What is ENGAGEMENT with consumers...

and how does it differ from emotional connection...and actually, come to think of it, why does it matter anyways?

Engagement is the latest buzzword. Two years ago “emotional connection” was hot – now it’s engagement – which is in truth just another recycled concept good marketers have always intuitively known.

There are many different definitions of engagement, none are right or wrong, none are entirely satisfactory because no single definition fits every circumstance.

If advertising is about trying to rope people in large numbers, and is relatively passive, engagement is about going out to people where they live, how they live, what their values are and what they trust.

People need to ‘invite’ the brand into their lives – the old notion of ‘permission marketing’.

ALIGNMENT + TRUST = ENGAGEMENT

Both the message and the vehicle it is delivered through must be trusted in terms of alignment with the consumers values, lifestyle, etc. –

- the message must resonate

- the vehicle must be trusted

Engagement is perhaps the over-arching unifying concept – where the sum of the communications channels intersect.

We talk about the collapse of mass markets (maybe they were a myth all along), the decline of TV as a mass medium (later we will see this as another myth) – but these aren’t the real issues! If we agree that the emotional connection is the over-riding requirement, then we need to engage with consumers on multiple levels that most closely align with their sense of self, through media which they trust sufficiently to let the message in – the closer the alignment and trust, the greater the engagement AND emotional connection will be.

WHAT DOES ENGAGEMENT MEAN TO RESEARCH?

Maybe not a lot that should be news. Intuitively, the good marketer has always known that engagement was the goal. Maybe it brings up the need for a comprehensive communications plan, but again – good marketers always knew a communications plan was needed.

What it really means - the important thing - is that we need to stop using the hammer and nail approach, and measuring how many hammer hits and whether the consumer realized they were being hit - and realize that because the ad screamed at them so loudly and outrageously that they remember it, like it, could recall it unaided and connect it to the brand, and they answer that they are more likely to buy it as a result (often because by that point they figure it's the logical thing to say) - doesn't really tells us if the ad really got them at the deeper level where the real connection to a brand really lives.

I read about a recent study - a really good one done by an ad agency - that asked, among other things, what motto or slogan people associated (unaided) with Coke. A significant majority cited "Coke Is It". General population, aged 18 to 55. "Coke Is It". UNBELIEVABLE! Thing is - that slogan hasn't been run in an ad for over twenty five years. But still - it made such a deep emotional impact with a generation and got so deep into their DNA it's been passed down to a generation that weren't even alive when the ads were run - that's how deep real engagement goes.

We need to ask the questions that get to that. "Did you enjoy the ad?" and the like are skimming the surface at best.

We need to understand the WHEN – WHERE – and HOW of:

- shopping/purchasing behaviors

- media habits

- brand touchpoints, including where those touchpoints are physically

Engagement is where these intersect, placed into the CONTEXT of values and trust.

This of course means our questions need to be different, but also, our probing needs to be different, and in my opinion it again exemplifies the need for a quantitative into qualitative approach, and again tells us that it is likely that a verbal/ prosaic method yields only data – since emotions and engagement lie primarily in the non-verbal realm, a visual and associative approach is needed.

In other words - that "holistic' approach to defining a brand DNA and that carries through the whole strategic marketing process. A cohesive approach that moves beyond old notions of 'quantitative' and 'qualitative' divisiveness to come to a unified approach that recognizes that non-linear, emotional factors are primary to a lasting and motivating connection and measures those factors using qualitative techniques with simple quantitative measures.