REAL-TIME MARKETING IN A VISUAL WORLD 193 brand too. If your definition of real-time marketing means To succeed with real-time mar- solely commenting on current events or riding the wave keting, we have to change our of a trending topic, then you’re just adding another voice understanding of the basics of how to the noise. The reaction of many people to brands’ out- we market, from the way we orga- put around the 2013 Academy Awards was that they had nize to the way we think. We need mostly missed an opportunity for a creative response. You to bring the essential departments don’t want to be the last on the bandwagon, but as a mar- together—creative, analytics, paid keter, you also want to make sure your marketing content media, social media, legal, and is relevant to the situation, that it builds on your overall strategic—so that we can work marketing strategy, and that it is consistent with your in a time-critical way. With the brand’s purpose and voice. foundations in place, we can make sure that the marketing direction The Future: is tightly aligned with stakeholders Four-Dimesional Marketing so that RTM supports the direction of the brand now and into the future. With the right mentality we Real-time marketing is in its infancy. The near-ubiquitous can use the considerable tools and presence of smartphones makes for an extra dimension data at our disposal to streamline to RTM: that of geolocation. Imagine if you could add the creative process and make it on-the-go geographical information to your RTM stats. You responsive to cultural events and could anticipate how the customers’ needs change as they customer interests. We need to move through their day—which restaurant to recommend be prepared and poised so that based on their profile; which advertising will resonate with when the right moment comes, them at this moment in time (there is no point in showing we can take hold of it and make it an advert for winter clothing to a New Yorker on vacation our own. in Florida); and where their friends are right now. But before we can get there, we need to work on the way we structure our marketing departments to support making RTM a mentality, making it central to the way we approach various aspects of marketing. Research, development, strategies, customer service, execution of campaign, and conversing on relevant topics can all be underpinned by real-time marketing strategies. That way we can be agile and face the future with the right knowledge and tools at our fingertips.