A Strategic Framework for Integrating Web 2.0 into the Marketing Mix

Introduction

Marketing has gone through a number of evolutions and technology has revolutionized a number of disciplines. New generations of consumers are consuming media in a different fashion than before. Gone are the days of the 30-second Super Bowl advertisements and here are the days of Facebook, Flickr, and MySpace. Collaborating and participating on the Internet is the preferred entertainment.

Web 2.0 technologies such as wikis, blogs, YouTube, and Second Life are changing the behavior of consumers like never before.

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  Empowering them with knowledge from a myriad of sources

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  Enabling them to self-organize around brands and share their passion (or dissatisfaction) for a brand

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  Enabling them to act as marketers of brands

Marketing strategy set by the marketing mix has remained fundamentally the same through years of other business disciplines being significantly disrupted by emerging technologies. However, Web 2.0 is not only affecting how companies tactically approach marketing, but also their marketing strategies.

This chapter will explore the impact of Web 2.0 technologies on marketing and brand management and how companies can leverage these technologies to strengthen relationships between their brands and consumers through a Web 2.0 marketing mix. The focus of this analysis is on business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing of products and services only.

The Traditional Marketing Mix (Four Ps)

With such revolutionary technologies disrupting consumers’ lives, many businesses wonder what the implication is to the marketing of their products and brands.