On Friday, Nov. 15, as part of the M&M Mars Executive Lecture Series, two members of the media analysis company Target Media spoke to Elizabethtown College students and faculty. Target Media is a company whose integrated media approach provides help for companies looking to achieve marketing success.
The two speakers were John Bowser, president and CEO of Target Media, and Drew Salamone, digital media and entertainment executive. Etown hosted these two speakers to share their experience in the field. Bowser has over 20 years of experience in the marketing and client services field. Also, he has extensive knowledge within the credit union industry, and has held various top level management positions. Salamone has over 17 years of experience in interactive technologies and has spent 23 years in entertainment and event management.
The two speakers were introduced by Dr. Sylvester Williams, associate professor of business law and chair of the business department. Bowser spoke first and introduced their presentation as “Traditional Media and the Constantly Evolving World of Digital Media.” Bowser began with the importance of knowing how people utilize media. As the media world is evolving, using digital channels to engage consumers becomes increasingly valuable.
Bowser then engaged the audience with a couple of statistical questions. The first was, “how many times a day does the average person reference to their smartphone?” The guesses ranged from 45 to 100 times a day. Shockingly, the average person uses their smartphone 150 times a day. This proves how digital media is evolving through a wide range of applications for consumers. Also, after Google, the answer to who the second largest search engine in the world surprised everyone. YouTube has more than 100 hours of video uploaded every minute, making it the second largest search engine in the world. Apple, the world’s most valuable brand, has a specific strategy in their marketing planning. Bowser credited their excellence to a wide target audience, customer loyalty and staying proactive.
For businesses, there is a wide variety of options to deploy their media, which can make choosing the proper format confusing. Bowser stated that the best option to reach consumers with media is mobile. He also spoke of the rise of companies blending their advertising with programming. For example, Coca-Cola advertises through the nationally televised “American Idol” by having the judges drink from Coca-Cola cups.
Bowser then gave Salamone the floor. Salamone spoke on digital marketing, his area of expertise. Digital marketing is the promotion of products or brands using one or more forms of electronic media. It allows organizations to analyze marketing campaigns in real time. Salamone also discussed the three options of media. They include paid, owned and earned media. Paid refers to TV, magazines and cinema, and targets people who are strangers to the company. Owned refers to brochures, Facebook fan pages and mobile applications, and targets customers. Finally, earned refers to word of mouth, Twitter and blogs, but targets fans of the company.
In addition to sharing their knowledge with business students, Target Media also supports the College in other ways. They provide internships for Etown students and donate funding for the business department. Friday’s presentation by Target Media marked the eighth M&M Mars lecture of the fall. Be sure to attend the final lecture of the semester on Friday, Nov. 22, as Etown welcomes Mark Fitzgerald, president and chief operating officer of High Real Estate Group, LLC.
