Monologue or dialogue?
Communications and e-marketing
How can marketing truly listen to the voice of the market?
Globalisation is being led by information-communications technology (ICT). For marketing in a multi-channel media environment, where people are no longer passive consumers of information, the issues are complex (the '24/7' and 'CNN World'). Postmodern reality centres on the notion that 'perception is, in fact, reality'. The paradox for communications is that on the one hand it tends to homogenize and standardise while on the other it increases diversity and localisation. This is where coherent ideas based on human values are so important. Through distributed networks, mediated reality and 'the world of signs' the individual needs some certainty, a certainty that little beyond the premise of ethical conduct can deliver.
The success of communication technology has been its ability to bring together new groups and new debates, opening up the concerns of people and giving them an opportunity to address them. The simpler life of an earlier age has been replaced with multiple media led cultural discourses on every subject under the sun, a situation that has led some people to experience 'future shock' but which for others represents a unique opportunity to resolve otherwise of intractable problems.
In the information age, human problems need to be resolved faster and faster as the damage they can cause costs so much to repair and it is certainly more efficient and effective to address them before they become global. The sustainability debate, based on the ethical principle of 'inclusivity' attempts to address these issues through an integrated philosophy based on care of people and the planet. Communication is at the heart of democracy in the post-modern age because people's access to communications, ability to learn, change and improve their lives is based on being able to communicate.
Mass marketing and media have always been the setting for much debate, but as the media world fragments and differentiates, it is likely to face the demands and subtleties of increasingly complex ethical and environmental concerns; including how it handles itself in terms of technology, news, commercial and personal information and advertising. For advertising agencies, for example, this could mean a shift in their attitudes and role. At present, it may be argued, agencies act as advocates for their clients; like lawyers, they do not judge, merely seek the most convincing arguments. Should they instead, for the sake of their clients, as much as themselves develop their own principles? How can they advise clients and build communications, which attempt to transmit a sense of integrity for themselves and the brands they are charged with managing? If agencies do not confront these issues do they risk loss of credibility with consumers? If so, the medium of advertising might be 'discounted' by informed consumers, who will search for more flexible media options.
The emerging discussions on media, journalistic and Internet advertising and information ethics are only now beginning and are likely to become key debates in the information age. Marketing as a major sponsor of the media will need to take its place in the centre of these diverse, dynamic and sometime dangerous debates. Understanding ethical reasoning and communicating sustainable solutions is likely to provide a way to steer through rapid whitewater issues-management.
Traditionally, a key role for marketing communications has been the interpretation of consumer trends. The use of new ethical terms and the 'discourse on sustainability' driven by citizens and consumers alike, represents a language that marketing is well advised to learn and understand as well as to speak, or face being marginalised or locked out of emerging ideas and debates. As communication channels are now so numerous, interaction with consumer and stakeholders using interactive processes and 'live' dialogues is going to increase. Although often no more than focus group opinion gathering, interactive customer participation is a new and dynamic field contained within the sustainability movement. Marketing may need to introduce and oversee strategic planning for integrated communications, planning that takes into account the principles and policies relating to ethical and environmental concerns.
New media, particularly e-marketing and e-services, generally conform to the low-impact and low-resource model of sustainability, however, the virtual economy is only just emerging as a rich and low resource media environment. For marketing, models of e-commerce tend towards increased interaction with customers, increased information and choice and improved customer relationships as a consequence. Still there are many lessons to be learned for marketing. An ethical understanding of customer choice and the ability to trust new e-models of business and the quality of their information assets, suggests a more empowered customer, client and consumer. This in turn is leading to increasing interest in 'the ethics of information management' and its many associated issues.