Quels sont les différents points clés du Marketing ? - en anglais

Richard J. Varey declares “Marketing assumes the task of guaranteeing the conditions of communication and information”. This essay will explain how the birth of new technologies, such the Internet and the development of social media, have impacted marketing communication; and will explore the extent of these impacts. Firstly, the traditional marketing will be described. Secondly, how social media and the Internet changed personal lives will be explicated. And finally, the effects on marketing communication due to these new technologies will be determined.

Marketing uses different communication methods. Since the early 20th Century, traditional marketing utilizes strategies like direct sales (physical relations), TV, radio, printed advertising like magazines or books and printed promotional materials like catalogs or brochures. The most important media has been TV since it captured people’s attention and trust. However, traditional methods may be the only means of reaching your particular group of consumers. Person-to-person selling is considered by many a strategy of traditional marketing. There is definitely a time and place when this type of direct selling is the most effective way to market a product or service. For instance, if you are interested in targeting retired people, much of this demographic isn’t utilizing the internet or social media channels. Traditional marketing offers hard copy material. There is something to be said about handing a consumer tangible printed material they can flip through at their leisure.

Nevertheless, traditional methods of communication have some cons. In other words, these methods are expensive and cost prohibitive. For example, purchasing advertising for TV, radio or print is very costly to most small business. Additionally, communication marketing usually requires outside help like printing material, buying media or creating radio advertisements. Next, the result of traditional communication marketing is difficult to track or to measure. For example, some advertisements are a lot like “throwing” them against the wall and hoping they stick so it’s hard to get quantitative results. Moreover, the consumer doesn’t necessarily ask for the product and he can feel forced to buy.

Consequently, marketing primarily focuses on four key parameters, i.e. product, price, place and promotion.

However the environment has changed. During the last years, we have seen an increase in the creation of new technologies such the Internet and social media. As a result, while the radio industry took 38 years to reach 50 million users and television took 13 years to do this, social media sites added 100 million users in less than nine months. And Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp, and MySpace summed it up: “Technology is shifting power away from the editors, the publishers, the establishment, and the media elite. Now it’s people who are taking control”.

But how have these tools changed personal lives? And what are the impacts on marketing communication?

According to the Oxford Dictionary, the Internet is a global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols and social media are the group of websites and applications used for social networking. What does it mean?

Social media is defined as a “group of Internet based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that allow the creation of exchange of User Generated Content” (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Social media is a practice that takes place among identified population, who gather virtually share information, knowledge and post-purchase feedback (Safko & Brake, 2009). Social media networking sites, such as Facebook (http://www.facebook.com), flickr (http://www.flickr.com), YouTube (http://www.youtube.com), allow individuals to share information and communicate on the same network regardless of any geographical or timing restriction. The emerging patterns in social networks are friends list, status update platforms, open data access, media sharing and transparency (Forgue, 2011). The emerging numbers of social media networking sites are large and consequently the numbers of users involved in it are also escalating.

In other words, social media has become extremely popular because it is a quick and easy way to connect with others. People read the news online instead of paper. Recommendations and opinions for every product and service are now available on the Internet. Since the digital identity

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