“We work and live in an always-on, always moving, mobile-first reality, where business happens at the speed of speech and thumbs.”

Wright & Snook (2017)

In this eight part series, I’ll be investigating different aspects of media planning, and relating them back to Itisonas part of my Masters Degree in Advertising Strategy & Planning.

Glasgow based Itison is an online daily deals company. As a digital company its marketing strategy naturally follows suit. Using “real-time data and analytics” helps it to better serve its customers by “continual adjusts and refinement” (Schwab, 2017, p. 3.2.1).

Online marketing has many benefits: cost-effective, results driven, real-time, shareable (Cave, 2016); but traditional marketingleads to a more emotional reaction, better recall, increased desire, a higher value being placed on the product (Dooley, 2015).

As a digital first company, Itison can strike the right balance for its audiences. Daily deals are researched, purchased and shared online, so Itison would market itself to buyers online with sales activation techniques, combined with an offline brand awareness campaign (OOH & TV for example).

The businesses whose products and services are being sold on the site require a different approach. Whilst the traditional brand campaign could also target businesses, they would require direct sales techniques, meeting with the businesses in person for example.

(Binnet & Field, 2017)

As the table above shows, growth comes brand building, whilst sales activation cause peaks and troughs. The channel is only part of the message. Traditional marketing principles still hold. We just have more channels to play with. And that’s exciting.