annotated bibliography and paper

I.     Introduction

The topic of this research is new media marketing. This is a form of marketing that is anchored on promotion of brands and the sale of products through emerging online channels. New media marketing leverages on the elements of both established and emerging online channels to engage potential and current customers. This channels include display advertising, content marketing and social networking platforms (Calder, Malthouse, & Maslowska, 2016). New media marketing aims at getting the consumer to interact with the brand and engaging them in a way that increases awareness and ultimately product sales. New media marketing has become significantly vital in the digital era and huge amounts of information online which has resulted in consumers being empowered. This has made it necessary for brand marketers to change their approach to marketing in order to meet the expectations of this empowered consumers.

II.    Literature Review

New media marketing originated with the internet and World Wide Web. The popularity and interactivity of the internet resulted in new media marketing gaining prominence as a way of gaining a competitive advantage. The internet gained popularity as a preferred channel of marketing due to virtually zero distribution cots, its interactivity as well as personalization capabilities (Blakeman, 2014). Today, new media enables marketers to systematically make sense of the characteristics of their audiences and, ultimately, consumers. Through social media networks and search engines that can evaluate tens of billions of advertising impressions each day, advertisers can now deliver specific, relevant messages to their consumers. This is further augmented by behavioral profiling that would enable firms to reach users with specific messages based on their location, demographics and interests.

III.   Impact on business

New media channels enable customers to take a more active role and to be reached almost everywhere and at any time. At their advent, new media channels thus posed to threaten long established business models as well as providing opportunities for growth through agile and adaptive strategies. Today, new media marketing and channels have spawned new online marketplaces that have challenged corporations to adapt or risk failure. New media channels such as Facebook and Twitter have empowered consumers to play a bigger as market players rather than passive consumers. Companies are now investing in new strategic and tactical approaches that are congruent with the features of new media and their effects on consumers. Going into the future, new media channels such as recommendation systems, mobile computing and social networking will continue to challenge the old behaviors of organizations and consumers. Mobile channels particularly present exciting opportunities made real time information exchange an essential element of consumer behavior due to their portability.

IV.   Going forward

Some of the trends that are likely to drive new media marketing into the future include mobile computing, virtual reality and artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence and machine learning have for instance sped up the process of product development as markets can now simulate customer response to a new product. As mobile devices proliferate, there are likely to be shifts in the way people interact with brands (Keegan & Green, 2017). Brands will also be in a position to leverage on consumer behavior in real time to get consumers to purchase their products. The evolution in technology and consumer behavior will drive trends in new media marketing going forward.

Regulators are likely to face challenges in setting legislation to guide new media marketing activities. However, there are areas that are of interest to regulators going forward. They include issues such as those of data protection and privacy. When organizations collect consumer data on new media platforms such as media they pose serious questions on privacy. Various jurisdictions such as the European Union with its “EU General Data Protection Regulation” have proposed legislation to protect the privacy of consumers (Keegan & Green, 2017). Other areas that are likely to attract legislation going forward include third party endorsements and disclosure of information.

V.    Management options to address likely trends going forward;

Management options to address this trends include investments in big data, analytics and business intelligence (Boland, Thrall, & Duszak, 2015). This include creating dashboards that track consumer behavior in real-time so that the organization can tailor or personalize the customer experience.

Management will also need to incorporate mobile computing into their strategies. This include creating websites that are adaptive to the small screen and creating brand content that can be consumed from the small screen. As content shifts to the small screen, marketers and organizations will need to invest in ways of creating a personalized experience with the consumers.

In responding to regulatory challenges posed by new media, management will need to be more transparent in how they use customer private information. They will also need to be transparent on the circumstances on which they retain such data. Companies will also need to empower the consumer with options on which data they submit as well which information should not be stored.

VI.   Conclusion

New media marketing is a more effective way of marketing when compared to traditional marketing. New media channels enable marketers and organizations to reach a wide audience at virtually zero distribution costs. New media also enable a two way communication that engages consumers. This enables companies to deliver messages in a format that fits with consumers. However, new media also poses challenges particularly in data privacy issues. It is vital that organizations overcome this challenges to benefit from new media.

References Blakeman, R. (2014). Nontraditional media in marketing and advertising. Los Angeles: Sage. Boland, G. W., Thrall, J. H., & Duszak, R. (2015). Business intelligence, data mining, and future trends.),. Journal of the American College of Radiology, 12(1), 9-11. Calder, B., Malthouse, E., & Maslowska, E. (2016). Brand marketing, big data and social innovation as future research directions for engagement. Journal of Marketing Management, 579-585. Keegan, W., & Green, M. (2017). Global marketing. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited. Verhoef, P., Kooge, E., & Walk, N. (2016). Creating value with big data analytics: making smarter marketing decisions. London: Routledge.