In contrast to Captain Picard, who commanded an army of obedient subordinates on Starship Enterprise, marketeers today face a different challenge with engagement.

Wikipedia defines engagement marketing as a way of connecting consumers with brands via a two-way cooperative interaction. It is therefore essential to move away from the traditional one-way mass broadcasting to dialogue based communication with individual customers. Ideally, they turn into influential advocates for your brand, as Benckenstein suggests.

Arguably quite some consumer engagement is already happening in the digital space. Brands are present on social networks but unfortunately many of them are still trying to figure out ways to leverage on the existing platforms beyond just having a fan page (strategy, anyone?). On the other hands, some brands like Zippo’s are already very successfully engaging consumers, especially through high-end mobile devices.

However the penetration of smart phones and tablets remains low in many emerging markets in Asia. The potential is huge, but as example in the Philippines, the smartphone penetration is currently only 1% out of all phones in use. The message to the brands is that if your target group is in that top 1% category, fine, your agency will be delighted to build you the (soon) million’th app and you can give it a try. However, if your target group is anywhere in the remaining part of the population, you need to look for alternative ways. Not everyone of us has access to a smart phone or a computer. Not now, and not in the next years. Clearly there is a need for other ways to engage consumers.

Even in countries where smartphones are scarce, even ordinary mobiles can be used to create consumer engagement. Here is an example from Blyk India.

There are two things to note about this video: the communication channels and the context.

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