Advertising

Quit Trying to Market With a One Size Fits All Mindset

As marketers, we focus a lot on data to help us create strategies and tactics that will appeal to our core demographic.

We collate reams of information from various channels – social, mobile, print, media, research studies – and filter out the non-useful to drill down into the qualitative information needed to offer our campaigns a better chance of success.

The problem is, we’re allowing the data to drive our decisions, instead of our decisions being driven by the insights we, as humans, gather from the automated machine learning solutions.

This leads us to market with a one size fits all mentality, when – as any good marketer will tell you – we should be doing anything but.

The Perils of Driving Decisions Using Simple Data

Part of the problem comes from the instant result mindset we’ve forced upon brands in the age of social media.?Pre-social media, word-of-mouth campaigns and more traditional marketing and advertising was built with longer-term thinking when it came to results.

Now, if your Facebook campaign doesn’t garner you 1,000 new fans, or your blogger outreach campaign doesn’t drive sales, it’s clear that social media and selling/marketing/advertising don’t go together.

Except they do, and this is continuously being shown by the brands that do it right.

The reason the complaining brands aren’t seeing return is because the brand manager or CMO has read a survey or two from leading publications, and used them as the basis for the demographic knowledge for his or her upcoming campaign.

For example, let’s say your brand is targeting millennials. Now, depending on who you talk to, the age range for this consumer group can vary – but they’re primarily folks that were born between the early 80’s and the early 2000’s.

If you were to read a recent study of over 500 millennials from technology vendor SocialChorus, whose product is aimed at brands looking to connect with advocates, you’d get the following takeaways:

They are educated and big digital users, particularly Facebook, but they distrust advertising;
67% have never clicked a Sponsored Story;
95% say friends are the most credible sources for product information;
98% are more likely to interact with a friend’s social update than they are with a brand.

Going by this information, which was featured by respected publication Huffington Post, as a brand manager you’d be thinking:

Okay, so we’ll use Facebook to target our ads, because we still have 33% of the audience to go after, and we’ll look to offer their friends freebies to share since our own brand updates won’t be engaged with.

And that’d be all well and good – until you read this survey, from marketing data specialists Valassis.

In their findings, which surveyed more than 5,100 respondents (10x more than the SocialChorus one), a different view of millennials arises:

51% prefer newspapers for coupons and deals, compared to only 23% using the digital channels of blogs and savings sites;
Email coupon alerts accounted for 50%, as opposed to the Facebook-heavy usage that the previous report highlighted;
Mobile is a huge driver for millennials, with 45% saying they’d accessed a coupon in an email via mobile, and 32% downloading a coupon via smartphone.

So, going by this data, you’d swing your approach from Facebook marketing to a more traditional approach using print, complemented with a mobile-focused campaign that incorporates email sign-ups.

Except you’d still be missing a core part of the story.

Why Data is Only Telling Half the Story

The two surveys highlighted here so far from SocialChorus and Valassis show the purchasing preferences of millennials – depending which one you take notice of, it’s either by recommendations from friends, or by coupon ads in newspapers, or email/mobile offers.

However, neither of these surveys have countered in a third option – that of situational decision-making.

It’s all well and good having data that shows you the atypical behaviour of a demographic, based on surveys and publications from that specific market. Yet these behaviours are only as good as the situational knowledge we have about that audience.

In his article over at AdWeek entitled The Millennial Male is Not Who You Think He Is, Sam Thielman shares something that many surveys don’t take into account – the situational factors that impact today’s millennial male (essentially half the target audience for brands in this market).

From Thielman’s article:

As a collective, they have $1 trillion in student debt;
Just 62% are employed, of which half of these are part-time jobs;
Over one third live at home with their parents;
They’ve lost a third of their median net worth in the last 8 years.

Simply put, millennials don’t necessarily have the disposable income to spend on the marketing approaches the surveys from SocialChorus and Valassis would suggest brands implement.

Instead, as Thielman continues, brands need to look to alternative methods of advertising – digital viewing channels like Netflix, Hulu and Apple TV, for example. However, given that many consumers use Netflix to avoid advertising, brands will have to think smarter than simple ads.

Perhaps the biggest spanner in the works is the belief that millennials prefer friend recommendations over brand marketing. Not according to a survey by Bazaarvoice from 2012.

According to that survey, conducted with over 1,000 correspondents:

51% trust user generated content (UGC) from strangers, over that of their friends, when it comes to making a purchase;
84% of millennials said that UGC influenced their decisions, with only 3% saying it didn’t impact them at all;
71% feel brands care about the opinions of their consumers.

Based on that data, a blogger outreach campaign would be much more effective to run a marketing campaign. Now you can see where the confusion could come in.

Three surveys, three different recommendations, three different data points – yet all about the same target audience. And that’s before you even get to the viability of whether or not your target audience is going to be able to afford your product or not.

Simple Data Out, Insights In

It’s not all doom and gloom. The surveys I highlighted here all have valuable information, and can be used to really hone in on what the best approach would be for your target audience, if your brand sits in the millennial consumer market.

Where the problem arises is when it’s the only data that a brand marketer, CMO, or similar uses to put together the strategy for any upcoming campaign.

It’s just one part of a far bigger picture, yet it’s the ignoring of this bigger picture for quick hit data that is messing everything up. Instead of the simple data, we need to be collating everything into a more insights-led overview.

Is there any data that crosses over between reports?
Does the data vendor understand my market?
How does the data correlate to the specific audience I’m after (geography, financial, brand affinity, local laws);
Does the data make sense from an archival behaviour aspect?
Does the data allow for long-term building approaches or short-term fire sale targeting?

As you start to build out your knowledge graph from these questions, you can add them to your previous knowledge points based on previous campaigns, results, and increased understanding of your audience (in this case, millennials).

This collates all the data, new and old, and offers actual insights for your campaign versus trusting the latest survey that may or may not be relevant to your brand’s goals.

It’s a longer process; but it’s one that actually builds around known specifics versus unknown intangibles.

Which one do you think offers the greater return potential?

Two Awesome Examples of Promotional Campaigns Done Right

Sometimes, you just have to take your hat off to excellent examples of promotional campaigns done right.

With many folks saying advertising is dead, it’s nice to see examples like the two below and say, “Uh, really?”. Especially since both show a mix of cool and (where Audi and BMW are concerned) outright cheek.

The Audi and BMW Billboard Chess Match

This is probably one of my favourite examples of corporate fisticuffs I’ve seen. Below on the left is a billboard ad from German auto manufacturer Audi, and the response from fellow German competitor BMW (click to expand):

Audi’s ad shows their new A4 saloon, with the challenge to BMW of, “Your move”. It’s classic advertising at its best, with a gentle poke at a direct competitor. A competitor that was clearly up for the challenge.

Up steps BMW with their response, a picture of their sporty M3 and the words, “Checkmate.” Brilliantly simple, and one that would end any “mine is bigger than yours” game.

Except Audi have their own sports car heritage, as was quickly evident in the response below (click to expand):

In a wonderfully cheeky piece of advertising sass, Audi put up a new billboard with their R8 supercar and the statement, “Your pawn is no match for our king.” Game over, right? not quite.

BMW has a long history in race cars, especially when it comes to Formula 1 racing. And they were more than happy to show this when they brought out a blimp with their F1 race car emblazoned on it along with the words, “Game over.”

Epic. Simply epic.

Note: Audi reached out to advise that the blimp was photoshopped into a screengrab of the billboards. Bugger. Still epic response though. 😉

The Monsters University

Scheduled for release next summer, Monsters University is the sequel to the massive hit, Monsters Inc. A prequel to the original movie, it looks at the two characters from the original movie and how they met at the titular Monsters University.

Now, normally, movies are pretty good at coming out with cool promotional campaigns, with studios trying to outdo each other on the viral effect. But Pixar and Walt Disney have really come up with something pretty cool for this one.

Instead of the normal movie site, Pixar has gone all out and created a fully functional University website (hat tip to Matt Andaloro for the heads-up on this).

Not only can you explore the School of Scaring, where the Monsters learn their trade, but you can check out the MU sports and athletics teams; get alumni news; check out MU events; and much, much more.

It looks and feels exactly like a University website would, adding to the realism and authenticity of actually spending time with fellow students. Which is exactly what the new movie will be about – result.

The Moral of the Story

As I mentioned at the start, many folks have decreed advertising to be dead, as social media and new media platforms look to share messages differently.

Yet, as these two examples above show, advertising is alive and well, and more creative than many of their social media equivalents.

To the naysayers of advertising and “traditional marketing”, perhaps it’s less the medium that’s dead as much as it’s just crappy advertisers and marketers that are killing creativity.

Then again, that’s true of all mediums, including social media. Here’s to creativity, especially when it’s integrated and not silo’d.

You Don’t Always Need 100 Million Dollars or 100 Years for Traditional Advertising to Work

First, a caveat: I’m a big fan of Brian Clark and his Copyblogger brand, so this post isn’t a “dig” – more an alternative point of view.

Over at Copyblogger, Brian recently posted this graphic:

Like this graphic? Get more content marketing tips from Copyblogger.

Since Brian is in the content marketing arena (and been very successful in it), it’s understandable why he posted this. Since social media became more mainstream, traditional advertising has long been the brunt of points of view that it’s on its way out.

And it may well be – just not at this moment in time.

While there’s no doubting that social media can offer a much better return as far as in-depth analysis goes on campaigns, investments and success metrics, it’s missing the point a little to say this is where all advertising success happens.

While Pepsi may have switched their $20 million ad budget to social media for the Superbowl, the majority of advertisement at that event still comes from TV slots. And, looking at the results of the Pepsi social media experiment, perhaps that will continue for the foreseeable future.

The Traditional Advertising Effect

Perhaps the biggest problem is what exactly counts for traditional advertising? With the blurring of the lines between media, whether that be social, print, mobile or TV, it can be confusing to lock down what’s seen as new media and what’s classed as traditional.

For myself, traditional covers TV, print, direct mail and radio, although email marketing could be seen as traditional too, since it’s now been around so long.

With that in mind, here are some examples of why you don’t need the 100 years or 100 million dollars from the Copyblogger graphic.

Elle Magazine

Perhaps traditional advertising’s natural habitat, magazine ads still make up a huge amount of the advertising budget for brands. And when you look at something like Elle Magazine, it’s easy to see why.

Elle encourages some of the smartest advertising out there, due to its mix of editorial content and related ads opposite the content. A perfect example is the image below (taken from baekdal):

Immediately you can see how the fashion items being written about look when worn and, for any fashion-conscious person, you can never argue with seeing your new love in action.

It’s this kind of approach that saw advertising spend with Elle rise by over 12% last year. And advertisers don’t buy new ads unless their product campaigns – and, therefore sales – are successful.

Laconia Development

San Diego agency Castle Advertising share many success stories on their website, but one that stands out is their campaign for Laconia Development, a local residential developer.

Laconia’s goal was to sell the remaining units on an urban neighbourhood property, but they were struggling to do so due to the economy and slow real estate sales in general. Castle’s brief was to generate awareness and pre-qualified registrations for a one-day sales event.

Thanks to a strategy that included radio, TV, building banners and email marketing, as well as full-page ads in local publications and unique phone number tracking, the results were impressive: 70% of the units were sold, with 200 registrations pre-sale at a cost of less than $500 per registration.

James Ready Beer

If there’s one market that’s hugely competitive, it’s the beer market (just look at how much is spent by the likes of Budweiser on brand messaging and sponsorship at huge events).

Because of this competitiveness, smaller breweries have to look at ways they can stand out, catch peoples’ attention, and enjoy a return on their limited investment options. Case in point – Canadian brewer James Ready.

To take them to the next level of awareness and sales, James Ready hired Leo Burnett Canada, with media buying and planning support from Starcom MediaVest. Their approach? A billboard campaign.

But instead of this being a standard billboard approach, the creative saw the 10′ by 20′ billboards secured and rented out to fans of the beer for free. The mission? To let fans create ads about why they loved the beer, and the agency would turn this into the campaign to attract new fans and buyers.

The result? An increase of 55% on sales from the previous period, and a growth in market share of 31%, all from a spend of just over $140,000 (excluding production costs). All in all, not too shabby.

Traditional Advertising Does Work – But So Does All Great Advertising

The point of this post isn’t to lay doubts to the Copyblogger graphic. Like I mentioned at the start, social media (or “new”) advertising is hugely effective.

Yet there are many agencies and businesses flocking to social media, when traditional approaches still have their place. And when you couple both traditional and social together, the results can be outstanding.

At the end of the day, the medium that works best is the one that meets the needs and location of your target audience. For some, this may be a Facebook ad; for others, it may be a Sunday slot in the broadsheets.

One form of media doesn’t necessarily trump the other – far from it. Instead, all you need is what you’ve always needed – smart ideas and a solid strategy to back them up.

And that doesn’t have to mean spending 100 million dollars or a 100 year gestation period to be successful…

The Art of the Story

Apple’s come in for a lot of stick over their new iPhone 4. From reception issues when held a certain way to discoloured screens and other problems, there’s no doubt Apple’s new baby isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

And yet…

With one single advert, my view of iPhone 4 (as a consumer) is immediately positive again.

Yes, I know it has issues. I know Steve Jobs doesn’t really seem to care about us, as product users and advocates. I know that using all its features will set me back an arm and a leg for contract costs.

But seeing this advert last night makes me consider buying the iPhone. It makes me think that, despite all its issues, the possibilities opened up by this one feature alone make it worthwhile.

Funny how telling a simple emotional story can change our mindsets, huh?

How NOT to Win Friends and Influence People

When is sharing information useful, and when is it just spamming off the back of someone else’s community?

I ask because when I logged into my Facebook page today to post an update on a future Bonsai Interactive event, I was met with this at the top of my wall (click to expand).

It was posted by Claire Reynolds on behalf of the DSNR Media Group. At least I think it’s by Claire on behalf of DSNR, since Claire’s Facebook profile has her located in the U.K., while DSNR are based in Israel.

DSNR describe themselves as “a recognized global provider of result-based online and mobile advertising solutions… with cutting edge optimization tools.” Really, DSNR?

So spamming your message onto a Facebook wall is considered cutting edge? Shilling your wares without permission is your great advertising solutions? Posting links to your service where they may or may not be relevant to the audience is ethical?

Here’s a heads-up – spam is not cool.

You can paint it whatever way you like, but you’re spamming.

You’re an online advertising company, so I’m pretty sure you’re aware of Permission Marketing from Seth Godin. Even though it was written over 10 years ago, it’s still more than relevant today. Check it out – it’s a great read and might open your eyes as to why your current spamming approach isn’t welcome.

In the meantime, I’m removing your post on my wall. I respect the community I have over there, and I don’t want them spammed by you either.

Have a great week.