Reality Check: Why brands need Moment Marketing & how should they approach it

Let’s look contextually and historically at why moment marketing even matters, in the words of Preetham Venkky.

"If you look at the PR side of things, there was this whole new moment called newsjacking. Trends became a part of the news cycle - how brands, individuals take advantage of that and ride the wave of that trend," shares Preetham Venkky, President at 22feet Tribal Worldwide & Chief Digital Officer at DDB Mudra Group as he speaks about Reality Check: How Brands should approach Moment Marketing.

Traditionally it was called newsjacking but with social channels as a large part of content distribution, it became trend jacking which then became moment marketing.

Venkky lists down the three broad components of moment marketing and how brands need to use moments to address their audience through a message that has a bit of brand salience.

1. Fix moments - Moments that you are already aware of. For instance, Christmas, Mother’s Day Father's Day et al. A lot of brands have invested specifically in certain fixed moments and elevated the conversation. If you look at John Lewis, you know that by the first week of December, you are going to get a huge piece of hero content from the brand.

The kind of stories that John Lewis puts out, you can automatically see people in the comments section talking about how Christmas isn’t anything without John Lewis.

There are quite a few fixed moments that somebody can actually take, elevate, and essentially own the trend.

2. Fluid moments - In a lot of cases, we get distracted with Fluid moments. They can be broadly classified into three categories - first, when somebody addresses you as a brand, second, anything that is trending, and lastly something that takes place in culture at large.

This is where he thinks brands need to be a little more discerning, in what kind of fluid moments they are essentially going to partake in. Relevance to the brand’s values, purpose, and promise is a key ingredient to choose what moment you want to be a part of.

We have increasingly seen that brands tend to partake in all trending topics, a great way to trend jack and get a lot of organic lift around the content – that’s one of the reasons a lot of brands invest in moment marketing specifically because they are trying to in a way hack the algorithm.

But the core tenet that somebody has to follow you is going to capture the value/ purpose/ promise of the brand through the creative. If the trend of the fluid moment can at least caters to any of these three, but it’s the moment you essentially need to benefit from.

3. Personal Moments - Extremely relevant to an individual. Data, especially on social platforms allow you to target individual-specific micro-moments. Moments that are customized and then trying to create bespoke content in order to deliver on those is where you see the largest amount of value for the brand.

When it comes to micro-moments that brands can benefit from, for instance - the Spotify and Good Day banter that happened sometime last year – it was applauded largely because it was done in a subtle and light manner that wasn’t completely out there. It went beyond the reach of the brand itself.

Also Read: Experts decode the Reinvention of Audio Advertising

Why Moment Marketing?

At its core, it gives a huge amount of organic lift. But the bigger question to ask- is that enough?

While you may get some organic lift on the content, is that content reaching the kind of audience you are targeting?

Trends too get curtailed. Venkky opines that If you are not able to put the right amount of reach and then extend the trend with the right kind of targeting along with paid media that needs to go towards it, it will be very short-lived.

Secondly, are you really taking benefit out of moment marketing? Besides just values, purpose, and promise - are you able to reach the right audience and if you are really seeing a good organic lift, are you then able to extend the audience and specifically target different kinds of users that are most relevant to you, provided the first three fundamentals are essentially taken care of?

According to him, the best efficacy of that content is going to be if your customers are going to speak about it. A good way is to see through the comments and identify if they are coming from people you are trying to address.

Influencers Influencing Moments

Influencers have become channels in their own right. They may be using a digital channel but a lot of these smart Tier 1 influencers are able to extend the influence that they have to other channels that they are essentially present on.

The reach of influencers cannot be channeled in one direction. Is the influencer actually influencing their audience – that’s key. If you would look at the Ronaldo and Coca-Cola incident, there was absolutely no correlation or causational link. It was just purely coincidental with the significant gap.

Coca-Cola has built a brand over a very long period of time. The kind of memory strains that they have created is very difficult to destage.

Watch the full video here as he discusses a few more insights on the phenomenon that moment marketing is.

Preetham Venkky, President at 22feet Tribal Worldwide & Chief Digital Officer at DDB Mudra Group shared the virtual stage on Day 2 of Social Samosa’s marque property SM Live.