Berlin Wall
Getting Attention
Laryngitis Lessons
The Last on Reese's
Name a quest that both Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Disney are on?
You Stuck Your Advertisement in My Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups!
Rev'd Up Over Statistics
The View from Seoul

 

Berlin Wall

rex.briggs | 29 January, 2007 08:56

I stood looking at a picture from decades ago that showed the Berlin wall, and Checkpoint Charlie. Adam Coleman, Marketing Evolution’s EVP was my guide. He had been to Berlin many times when responsible for Global Advertising Research at Microsoft. As he pointed, “See, here in the picture, there is the wall, there is the underground station, and there is the same underground station down the street over there.” “So,” he concluded, “we must be on the east side.”

There we stood, on the other side of a wall that no longer existed. We had passed so easily from formerly west to formerly east – no wall, guards, or guns. What an amazing feat to tear down the wall. I remember that day as the images were broadcast on television. I wished I was there. Once the wall started to come down, throngs of people from all walks of life came to join in and tear the wall down.

“You know,” I said to Adam, “The wall is gradually coming down between online and offline marketing too.”

Will we look back at some point in the not too distant future and wonder how quickly the walls between Online and Offline media eroded? Or will we still be living with these walls between Online and Offline, these vestiges of the dot.com media bubble that artificially divided media?

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Getting Attention

rex.briggs | 24 January, 2007 06:45

Recently, I shared my insights from remaining silent for seven days straight. The silence wasn’t a choice I would have made. I didn’t go to a monastery and take a vow of silence as some attempt at deeper reflection. The silence was imposed by Laryngitis. Remaining silent led me to reflect on how marketers go about getting attention. To get attention without a voice, I had tried smiling, but when that didn’t help, I had to resort to waving my hands in an attempt to catch the peripheral vision. And, when that didn’t work, I tried whistling. None of which were very successful. Marketers have the same challenge. They smile nicely – nothing. They wave their hands – nothing. They whistle – and the only reaction from the consumer is annoyance.

Is there is a better way? When I was at iMedia, I may have gotten the answer (or at least, a strategy). The answer came not in one of the many excellent sessions, but during the networking. (Networking is what we call hanging out at the bar to make it sound more work like.)

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Laryngitis Lessons

rex.briggs | 02 November, 2006 06:22

This week I have laryngitis. I’m following Doctors orders to not speak and have taken this week off from public presentations. And, the experience of not speaking, yet still trying to communicate, has given me some much needed reinforcement of communication concepts learned at University years ago. I think you might find them useful to advertising as well. Here are three nuggets – call them lessons of laryngitis.

First lesson of laryngitis: The first challenge is getting someone’s attention.

For all that has been written about marketing and dialogue, let’s never forget that the first challenge is getting someone’s attention. In two basic modes:

1. Someone seeking my point of view (easy to get their attention)
2. Me trying to get a response from someone else (much harder to get attention and dialogue started)

In the first mode, It is relatively easy for me to communicate (even without a voice) when someone comes into my office to get my point of view on a topic. Just like a consumer coming to your home page, or into your store for your perspective, a dialogue simply requires listening and responding to what the person wants. Figuring out what the person wants is actually easier with laryngitis because I’m all ears. As I heard many years ago, “God gave you two holes in your head to listen with and only one to speak with for a reason.” If marketers practiced listening better, I suspect that research on what consumers come to a website to learn (or explore) would boost the value of the website substantially.

The second mode, trying to get a response from someone else, is much harder and somewhat frustrating. This was particularly true at home. It was quite easy for my wife to ignore me, or at least be oblivious to my attempts to get her attention. Having seen reems of data from advertising, I think that most marketers find themselves in this boat where they are trying to engage a consumer, but only with marginal success. The situation can be summed up like this: The consumer isn’t looking for a dialogue, but the marketer feel they have something important to communicate and therefore tries valiantly to get the consumers attention.

My own attempts to get my wife’s attention included smiling (I don’t think she even looked at my face to notice), waving my hands, and, when that didn’t work, whistling. None of which were very successful. Now I know how a marketer must feel. They smile nicely – nothing. They wave their hands – nothing. They whistle – and the only reaction from the consumer is annoyance.

Did you know that when Marketing Evolution analyzed dozens of studies we found that if marketers advertised to 100 consumers, the typical response in terms of attitude shift was about 4. That means only 4 people out of 100 were engaged such that they got the message and their opinions improved in favorable manner. For all the smiling, hand waving and whistling marketers do, getting the consumers attention turns out to be a pretty difficult task.

Is there a better way? Stay tuned.

The Last on Reese's

rex.briggs | 10 October, 2006 05:09

Previously I raised questions about whether marketers focus enough on their internal media and marketing tools. Do they know the ROI and work to optimize their internal marketing tools? And, if you wanted to measure it, could you? We started with Hershey’s Kissables advertising within Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup packaging and brought into the fray McDonald’s, Disney and ESPN.

Let’s first tackle the question of whether or not marketers focus enough on their internal marketing tools. I don’t think most do and that seems to be the feedback that I’ve gotten on this thread from our well studied readers. There are exceptions. I know that ESPN gets how important their on-channel advertising is. But, because the marketing is relatively inexpensive (internal production costs are often the only "cost") there is tendency to under-leverage this great asset that marketers have with their best customers. And, if these programs are under-leveraged, marketers need to gather insights on how to get the best results possible from these programs, and this takes research. But many assume that such programs are not measurable. Nonsense. With a bit of creativity and flexibility, methodologies like ROMO can help marketers execute design of experiments to isolate the programs effectiveness. But, would a marketer look at the research cost to measure a "free" media, and balk at paying to measure something that is free? Maybe. And if so, that would be a shame, because I would be willing to bet that most marketers could double the effectiveness of these internal marketing programs with a bit of research.

But, until you try it, you wouldn’t know. Just like with Peanut Butter and Chocolate. Until you try mixing them, you’d never know what a great combination they make.

Name a quest that both Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Disney are on?

rex.briggs | 05 October, 2006 03:22

The answer (or at least one possible answer) is the quest for synergy. The synergy of peanut butter and chocolate? No. Cross-marketing synergy. Tuesday, I highlighted the advertising for Hershey’s Kissables inside the package of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. This is an advertisement, though it may not show up on a media plan or be measured for its ROI. That’s a shame because it may be a greater asset than most marketers realize.

When Marketing Evolution has worked with ESPN (owned by Disney), we would often see a line item in their media plans called "Synergy." This was internal Disney speak for media elements that ESPN could use to promote their programs within other Disney properties. The idea is that Disney has such a vast array of powerful media that it should make some available to its own family of companies. But even more important than the synergy advertising is ESPN’s own on-channel advertising.

As Marketing Evolution has contemplated and measured the value of on-channel advertising for various TV networks, it’s got me thinking about that Reese’s ad inside their packaging. It’s got me thinking of a conversation with McDonald’s awhile back. McDonald’s once told me that they reach more consumers in a week than most of the media companies that come to them to pitch McDonald’s on buying their media. The McDonald’s executive half jokingly said, he should be selling them McDonald’s tray liner for advertising their media brand. Given the deals with McDonald’s and Disney, McDonald’s does in fact sell media companies. But at what point is it financially better to keep your own media for cross-promoting and at what point is it advisable to sell someone else product? And, what is the ROI on your own media? Are certain strategies more effective than others? Is a simple "Try Hershey’s Kissables" enough to get someone unfamiliar with the product to try it? Or, will it only work with someone familiar with the product to get them to devote a greater share of snack purchases to Kissables?

And, since much of this media is under the radar of traditional media planning, how do most marketers care to calculate the ROI and optimize the effectiveness of these internal programs?

January 2007
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006

 

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