Portlandia is known for poking fun at the cringe-worthy characteristics of today’s most popular trends, from affected hipsters to self-righteous foodies. And, a subject I think this audience will be tickled by, marketing technology.
The Power of Personalization
In one of the last skits of (the just released) season 4’s first episode, we watch Sandra exit her house to encounter a neighbor’s chalkboard message: “Friends are free for the making,” it reads. She is immediately moved. “That’s so sweet,” she says.
As the days go on, Sandra becomes increasingly captivated by both the messages (“Kindness only costs a frown,” “Smiles are contagious”) and the mystery man who appears in the window above the chalkboard, waving.
Thinking she has found her soulmate, she ties up a bundle of color-coded chalk with a ribbon and nervously steps into her neighbor’s house, only to discover it is entirely empty except for a printer. The man shows up and informs Sandra that he works for a marketing firm, getting paid to copy the messages from the printer and display them in the window.
The Technology behind the Human Touch
Determined, Sandra tries to find the person behind the messages at the marketing agency’s office. She gets passed around from one office to another until she finally meets her true love: a talking computer. “Yes, it’s me,” the computer replies, acknowledging that the messages are “sort of a version of product placement.” Surprised, Sandra says, “[the messages] just felt so in tune with who I am and what I need and what my desires are.” Moved that something took the time to really understand her by “tracking her online shopping” and habits, Sandra hugs the computer and confesses her love.
What Does All This Say about Marketing, Exactly?
We all have heard it before: as buyers get more independent, marketers need to step up and take more responsibility for the buying cycle. As the makers of Portlandia know, converting buyers is no longer about pushing product. It’s about tapping into a prospect’s unique desires with content that speaks directly to them.
To meet the marketers’ new need, an explosion of technologies and tools have popped up that track buyers, distribute content, and analyze it’s performance. The challenge for us now is not just identifying which technologies to invest in—it’s understanding how these technologies come together to deliver a seamless consumer experience that will compel buyers like Sandra to drop what they’re doing and seek out the content’s source.