Are You Embracing the 5C's?

Google has launched its ZMOT campaign, touting the future of marketing as the “Zero Moment of Truth.” Its case is compelling and falls in line with the current momentum toward real-time marketing and harnessing the power of content, community, and conversation across platforms.

What ZMOT brings into focus is a compelling case to focus on digital strategy that meets consumers’ needs wherever, whenever, and on whatever device – it’s real-time marketing realized. So how do we get there, to this “zero moment of truth”? Success lies in embracing the 5C’s: content, conversation, context, continuity, and commerce.

Content and conversation. The web is a mass medium driven largely by consumer-generated earned media. It’s a mass medium of content and conversation. Brands must chart a new course, and more effectively harness the web’s currency of content and conversation to cut through the noise and reach consumers where they are.

Context. When it comes to effectively leveraging content and conversation to market in this always-on digital landscape, context matters. Whether it is providing real-time content experiences through location-based data, or more personally customized experiences based on social graph data, the more contextually relevant content and conversation are, the deeper, more effective the experience becomes.

Continuity. People, just like the web, are multiplatform. With a proliferation of devices and a multitude of touch points for information exchange, creating brand continuity across this fractured landscape is crucial for success. Content and conversation are the connective tissue that creates continuity across touch points. Crafting a strategically driven, multichannel content strategy is key. It needs to be live, always-on, and always optimizing based on real-time data and feedback.

Commerce. Ultimately, a marketers’ ability to create brand continuity across multiple digital touch points through the strategic interplay of content and conversation creates value and measurable results. It creates deep intimacy and authentic relationships with customers. It increases brand equity, reach, and engagement. It drives commerce.

Are you embracing the 5C’s? How has it worked for you – and how is it helping you get to that zero moment of truth?