It is becoming more and more puzzling to marketers that new communication platforms appear almost daily these days. While in the 1990s and even in the 2000s, media planning was relatively simple, in the previous decade and especially in the one that awaits us now, everything has become increasingly complex. Today, at most, it is only at agencies and universities stuck in the past to come across the ATL-BTL (and sometimes TTL) division. The 2010s were dominated by the PoE model (paid, owned, earned), which quickly spread around the world due to its ease of understanding and ease of use. However, it also seems that this is not enough: that is why more recently there is talk of the PESO model, where S covers shared content.
Let's face it, even today many people tend to talk about “digital media” in general, or worse, “new media” in short, even though there are many areas of this today, some of which are individually more complex than some classic channels. And the biggest difference is that the digital toolbox is expanding rapidly, new platforms appear almost every day, so it is becoming more and more challenging to organize them.
The twist was brought about by Sean Corcoran's 2009 essay “Defining Earned, Owned, And Paid Media” from Sean Corcoran's pen, more specifically his keyboard. But even before this article, there were agencies that used the novel PoE model - such as R/GA, Critical Mass, Sapient, or Isobar, which is also present in Hungary. Moreover, Nokia was already planning its global marketing communications based on the PoE principle, which, unfortunately, was not very successful, because it did not count on the launch and breakthrough success of the iPhone in 2007.
The emergence of the PoE model in the collaboration of previously separated PR and marketing departments for decades opened a new era. There has been a slow but steady change among stakeholders, driven by a broad portfolio of digital marketing tools and leveraging the ever-expanding features of social media. The content, i.e. the creative messaging system, has been put in the center, with which the given brand wants to address its target audience. The PoE model helps in distribution, ensuring that carefully crafted messages reach the recipients as much as possible.
In the grouping, the Paidassets include all media areas for which the company pays third parties, i.e. television ads, radio spots, print ads, or paid parts of the online marketing toolkit (e.g. display campaigns).
A own (owned)any interface controlled by the brand owner should be classified as media. And among the classic platforms, such can be a brand magazine, print publications or merchandising. And in the case of online platforms, the own website or the official social networks.
A earned or earnedmedia is a set of tools that generate extra attention to the company's own interfaces without the brand owner paying for it. On the one hand, this is the online word of mouth, which usually spreads organically (viral), in the form of mentions, shares, recommendations, likes, comments. And on the other hand, press advertising, that is, when journalists write about us. The great advantage of user-generated content is that it is much more credible in the eyes of consumers. From a brand point of view, this credibility means a higher profit, it is not by chance that the honest opinion of satisfied customers is such a great value, which can only be earned, not paid. Influencer promotions were located on the border between acquired and paid media: it was often in the business interest to make an influencer recommendation seem like real enthusiasm, but financially it was a paid media appearance.
The methodology was honed even further in the course of practical implementation. The plethora of community solutions offering more and more functions could no longer be classified into the three sets, and a new subgroup, organically linked to the others, was formed, Shared mediacategory. This has solved previous dilemmas, for example, in relation to social media and flu collaborations. With the new approach, several elements have been put in place, and the strengthening of the role of content marketing is clearly demonstrated by the fact that different content solutions occupy a prominent place in all four dimensions.
Gini Dietrich, the head of the digital agency Spin Sucks in Chicago, published the PESO model on her blog in 2014, which was then widely used by PR experts, but has not yet enjoyed undivided success among those who approach marketing communications more classically.
The primary reason for this is that Dietrich's approach focuses not on sales promotion, but on reputation and brand management. The essence of the model is to strengthen the credibility of the company, the trust in the brand by using different channels together, organizing messages in a hierarchy instead of running campaigns running side by side. Of course, this does not happen overnight, and it seems alien to sales-focused companies and agencies living under the spell (or captivity) of quarterly sales figures. However, companies that set long-term goals and prefer digital solutions have been given a grouping opportunity that allows them to make their processes much more orderly.
In Dietrich's understanding, paid platforms are all tools where money changes hands to reach the target audience, be it an advertisement or some kind of content solution, such as sponsored content. Earned are channels where the brand can provide added content and can be used to reach the target audience organically. The shared category refers to the sum of the activities received by the target audience, that is, the “free” attention that a good content can generate on social media or even live. Its success rate is determined by the volume of interaction. Finally, proprietary interfaces include tools where the target audience can access information about the brand, be it a website or offline publication, or even their own professional podcast.
Of particular interest are the newly created common sets. Influencer marketing, experience marketing and event marketing are at the intersection of what is earned and what is paid, since in their case a complex communication mechanism prevails. Earned and shared channels include tools used to manage communities and partners, such as user-generated content (UGC), charitable activities or co-branding solutions. The common set of paid and proprietary media includes classic tools for lead generation, such as email marketing solutions, quizzes, sweepstakes and contests. The intersection between shared and own channels refers to the distribution of own content, reviewing its operation, success, and not involving paid tools to facilitate shares.
Of course, communication experts can never deny what area they came from. If someone has worked on the PR side for a long time, they would put more emphasis on classic media relations or influencer marketing solutions. If you have several years or decades of experience in the field of advertising, you would prefer to turn to paid channels. The PESO model mainly helps marketing, advertising and PR professionals who work more closely together, using a sophisticated methodology, to get the best out of their field and thus build complex, content and message focused campaigns that can really effectively serve the long-term goals of the brand and the company.
The full article is available in the October Brand Monitor magazine.
Thanks to the co-authors: Dr. Arpad Papp-Vary, Rita Lukács, Endre Beres
