Marketing best practices

Killing two birds with one stone is great isn't it?

I'm writing an appendix about advertising channel marketing strategy right now for a report as part of my 601 project and I thought about posting the analysis up to the blog!

I love original content!!!

It's really abbreviated, but it's a quick comparison of old and new best practices of various online and offline advertising channels. I've tried to be comprehensive and unbiased here (although I personally think that untargeted advertising can go to Hell....) but it's a good synopsis of the different benefits and recommendations for effectiveness for each channel.

You'll see that throughout this chart I'm really in support of integrated campaigns. That means marketing communications that simultaneously leverage the other active channels. It's the newspaper ad that tells you to go online and try virtually test drive the new model car, it's the radio spot that tells you to look for Count Chocula sampling this Saturday at Metro stores in the GTA.

God, how I wish there was a product sampling of Count Chocula....but I digress.

Oh, and BBAs, plagiarize away! Just don't expect to develop unoriginal, uncited analysis and hand it to me to give to one of our clients.

Advertising channel	Channel description	Old best practices	New best practices
Website development	Includes website design, management, analysis, promotional microsite development. Important channel for speaking directly to tech-savvy, younger consumers.	Clear site navigation and shallow site structure with few deep levels. Integrate web metrics tracking for site optimization and online marketing. Promotion in offline marketing communications as a source of extra information about a brand.	Site users have the opportunity to create content and interact bilaterally with the site. Important to integrate websites with offline communications including print and television (often these drive consumers to the website). Provide relevant brand and product information in multiple formats, allowing consumers an opportunity to take content with them or send to their friends off the site. Promoted in offline communications as a destination in itself and a place to go as part of Web 2.0 consumer interactivity.
Email	Includes email design, deployment, analysis, and potential integration with database segmentation. Important channel for direct marketing and establishing brand relevance.	Use an attention grabbing subject line. Display the best content “above the fold” of the screen. Do not be too copy-heavy, leverage text and pictures. Communicate exclusive offers, promotions, and deals to “our best customers”.	Perform active segmentation and response analysis on house list to determine most optimal messages/content to be included in targeted email to consumers. Must be easy for consumers to unsubscribe or change their email settings. Position as nonintrusive consumer touchpoint that is relevant to you. Email is highly useful to create a curriculum or education campaign for new consumers or a multi-wave campaign.
Social media	Includes brand promotion through social media public relations, viral content development and distribution, network ‘seeding’, and identity development on social network profile sites. Important channel for brand identity building through online affiliations and new project promotion.	Note, because this is such a new channel, best practices are being developed as part of an ongoing mutation of the medium. Social media is too young to have any “old” best practices, because marketers are still trying to understand how to use it effectively.	Pay attention to emerging consumer memes and viral trends online. Ride these. Create a clear identity that allows users to comment, rate, or interact with the brand’s social media presence. Use social media PR sparingly and only to announce exciting brand developments or significant launches. “Feedback 3.0” is the act of brands actively responding to and commenting back to their commentators in online forums. (TrendWatching.com)
In-store retail promotion	Includes design of product packaging and printed promotional materials, development of coupons and offers. Also includes total management of promotional projects and events, including multiple-party promotions.	Eye-popping visuals and unique creative execution. Display in preferred locations in retail environments (end of aisle, eye level, front of store and produce area). Promotions are used to highlight exciting new product launches or as a boost to seasonally low sales.	Retail promotions are immediately relevant to the consumer (because they are physically interacting with the product and have opted-in). Therefore how are promotions used by brands to develop long-term positive relationships with their consumers? Promotions must be thought of like big impressions for brand building and used for activating new brand strategy. Strong integration of promotions with other non-tangible brand communications.
Experiential	Includes the planning, execution, and management of in-person demonstrations, sampling, physical product interactions, sensory advertising, and other impression-based advertising experiences.	Create innovative and original experiences – make the consumer say “wow, I’ve never seen this before”. High traffic locations are effective to reach as many people as possible. Eye-catching or permits prolonged or repeat impressions.	Demonstrate measurability and big impact on sales by using experiential techniques. Cannot simply generate a ‘big splash’. Use experiential advertising projects as opportunities to also establish customer listening posts and gain valuable primary research about brand perceptions and usage.
Direct mail	Includes the design, writing, segmentation, deployment, analysis, and management of print advertising, flyers, brochures, offers, product samples, and house-list magazines that are targeted to specific consumers (not mass mail).	‘Test and learn’ – perform frequent empirically controlled tests to different consumer segments to understand what is the optimal form of creative and offer to generate higher response. Personalize direct mail and provide a compelling reason to open it (similar to an email subject line)	Integrated use of direct mail with CRM database for clients. Understand customer behavior across response channels (direct mail, web, email, SMS). Like in-store retail promotion, direct mail establishes an intimate connection between the brand and consumer because it is highly interactive and tangible. Clear announcement of purpose and call to action so that customer understands role of direct mail in context of all other interactions they have with the brand.
Out-of-home	Includes the design, deployment, and management of all messaging that appears on outdoor ‘surfaces’ in high-traffic or visible areas. Note, limited effectiveness of this channel at driving response and engagement from consumers. Highly passive engagement by prospects in this channel.	Like experiential and in-store retail promotion, out-of-home should be immediately understandable and capture interest. Copy must be concise and non-informational. Strictly call-to-action.	A classic medium, the best practices have no changed significantly because of limited innovation potential of the platform. Obvious integration of out-of-home advertising with existing in-market campaigns in other channels.
Mobile	Includes copywriting, segmentation, deployment, management, and analysis of text or multimedia messages distributes to mobile phone subscribers over a network. Important channel for brand building and relationship development.	Note, because this is such a new channel, best practices are being developed as part of an ongoing mutation of the medium. Mobile technology is also rapidly evolving and permits unique applications like proximity sensitive out-of-home marketing (billboards that activate when a consumer walks by) and geo-targeted messages direct to the consumer.	Must be an opt-in house list and must permit easy unsubscribe for recipients. SMS marketing is highly invasive (it’s marketing that vibrates in your pocket). Therefore the message should be targeted, relevant, and actionable by the consumer. Therefore, SMS is not optimal for informational campaigns. Instead, use for direct response or experiential purposes (e.g. respond now).
Television	Includes the design, production, media buying, and management of television commercials or infomercials. Important channel for broad awareness of brand strategy to consumers. This sets the tone of an integrated campaign with multiple channel strategies.	A great ‘hook’ to immediately capture attention. Clear link between story and brand, story and message, and brand and message. Clear call to action for viewers, or an understanding of what they are being made to believe.	Best practices somewhat unchanged for mass media. Perhaps greater concern for how television commercials are able to change behavior among consumers. Is this really an advanced form of marketing that succeeds at building a relationship with consumers? Call-to-action that is integrated with other marketing communications in market. Useful capstone to large campaigns which rely on a broad mix of mediums (out-of-home, online, promotional, print, and radio).
Radio	Includes the design, production, media buying, and management of radio commercials.	Memorable messages that listeners can associate to a brand with unaided prompting. Local message optimization because of the ability to purchase large blocks of commercial time from radio station conglomerates that own stations in different markets.	Same as above. Positive associate to highlight existing in-market or upcoming promotional campaigns for integrated marketing campaigns.
Mass print media	Includes the design, production, media buying, and management of printed advertisements in newspapers, magazines, flyers, and other non-targeted print media.	Classic principles apply here for copywriting and call-to-action development.	Same as above. Considering existing volume of print media advertising that continues to be done, important to integrate this activity with marketing mix of online and offline channels. Can be used as a traffic-driving source of consumers to online channel where more information can be found about brand.

Integrated marcom and your ignorant friends

You know those people who say they hate marketers and never pay attention to ads? The ones who extol their imperviousness to calls-to-action and freedom when it comes to making their own decisions as consumers?

Imagine how much it stirs an anger deep inside you to just shake them and scream "it's not about selling you on something you don't need, it's about engaging with you in a relevant way that articulates the value proposition!"

Well, imagine how nice it would feel to hear that same person who pooh-poohed marketing talk about what a cool new P2P marketing strategy they interacted with. The same person who selfishly says that they're uninfluenced by marketing messages is now oblivious to the fact that an experiential campaign has made a real mark on them.

In Sydney, Australia, a social networking campaign has been launched to increase tourism to Alberta. It uses online social networking forums and street-based 'experiences'

A number of these unique mammals have been exported to Sydney, Australia, where they will be displayed in cages at Sydney’s Darling Harbour Nov. 20-22. On display will be: Western Party Animal—also known as Extremeous Winterous Dudeous Maximus—the Elusive Skier/Snowboarder Dude, and the Great Outdoors Lover. Every hour a “zookeeper” will bring one of the “animals” out of its cage to answer questions and interact with the crowd.

That's really cool.

It's also a terrific example of a integrated marketing campaign. Alan Middleton argues that with an increasing number of marketing campaigns utilizing different distribution channels, it's more important than ever to "integrate communication systems across this ever-increasing rane of target groups, distribution outlets, and media." Furthermore, "while the creative message will be strategically and conceptually similar, each medium will have create developed to optimize the message, and the role of the medium, and its contribution to the target's buying system."

BTW, how funny is it that Rogers is one of Canada's top marketers, as written in this week's Marketing Mag - a Rogers Media publication!

Shameless!

Zig and bumvertising: Bad ad rodeo

It's been a while since I've written another Bad Ad Rodeo, an analysis of awful ads that fail to inspire - but this one is juicy!

It’s called bumvertising, an offensive and ridiculous new invention by marketers (Zig Interactive here in Toronto) as a way to be tongue-in-cheek and promote a client’s socially critical message using socially distasteful means. Homeless people in Toronto have been paid $250 per day to sit with signs for CFRB talk radio and act as human billboards. We’ll talk about whether this is good marketing or not later, but it’s so transparently lacking in basic values that I’m inclined to say no matter how effective a campaign this was, it has really done our business and the client a disservice because of the general tone and reception of the campaign.

Click the image to read larger.

There really wasn’t a better way to get the message across while still keeping your chins up? Are the CDs at Zig actually proud of the social discourse that they’ve catalyzed in Toronto about the homeless? How about whether they’re proud to call themselves marketers? I can certainly appreciate why observers might now have a bitter taste about our profession when this schlock can now act as a focal point for all the negative perceptions people have about ad men.

‘They are immoral’
‘They sell me things I don’t need’
‘They don’t care where the message is as long as someone sees it’

Bumvertising and Zig Interactive have done nothing to advance the state of marketing in Canada. There’s no differentiation or evolution of ideas from good to great. This isn’t great marketing…it’s just a sleazy shill for a client.

…and that’s another thing. If this was a campaign actioned at the client’s request, didn’t someone at Zig have enough of a spine to take a stand and express their dissatisfaction with how the agency might be selling its soul for CFRB?

But I guess the campaign might have actually been effective. Think about it. High-traffic locations, unique context, appropriate message, “should panhandling be illegal?” It’s hit the checklist of effective out-of-home campaigns, and it seems to have created a good buzz. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who does not have an opinion on this campaign or doesn’t show some sort of emotion when learning about it. It was likely also cost effective – I’m guessing $30K, including creative development and street execution?

But is that what the homeless are now in our downtown streets? Marketing campaign executioners?

I’m really disappointed in Zig and CFRB. Someone should have had the common sense to stand up amidst the back-slapping, hand-shaking, and self-congratulatory praise for developing such an “innovative, thought-provoking, and socially stimulating campaign” to say that while it may have been all of those things, it falls down on basic marketing morals and human decency.

Grade: F

Cool interactive billboards and 90210

Interactive media is where it’s at these days in terms of delivering excitement and experience to consumers. Often though, the message is gets lost in the punchiness of the medium. The channel distributor has done a great job selling ad space and gross consumer impressions to unsuspecting, wide-eyed brand managers that the issue of whether or not the marketing is effective or not is never raised.

Such might have been the case for an interactive billboard I experienced a few weekends ago at the Harbourfront Hot and Spicy Food Festival. Watch the video, it’s a 6 x 8 foot led screen which is touch-sensitive. As people step and tap on it, colourful led balls go flying around the screen. It’s wild. My friend Olga took the video as we played around.



…but what was it advertising again? What brand was there?

I’m not saying that this was an ineffective vehicle – far from it. We stood there giggling and jumping around on this led mat for probably ten minutes. People around us joined in. So the audience is tuned in and captive, they’re rapt by what they’re seeing and the fact that they have control over the ad itself is a big plus. As mentioned before in this blog, participation is a critical factor in modern marketing, especially in an ad targeted to Gen Ys. It afford a modicum of individualization and personal spin on the marketing, making the consumer feel like they have accountability over the marketing. This, in turn, makes the consumer feel that the ad has greater relevance to them (because they created it or had a part in it).

Adverblog talks about some of the better interactive online marketing campaigns. It’s interesting in all of these to see how prominently the brand and product are featured. It’s never unclear what is being explained.

So as for that wild led screen, perhaps its use is better for promotional settings where you can physically interact with the brand. Imagine Nike setting up two of these in stores and allowing consumers to try out the shoes as if they were a soccer goalie or seeing how high they can jump in the shoes. Imagine these displays in high-traffic locations like the PATH system and each step displays the kinetic energy created – a potential ad for Bullfrog or Bruce Power looking to promote their clean energy options to consumers.

Anyway, some food for thought. The new series of 90210 just started, featuring AnnaLynne McCord:


…and yes, bad television counts as legitimate research into consumer culture.

Awful vehicle wrapping

I'll post later today, but this just irked me so much that I had to blog about it.

Vehicle wrapping - putting big decals on the body panels of cars as a form of mobile advertising - is not a particularly innovative or interesting marketing technique. It's ubiquitous in downtown cores so unless it's particularly eye-catching, the message can fade into the white noise of other out-of-home mediums.

But today at Yonge and King, a 2008 Jaguar XK coupe turned in front of me. Ordinarily it should look like this:

...but it was wrapped with the branding for some firm 'Portilly' or 'Portally' firm and the car looked like this:


Barf. Wrapping has its place, but not on gorgeous cars like a Jaguar. It's like putting a supermodel in flats or a famous painting in a garish frame. Why not take just a pickaxe and strike a few speedholes in the hood while they're at it.

Why is this bad? Because it's offensive. It's offensive to good taste and good judgment. Leave vehicle wrapping for hideous rides like PT Cruisers, Beetles, and Priuses.

Scariest scenarios in marketing

So what if tomorrow the tried and true marketing techniques no longer applied…what if today’s harbingers of consumer marketing disaster materialized tomorrow in Zarathustrian proportions (shit hits the fan)?

A lot of these what-if scenarios are actually here, in practice among us, being tested on us, becoming marginally more effective as we go about our mundane lives.

AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

So as the PSA bunnies tell me, I need to keep myself aware of what’s going on so that I can Stay Alert, Stay Safe.

Here are the ten scariest scenarios in marketing:

10. Workplace advertising

Imagine, your Outlook calendar reminder pops up and announces the status update with your boss in 15 minutes. It also announces that “this meeting is sponsored by Fanta. Don’t you want a Fanta Fanta…” It’s a very real possibility that marketing will break through one of the final bastions of consumer invisibility, the office. Marketing in the office will not be subtle like before and you’ll be forced to confront brand logos, taglines, and jingles in company emails, in the lunchroom, and at corporate events.

Freakiness factor: 7
Likelihood to happen: 1
Total: 8

9. Continuing to pay more for green products

Imagine, sustainable consumer practices never really grip a majority of household buyers and prices for items like green toilet paper, organic cereal, and biodegradable dishwashing detergent remain much higher than for conventional, less eco-friendly products. The danger of this is that without a price incentive to buy green, consumers will never make environmentally sustainable buying decisions.

Freakiness factor: 6
Likelihood to happen: 3
Total: 9

8. A brand purchases your street and city block

‘My address? It’s 60 Starbucks Street East, Suite 500.’

If Dubai is selling naming rights to its Metro stations, what’s preventing cash-strapped cities like Toronto from letting companies name streets and subdivisions in new urban developments?

Freakiness factor: 9
Likelihood to happen: 3
Total: 12

7. Guerrilla marketers become brand terrorists

The year: 2020. The place: Toronto’s gritty downtown core.

Guerrilla marketers, cast aside as communications channel rejects have become an Orc-like subspecies, ascending from the sewers to intimidate and scare unsuspecting consumers with messages designed to associate fear with a certain brand. Companies employ these nefarious techniques as smear-campaigns against their competitors and to maintain their competitive advantage by attacking another brand through psychological warfare.

Freakiness factor: 9
Likelihood to happen: 4
Total: 13

6. Google sells or loses your data – for real!

Imagine all those Google searches you do for disgusting key terms. Imagine all those emails you wrote. Imagine all those addresses you looked up. All gone, or worse, sold to some third party. Google apparently does a very good job of maintaining data security and their mantra ‘don’t be evil’ is something quite tangible in the organization. But just think how much trust we’ve put into Google with our personal details over the years…

Freakiness factor: 10
Likelihood to happen: 4
Total: 14

5. Tiered payment model for online content

Rogers and Bell Sympatico have decimated the other players in the broadband internet access market and it’s a literal oligopoly. They now implement a tiered payment model in which consumers must pay more to engage in perceived ‘high-value’ online activities such as streaming, music downloading, or....gasp, blogging! Content can be payment-based too as the ISPs are able to actually see what sites you visit.

Freakiness factor: 6
Likelihood to happen: 9
Total: 15

4. The death of the newspaper and television

The last page is turned, the last word is read. The last commercial is watched, the last remote control button is pressed.

Televisions are finally turned off and newspaper presses no longer roll. This seems like an inevitable possibility considering the immense growth and democracy of online content creation and distribution. But what about editorial, journalistic, and professional standards? Is the demise of printed and televised media the death knell for these things too?

Freakiness factor: 7
Likelihood to happen: 9
Total: 16

3. Ads on your iPod

So music players are getting considerably less expensive because of smaller and faster processors and greater memory capacity. But suddenly you find that the reason you only paid $50 for your new 200GB iPod is because before you can watch the Sopranos episode you transferred over, you are forced to watch a sponsored ad from HBO. Before you listen to Hilary Duff's 'Wake up', you are forced to listen to a 10 second promo for downloadable ringtunes from Rogers Wireless.

Freakiness factor: 10
Likelihood to happen: 7
Total: 17

2. Selling commercial time in your voicemail

The mobile phone companies have finally figured out how to give you free and unlimited phone service. All you do is buy the phone you want and you’re set. Unfortunately, it means that your phone becomes a vibrating advertising tool from Hell. You’re subjected to radio commercials while you wait for someone to answer the line and you’re stuck listening to ad spots while calling your voicemail.

Freakiness factor: 9
Likelihood to happen: 9
Total: 18

1. Cell phones that passively track your whereabouts and proximity to RFIDs

This one is actually well on its way to full scale market rollout in some places in Europe and certainly in Japan. Your cellphone becomes a transponder and broadcasts a signal to the network letting service providers and marketers know where you are and what billboards you’re close to. As you walk by a digital panel on the street, proximity sensors activate and display an ad that is deemed to be relevant to you. You’re watched and marketed to wherever you go.

Freakiness factor: 10
Likelihood to happen: 9
Total: 19

So these are a few of my favourite fears. Some of them I actually think consumers might warm to (e.g.cellphone RFID), if marketers can figure out how to implement them unintrusively. Otherwise, be on your toes!

WebUrbanist explores guerrilla marketing

WebUrbanist is doing a six part piece on guerrilla marketing right now. I like the idea that it's "not educational or preachy" and makes the viewer feel like "they're in on a secret".

I really don't think I'll ever get tired of guerrilla marketing campaigns. They stir the imagination and ignite the soul!

Of course, sometimes the most well-intentioned guerrilla campaigns can have disasterous results!

As fascinating as this out-of-home marketing is, I wonder how effective it really is at driving anything more than buzz and discussion. For example, does chalk graffiti actually create website visits? Do gimmicks and stunts actually lead to repeat purchases or greater customer satisfaction with the product? Therefore, a lot of credit must still be given to the tried and true relationship building marketing tactics of the past.

As mobile marketing becomes more ubiquitous, it will be interesting to see how guerrilla and interactive marketing are merged to create highly effective personal marketing conversations with consumers on the street.