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42 MANAGEMENTNOVEMBER 09

TECHNOLOGY 

BEHAVIOURAL CHANGE, ALTHOUGH

silent, is necessary and evident in an

environment that is rapidly incorporating

digital technology in all aspects. With

the deployment of mobile and internet

communication, how information is

disseminated has changed drastically

in terms of reach and speed. A

revolution occurs when society adopts

new behaviours and it is imperativethat organizations come up with

strategies in line with the new modes of 

communication for their brands. If not,

they will be caught flat footed using

outdated media and consequently, their

brand message will not resonate with

their audience.

 The launching of internet broadband

comes with the expectation that access

will be faster, more reliable and more

affordable for the Kenyan community atlarge. Anyone who is managing a brand

therefore needs to anticipate and react to

this tectonic shift in the digital arena.

What is in a brand?

A brand is collectively what people say,

feel and think about your product, service

or organisation.

For instance, Usain Bolt of Jamaica is

an individual brand that has propelled

his own value and that of his country.

Jamaica is no longer famous for its fiery

 jerk chicken but also for its exceptional

sprinters. Similarly, the brand ‘Kenya’ is

synonymous with long distance running,

as was confirmed in the just concluded

world athletic championship.

In this new era of digital media

communication therefore, your brand will

increasingly be about what is searched

for digitally.

Digital environment

Media communication is now moving

away from push marketing to pullmarketing. Push marketing refers

to messaging that is disseminated

outwardly in the hope that the audience

will understand your message. A

television broadcast is a good example of 

push marketing. Pull marketing has more

to do with inbound marketing where

you are pulling your audience to come to

your repository of information. A case in

point is sending out e-mail messages that

encourages your audience to visit your

website to get more information about

your products and services. The core characteristic of any digital

environment is that it is electronic and

therefore dynamic. Subsequently, this is

probably the most exciting time to be

marketing and selling your products.

 The shift from push to pull marketing is

creating both challenges for marketers

and opportunities to engage consumers

in new ways that start lasting, profitable

relationships.

Battle of the three screens

 This battle in the digital arena has

been taken to the three screens in

Managing your brand ina digital environment

Kinoti Gituma

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43MANAGEMENTNOVEMBER 09

developed countries. The three screens

are television, computer and mobile

phone. The television is a vestige of old

media whereby communication is in

monologue. A message is set up and

broadcast to the masses without an

interactive process.

 The dawn of a new era comes

with new media communication that

is in the form of a dialogue with the

intended audience, thereby eliciting

direct feedback. In the context of Kenya,

new media is led by cell phone usage.

Broadband technology will hopefully

expose more people to computers andlaptops, thereby encouraging a more

interactive process.

In terms of old media, think of a bill

board advertising Watamu in Kenya as a

tourist destination for Marlin fishing. This

billboard is placed in the middle of New

York’s Time Square, the busiest street in

the world. This is all very well and good

as there will be traffic that will pass by,

and, depending on their level of interest,

people will read and act on the message

and perhaps book a trip sometime in the

future. The characteristic of the billboard

message is that it is static. The message

will not change during the time the bill

board is out there. The messaging is not

targeted and will only be broadcast to

whoever passes by the billboard.

Conversely, with new digital media,

think of John Smith, an American in

Ohio who is on his computer and is

doing a search on “Marlin Fishing” on

Google. Let us suppose an ad-copy onthe Search Engine Results Page (SERP)

pops up showing Watamu in Kenya as a

destination for Marlin fishing. He clicks

on the caption and he is taken to a

wonderful web page where he is given

more information on fishing for marlin

in Kenya. This process of ensuring your

information is relevant when people

search for information related to your

core business is helpful in terms of sales

and branding. If more companies and

institutions in Kenya embraced new

media to disseminate their information

about their core business, they would

gain by improving their sales and

branding.

Evolution of media

 To examine the evolution of media, let

us look at a Daily Nation article that is

published both in print and on their

website. The article in print will representold media whereas the web article will

represent new media. The article on the

nation print media has the characteristic

of being a static monologue.

It is static in the sense that

you cannot change the write

up or recall the article in case

of errors. Instead you will

have to correct the errors in

the following publication.

However, the same article

published online can be

corrected quickly since it is

in digital format. The article

on the internet also has a

forum that creates a dialogue

in that people can give their

feedback and comments

directly to the editors, and

those reading the article can see the

various feedback and comments. If they

like the article so much they can evenforward the article to their friends using

various forms of digital media. They can

e-mail it, publish it on their Facebook 

profile, or even use twitter to disseminate

the information. From that one article, a

dialogue is created where the reader of 

the article can give immediate feedback 

to the article, share it with friends and

discuss the article with their peers,

thus creating a viral component of 

communication. This example shows that

new media has various touch points andis fluid and dynamic in engagement.

 That begs the question: if you had

an advertisement or message in this day

and age, wouldn’t it be better to craft a

message and leverage the reach of digital

media? Think of old media as using the

shotgun approach where you shoot out

the message and hope it reaches as many

people as you want without knowing the

exact metrics of your target audience.

New media is more like a rifle gun where

you pick out your target and are able

to aim your message to your intended

audience.

Kinoti Gituma is the Managing Director 

at KinConsult a new-age digital media

company in the US. He has extensive

experience in managing large e-Commerce

 projects for Fortune 500 Companies in the

Silicon Valley. He has sold everything online

from rugby jerseys on eBay to servers,

computers and software on Google and 

Yahoo.kinoti@kinconsult.com or on twitter @

kinconsult for any feedback or comments.

TECHNOLOGY 

“If morecompanies and

institutions in

Kenya embraced

new media to

disseminate their 

information,

they would gainby improving

their sales and

branding."