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 DIGITAL
MARKETING
Sara Miller McCune founded SAGE Publishing in 1965 to support
the dissemination of usable knowledge and educate a global
community. SAGE publishes more than 1000 journals and over
800 new books each year, spanning a wide range of subject areas.
Our growing selection of library products includes archives, data,
case studies and video. SAGE remains majority owned by our
founder and after her lifetime will become owned by a charitable
trust that secures the company’s continued independence.

Los Angeles | London | New Delhi | Singapore | Washington DC | Melbourne

 Annmarie Hanlon
DIGITAL
MARKETING
STRATEGIC PLANNING & INTEGRATION
SAGE Publications Ltd © Annmarie Hanlon 2019
1 Oliver’s Yard
55 City Road First published 2019
London EC1Y 1SP

SAGE Publications Inc.

2455 Teller Road
Thousand Oaks, California 91320

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SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte Ltd Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private
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Singapore 049483 stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, only with the prior
permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic
reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by
the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction
outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018966917

Editor: Matthew Waters
Editorial assistant: Jasleen Kaur
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
Production editor: Nicola Carrier
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Proofreader: Sharon Cawood
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Printed in the UK
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the British Library

ISBN 978-1-5264-2666-6
ISBN 978-1-5264-2667-3 (pbk)

At SAGE we take sustainability seriously. Most of our products are printed in the UK using responsibly sourced papers and
boards. When we print overseas we ensure sustainable papers are used as measured by the PREPS grading system. We
undertake an annual audit to monitor our sustainability.
This book is dedicated to Nick, who positively makes all things possible.
To my parents, who were there at the start but left before the ink was dry, Ar dheis
Dé go raibh a n-anam.
CONTENTS
List of Figuresviii
List of Tables xi
About the Author xiii
Acknowledgements xiv
Preface xv
Online Resourcesxvi

Part 1 Digital Marketing Essentials 1

1 The Digital Marketing Landscape 3

2 The Digital Consumer 24

Part 2 Digital Marketing Tools 49

3 The Digital Marketing Toolbox 51

4 Content Marketing 95
5 Online Communities 125
6 Mobile Marketing 151
7 Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality 181

Part 3 Digital Marketing Strategy and Planning 203

8 Audit Frameworks 205

9 Strategy and Objectives 225
10 Building the Digital Marketing Plan 249
11 Social Media Management 270
12 Managing Resources 294
13 Digital Marketing Metrics, Analytics and Reporting 309
14 Integrating, Improving and Transforming Digital Marketing 339

References 361
Index 386
LIST OF FIGURES
1.1 A framework for analysing the pace of technology substitution 5
1.2 Application of digital disruption across industry sectors 13
1.3 Consumer-centric IoT business models 15

2.1 The scope of consumer behaviour 27

2.2 Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) 29
2.3 Typology of consumer communication (C2B/C2C) in the
digital age 32
2.4 Online customer service experience (OCSE) conceptual model 41

3.1 Digital marketing toolbox 54

3.2 Example of email marketing 56
3.3 Why email works model 58
3.4 Tweet from AdAge 69
3.5 ASOS off-page SEO 74
3.6 Model of blog success 81
3.7 The honeycomb model 84
3.8 Investing in social media 90

4.1 From keyword to long-tail keyword 98

4.2 The Furrow Russian edition 100
4.3 The Content Marketing Pyramid 105
4.4 Strategic content building blocks for awareness 106
4.5 Example of image used for brand awareness 107
4.6 Strategic content building blocks for conversion 108
4.7 Strategic content building blocks for retention 109
4.8 Paid, owned, shared, earned (POSE) media model 113
4.9 The TripAdvisor® content gate 119
4.10 Example of targeted content by Superdry 120
4.11 Content themes and content promotion framework 121
4.12 The Content Maximiser™ 122
4.13 Examples on the vividness to interactivity scale 123

5.1 Example of London Northwestern Railway Trains’ use

of Twitter as a customer service channel 141
5.2 Key factors in online community management 141
5.3 Community lifestages model 144
5.4 Example of customer complaining behaviour – directness 146
5.5 The place of social media in the customer complaining process 147
5.6 Example of double deviation by an organisation 149

6.1 The structure of an m-payment ecosystem 158

6.2 The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion 162
 List of Figures ix

6.3 Mobile advertising effectiveness framework 164

6.4 How ad networks work to manage publishers,
applications and advertisers with an
advertisement library 166

7.1 Simplified representation of a

‘virtuality continuum’ 183
7.2 Technology Readiness Scale 186
7.3 Technological variables influencing telepresence 188
7.4 Lockheed Martin Mars Experience Bus 191
7.5 Typology of experiential value 194
7.6 IKEA VR kitchen app 195
7.7 Gatwick Airport augmented reality wayfinding
app using beacons 197
7.8 Conceptual model for an adoption framework for mobile
augmented reality games 199

8.1 Digital marketing audit in context 207

8.2 Ten Cs of marketing for the modern economy 209
8.3 Forrester’s 5Is 220

9.1 The TOWS matrix 230

9.2 The social media strategy framework 234
9.3 The acquisition, conversion, retention framework 236
9.4 The McKinsey consumer decision journey 238
9.5 Hierarchy of objectives 242
9.6 Business goals adapted into digital marketing objectives 243

10.1 The 9Ms of resource planning 258

10.2 Social media campaign planning process 262
10.3 Framework for digital marketing campaign objectives 263
10.4 Impact and effort matrix 268

11.1 Increasing levels of media richness 275

11.2 Classification of social media by social presence/media
richness and self-presentation/self-disclosure 276
11.3 Stage model of social media adoption 280

12.1 Line messaging system 296

12.2 The T-shaped web marketing skill set 297
12.3 The T-shaped web marketer 298
12.4 The Suitability, Acceptability, Feasibility (SAF) framework 304

13.1 Weak, acceptable and strong metrics 315

13.2 Flowchart of customer search loop 320
13.3 Example of web address using UTMs 325
13.4 When Facebook users are on site for a business to business
organisation326
x DIGITAL MARKETING

13.5 Strategic dashboard 334

13.6 Framework for the adoption and success of dashboards 336

14.1 Vanish Tip Exchange example 342

14.2 Communication goals 344
14.3 IMC conceptual framework 345
14.4 Example heatmap 350
14.5 Actual customer journey 352
14.6 Path to superior firm performance 359
LIST OF TABLES
1.1 Adopter categories and general characteristics 7
1.2 The move from traditional to digital marketing tools 10
1.3 Generational cohorts  11

2.1 Differences in customer acquisition for

traditional and digital consumers 28
2.2 Initial scale items for Perceived Usefulness and
for Perceived Ease of Use 30
2.3 Customer experience management 38
2.4 What we know about customer experience 38
2.5 Service blueprinting with examples 42
2.6 Aligning the customer journey and business strategy  43

3.1 Development of the digital marketing toolbox 53

3.2 Website purpose and function 61
3.3 Examples of HTML code 73
3.4 Personal data available via social media pages 84
3.5 The utility of social media for business  88

4.1 Content Marketing Strategy Framework 101

4.2 Content purpose blueprint 102
4.3 Digital persona elements 103
4.4 Storybox Selection™ 104
4.5 Content purpose blueprint and metrics 112

5.1 Timeline of online communities 128

5.2 Demographic features within online communities 134
5.3 Rules of engagement examples 142
5.4 How to manage different types of online complaints 148

6.1 Mobile marketing implications 152

6.2 Use of wearables for marketing 160
6.3 Mobile advertising options 163
6.4 Benefits and downside of programmatic advertising 168

7.1 Virtual and augmented reality timeline 184

7.2 Six dimensions of interactivity 189
7.3 Experiential value applied to retail examples of
virtual and augmented reality 194
7.4 Industry bodies 200
xii DIGITAL MARKETING

8.1 Customisation techniques 214

8.2 Reasons why customers make contact with organisations 216
8.3 Evaluation of British Airways’ current digital marketing methods 221
8.4 Digital PESTLE used as an evaluation of opportunities and threats 222

9.1 Themes and metaphors in marketing 227

9.2 Strategy models 228
9.3 Digital marketing strategy models 232
9.4 Application of the McKinsey consumer decision
journey to strategy 239
9.5 Business goals based on organisation type 242

10.1 Digital application of the 7Ps to ASOS and Boohoo 252

10.2 Strategy, digital marketing objectives and tactics 253
10.3 One-page digital marketing plan 254
10.4 Building the action plan 256
10.5 Digital media plan example 267

11.1 Overview of main social media platforms 271

11.2 Prominent features of the four social media tools 276
11.3 Summary of the 5C categorisation 278
11.4 Risk evaluation for an #AMA event 283
11.5 Social media monitoring and management tools 288
11.6 Midlands Air Ambulance Charity aligning the digital
marketing and social media strategy 292

12.1 The RASCI and RACI models 301

12.2 RACI roles and responsibilities example 302
12.3 Key considerations in the SAF framework 305
12.4 SAF framework scoring example applied to PetBnb 306

13.1 Twitter data 311

13.2 Metrics from traditional to digital 312
13.3 Financial KPIs 314
13.4 Metrics and how to apply them 316
13.5 Web analytic data elements 321
13.6 Social media analytics terminology 325
13.7 Email analytics data available 328
13.8 Management and dashboard systems 337

14.1 Message appeals applied to digital marketing 341

14.2 The 7Cs of integration 343
14.3 The 4Cs of cross-platform integration 348
14.4 Companies failing to adopt digital business 353
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Annmarie Hanlon is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Marketing at the University of
Derby and a practitioner who works on digital marketing strategy and social media
projects with charities, household names and service businesses.
Originally a graduate in French and Linguistics, Annmarie subsequently gained a
Masters in Business Administration, focusing on marketing planning. She studied
for the Chartered Institute of Marketing Diploma for which she won the Worshipful
Company of Marketors’ award for the best worldwide results.
As an early adopter, working in ‘online marketing’ since 1990, she is a Senior Examiner
in digital strategy, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, a Member of the
Marketing Institute Ireland and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Marketors.
Annmarie is past winner of the Mais Scholarship and her research interests include
the strategic use of social media in organisations, differences in practice between
generations and the technology that makes it happen.
Follow her updates on Twitter @AnnmarieHanlon
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Writing a textbook on digital marketing is achieved with a supporting cast of prac-
titioners and academics. As a hybrid part-academic and part-practitioner I am in a
wonderful and unique space with access to students as well as organisations of all
shapes. Whilst I would like to list everyone who has helped, this would be like the
never-ending speech at the awards ceremony! May I thank you all, you know who
you are #RoundOfApplause.
Special thanks are due to: Karen Jones at Aston University, who provided constant
motivation and helped with the content marketing and online communities chapters;
Adam Civval at Greendog Digital, David Peck at the University of Derby and Peter
Rees, an examiner in digital marketing, who all provided inspiration and ideas for
mobile marketing; Karl Weaver, the CEO of Isobar, who shared insights into program-
matic advertising; Richard Shambler, a long-established examiner in digital marketing
and an expert in the SAF framework; some of my former digital marketing students
now working in agencies and in-house: Joe Alder, Imogen Baumber and Jade Walden.
Thanks to those behind the scenes, including: Jonathan Saipe and Tracey Stern, who
deliver digital training at Emarketeers, Brian O’Kane at Oak Tree Press in Cork, who
inspired me to write my earlier practitioner books, Dave Chaffey, who encouraged
me to write a textbook, plus the plethora of anonymous reviewers who provided
fantastic feedback.
Translating the book from an idea to reality was made possible by the detailed
and dedicated SAGE team, ably managed by Matthew Waters, Delia Alfonso and
Jasleen Kaur.
PREFACE
Digital marketing is a journey that can take an organisation towards new markets,
discover new opportunities and protect the current landscape. In the digital marketing
journey you can choose to be a navigator or a passenger. As a navigator you explore
options, set the course and lead the way. As a passenger you can sit back and take
in the scenery or you can lean forward and advise the navigator.
Whilst digital marketing was established 20 years ago and is one of the fastest moving
and most exciting aspects of marketing today, there are fewer universities and colleges
providing digital marketing education. As a result there is still a lack of understanding
and fewer established frameworks to make it easier to adapt business practices and
adopt new ways of working. This book aims to provide that understanding and share
the latest concepts to apply in organisations, whether you are a student working on
a case study, or heading into your placement year, or juggling a part-time vocational
marketing module with work.
Students can think of this textbook as a digital marketing roadmap, a blueprint for
your digital journey, to enable you to become navigators rather than passengers.
The book contains three key parts. Depending on your knowledge you may start at
Part 1 or jump straight into Parts 2 or 3.
Part 1, Digital Marketing Essentials, equips you with a useful context to the digital
landscape. Discover the key concepts to understand how we arrived in this new world
and comprehend more about the changing digital consumer.
Part 2, Digital Marketing Tools, provides a rich source of the key components. It
starts with an overarching toolbox that explores all possible digital marketing tactics,
followed by more detail with dedicated chapters on content marketing, online com-
munities, mobile marketing and augmented, virtual and mixed reality. It is critical to
understand the tools available before embarking on a digital strategy.
Once you have comprehended the digital marketing tools, this is a good time to
explore Part 3, Digital Marketing Strategy and Planning. This part investigates digital
audit frameworks to ensure you are ready to develop the strategy and objectives,
before building the digital marketing plan. Newer issues, including social media
management, managing resources, digital marketing metrics, analytics and report-
ing, are included. The part concludes with methods of integrating, improving and
transforming digital marketing, enabling you to apply the knowledge and tools gained
though the chapters.
Enjoy the journey and let’s start the campaign to create more digital navigators!
ONLINE RESOURCES

Head online to access a wealth of online resources that will aid study and support
teaching, available at: https://study.sagepub.com/Hanlon. Digital Marketing:
Strategic Planning & Integration is accompanied by:

FOR LECTURERS
•• Editable PowerPoint slides will allow you to easily integrate each chapter into
your lessons and provide access to figures from the book
•• Kahoot! quizzes will help you test students’ knowledge and understanding
of the materials
•• Instructor manuals for each chapter will provide further support when teach-
ing each chapter and encourage discussion in sessions
•• A digital marketing strategy and plan template can be used to help students
get their project off the ground
•• Downloadable templates can be added to course resources or printed out
for use in class

FOR STUDENTS
•• Follow the links to SAGE journal articles selected by the authors to help you
supplement your reading and deepen your understanding of the key topics
outlined in each chapter
•• Access links to helpful websites with lots of extra information to reference
in your assignments
 PART 1
DIGITAL MARKETING
ESSENTIALS

CONTENTS

1 The Digital Marketing Landscape 3

2 The Digital Consumer 24
 1
THE DIGITAL
MARKETING LANDSCAPE

LEARNING OUTCOMES
When you have read this chapter, you will be able to:
Understand key issues in the digital landscape
Apply communications theories to a digital environment
Analyse technology change
Evaluate blockchain potential
Create a plan to become an opinion leader

PROFESSIONAL SKILLS
When you have worked through this chapter, you should be able to:

• Manage online reputation using third-party tools

• Apply the search engines’ EU privacy removal process for unwanted content
4 DIGITAL MARKETING

1.1 INTRODUCTION
The fast-changing digital landscape provides many opportunities for marketers. It is
important to understand key concepts such as ubiquitous computing and how the
pace of technology has changed. This chapter explains how traditional marketing
models like Diffusion of Innovation are still valid and apply to online opinion lead-
ers, as well as differences between generations.
We explore the meaning and impact of ‘digital disruption’ and ‘the Internet of Things’,
with new business models emerging to understand how this applies to consum-
ers. In a world where your personal information has value, you can discover more
about ‘big data’ and privacy issues that affect marketing plans. The last part of this
chapter considers bitcoin and blockchain and how this might influence the future of
data management.

1.2 A NEW ERA

The growth of digital marketing has changed the relationship between businesses
and customers. Scholars and practitioners agree that organisations are keen to use
digital marketing to engage with their customers and we have moved into a new era
where things look different.

KEY TERM UBIQUITOUS COMPUTING

The term ‘ubiquitous computing’ was originally coined by Mark Weiser, who was head of the
Computer Science Laboratory at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) when writing in
Scientific American in 1991 (Weiser, 1991). At that time Weiser commented that in the future
there would be computers everywhere and we would not notice their presence; they would
just be there.
Some decades later, we have computers at home and with us at university; they are embed-
ded in our mobiles, wearables, in cars, in outdoor billboards – everywhere. We have reached
Weiser’s vision that computers are integrated ‘seamlessly into the world at large’ (p. 94).

One of the reasons for these trends and the change in the digital landscape is due to
the acceleration in the adoption of new technologies. It took more than 50 years for
over 50% of US households to adopt telephones (imagine life with no phone!), nearly
20 years to adopt home computers, yet it took less than 10 years for the same group
to adopt smartphones.
In a pre-digital age, you booked a holiday by visiting the travel agents on the high
street. It was only on arrival at your holiday destination that you saw what the hotel
really looked like. Today you will go online, read reviews, see ‘traveller photos’ or
holiday snaps others have shared and ask questions of people who have actually
visited the destination ‘IRL’ (= in real life).
 The Digital Marketing Landscape 5

1.2.1 THE PACE OF TECHNOLOGY SUBSTITUTION

Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Ron Adner and Rahul Kapoor (2016) explored
the pace of technology substitution and suggested that the speed of replacement was
based on ecosystems. Old technology ecosystems may find product extension oppor-
tunities whereas the new technology ecosystems need to counter these challenges.
Within their framework there are four quadrants, as shown in Figure 1.1, which can
be described as:

• Creative destruction, where there are few challenges to the new tech and few
opportunities for the old tech, resulting in fast substitution.
• Robust coexistence, where the old tech fights back and brings out alternatives
and a gradual substitution takes place.
• Illusion of resilience, where the new tech moves in with few challenges.
• Robust resilience, where old tech fights back and new tech challenges, bringing
about a gradual substitution.

QUADRANT 3 QUADRANT 4
ECOSYSTEM EMERGENCE CHALLENGE FOR NEW TECHNOLOGY

ILLUSION OF RESILIENCE ROBUST RESILIENCE

STASIS FOLLOWED BY SLOWEST SUBSTITUTION
RAPID SUBSTITUTION • FULLY ELECTRIC CARS VS.
• GPS NAVIGATORS VS. GASOLINE-FUELLED CARS
HIGH PAPER MAPS • RFID CHIPS VS. BARCODES
• HIGH-DEFINITION TV VS. • DNA MEMORY VS.
STANDARD-DEFINITION TV SEMICONDUCTOR MEMORY
• MP3 FILES VS. CDS • CLOUD COMPUTING VS.
DESKTOP COMPUTING –
IN THE 1990S

QUADRANT 1 QUADRANT 2

CREATIVE DESTRUCTION ROBUST COEXISTENCE

FASTEST SUBSTITUTION GRADUAL SUBSTITUTION
• 16GB VS. 8GB FLASH DRIVES • SOLID-STATE VS. MAGNETIC
• INKJET PRINTERS VS. DOT STORAGE (E.G. FLASH MEMORY
LOW MATRIX PRINTERS VS. HARD DISK DRIVES)
• HYBRID ENGINES VS. INTERNAL-
COMBUSTION ENGINES
• CLOUD COMPUTING VS.
DESKTOP COMPUTING – IN 2016

LOW HIGH

ECOSYSTEM EXTENSION OPPORTUNITY FOR OLD TECHNOLOGY

Figure 1.1 A framework for analysing the pace of technology substitution

Source: Adner and Kapoor, 2016, p. 66
6 DIGITAL MARKETING

It could be argued that there are limitations to this framework as the research was
based on a five-year study in the semiconductor manufacturing industry and adop-
tion of new products is not always based on product desire, but also availability.
In some countries it is harder to get a landline phone than a mobile. The landline
requires wires and major investment whereas a mobile network is simpler to deploy.
At the same time, growth in landline telephone ownership is declining sharply, espe-
cially in the G12 industrially advanced nations. Explore the latest statistics on the
Telecommunication Development Sector (ITU-D, 2017).

Activity 1.1 Analyse Technology Change

1. Working in groups, use Figure 1.1, the framework for analysing the pace of technology substi-
tution, to analyse the types of technology changes that you have witnessed in your lifetime.
2. What were the greatest changes?
3. Why was this?
4. Are there any difficulties ensuring all four quadrants in the framework are included?

How do we learn about new products or what influences our judgement to adopt new
technology? In 1944 sociologists and behavioural scientists Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard
Berelson and Hazel Gaudet conducted a study to see how mass media affected voters
in the US election campaign for President Franklin Roosevelt (Lazarsfeld et al., 1944).
The surprising result of their research was that it was influencers, or opinion leaders,
not the media, that had the greatest impact. Influencers, who received the messages
from what at that time were mainly traditional newspapers and radio, shared this
with their ‘followers’.

1.2.2 TWO-STEP FLOW THEORY OF

COMMUNICATIONS
The research was further developed by Paul Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz who named this
the two-step flow theory of communications (Lazarsfeld and Katz, 1955) where the
media communication was received by the influencer and then passed to other
individuals.
There were limitations to the two-step flow theory of communications. It was based on
one piece of research, which meant that it was not necessarily generalisable to other
situations. It may be that this was a set of exceptional circumstances that could not be
repeated. Another issue is that it was a simplistic binary model which assumed that this
is how mass media worked. As a result of these limitations, the model was extended
from two to multiple steps (the multi-step flow), which was developed by John Robinson
(Robinson, 1976) and was used as a basis for other communications theories.
 The Digital Marketing Landscape 7

A key aspect of the digital environment is that we have moved from two-step or
multi-step to a totally different understanding of communications with newer models
emerging, such as media richness (see Chapter 11, Social Media Management) and
uses and gratifications theory (see Chapter 13, Digital Marketing Metrics, Analytics
and Reporting), although at the same time some much older theories, such as diffu-
sion of innovations, have remained valid.

KEY TERM DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS

In 1962 Everett Rogers published a book entitled Diffusion of Innovations, which was based on
the two-step flow of communications and explored the conditions that increased or decreased
the likelihood of product adoption.
In this model, based on how a product gains momentum and spreads or diffuses through
a group, Rogers proposed five adopter categories – (1) innovators; (2) early adopters; (3) early
majority; (4) late majority; (5) laggards – which considered the time at which an individual
adopted an innovation.
The five adopter categories were ideal types fabricated to make comparisons, and Rogers
recognised these generalisations. There was criticism of the terminology – no one wanted to be
considered as a laggard, which was perceived as being a negative label. Table 1.1 shows some
of the general characteristics identified, which I have adapted to apply to digital marketing.
The one notable category is that early majority were seen as opinion leaders, an idea
which was identified in the two-step flow theory of communications and which reverberates
within digital marketing as organisations strive to seek those to influence product adoption.

Table 1.1 Adopter categories and general characteristics

Adopter category General characteristics % adopters of innovation

(1) Innovators Active information seekers, often 2.5
buying the latest gadget – who
in class has a pair of Snapchat
Spectacles?
(2) Early Adopters Opinion leaders who are happy 13.5
adopting new products, seeking
information before others – whose
opinion do you seek in class when
buying gadgets?
(3) Early Majority Deliberate before adopting – 34.0
active blog readers who like to
gather evidence before deciding.
(4) Late Majority Sceptical and nearly the last 34.0
to adopt – they may still own a
feature phone.
(5) Laggards Suspicious of inventions and only 16
adopt when no choice – perhaps
the one remaining lecturer with no
mobile phone!
8 DIGITAL MARKETING

Rogers generalised that opinion leaders (see Key Term) were more cosmopolitan
than their followers. One prescient observation from Rogers was that opinion leaders
needed access to mass media and had to be accessible. Think about those opinion
leaders with mass followers on YouTube and Twitter – they meet these conditions.

KEY TERMS OPINION FORMERS AND

OPINION LEADERS
Opinion formers are formal experts. They work in this area, may be qualified or professionally
trained and have significant specialist knowledge about the subject.
Opinion leaders are informal experts who carry out research and whose knowledge is
valued amongst family, friends and followers.

As Lazarsfeld, Berelson, Gaudet, Katz and Rogers observed, the opinion leaders, or
influencers, are key to spreading the word about new products and services. These
influencers are generating an income from their online following and, according to
Forbes.com (O’Connor, 2017), a paid-for social media post can be very lucrative, with
fees of $25,000 paid to a top yoga teacher (e.g. Rachel Brathen) for their endorsement
or $3000 to $5000 paid to a recognised fitness instructor.
The fees can be higher for specific social media platforms where they have greater
numbers of followers and fans, for example:

• $300,000 for a YouTuber with 7 million subscribers or more

• $200,000 for Facebook
• $150,000 for Instagram

In our digital age, as celebrities charge more and more to promote brands, brands
are turning to alternatives. We have seen the development of a new type of opinion
leader, the micro-influencer. Forbes.com suggested that ‘an Instagram user with
100,000 followers can command $5,000 for a post made in partnership with a com-
pany or brand’ (O’Connor, 2017, p. 1).

KEY TERM MICRO-INFLUENCERS

Carol Scott, whilst director of marketing at a specialist influencer company, described micro-
influencers as ‘everyday individuals with small, dedicated followings online’ (Scott, 2016, p. 1).

Writing in Adweek, Emma Bazilian provided a profile of a female millennial micro-

influencer: typically aged between 18 and 34 with 2000 to 25,000 Instagram followers,
attracting an engagement rate of 3% and higher. Their key topics were fashion,
 The Digital Marketing Landscape 9

beauty, travel or fitness (Bazilian, 2017). Bazilian added that the brand marketers
could employ these micro-influencers to promote and increase product and brand
awareness and specifically to:

• Seed products
• Promote sample products
• Share unbox videos
• Create ‘how to’ videos
• Develop ‘day in the life of’
• Share trending content
• Attend events
• Promote discount codes
• Host product competitions

Smartphone Sixty Seconds® –

Evaluate Your Influencers
On your mobile phone search for your favourite influencers. You might follow them on Instagram but
they may have additional social media profiles too.

• Find all their online profiles.

• Add up the number of followers on each.
• Find a sponsored post and share with classmates.
• Try to figure out what they were paid for the post and what impact you think it had.

Case Example 1.1 Eltoria Influencer

Marketing
Eltoria is the alter ego of Simone Partner and, as an influencer, Simone is not an ‘IT girl’ or someone
who has a famous dad. She had a very different starting point and is a law graduate from the Uni-
versity of Reading, where she gained a 2:1 degree.
In the last year of studying law, Simone’s course included one non-law module and she opted for
‘entrepreneurship’ and for her assessment started the Eltoria UK fashion and lifestyle blog based on
her interests. At the time she was working at the organic skincare firm Lush. She enjoyed the module,
which was evidenced in her results – a first-class grade. After university she pursued a career in law
and her first job was in a big commercial firm, which she didn’t enjoy, so she tried a smaller legal firm.
However, in both firms she discovered that law was not a career in which she felt she could work for
(Continued)
10 DIGITAL MARKETING

(Continued)

the rest of her life. Having continued with the blog and subsequently winning many awards, Simone
realised that it could be a career option. The awards allowed Simone to take some time off and focus
on the blog to see if it could work.
Today Simone has generated an impressive following on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and
Twitter. She is not the average fashion blogger: she’s intelligent, her content is well written, with great
depth and analysis. Having been at university, she has had typical student jobs in retail stores and
understands the challenges faced by those who are working and studying. This may be one of the
reasons that she is popular with university students – she understands their situation.
In terms of a typical week, Simone records five to six videos and sometimes works for 12 hours a day
to complete the content for a brand contract. There is a lot of work that takes place behind the scenes.
Having created the brand, her website showcases the social media services provided:

• Social media support

• Sponsored blog posts
• YouTube partnerships
• Ambassador campaigns

See more at www.eltoria.com

Case Questions
• What do you think about micro-influencers like Eltoria?
• Did you realise serious lifestyle bloggers could be working 50 or 60 hours a week?

1.2.3 THE MOVE FROM TRADITIONAL TO DIGITAL

MARKETING TOOLS
How did we make the move from traditional to digital marketing tools?
As technology has decreased in price, and with the development of the internet, digital
marketing has offered easier, but not always cheaper, solutions. Plus, new technology
has heralded changes in behaviour (see Chapter 2, The Digital Consumer), resulting
in the decline of traditional marketing tools, as shown in Table 1.2.

Table 1.2 The move from traditional to digital marketing tools

Traditional Digital Why the change?

Newspaper and Online adverts; Newspaper and magazine sales have declined and it’s easier to
magazine adverts social media, PPC target people online

Door-to-door sales Email Door-to-door is expensive and we can now personalise offers to
people existing customers via email

Company brochures Websites Printing brochures is expensive, so is creating websites, but they
are agile and easier to change as needed
 The Digital Marketing Landscape 11

Traditional Digital Why the change?

Traditional PR Online PR, blogs With the decline in newspaper and magazine sales, the number
of staff has declined too; online PR makes the process easier

Directories like the Search engine The default is to search online and voice search is growing, so
Yellow Pages marketing directories have become smaller and are rarely used

Community groups Social networks We live in a more mobile world where people move from home
towns to find work, so traditional community groups have
declined, but social media networks increased

The challenge is that not all generations have made that move, as we will explore
in the next part.

1.3 DIGITAL NATIVES AND

DIGITAL IMMIGRANTS
If you’re a student at university now, there’s a good chance that you’re a digital native.
You’ve been born into a time when mobile phones, tablets and wearables are the norm.
The research says that you rarely watch TV in real time, you’d rather view YouTube. You
don’t send letters, you use WhatsApp. You don’t use Yellow Pages, you ask Siri. As you’re
using a range of digital tools to talk, shop and share, some of the older generation of
digital immigrants are seeking your help to plan and organise their digital marketing.
The words ‘digital native’ and ‘digital immigrant’ weren’t invented by me; they are
part of a range of generational cohorts, which are shown in Table 1.3 with selected
reference sources for you to explore further.

Table 1.3 Generational cohorts

Term Birth years Selected sources

Baby Boomers Born mid-1946 to mid-1964 Porter, 1951; Hogan et al., 2008
Generation X Mid-1960s to the late 1970s/early Coupland, 1991; Hamblett and
1980s Deverson, 1964
Digital Immigrants Born before 1980 Prensky, 2001a
Digital Natives Born after 1980 Prensky, 2001b; Palfrey and Gasser,
2008
Net Generation Born between 1982 and 1991 Tapscott, 1998
Millennials Born in or after 1982 Howe and Strauss, 2000
Google Generation Born after 1993 Rowlands et al., 2008
Generation Y Born between 1981 and 1999 Bolton et al., 2013
Generation C Born after 1990 Dye, 2007; Friedrich et al., 2010

Some cohorts cross into another generation. This is because there is no official
agreement on the terms, nor are they formally defined by government, but mainly
by researchers and consultants working in advertising who see the different
behaviours developing.
12 DIGITAL MARKETING

The terms ‘digital native’ and digital immigrant’ are considered by some as being con-
troversial and by others as divisive. The phrases are largely credited to Marc Prensky,
who was teaching groups of students and realised there was a marked difference
between the students who had always used technology and teachers who were new
to this. He described the situation as similar to learning a new language, where immi-
grants move into a new country and learn the language but it is never their mother
tongue, so they might always retain an accent. In the same way he thought that those
who had to learn about technology would retain this ‘accent’.
The work has been criticised due to the phraseology and as some people objected
to the labels. I’m a digital immigrant but love technology and as an early adopter I
could see how it would make life easier. Equally, I sometimes witness students who
are digital natives, struggling with newer technologies.
Looking at the most recent group, Generation C, Jessica Dye said this stood for con-
tent but commented in her website that it could stand for creativity, consumption
or connected. Roman Friedrich and his colleagues at the international management
consultancy Strategy& (previously known as Booz & Company) stated that the ‘C’ rep-
resented connect, communicate and change. The key factor is that this demonstrated
the lack of consensus with these terms.

1.4 DIGITAL DISRUPTION

Every era sees disruption from newer technologies that replace outmoded methods
of delivery, service, production or communication. The introduction of the internet
removed the need for the telex machine and soon replaced fax machines as methods
of urgent and business communication.
Although the phrase ‘digital disruption’ probably came about following the creation
of the law of disruption, named by journalist Larry Downes (Downes, 2009), we don’t
have an official definition, so we could describe digital disruption as ‘major mar-
ketplace changes or sector transformation, following the application of technology’.
Bain & Company, one of the world’s leading management consultancy firms, has
explored the application of digital disruption across industry sectors, as shown in
Figure 1.2.
Digital disruption started with the introduction of the internet and initially we had
‘brochureware sites’ or what Fareena Sultan and Andrew Rohm described as ‘the com-
munication of basic Web-site content’ (Sultan and Rohm, 2004, p. 8). We gradually
moved into online shopping, and today Amazon has extended the disruptive shopping
experience with the ultimate disrupter – the Amazon Dash Button, where shoppers
simply press a button to re-order specific products (Amazon, 2017).
The internet has evolved from super-slow dial-up to super-fast with data being retained
and easy to access. The internet has only disrupted our lives in the last few years,
with the rollout of broadband at consumer rather than business level, which enabled
faster and easier access for mass markets (see Discover More on the Past and Future
History of the Internet).
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
 “The marriage system all over the world, from the earliest ages
till now, is a barrier in the way of such true union. That is why
woman’s shakti, in all existing societies, is so shamefully wasted
and corrupted. That is why in every country marriage is still
more or less of a prison-house for the confinement of women—
with all its guards wearing the badge of the dominant male. That
is why man, by dint of his efforts to bind woman, has made her
the strongest of fetters for his own bondage. That is why woman
is debarred from adding to the spiritual wealth of society by the
perfection of her own nature, and all human societies are
weighed down with the burden of the resulting poverty.
“The civilization of man has not, up to now, loyally recognized
the reign of the spirit. Therefore the married state is still one of
the most fruitful sources of the unhappiness and downfall of
man, of his disgrace and humiliation. But those who believe that
society is a manifestation of the spirit will assuredly not rest in
their endeavors till they have rescued human marriage relations
from outrage by the brute forces of society—till they have
thereby given free play to the force of love in all the concerns of
humanity.”

Such is the Hindu poet’s explanation of the ideals underlying the

institution of marriage in the communal society of the Hindus. One
feels through his closing lines the poet’s sorrow at the sight of the
misery caused by a wrong conception of marriage throughout the
civilized world. The poet cherishes, however, the fond hope that a
day of the reign of spirit will dawn over the world, when mankind will
recognize the necessity of giving to the forces of love a free play in
the wide concerns of life.
Marriage in India involves two separate ceremonies. The first
ceremony is the more elaborate, and judging from the permanent
character of its obligations, the more important. It is performed amid
much festivity and show. The bridal party, consisting of the
bridegroom with his chief relatives and friends, goes to the bride’s
home in an elaborate musical procession. There the party is
handsomely feasted as guests of the bride for one or more days,
according to the means of the host. The groom furnishes the
entertainment, which consists of music, acrobatic dancing, jugglers’
tricks, fireworks, and so forth. The day is spent in simple outdoor
amusements like hunting, horseback riding, swimming, or gymnastic
plays, the nature of the sport depending upon the surroundings. In
the evening, by the light of the fireworks, and in the midst of a large
crowd of near relatives and spectators, the ceremony of the “union,”
namely, the spiritual unification of the near relatives of the bride and
the bridegroom, is staged in a highly picturesque manner. In order of
their relation to the bride and groom—father of the bride with the
father of the bridegroom, first uncle of the one with the first uncle of
the other, and so forth—the near relatives of the future couple
embrace each other and exchange head-dresses as a symbol of
eternal friendship. Each such pledge of friendship is beautifully
harmonized with a song and a blessing from the daughters of the
village. Later in the evening, the girls lead the guests to the bridal
feast, singing in chorus on their march the “Welcome Home.”
Marriage in the Indian home is thus an occasion of great rejoicing.
The atmosphere that prevails throughout the entire ceremony is one
of extreme wholesomeness and joy. Nothing could surpass the
loveliness and charm that surrounds the evening march to the bridal
feast. The pretty maidens of the village, who are conscious of their
dignity as personifications of the Deity and are inspired with a
devoted love for their sister bride, come in their gay festival dresses,
with mingled feelings of pride and modesty, to lead the procession
with a song; their eyes moistened with slowly gathering tears of deep
and chaste emotion, and their faces wrapped in ever changing
blushes, give to the whole picture a distinctive flavor of an inspiring
nature. On the following morning the couple are united in marriage
by the officiating priest, who reads from the scriptures while the
husband and wife pace together the seven steps. The vow of equal
comradeship which is taken by both the husband and the wife on this
occasion reads thus:

“Become thou my partner, as thou hast paced all the seven

steps with me.... Apart from thee I cannot live. Apart from me do
thou not live. We shall live together; we each shall be an object
 of love to the other; we shall be a source of joy each unto the
other; with mutual goodwill shall we live together.”[18]

The marriage ceremony being over, the bridal party departs with the
bride for the bridegroom’s home. On this first trip the bride is
accompanied by a maid, and the two return home together after an
overnight’s stay. The bride then remains at her parental home until
the performance of the second ceremony. The interval between the
two ceremonies varies from a few days to several years, depending
mainly upon the ages of the married couple and the husband’s ability
to support a home.
This dual ceremonial has been the cause of a great deal of
confusion in the western mind. To all appearances the first ceremony
is the more important as it is termed marriage. After it the bride
begins to dress and behave like a married woman, but the couple do
not begin to live together until the second ceremony has also been
performed, and these two acts may be separated from each other by
a considerably long period. In other words the so-called marriage of
the Hindu girl is nothing but “an indefeasible betrothal in the western
sense.” The custom of early marriage (or betrothal, to be more
exact) has existed in some parts of the country from earlier times,
but it became more common during the period of the Mohammedan
invasions into India. These foreign invaders were in the habit of
forcibly converting to Islam the beautiful Hindu maidens, whom they
later married. But no devout Mohammedan ever injures or thinks evil
towards a married woman. His religion strictly forbids such practice.
Thus, to safeguard the honor of their young daughters the Hindus
adopted this custom of early marriage.
The girl’s marriage, however, makes no change in her life. She
continues to live with her parents as before, and is there taught
under her mother’s supervision the elementary duties of a
household. She is instructed at the same time in other matters
concerning a woman’s life. When she becomes of an age to take
upon herself the responsibilities of married life, the second marriage
ceremony is finished and she departs for her new home.
It is true that the standard of education among East Indian women as
compared with that of other countries is appallingly low. We shall
leave the discussion of the various political factors which have
contributed to this deplorable state of things for a later chapter. For
the present it will be sufficient to point out that even though the
Indian girl is illiterate and unable to read and write, she is not
uninstructed or uninformed in the proper sense of the word
education.
She knows how to cook, to sew, to embroider, and to do every other
kind of household work. She is fully informed concerning matters of
hygiene and sex. In matters intellectual her mind is developed to the
extent that “she understands thoroughly the various tenets of her
religion and is quite familiar with Hindu legends and the subject
matter in the epic literature of India.”
My mother was the daughter of a village carpenter. She was brought
up in the village under the exclusive guidance of her mother and did
not have any school education. Mother, in her turn, has reared seven
children who have all grown to be perfectly healthy and normal boys
and girls. Even though we could easily afford a family doctor, we
never had one. Mother seemed to know so much about hygienic and
medical science that she did not need a doctor. Her little knowledge
she had acquired from her own mother; it consisted of a few simple
rules, which she observed very faithfully. As little children, we were
required to clean our teeth with a fresh twig, to be individually
chewed into a brush, every morning before breakfast, and to wash
the mouth thoroughly with water after each meal. For the morning
teeth cleaning we were supplied with twigs from a special kind of
tree which leaves in the mouth a very pleasant taste and contains
juices of a beneficial nature. Also, chewing a small twig every
morning gives good exercise to the teeth and furnishes the
advantage of a new brush each time. We were told that dirty teeth
were unmannerly and hurt a person’s eyesight and general heath. A
cold water bath once a day and washing of both hands before and
after each meal were other fundamental requirements.
For every kind of family sickness, whether it was a headache, a
fever, a cold in the head, or a bad cough, the prescription was
always the same. A mixture of simple herbs was boiled in water and
given to the patient for drinking. Its only effect was a motion of the
bowels. It was not a purgative, but had very mild and wholesome
laxative properties without any after reactions. Fasting during
sickness was highly recommended. In nearly every month occurred
some special festival day on which the whole family fasted. This fast
had a purifying effect on the systems of growing children. As another
precautionary measure, my mother prepared for the children, every
winter, a special kind of preserve from a bitter variety of black beans,
which is supposed to possess powerful blood-purifying properties.
With the exception of quinine during malarial epidemics, we were
never given any drugs whatsoever. These simple medicines,
combined with a fresh vegetable diet for every day in the year,
constituted my mother’s only safeguards against family sickness.
And from my knowledge I know that her system worked miraculously
well.
During pregnancy it is customary to surround the young girl with
every precaution. She returns to her parental home in order to
secure freedom from sexual intercourse during that period. In the
months before my eldest sister bore her first child, I remember how
she was instructed not to permit herself to be excited in any way.
Pictures of the ideal wife, Sita, and of national heroes and heroines
were hung all over the house for my sister to look at and admire. She
was freed from all household responsibilities in order that she could
devote her time to reading good stories from the Hindu epics. Every
kind of irritant, like pepper and spices, was rigidly excluded from her
diet, and after the child was born she refrained from injudicious
combinations of food until the child was a year or more old.
Every night at bedtime my mother had a new story to tell the
children, a story which she herself had heard at bedtime when she
was young. These stories were drawn from the great Hindu epics,
and there was always a useful maxim connected with them. The tale
was told to bring home to the growing children some moral maxim
like truthfulness, fidelity to a pledge once given, conjugal happiness,
and respect for parents. In this manner the children in the most
ignorant homes become familiar with the ethical teachings of their
nation and with the hypotheses underlying their respective religions.
Almost everyone in India down to the most ignorant countrywoman
understands the subtle meaning of such intricate Hindu doctrines as
the laws of Karma, the theory of reincarnation, and the philosophy of
Maya.
As was stated earlier in this chapter, much misinformation about the
so-called child marriage has been spread by ignorant missionaries,
and has been eagerly swallowed by most western readers. It may be
well to observe here that the two expressions “child marriage” and
“early marriage” are very widely apart in meaning. The psychological
impressions conveyed by the two expressions are distinctly different.
If the first ceremony of the Hindu marriage is to be taken as meaning
marriage, what is practised in India perhaps more than anywhere
else in the world is early marriage and not child marriage. Even at
that, early marriage is essentially wrong in principle. Its usefulness in
earlier times, when it was first recommended by the Hindu lawgivers
as a necessary measure to preserve the communal life of the nation,
cannot be denied.
Like many other laws of those times, it has outlived its usefulness,
and through the influence of many corruptions which have been
added to the practice during ages, it has become a curse to the
country. This fact is frankly admitted by the leaders of modern India.
In the writings and speeches of the most prominent among them the
custom of early marriage has been condemned as a “deadly vermin
in Hindu social life,” and a “ghastly form of injustice.” Beginning with
the days of the eminent Hindu reformer Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the
whole literature of social and religious reform in India is full of loud
and emphatic denunciations of early marriage.
As a result of the untiring, self-sacrificing efforts of Hindu reformers a
great measure of success has already been achieved. The Hindu
girl’s age of marriage has been steadily increasing during the last
fifty years. According to figures from the official Census Report of
India (1921) only 399 out of every 1000 girls were married at the end
of their fifteenth year. In other words, 60 per cent of Indian girls
remained unmarried at the beginning of their sixteenth year.
Moreover, in the official records of India every girl who has passed
through the first ceremony of her marriage is included in the married
class. If we allow a little further concession on account of the warmer
climate of India, which has the tendency to lower the age of maturity
in girls, we shall concede that the present conditions in India in
respect to early marriage are not strikingly different from those in
most European countries. At the same time it must not be forgotten
that in India sex life begins invariably after marriage, and never
before marriage. Those familiar with the conditions in the western
countries know that such is not always the rule there.
One evening the writer was talking in rather favorable terms to a
small group of friends about the Hindu system of marriage. While
several nodded their habitual, matter-of-fact, courteous assent, one
young lady (Dorothy), a classmate and an intimate friend, suddenly
said in an impatient tone, “This is all very foolish. By using those
sweet expressions in connection with the Hindu family life you do not
mean to tell me that marriage between two strangers, who have
never met in life before, or known each other, can be ever happy or
just. ‘Felicity,’ ‘peace,’ ‘harmony,’ ‘wedded love,’ ‘idealization of the
husband’—this is all bunk. That you should approve the blindfold
yoking together for life of innocent children in indefeasible marriage,
is outrageous. The system is shocking; it is a sin against decency. It
is war against the most sacred of human instincts and emotions, and
as such I shall condemn it as criminal and uncivilized.” Yet the young
lady was in no sense of the word unsympathetic or unfriendly to
India. She is, and has always been, a great friend and admirer of
India.
Dorothy is not much of a thinker, but she is very liberal and likes to
be called a radical. You could discuss with her any subject
whatsoever, even Free Love and Birth Control, with perfect ease and
lack of restraint. She is twenty-five years of age and unmarried. She
has been “in love” several times, but for one reason or the other she
has not yet found her ideal man. She would not tell this to everybody,
but to one of her boy friends, “whose big blue eyes had poetic
inspiration in them,” and who seemed to be fine and good and true in
every way, better than the best she had ever met before, and whom
she loved quite genuinely, she had given herself completely on one
occasion. This happened during a week-end trip to the mountains,
and was the first and last of her sexual experience. She said it was
the moral as well as the physical feast of her life. Later she saw him
flirting in a doubtful manner with a coarse Spanish girl, which made
him loathsome in her eyes. Gradually her love for him began to
dwindle, until it died off completely, leaving behind, however, a deep
mortal scar in her spiritual nature. For a period, Dorothy thought she
could never love any man again, until she began to admire a young
college instructor in a mild fashion. He is, however, “so kind and
intelligent and different from the rest,” with a fine physique and
handsome face—his powerful forehead setting so beautifully against
his thick curly hair—that she calls magnificent. It matters little that he
is married, because she writes him the most enchanting letters.
Dorothy’s love for the handsome professor is platonic. She says it
will exist forever, even though she entertains no hope of ever
marrying him. Yet while she talked about her latest “ideal,” a stream
of tears gathered slowly in her big luminous eyes. They were the
tears of hopeless resignation. Dorothy is beautiful, and possesses
rare grace and charm of both body and mind. She is well situated in
the business world, and is not in want of men admirers. But yet she
is unhappy, extremely unhappy. She has had the freedom, but no
training to make proper use of it. While she was still in her early
teens she started going on picnic parties with different boys. Under
the impulse of youthful passion she learned to kiss any one and
every one in an indiscriminate fashion. This destroyed the sanctity of
her own moral and spiritual nature, and also killed, at the same time,
her respect for the male sex. Sacredness of sex and respect for man
being thus destroyed in her early years, she could not easily find an
ideal husband in later life. If she had been a stupid creature with no
imagination and no deep finer feelings she would have fallen
suddenly in love anywhere—there to pass the rest of her humdrum
and joyless existence in an everlasting stupor. Surely Dorothy did not
remember her own tragedy when she condemned the lot of the
Hindu girls in such vehement manner. Vanity is an ugly fault, yet it
gives great pleasure.
Unlike India, where from their very childhood girls are initiated into
matters of sex, and where the ideal of acquiring a husband and a
family is kept before their minds from the beginning, American boys
and girls are brought up in utter ignorance of every thing pertaining
to sex. Sex is considered as something unclean, filthy, and
nauseous, and so unworthy of the attention and thought of young
children. And yet there is no country in the world where sex is kept
more prominently before the public eye in every walk of daily life
than in America. The first impression which a stranger landing in
America gets is of the predominance of sex in its daily life. The
desire of the American woman to show her figure to what Americans
call “the coarse eye of man,” expresses itself in short skirts and tight
dresses. “American movies are made with no other purpose in view
than to emphasize sex.” A college professor was recently told by one
of the six biggest directors of motion pictures in Hollywood, through
whose hands passed a business amounting to millions of dollars,
that in making a motion picture sex must constantly be borne in
mind. The story must be based on that knowledge, scenes selected
with this view, and the plot executed with that thought in mind.
Vaudeville shows, one of America’s national amusements, are
nothing but a suggestive display of the beautiful legs of young girls,
who appear on the stage scantily dressed and touch their foreheads
with the toes in a highly suggestive manner.
The writer was told by an elderly American lady that the American
national dances had a deep religious connotation. A spiritual thought
may exist behind American music, and its effect on the American
youth may be quite uplifting, but certainly such dances as the one
called “Button shining dance,” in which a specially close posture is
necessary, was invented with no high spiritual end in view. A
wholesale public display of bare legs to the hips, and a close view of
the rest of their bodies in tight bathing suits may be seen on the
national beaches. Young couples lie on the sands in public view
closely locked in seemingly everlasting embraces.
While all this may be very pure, innocent, harmless, and even
uplifting in its hidden nature, its outward and more prevalent
character indicates an almost vicious result of the ideal of bringing
up the nation’s youth improperly instructed in matters of sex and its
proper function.
The immediate effect of this anomalous condition in America
resulting from the misinstruction regarding sex by its youth on the
one hand, and the most exaggerated prominence given sex in its
national life is particularly disastrous and excessively humiliating.
Using the word moral in its popular conventional meaning, it may be
very frankly said that the morals of the American youth are anything
but exemplary. Judge Ben B. Lindsey, who is fully authorized to
speak on the subject from his experience as head of the Juvenile
court in Denver for over twenty-five years, and who is one of the
keenest contemporary thinkers in America, has stated facts in his
book, The Revolt of Modern Youth, which are appalling. He writes:

“The first item in the testimony of the high school students is that
of all the youth who go to parties, attend dances, and ride
together in automobiles, more than 90 per cent indulge in
hugging and kissing. This does not mean that every girl lets any
boy hug and kiss her, but that she is hugged and kissed.
“The second part of the message is this. At least 50 per cent of
those who begin with hugging and kissing do not restrict
themselves to that, but go further, and indulge in other sex
liberties which, by all the conventions, are outrageously
improper.
“Now for the third part of the message. It is this: Fifteen to
twenty-five per cent of those who begin with the hugging and
kissing eventually ‘go the limit.’ This does not, in most cases,
mean either promiscuity or frequency, but it happens.”[19]

This situation is alarming, and the leaders of the country must take
immediate notice of it. When fifteen to twenty-five girls out of every
hundred in any country indulge in irresponsible sexual relationships
between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, that country is not in a
healthy moral condition. The effect of these early sexual intimacies
between young girls and boys is ruinous to their later spiritual
growth. How the situation may be remedied is a serious problem,
which is not the task of any foreigner, however honest and friendly,
to solve.
It may be of value to point out here how the Hindu thinkers sought to
control this situation. We quoted above the frank opinion of an
American college girl regarding the Hindu system of marriage. The ill
opinion of the Hindu system of marriage held by most westerners,
springs, however, not from their knowledge of the situation, but from
its very novelty, and from the dissociation of the name romance from
its system. The western method of marriage emphasizes freedom for
the individual, and as such its fundamental basis is both noble and
praiseworthy. From the exercise of freedom have developed some of
the finest traits of character; freedom, in fact, has been the source of
inspiration for the highest achievements of the human race. But
freedom in sex relationship without proper knowledge transforms
itself into license, as its exercise in the commercial relationships of
the world without sympathy and vision develops into tyranny. An
illustration of the former consequence may be seen in the disastrous
effect of the wrong kind of freedom on the morals of the American
youth; the slums of the industrial world are the results of the laissez
faire policy when it is allowed to proceed unchecked, on its reckless
career.
In India marriage is regarded as a necessity in life; in the case of
woman it is the most conclusive of all incidents, the one action to
which all else in life is subsidiary. From marriage springs not only her
whole happiness, but on it also depends the fulfilment of her very
life. Marriage to a woman is a sacrament—an entrance into the
higher and holier regions of love and consecration—and motherhood
is to her a thing of pride and duty. From childhood she has been
trained to be the ideal of the husband whom marriage gives her.
Dropping longingly into the embrace of her husband with almost
divine confidence in his protection and love, she begins to look at the
whole universe in a different light. “Are the heavens and the earth so
suddenly transformed? Do the birds and trees, the stars and the
heavens above, take on a more brilliant coloring, and the wind begin
to murmur a sweeter music?” Or is it true that she is herself
transformed at the gentle touch of him who is henceforth to be her
lord?
So limitless is the power of human emotion that we can create in our
own imagination scenes of a joyful existence, which, when they are
finally realized, bring about miraculous changes in us almost
overnight. This miracle is no fiction; it is a reality. An overnight’s
blissful acquaintance with her husband has altered the constitution of
many a girl’s body and given to her figure nobler curves. I have seen
my own sister given in marriage, a girl of 18, a slender, playful, fond
child with barely a sign of womanhood in her habits and carriage;
and after a month when I went for a visit to her home I found it
difficult to recognize my own sister. How suddenly had the marital
union transformed her! In the place of a slender, sprightly girl was
now a plump woman with a blooming figure, seeming surcharged
with radiant energy; in the place of a straight childish look in the eyes
there was a look of happiness, wisdom, understanding that was
inspiring and ennobling. The atmosphere around my sister, once a
girl, now a woman, was of such a divine character and her
appearance expressed such exquisite joy that I fell spontaneously
into her arms, and before we separated our eyes were wet with tears
of joy. Seeing my sister so beautiful and so happy, I was happy; and
in her moment of supreme joy her brother, the beloved companion of
early days, became doubly dear to her. Some moments in our lives
are difficult, nay, impossible to forget. This experience was of so
illuminating a nature that it is still as vivid in my mind as if it had
happened yesterday.
The explanation is very simple. In the mind of my sister, as in the
mind of every other Indian girl, the idea of a husband had been
uppermost since her very childhood. Around his noble appearance,
fine carriage, and handsome expression she must have woven many
a beautiful story. Each time she saw one of her girl friends given in
marriage to a “flower-crowned bridegroom, dressed in saffron-
colored clothes, riding in procession on a decorated horse,” and
accompanied by music and festivity, she must have dreamed. And
then when the ideal of her childhood was realized, no wonder she
found in his company that height of emotional exaltation which
springs from the proper union of the sexes and is the noblest gift of
God to man. The American girl thinks my sister married a stranger,
but she had married an ideal, a creation of her imagination, and a
part of her own being.
The wise Hindu system which keeps the idea of a husband before
the girls from their childhood will not be easily understood by the
conventional western mind. Those who consider sex as something
“unclean and filthy” and have formed the conviction that its thoughts
and its very name must be strictly kept away from growing children
must learn two fundamental truths. In the first place, nothing in sex is
filthy or unclean; on the other hand, sex is “the purest and the
loveliest thing in life and if properly managed is emotionally exalting
and highly uplifting for our moral and spiritual development.”[20]
Secondly, to imagine that by maintaining a conspiracy of silence on
the subject of sex one can exclude its thought totally from the lives of
growing children is to betray in the grossest form ignorance of
natural laws.
In India, however, sex is considered a necessary part of a healthy
individual’s life; it is a sacred and a lovely thing; and, as such, it is to
be carefully examined and carefully cultivated. The sexual impulse is
recognized as the strongest of human impulses, and any attempt to
thwart it by outside force must result in disaster to the individual and
in ruin to social welfare. To overcome sex hunger by keeping people
ignorant of it is the meanest form of hypocrisy. To deny facts is not to
destroy them. It is not only stupid but cowardly to imagine that one
could make people moral and spiritual by keeping them ignorant and
superstitious. Show them the light, and they will find their own way.
Teach children the essentials of life, encourage in them the habit of
independent thought, show them by example and precept the
beauties of moral grandeur, and they will develop within themselves
the good qualities of self-respect and self-restraint which will further
insure against many pitfalls. Says the Hindu proverb: “A woman’s
best guard is her own virtue.” Virtue is a thing which must spring
from within and can never be imposed from the outside.
The atmosphere in the Hindu household and the attitude of the elder
members of the family to each other is of such a nature that the boys
and girls gradually become aware of the central facts of nature. In
fact, no attempt is made to hide from the children anything about
their life functions. The subjects of marriage and child birth are freely
discussed in the family gatherings. Children are never excluded
when a brother or sister is born, and no one tells them stories of little
babies brought in baskets by the doctors or by storks. Whenever the
growing children ask curious questions about physiological facts,
they are given the necessary information to the extent that it will be
intelligible to them.
The experience in India has clearly demonstrated the fact that if
young boys and girls are properly instructed in the laws of nature,
and if the knowledge is backed up by the right kind of moral stimulus
and idealism, these young people can be relied upon to develop
invincible powers of self-restraint and self-respect. Such boys and
girls will have noble aspirations and will grow into fine-spirited men
and women of healthy moral character and of unquestionable poise.
The writer has no desire to eulogize the Hindu system of marriage,
or to disparage the Occidental. An attempt has been made to
diagnose the prevalent consequences of two systems. The Hindu
customs certainly need modification in view of the rapid economic
and social changes; the western system displays a deplorable lack
of adjustment to new conditions in those countries. The writer merely
asks the reader to remember that just because a system is different,
it need not be outrageous.

FOOTNOTES:
[13] Katherine Mayo.
[14] Quoted from Cousins—Awakening of Asian Womanhood, page
40.
[15] Coomaraswamy.
[16] Coomaraswamy—Dance of Siva, page 88.
[17] Tagore.
[18] Quoted from Cousins—The Awakening of Asian Womanhood,
page 38.
[19] Pages 56, 59, 62.
[20] Ben B. Lindsey.
 Chapter III
THE CIVILIZATION AND ETHICS OF INDIA
The distinctive feature of Hindu culture is its femininity. While the
northern branch of the Aryan family represented by the European
group had to undergo hard struggle with unyielding nature on
account of a barren soil and the severity of cold climate, which
developed in them the masculine qualities of aggressiveness, force,
and exertion, the southern branch of the Aryan family, who migrated
into the smiling valleys of the Indus and the Ganges, found in their
new home abundance of physical comfort. The extreme fertility of
soil and the warm climate made existence easy and left them leisure
for speculation and thought—conditions which have tended to make
the people of India emotional, meditative, and mystic. The bounty of
nature released them from struggle, and the resulting freedom from
material cares and security of existence developed in the Hindu
character the benevolent qualities of tolerance and thankfulness.[21]
The peace-loving nature of the Hindu mind shows itself in its early
ventures into the study of the higher and deeper problems of life.
When they began to inquire into the secrets of the universe and its
relationship to human life with a view to discovering the mystery of
our existence on this planet, they were dominated solely by an
absolute and unqualified love of truth. “They never quarreled about
their beliefs or asked any questions about individual faiths. Their only
ambition was to acquire knowledge of the universe,—of its origin and
cause,—and to understand the whence and whither, the who and
what of the human soul.” The early pioneers of Hindu thought lay
down for rest on the open, fertile plains of the Ganges during the
fragrant summer nights of India, and their eyes sought the starry
heavens above. Then they looked into themselves, and must have
asked, “What are we? What is this life on earth meant for? How did
we come here? Where are we bound for? What becomes of the
human soul?” and many another difficult question. The answer that
the Hindu sages of old gave to these difficult questions is to be found
in the one simple rule of the Unity of All Life: One Supreme Being is
the source of all joy; He is the master of all knowledge; He is eternal,
stainless, unchangeable, and always present as a witness in every
conscience; He alone is real and lasting, and the rest of this material
universe is maya, a mere illusion. Human soul is made of the same
substance as the Supreme soul. It is separated from its source
through ignorance. Through succeeding incarnations it strives to
reach its ultimate goal, which is its identification with the Supreme
Being. That is the final end of all human effort—the realization of the
Self—which accomplished, man’s existence becomes one with the
rest of the Universe, and his life thereafter is one of limitless love.
His soul unites with the Universal soul and he has obtained his
Moksha (salvation). He begins to see “All things in self and self in
All.”
This idea of spiritual freedom, which is the release of the self from
the ego concept, forms the foundation of Hindu culture, and has
influenced the whole character of India’s social and religious ideals.
Let us try to explain it a little more clearly. The recognition of the
unity of all life assumes the existence of one God, “one source, one
essence and one goal.” The final purpose of life is to realize this
unity, when the human soul becomes one with the Universal Spirit.
Ignorance is the cause of all evil, because it forever hides from us
the true vision. The wise man continually strives to overcome
ignorance through the study of philosophy and through self-restraint
and renunciation. He seeks to achieve knowledge of Self, in order
that he may see God face to face. Then he will attain Moksha
(salvation). Until he has realized the absolute Truth, he must hold on
to the relative truth as he sees it, which is accomplished through the
exercise of such virtues as universal love, faith, devotion, self-
sacrifice, and renunciation.
“Despising everything else, a wise man should strive after the
knowledge of the Self.”
Human life on this earth is a journey from one village to the other.
We are all pilgrims here, and this abode is only our temporary home
and not a permanent residence. Instead of being continually in
search of material wealth, of power, of fame, and of toiling day and
night, why should we not regard life as a perpetual holiday and learn
to rest and enjoy it? Would it not be better if we had a little less of
work, a little less of so-called pleasure, and more of thought and
peace? It does not take much to sustain life; vegetable food in small
quantities will maintain the body in good health, and the shelter of a
cottage is all that a man requires. That he should build palaces and
amass riches proves his lack of knowledge; that he should try to find
happiness from the ruin of the happiness of his fellow beings, the
inevitable consequence of the building up of great fortunes, is
absurd. Nothing is real except His law and His power. Human life,
like a bubble on the surface of a mighty ocean, may burst and
disappear at any moment. “There is fruit on the trees in every forest,
which everyone who likes may pluck without trouble. There is cool
and sweet water in the pure rivers here and there. There is a soft
bed made of the twigs of the beautiful creepers. And yet wretched
people suffer pain at the door of the rich.”

“A man seeking for eternal happiness (moksha) might obtain it

by a hundredth part of the suffering which a foolish man endures
in the pursuit of riches.”
“Poor men eat more excellent bread than the rich; for hunger
gives it sweetness.”

Thus the doctrine of Maya has taught the people of India that all
material things are illusion.
Thus, guided by the vision of Universal Spirit, which sustains the
entire creation, and saved by the right comprehension of the doctrine
of Maya, the Hindus have developed a civilization in which people
are inspired largely by the ideals of human fellowship, by love and by
spiritual comfort. The wisdom of the Hindu’s retiring, passive attitude
toward life will not readily be acknowledged by his sturdy,
aggressive, and combative brothers in the western world. The
Occidental’s necessities of life have assumed such immense
proportions, and social relations have become so intricate and
insecure, that a man’s whole life is spent in making sure of mere
existence, and in providing against the accidents of the future. Such
is the deadening influence of the continual hurly-burly of every-day
life around him, that he has begun to regard life as synonymous with
work. He has never himself tasted the sweetness of security and
peace, and when he hears anyone else discuss it, he is likely to
brand the doctrine as dreamy, unreal, and impractical. “But is it
surely wise to destroy the best objects of life for the sake of life? Is
the winning of wealth and the enjoying of pleasure always a superior
choice to that of spiritual freedom?” To love leisure, ideals, and
peace has been the criterion of Hindu wisdom. Those who have
closely studied the history of the Hindu nation know the illumination,
the peace, the joy, the strength that its lessons bring into the lives of
those simple, virtuous people.
Hindu civilization has been, on the whole, humane and wholesome,
and the life of the people of India has been one of unalloyed
usefulness and service to humanity. India has always been the home
of various religions and its people have always been divided into
innumerable faiths. At no period of its long history, however, has
religious persecution been practised by any class of people in the
country. “No war was ever waged in or outside of India by the Hindu
nation in the name of religion. India has never witnessed the horrors
of an inquisition; no holy wars were undertaken, and no heretics
burned alive for the protection of religion.” In the entire history of the
Hindu nation, not a drop of blood has ever been shed in the name of
religion. To those who have read the accounts of the bloody tortures
and the massacres that have been enacted for the sake of religion
among the Christian nations of the world, this is saying much.
The hobby of the Hindu is not Catholicism, Presbyterianism,
Methodism, or any other form of ism known to the western world; his
interest does not lie in Hinduism, Buddhism, or Sikhism. His passion
is for religion. “He loves not a religion; he lives for religion.” It was his
love of religion which an old English missionary found among the
inhabitants of a small village in Northern India. Tired from walking in
the hot summer sun, this wandering friar lay down under the cool
shade of a banyan tree for rest, and fell asleep. How long he slept
and what brilliant dreams of His Master Lord Christ’s mercy this
humble mendicant had, no one knows. When in the late afternoon he
opened his eyes, he saw a beautiful young girl gently fanning his
face, while her little brother stood near, carrying in his arms a basket
of choice fruits and a jug of fresh, cool water. As the old friar’s eyes
finally met the maiden’s kindly gaze, he exclaimed: “At last after all
these weary travels I have found a Christian people!”
Religion to the Hindu is not one among the many interests in life. It is
the all-absorbing interest. The thought of a Universal Brotherhood
taught in his religion guides every social, commercial, and political
act of his life; while the hope of divine sanction inspires his efforts in
the intellectual and spiritual spheres. Religion is not the mere
profession of a certain theological faith, whose ritual may be
observed on appointed occasions and then be forgotten till time
again comes for worship and prayer. Religion is the “Yearning
beyond” on the part of man, and when once its essence is realized,
the spirit must influence every interest of the individual’s life. This is
the way in which religion is understood in India. “It is not a matter of
form, but of mind and will. To the Hindu, it is more religious to
cleanse the soul and build a good character than to mutter prayers
and observe a strict ritual. Morality should form the basis of religion,
and emphasis should be laid, not on outward observance, but on
inward spiritual culture.”

“By deed, thought, and word, one should do good to (all) living
beings. This Harsha declared to be the highest way of earning
religious merit.”

The main purpose of life is the realization of Self, to which all other
interests must be completely subordinated. The material things of
the world are but a means to this end; and the end being religion, its
thought must not be lost sight of in arranging the details of life.
Hence, religion pervades the entire fabric of Hindu society. Study
Indian art, law, ethics, and political economy; everywhere you will
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