Recently, an ad in a leading national daily caught my eye. It was for a newly launched automobile from India’s largest automobile company. What set it apart from a hundred other ads in the newspaper was a petite matrix barcode placed at one corner. As the ad invited me to experience a ‘whole new world’, I could almost envision in my head what the advertising world would look like in the near foreseeable future.
Advertising has and will always be one of the most important aspects of marketing; constantly changing and evolving over the years. Moving from print, TV and radio ads we have recently, in the last decade or so, seen the rise of internet as a medium for marketers to showcase their products and services. The rise of the internet saw marketing grow from mere printed advertisements to more appealing video advertisements online. Now, with technology advancing at such unfathomable rates, we are now moving towards what is being called ‘integrated marketing’.
What I ‘experienced’ that day was integration of different aspects of marketing to provide a wholesome experience to the consumer. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. From simple videos being played as one focuses the camera on barcodes to an almost-real experience with Augmented Reality systems, we are drifting towards being a world where the physical and digital worlds will merge seamlessly to engage the consumer in every aspect of his life.
Neither video marketing nor print marketing have the wherewithal to thwart each other but it is only by working in tandem can they achieve their sole objective, reaching out to the customers and make them reach out for