly to a piece of breaking news or event, and has increasingly become the way to take the lead in the media conversation (Hill & Stetzer, 2014). The reporting of news has greatly changed from the days in which it was dependent on time zones and printing press schedules (Agudelo, 2015): now with digital media platforms, and the prevalence of digital devices among the population—in 2015, Pew Research Center found that 68% of adults in America owned a smartphone (Anderson, 2015)—there is no longer any tolerance or respect for regular business (or working) hours, and very little reason to adhere to publication schedules. Real-time marketing therefore is essential to businesses of all sizes, though as the video points out, it may be easier for large businesses who can afford to have resources online 24/7 to engage in real-time marketing than it would be for smaller, more resource-strapped businesses.
Two examples stand out among the variety presented by the video. One is Ben and Jerry’s benefiting from the legalization of marijuana in Colorado: it seems incongruous that an ice cream manufacturer can benefit from publicizing the news of marijuana legalization, but therein lies the importance of real-time marketing. By being one of the first organizations to publicize the news as it broke, Ben and Jerry’s boosted their visibility to such an extent that even now, three years later, their real-time marketing is very much front of mind. Did anyone care that the respective niches seem incongruous? Well, whether they did or not, and especially if they did, Ben and Jerry’s still got their brand out in front of the public’s collective eye.
The other stand-out example is SpaghettiOs’ Pearl Harbor tweet that received negative attention from the public. I was curious enough to look into the tweet, and found commentary by Huffington Post at https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/07/spaghettios-pearl-harbor-tweet_n_4404397.html. Identifying the instance of real-time marketing in this example was a bit of a challenge, as it did not involve current or breaking news; the element thereof was in SpaghettiOs’ timely use of the event anniversary to tweet a message out, as well as in the speed of their response to the negative backlash: according to the article, SpaghettiOs took the tweet down that same morning, and issued an apology (Stuart, 2013). This illustrates three points: first, that as mentioned in the HubShout video, it is easier for larger companies to engage in real-time monitoring and real-time marketing than it is for smaller companies who haven’t the same level of resources, as evidenced by the sheer speed with which SpaghettiOs responded to the backlash. The second is that the speed of response and the immediate apology probably served to reinforce SpaghettiOs’ authenticity and thus gain positive attention from the public. The third point speaks to the efficacy of real-time media, and is illustrated by a tweet mentioned in the Huffington Post article (Stuart, 2013):
“Yeah, yeah, keep laughing, but I bet you guys hadn’t thought of @SpaghettiOs in years until yesterday.
— Seph Barker (@seph_barker) December 7, 2013”
This decisively underscores the whole point of real-time marketing: by using a historical anniversary fraught with emotion, and with the speed of response, SpaghettiOs turned a negative narrative into a positive one; even if the public was not entirely swayed by their apology, the brand still gained a huge amount of visibility. Who was it who said that there is no bad publicity? The concept certainly seems to have applied here.
References
Agudelo, W. B. (2015, July 29). Pros and cons of the 24-hour news cycle. Retrieved from Axia PR: http://www.axiapr.com/blog/pros-and-cons-of-the-24-hour-news-cycle
Anderson, M. (2015, October 29). Technology Device Ownership: 2015. Retrieved from Pew Research Center: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/29/technology-device-ownership-2015/
Hill, C. & Stetzer, A. (2014, 11 24). Real Time Marketing & the Small Business. Retrieved from HubShout: http://hubshout.com/?Real-Time-Marketing-&-the-Small-Business&AID=1540
Stuart, H. (2013, December 7). Uh Oh, SpaghettiOs’ Pearl Harbor Tweet Sparks Backlash, Company Apologizes. Retrieved from HuffPost: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/07/spaghettios-pearl-harbor-tweet_n_4404397.html