Advantages and Potential Issues Surrounding Paid, Owned, and Earned Media

Read the overview below and complete the activities that follow.

Advances in digital technologies have opened the door to a broad array of potential means for marketers to interact with customers online. An important objective is to get the right information into the right hands at the right time in order to maximize desirable marketing outcomes.

This activity is important because marketing managers need to be able to weigh the advantages and potential issues of different types of digital media in order to determine which type $($or multiple types$)$ are best suited to meeting a specific marketing objective in relation to the other components of the marketing mix and the target market.

The goal of this activity is for you to demonstrate an understanding of some of the advantages and potential issues that are unique to each of the types of digital media available to marketing managers.

Options available to marketing managers for information dissemination digitally can be classified as paid media, owned media, and earned media. Paid media refers to marketing communication channels requiring that the marketer pays someone else for customer access. Owned media refers to marketing communication channels that the marketer's organization has complete control over. Earned media is a bit different as it refers to the case where either a customer or a commercial entity $($such as a news media organization$)$ chooses to act as a marketing communication channel for the dissemination of information associated with the marketer's organization at no cost$.$

Hover over each individual item to read its full description. Then, drag the related item to its appropriate position depending on whether it is either an advantage or a potential issue associated with either paid, owned, or earned media.