The digital audience is volatile, fragmented, and with specific narratives: between the virality of audiovisual format and invisibility due to an excess of content without rules. The sixth edition of Zoom Marques, organized by the Audiovisual Cluster of Catalonia with the collaboration of Foment del Treball, Dircom, and the Marketing Club, debated on "How to connect with new audiences" the new communication paradigm for brands, but also for traditional media.
New generations are unpredictable, impulsive, and activist, but with clear values. The debate table included Adrià Farrero, director of Buzzfeed's Strategic Plan, Jordi Rosàs, founder and head of strategy at &Rosàs, Noemí Cuní, general director of Broadcaster, and Laia Mas, director of Public Relations and Sustainability at Danone Iberia. The journalist and director of communication and strategy at Lavinia, Miquel Pellicer, moderated and led the session. In general, all speakers highlighted the profound change that digitalization has created in the form and substance of reaching audiences that are increasingly specialized and demanding. Buzzfeed, which is the most viewed medium on the internet in the US and the first to explore viral content, knows very well the demand of the younger audience and still competes every day for "the scraps" left by the two technological giants Google and Facebook. "It is necessary to specialize and find new formats, such as series, to attract millennials to your channel."
VALUES MATTER. BRANDACTIVISM
But in the era of disintermediation, Noemí Cuní encouraged brands to build authentic, honest stories with journalistic rigor. Brands have resources to build their own channels without falling into the error of talking about themselves all day under the dictatorship of their logo. Brands must project themselves by creating content that is 70% good stories and 30% useful service for their customers. For this, the recipe is for brands to have their own editorial line focused on their values to be credible. "The relationship with the consumer must be stable and continuous over time," says Cuní. In reality, the essence of communication, journalism, and marketing has not changed that much with digitalization.
Why is it so difficult to connect with your audiences? Jordi Rosàs says it clearly and plainly: given the duopoly of large digital platforms, today it is more difficult and costly to contact, and furthermore, given the excess of content without rules, it is more difficult and costly to make an impact. Perhaps that is why the moderator, Miquel Pellicer, reiterates and suggests the concept of community throughout the debate. You have to distance yourself and create your own network for vertical audiences. Jordi Rosàs, founder and strategy manager of the creative agency for clients such as Nike, CocaCola, or Bacardí, prefers to "attract entities rather than pursue" the audience and understands that the algorithms resulting from artificial intelligence are at the service of good ideas so that they adequately impact the consumers that the brand seeks and wants to attract.
Laia Mas from Danone made her company's commitment to values very clear: sustainability and the environment. "The brand reflects on how to continue connecting with new audiences and that has transformed the strategy of the entire company. New consumers want to know how we do things and what worries us. And that is the future."