Participation has become the fifth "P" of marketing since consumers these days have the ability to block unwanted ads and such unlike before where ads on TV or the radio couldn't really be avoided. With this, companies had to focus more on interaction and customer relationships in order to gauge attention. The most popular way companies engage personally with consumers is either via social media or newsletters via email. With social media, companies are able to post the same way consumers do and are able to directly reply to comments people make on the platform. A clever social media handle will make good use of this interaction and attempt to promote the companies product under the guise of trying to have a personal interaction with a consumer. In addition to social media, a more intrusive way of marketing will be gaining consumer's emails and sending ads directly to the consumer. These ads can then be tailored based on a consumer's interests and such if the consumer's interaction with the company is monitored; however, this becomes an issue of privacy and may backfire as a result. Companies can even use loyal consumers as "free advertisement" if the consumer is a big fanatic of the company's product. This is the often case with, for example, novel-to-movie adaptations. The novel may already have a cult following who will willfully promote anything related to the material on forum websites, social media, YouTube, etc. without the studio's request.

There is a pretty clever way of marketing i met before, that is drawing a lottery and introduce the products as a prize. I agree with that using social media is a good way of marketing, but actually some medical devices are for old people and not all old people are familiar with facebook and twitter. Lottery marketing strategy is the kind of strategy works for all age groups. Firstly, sellers need to pick a place that has high flow of customers, and secondly they need to play a long game, and lots of customers will join in. Of course the game is not important, the important part is the product will be introduced as a prize and the function of the product will be introduced too. Sellers will introduce the product many times during the game. This kind of marketing makes customers easy to draw attention when sellers introduce the products.

I think the best example for this is Coca-Cola, In the United States, the average person drinks one can of Soda a day, so a company like Coca-Cola, which has already acquired most of the people in the United States, naturally shifts their marketing focus away from immediate sales transactions, and towards a more long-term emotional connection with consumers. Through their innovative campaigns, Coca-Cola has demonstrated that emotionally resonant marketing creates loyalty among your customers, which in turn sells you far more Coca-Cola.For example, their Share a Coke campaign which is basically replacing the logos on Coke cans with popular names among young people encouraged customers to share a Coke with a friend. Essentially, Coke was inviting buyers to participate in a massive social/referral marketing experience. And the campaign generated huge customer participation, particularly online – there are a whopping 341,000 posts on Instagram with the hashtag #shareacoke. Coca-Cola also reports that 96% of consumer sentiment toward the campaign is either positive or neutral.

Participation is an important aspect of marketing because of how easy it is to block out all the noise. Companies need to make it so that their consumers seek out and engage with the company and the product rather than just stumble upon a commercial or billboard. Some interesting methods I have seen include sweepstakes/ surveys and the demonstration of their products at work. For example, Lays allows its consumers to vote on new chips flavors, making the product on the shelves match the consumers' interests. Another, overwhelming demonstration of participation was McDonald's introduction of the Szechuan sauce which was promoted by a popular TV show. By engaging with the fans of the show, McDonalds was able to draw thousands to their doors and get people excited about experiencing an element of their favorite cartoon through their franchise.

Social medias have become popular advertising sites too. The fifth p, participation, is easily now a days being used in social medias like facebook, twitter, instagram, linkedin etc.Companies adverstise their product by making a short videos which can attract and seek attention of people so that they watch it. This happens a lot in facebook. People share the videos so that it reaches to more and more people. Thus marketing the companys product too.

The four P’s are undoubtedly all equally important. This strategy is a business tool used by a company to produce a desired response from its target market and it consists of everything a company can do to promote demands for the product. These four P’s are very simple to understand—the Product is the goods offered by the company to its customers, the Price is the amount of money paid by the customers to purchase the product, the Placement is the activities that make the product available to the consumers and it is about getting the right product to the right place at the right time, and lastly, the Promotion is the activities that communicate the product’s features and benefits and persuade customers to purchase the product, such as advertising, social media marketing, video marketing, and more. These are related and are combined to launch the product’s place within its target markets. A company needs to create a product that a particular group of people want, put it on sale some place that the people visit regularly, and price it at a level that matches the value they feel they get out of it because price determinations will impact profit margins, supply, demand, and marketing strategy.
With the new technology advances, its easy to change the channel when there are advertisements coming on or to hang up any phone calls. But a good way participation has come along is advertising on Youtube videos. Even though most videos have a 5 second commercial before your video starts, it is more than enough to catch our attention and pay attention for those five seconds.

Participation marketing happens online and offline, on blogs, at events, in grocery store lines, and through social media. At the heart of participation marketing is engagement, and Marketo outlines five guiding principles for engagement marketing. It says that brands and marketers should look to connect with audiences: As individuals; Based on what they do; Continuously over time; Directed towards an outcome; Everywhere they are.

The example is Starbucks’ White Cup Challenge.
Customers were invited to decorate a white Starbucks cup and submit an Instagram photo using the hashtag #whitecupcontest. The winning design was printed on a reusable Starbucks cup and the contest generated more than 3K posts.
Through this participation marketing campaign, Starbucks capitalized on the unspoken tradition of customers drawing on its cups and emphasized a personal connection with its customers.

Lately, I have seen 2 clever uses of participation:

1. Instant store rewards or discounts- Some stores clothing stores like Forever21 and Express are offering customers at checkout the chance to complete a 5-minute survey in order to be rewarded a 5% discount off their purchase. For someone that loves coupons and saving money 9 times out of 10, I will take the survey. The survey usually consists of questions related to the stores and merchandise they sell. They are looking for customer opinions on how to improve sales and increase customer shopping.

2. Social Media- Another one of my favorite retailers, Torrid, almost every month does Instagram contests. For example a few months ago they had a challenge that you had to post a picture of you in your Favorite Torrid Jeans, tag a friend, and then tag the store and if you did that they send you a coupon AND you got entered to win a pair of free jeans. I didn't win the free jeans, BUT I did get the coupon sent to my e-mail. Clothing Retailers are not the one people using social media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat..) to get customer participation.

Like @julienneviuya mentioned, pop-up shops are a very popular way to gain customer participation. From Kylie Jenner’s lip kits to Pringles, NYC is a hub of pop-up shops. Pop-up shops allow a company to introduce a product/line to the market but make it for a limited time and volume. So customers feel like they are getting an exclusive opportunity to  have access to a product.  As julienneviuya mentions the make it interactive with cool locations, themes, and create a path for you to post on several forms of social media; twitter, snapchat, facebook, Instagram etc. Pop- up shows create a buzz and allow for companies to not have sign a long term lease in an expensive area like NYC. I've included a line from Ad Age which even gives the example of how Brushfire Marketing, which worked with the New Jersey Division of Travel and Tourism on the Jersey Shore Store, said the temporary shop brought in nearly $1 million in earned media. The agency said the store led to 46 broadcast segments and 21 print and online placements. They noted that on average, 1,000 visitors passed through the store each week. Overall, I think pop-up shops are a creative and relatively inexpensive way for companies to test products, get viral marketing, and quick customer feedback without signing a long-term lease.

http://adage.com/article/news/marketing-pop-stores-brands-build-buzz/138704/

A clever use of Participation will be through social media. Participation requires brand responses and engagement on at least the major social medias like facebook, twitter, instagram and snapchat. Adidas usage of theme/ hashtag and creative influencer campaigns on social media are the primary reasons to why consumers, most especially millennial perceive Adidas as fresh, modern, inclusive, and even personable. The campaign on Twitter allowed consumers “to have their own likeness made up in the green and white of the Stan Smith tongue artwork,” making consumers feel as though they were part of the story and the campaign.

I think social media has become the most common way of using participation. Participation is an important consideration along with the 4 P's because a company needs to be able to quickly engage a customer in wanting more information on their products or services. It has become more difficult for companies to do this through advertisements because it has become more common for people to be able to avoid ads. This is why I believe a company's presence on social media is the best way for them to participate with consumers. Social media like Facebook, Instagram, twitter etc. give companies a way to directly engage with their customers and promote their products more effectively. Another way a company can use social media to their advantage is through acquiring posts or photos from someone who has a high number of followers because those posts will be seen by more people when posted by a celebrity or someone who has a lot of followers.

Advertising and marketing are very dynamic fields to be involved in. The regulations from television networks and now the huge increase of digital video recording products has put a huge halt to the use of basic commercials. Also, the increase in commercial free online streaming of television has also hurt the commercial industry. As previously discussed social media is a huge outlet to allow companies to get their products into the faces of potential consumers. Through celebrity endorsements and companies like Instagram allowing sponsored post the advertising is beginning to become integrated into the regular usage of social media. Shifting the focus more on companies like Netflix and Hulu who now have their own production studios it is common to see a great deal of product placement in the shows directly. The characters in the show will crack open a cold Bud light or drive a dodge charger instead of the no brands that were common on network television. Some are as blatant as the characters breaking the fourth wall to “jokingly” endorse a product. This still brings the attention to the products and not including the fourth wall break it occurs in a very subliminal way

Keep in mind here that Participation always involves a two-way communication, over whatever media. Product placement, exclusive content, etc. and ads are all "push media" because they are one-way.

I am going to take over here the example of cars. I really liked the advertisement on TV of Chevvy's. Customers are basically asked to drive an unknown car or just sit and feel the car or check out the exterior of it. This way they don't judge the book by it's cover. I have also seen this done by the local car dealership in my area. Where customer who came to buy or check out the cars, can participate in this small event and get to guess the brand of the car. This way they are interactive too.

Some ways that company's are engaging in Participation is through surveys, questionnaires, and special deals for customers. For instance, after you visit a company's website, buy a certain product online or fill out a form on a company site, they will send you follow up emails. This will allow the company to engage with their customer and gain insight into how their experience was, how they can improve, and what the general public thinks about their product. Most people will just delete or throw out these messages or forms , but now company's give customers incentives to fill out the forms. They will either place the form before the customer has to check out for an online store, or they can give the customer a deal. Such as filling out a questionnaire to receive discounts, coupons, or special promotional deals. On these participation sites, they might suggest new products that the customer may like related to the one they bought. They may give out a free package containing new products to the customer where the customer can try out these new devices or products on the market. Through certain endorsement deals, a company may bring in a famous celebrity figure to host events where customers can buy and try out new products. The customer now has to participate with the company in order to meet these famous celebrities or get a chance to meet them. Participation is mainly functioning through incentives that a company offers its customers in order to force feedback and interaction from customers or to persuade customers to interact. Deals where McDonalds has promotions, where customers win a free meal, but have to go online or enter in a contest to win a bigger price is getting participation from its customers.