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Friday, 20 June 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
advertising. Some start to explore the underline themes of subliminal advertising.
In Sri Lanka, a few years ago there was a film called ‘Guerrilla Marketing’. But there is nothing to do with the name of the film and the real meaning of ‘guerrilla marketing’. Now it is an era of digital marketing. In traditional marketing we use tangibles like business cards, print ads in newspapers or magazines, posters, commercials on TV and radio and billboards plus brochures. But now it is all about websites, social media, YouTube videos and Google Ads. Welcome to the era of digital marketing! Now there is a problem. Can we ignore traditional marketing and just move to the new era of marketing? Instead, you need to have a mix:
nTraditional + Digital
nDigital + Traditional
It all depends on the products you are going to market, your budget and more importantly, your creativity! If you are creative, then you can do wonders in the field of marketing and in the area of advertising. Anyway, in digital marketing we need to understand few implications. Especially in relation to Facebook (FB), some say you have to allocate 10% of your budget on FB blindly. Anyway, you need to understand the culture and chemistry of FB!
In US, most FB users are females whereas in Sri Lanka and India it is a different story. According to Table 1, in Sri Lanka we have 32% females and 68% males, while in US it is 54% females and 46% males. Now we have a good area for research; if FB is cultural. Anyway, if you want to market jeans, chocolate or even spa, you need to understand the gender composition in this context. At the same time, the same campaign adopted in US might not work well in Sri Lanka as well as in India (Western Vs Asian or Sri Lanka Vs India Vs US). Table 2 depicts age groups related to FB.
In Sri Lanka and India 18-24 category can be considered as important while in US it is 25-34 age category is dominating. Yet, there is a similarity in every country. Over 46 % of Facebook users are in the age bracket of 18-34.
In marketing, we discuss Generation Y (people who are born during the 1980s and early 1990s, sometimes referred to as Millennials). Here we can see the power of Generation Y despite the country of origin.
The table depicts that 35-44 age category is also important in US context but not much in Sri Lanka and in India. I think low IT exposure in developing countries might be one reason for that age level as well as other levels like 45-54, 55-64 as well as 65-100.
Like gender comparison, a detail study of age groups and their penetration on FB is really important for organisations once it comes to investing money in advertising. If it is a savings account for young professionals, there should be a different idea against one savings account for senior citizens. On the other hand, we need to understand our IT literacy rate as well as our internet presentation level with other countries.
These algorithms are really important in decision making in marketing.
The above areas should be explored by young researchers in different perspectives to exploit competitive advantage in the market. As discussed earlier, there should be a mix of digital and traditional marketing in the campaign. There should also be a person with fantasy who has the best creative ideas to compete in the market.
Do not forget, ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge’: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all 
we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand” – Albert Einstein.
[The writer is Senior Lecturer and Chartered Marketer – Open University of Sri Lanka. You can reach Dr. Abeysekera on [email protected]. This article is based on a speech delivered by Abeysekera as a conference co-chair at the ‘International Conference on Digital marketing’ which was held on 3 and 4 June at the Galadari Hotel. The conference was organised by The International Institute of Knowledge Management (TIIKM).]
