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Shaking off “Stodgy”
Verizon is trying to shake of its image as a “stodgy old phone company” and reinvent itself as a contemporary broadband company, according to Mark Studness, director of Verizon’s online center of excellence, whom I recently saw present at the Frost & Sullivan Sales and Marketing Executive MindXchange.
To do so, the company is taking a multichannel approach to its marketing, especially when targeting 18- to 34-year-olds who are PC and broadband savvy. The company is using a mix of such channels as in-game “events,” multimedia content integration, sponsored online content, video- and podcasting, online communities, and online/offline integration.
The resulting reach is broad, but Verizon doesn’t want its message to get lost in that breadth. “The message has to be consistent across platforms, but customized for each platform,” Studness said, adding that “it’s more important than ever to know your customers and to personalize the experience and messages.”
Studness also suggests that marketers take risks. “Try it, benchmark, see how it works.”
So far that approach seems to be working for Verizon. An in-game event with Xbox garnered 35 million impressions. And one program with beatboxmixer.com generated 40,000 impressions in the first two days and spurred about five minutes of interactivity per person among those who visited the site to mix their own tracks. Those users were also able to forward their tracks to friends.
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