iMedia Connection: DDBís Richard Notarianni

iMedia Connection: How does the issue of relationship marketing tie into the future of online marketing?

Notarianni: The future of online marketing is relationship marketing. The medium is brilliantly positioned to inspire participation in brands. Maybe we should be calling it participation marketing and position it as the intersection between CRM and brand. Online is a fully established channel that people use to access brands and theyíve come to expect response via chat or e-mail. Itís relationship marketing if we want it to be or not.

iMedia Connection: Have you piloted any early Reach & Frequency planning on behalf of your clients? What kinds of results did these analyses reveal?

Notarianni: I think the literal application of reach and frequency is a joke–applying it to the Web extends bad thinking onto good. Reach is a myth. Frequency is a bad average of that myth. Involvement, behavioral change, creating new consumer language, brand participation–these are the new measures. To get mainstream marketers thinking of the Web as an essential channel of communications is the idea behind R&F models. To borrow the currency of TV modeling and force the Web to become another day-part falls short when you look at the creative component.