15. Mass and Personal Communication

From understanding the concept of marketing management, capturing marketing insights and connecting with customers, to shaping market offerings, the relationship between the brand and the consumer ultimately shimmers down to the concept of communication. Whether that is communication of a brand's values, its offerings or its generic PR endeavors, communication is implemented by addressing the audience in two different approaches; either in mass or personally.

Before addressing and beginning to analyze each communicative concept, it is important to understand the primary goal of communication. Evidently, with marketing at large scope, the goal is to promote information to the receiver and encourage them to take action. An example of such, can be a newspaper post in which, varying information are available, however, there is an equal degree of adverts that possess commercial connotation 

To begin addressing the concept of mass marketing, the generalized definition of it describes a process that promotes a message through a channel of communication to an anonymous and heterogeneous list of people as well as organizations. Within the evident activities of mass communication, we observe advertising, journalism, public relations and politics. Ultimately, the attributes that make mass communication special and efficient in certain cases, is its ability to disseminate information to massive audiences. Usually, there is a single message, which gets conveyed using different mediums and different approaches. Anyone having access to these mediums is the audience receiving this message.

However, an argument can be made that mass communications (traditional advertising and PR) are becoming less and less important aspects of marketing, being replaced with forms that are more efficient and personal, like digital marketing, which can also reach a massive number of customers - or different forms of marketing like influencer marketing which reach masses indirectly.

Talking about being personal, its utilization and application within communicative, marketing endeavors contradicts the utilities of mass marketing. By a simplistic definition, personal communication is observed between a person to a person, providing necessary information on a one-one basis. Whether personal communication is achieved through emails, SMS, telephone or direct messages through social media, it is worth highlighting its efficiency, as the message directed to the individual can be altered and adjusted accordingly to match the evident wants and needs of the person.

References:

Mass and Personal Communication presentation - Strategic Marketing Management course - KAMK. Retrieved from: DevMoodle - Strategic Marketing Management Course.