6 Reasons Why Media Should Come Before Creative …

April 6, 2012

Not that long ago media used to be the last ten minutes of the meeting.  The big TV idea, the provocative headline or the right choice of talent was the key to unlocking brand fame in a world where advertising was first and foremost about interrupting an audience.  But for many marketers that playbook is being tossed aside.  The conventional order of: planning-creative-production-distribution is being flipped.  Answering where and how we should communicate is preceding what we should say.  Here’s why:

1.       We’ve Moved From a World of Mad Men to Math Men (and Women) 

Advertising has become a numbers game.  The more pressing questions from the C-Suite today are: How much should we ideally spend?  Which brands should be supported?  What is the return on investment?  And which channels will best pay out?   Before developing the right messaging, the right business case for advertising needs to be established first.  One of the biggest factors for marketing failure is not matching the right budget to the goals or getting the right plan.  Our business planning team helped one of our clients sell the case for a three-fold increase in ad budget to their Board.  Their business is thriving as a result of having the right level of investment.

 

2.       The Big Television Idea in Advertising Has Lost Ground to Small, Smartly Placed, Relevant Ideas

In the agency world, we live to sell clients the big idea.  A Nike Just Do It or a Dove Campaign for Real Beauty.  David Ogilvy wrote back in 1983 “I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea,” something I think is still very much the case today.  Larry Light introduced Brand Journalism, a breakthrough strategy for McDonald’s that debunked the idea of a universal message in place of using many stories to speak to different audiences. The Big Idea just isn’t a scalable proposition in advertising.   To me, relevance is one of the most important currencies in communications.  Smart tactical use of different media at relevant times, locations and environments with custom messages is what creates engagement.

Axe has done this brilliantly over the years using an array of channels to talk to young men.  This includes branded television series of men trying to win over women, mating game tool kits, spritzes from attractive female models wandering the aisles of retail stores and sponsoring nightclubs.

 

 

 

3.       Right Media, Right Message

While working on a new business pitch, I worked with Rob Feakins the Chief Creative Officer at Publicis New York.  He charged several teams in his creative department to come up with pitch ideas. Before the teams presented their ideas to him, he called me and asked if I could talk him through the media plan. I was intrigued; rarely have I found a creative to express much interest in media.  He said the relative importance of different media would help him judge the potential campaign concepts better. Knowing whether out-of-home or print or television advertising was going to be the principal channel would help him decide which idea to back.

 

4.       Content is Still Very Much King, But Which Kind of Content?

In a broadcast world the 30 second ad ruled.  But in a multi-platform digital landscape that content can and needs to take many forms.  A media plan is as likely to consist of long form video series, custom sponsored programing, short form video pre-rolls, interactive creative, mobile apps and curated branded content, alongside the more traditional ad units.  Each media forms bring a different mix of engagement, shareability and branding.  Defaulting to a creative brief that starts with the more predictable advertising units at the outset will likely stymie innovation.  This is an issue when research suggests that more and more brand decisions are being influenced by sources beyond advertising.

My advice: develop the media plan first, then determine what mix of creative assets that need to be developed.

 

5.       Adaptive Marketing

I wrote about this idea a couple months back.  Adaptive Marketing is the ability to adapt and personalize campaigns real time, by responding to data collected on the audience via their web behavior or social graph.

A favorite example of this is Intel’s Museum of Me that takes content collected from you Facebook Timeline to create a personalized animated film.

 

 

 

 

 

6.       Media is more than a venue for your ads

The Super Bowl, the Academy Awards, The Grammys, television premieres, a Final of American Idol have become media events.  Social media and tablets have turned them into live interactive marketing bonanzas.  Customizing ads and marketing programs to leverage these events is becoming a powerful strategy.  Poise used the Academy Awards to promote its pads through a Whoopi Goldberg spot and online program.  It created a viral storm and sales hit record levels.

Media companies are leading the way when it comes to navigating the paid, owned and earned world.  Media ‘brands’ such as ESPN, AOL, MTV, The X-Factor, YouTube, Jimmy Kimmel, Project Runway plus the established Broadcast Networks and print/web titles are able to deliver consistently large scale advertising audiences, give brands access to content and drive the conversation in social media.  To leverage these opportunities fully, media partners need to be a brought in much earlier in the marketing planning process.

 

To be clear, this is not a media versus creative discussion.  All stakeholders need to be part of a media discussion … the brand, account management, account planning, creative, digital and the media teams.  Maybe it is now time for the Creative to be the last 10 minutes in the meeting!

 

 

 

Filed under Views on Communications Planning Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Five common mistakes on social media and how to avoid them …

November 21, 2011

 

Brian Solis,  author of The End of Business As Usual gives a nice summary of the don’t's of social media which you can find at the Entreprenur.com site.

They include:

1. Showing up isn’t enough. While creating a presence is a start, it is how you engage with people that attracts them to you.

2. You can’t be everywhere, nor should you.  The key is to only be where your customers, prospects and those who influence them engage.

3. Authenticity and transparency are nothing without a connection. I think this is the killer point that Brian makes.  We all talk about authenticity and transparency. But he’s right when he says, “The only problem is that they don’t really equate to a strategy.” But to really engage you need to deliver value, conveying a meaningful mission and vision, or establishing a connect-worthy presence.  Othewise authenticity and transparency have nothing to reinforce.

4. Talking to people isn’t a business strategy. Don’t get caught up in only replying to brand mentions. Your real opportunity is to also engage and convert those people not already talking about you.

5. Keep your core customers tuned in. With the Old Spice, Evian Rollerbaby and Nike Write the Future, they identified all of the potential influencers in their space and reached out to them in advance of and during the video release. They sought help to make sure that the video was shared. Remember though, going viral only counts if it impacts your brand. If it creates lift, leaves an imprint or if it drives action or outcomes, that’s when you’re going viral.

All good stuff … Here is the full article.

Filed under Views on Communications Planning Tagged with , , , ,

A review of Brand Media Strategy

November 18, 2011

Lisa’s Reviews > Brand Media Strategy: Integrated Communications Planning in the Digital Era

Brand Media Strategy by Antony Young

Brand Media Strategy: Integrated Communications Planning in the Digital Era (Advertising Age)
by Antony Young

1557625

Lisa‘s review

Nov 17, 11
4 of 5 stars

bookshelves: business-books-for-2011

Read in November, 2011
Brand Media Strategy is a great overview of the challenges facing brands and the media that support them: navigating the exploding variety of places they could touch customers, knowing when they should use which one to reach out and clarifying what they should say once they’re there.Young is a former agency exec and shares a great deal of nuts-and-bolts knowledge about how to actually do the job of planning out a media strategy. He preps the reader with the “why” but also does the heavy lifting of showing “how”. The book is liberally peppered with flowcharts, diagrams and case studies to illustrate his points.I would recommend this book highly to marketers, advertising sales reps and agency types who are looking to help clarify their thinking on how and why they select (or sell) media for their brands.

Filed under Views on Communications Planning Tagged with ,

Working at the ‘Zero Moment of Truth’

October 22, 2011

Appeared in Advertising Age, October 18, 2011

Antony Young

Last week we hosted a number of clients at GroupM’s “What’s Next” conference, a summit that offers a window into some of freshest thinking and practices in the marketing and digital media spheres.

Jim Lecinski, VP for U.S. sales and service at Google, presented a thought-provoking idea that he calls the “Zero Moment of Truth.”

It’s a modification of the P&G marketing mantra conceived in the golden A.G. Lafley era, when the packaged-goods marketer evangelized on “winning at the two moments of truth” — the first at the point of purchase and the second when consumers use the product.

Now “The Zero Moment of Truth” — or ZMOT — is potentially disruptive thinking for marketers.

The idea is that a real consumer shift has taken place in the last few years. Consumers have changed their pattern of decision-making dramatically, increasingly deciding and switching their opinion of brands or products before they step into a store, talk to a sales representative or visit an e-commerce site. Hence the “Zero” moment of truth refers to the stage before the “first” and “second” moments of truth.

Increasing access to the web and mobile devices was already turning consumers into relentless, round-the-clock product researchers. But the recession has pushed us to become even more prudent about spending our dollars. The number of sources consulted by consumers before a purchase has already nearly doubled since last year, to 10.4 from 5.3, according to a study conducted by Shopper Sciences for Google.

It’s no wonder that retailers complain that foot traffic across the board is down.

Shoppers’ patterns have changed. They don’t go through a linear process that starts with narrowing a long list of brands down to a short list and then finally making a purchase. In this more connected, transparent and crowd sourced world, when shoppers start to research a product instead of narrowing, they expand their consideration set. The more you learn, the wider the options you consider and the decision to switch brands can be made with a click of the button.

My wife and I recently were in the market for a washer and drier. We started off with the intention to replace our Maytag set with updated models. After a recommendation from some colleagues, however, we switched our search to a Whirlpool. We visited its website and settled on something. But we then surveyed a myriad of consumer-review sites — Consumer Reports, Good Housekeeping and then Best Buy with its comments and ratings — and found both a question on the model’s reliability and several alternatives. After settling on an LG model this time, we went onto HomeDepot.com to check prices. By the time we arrived at our local electronics store, we were armed with exactly the brand, model and the price we needed it to match.

This shift in marketing isn’t just centered on large purchases like cars or more involved service purchases like insurance or wireless plans. Small everyday products from cat food and cough syrups get an enormous level of search activity online — particularly from moms. A quick scan of cough syrups commands 6.8 million searchable items.

This has plenty of implications to marketers and their agencies:

1. In addition to aiming your marketing communications toward heavy users, you have to focus on “heavy influencers.”
Bloggers and online reviewers are only getting more influential as Google leads a path directly to them. A personal recommendation is one of a few ways to really get people to shift brands. Marketers have already been reaching for influencers, of course, in the hope that they’ll multiply the effect of their campaigns.

2. The classic marketing funnel needs updating. 
Most marketers still fundamentally operate off the traditional purchase funnel. Metrics and key performance indicators are set against building awareness, consideration and preference. Marketing communications’ traditional role was confined to the top of the funnel, long before consumers’ purchases, while customer-relationship marketing concerned itself with customers after they bought. This model is deep-seated. Yet those silos are killing opportunities to win sales. Traditional above-the-line media and digital communications can in fact deepen your relationship and engagement with current customers, building positive experiences that are critical for maintaining repeat buying and encouraging advocacy.

3. Everything should be more social. 
Consumers don’t distinguish a traditional media campaign from a social-media campaign. The real power in marketing comes from social working at all levels. So much of the Zero Moment of Truth is driven by consumer-generated recommendation and sentiment. Think about how traditional paid media can drive the conversation. Everyone in the marketing and agency team needs to be thinking, “What can I do to make this TV or print campaign, this event or this content, more social?”

4. Digital discounting is in. 
Part of the motivation behind researching online is finding value for money. The same motivation also means that services such as Groupon and LivingSocial, or value-based e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Auction.com, will command a growing role in the marketing eco-system. I don’t know which players will win, but everything points to this sector getting more traction with consumers.

You can download Google’s free e-book “Winning the Zero Moment of Truth” here.

Filed under Views on Communications Planning Tagged with , , ,

What Do the Best Media Strategies and Executions in the World Look Like?

May 12, 2011

By Antony Young, posted on Adage.com, May 10 2011

Last weekend I sat on the judging panel of the International Festival of Media awards. Some 800 entries from 50 countries were submitted by every global media agency network as well as some first-rate creative and digital shops in a World Cup-style playoff of the best of the best.

The competition was incredibly democratic. It didn’t matter how big the budget had been or whether the work originated from Stockholm or Sydney. The finest ideas and most inventive media implementation won the day.

The media game has changed massively from even three or four years ago. The category with the largest number of entries, for example, was Best Use of Content. Media has transformed from a delivery system for ad creative to a place where the primary content can embody marketing messages.

I loved a campaign for Pampers in the Philippines that sparked a widespread movement behind “Baby Yoga.” The media agency created a daily morning TV program that invited celebrity moms to do exercises with their infant child. The stretching exercises and product integration helped P&G diapers with “stretchy sides” overtake its top competitor in that market, Huggies.

Moving from owned media to earned media, I absolutely loved CoppaFeel!, a U.K. campaign to promote young women’s awareness of breast cancer that cost just $16,000 to promote. The campaign, founded by 23-year-old cancer survivor Kristin Hallenga, engaged volunteers during Breast Cancer Awareness month with the goal to “hijack every pair of boobs in the U.K.” Promotional stickers and images encouraging women to self-check their breasts wound up on students, celebrities, professional athletes, shop mannequins, statues, posters and social media sites. The campaign grabbed the country’s attention, creating a movement that spread like wildfire.

The campaigns that impressed most, however, were sparked with a genuine consumer insight. Whiskas cat food in Australia did exactly that. Its insight was that in a dog-dominated country (50% of Australian households own a dog while less than 25% of households own a cat) most cat owners were embarrassed to talk about their pets in public. The agency planners discovered that cat owners were yearning for a ‘safe haven’ for cat talk where they could share stories, tips and celebrate their feline friends. They created an online community for owners to talk about their cats and connect with other cat lovers. They created Facebook-type profiles on a Whiskas site to show off their cats. They then asked consumers to vote for the cat that should appear on the front of Whiskas packs. Owners developed their own campaigns in social media to promote voting.

My personal award for the most resourceful campaign went to an agency trying to promote car insurance in Poland by helping drivers realize the effects of reckless driving. They partnered up with the local police in Warsaw! When a police officer stopped a driver for a traffic offence, drivers were given a choice: They could either accept the ticket or enter a special car-crash simulator. These simulators were branded by Aviva; drivers received information on Aviva’s services and how they would support them in the claim process. A smashing piece of work!

There were some disappointments. Too many media buzz words used with alarming regularity. Papers that included phrases like “this innovative multi-platform, fully integrated 360-degree program provided a highly engaging holistic campaign that surrounded the consumer whilst delivering amazing ROI” got rightfully marked down by the judges. So too were campaigns that didn’t attempt to connect media to a sales or business outcome. Interestingly, the Best Use of Digital category now almost seems a bit quaint, as I could barely remember a single entry in any category that did not have digital well and truly embedded, if not leading the campaigns.

Fellow judge MillerCoors’ media director Stevie Benjamin made a great summation when she remarked, “media’s role has to advance the message.” The winners all demonstrated this in spades.

I encourage you to check out the Cream Global site that has all the entries here.

Antony Young is the CEO of Optimedia U.S., a Publicis Groupe media-strategy and -buying agency headquartered in New York. He recently published his second book, “Brand Media Strategy: Integrated Communications Planning in a Digital Era,” a Palgrave-MacMillan and Advertising Age publication.

Filed under Views on Communications Planning Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Will strategy transform message creation and management?

April 11, 2011

Panel from 4A’s Transformation 2011 in Austin includes:

- Scott Hagedorn Chief Executive Officer Annalect Group
- Jacki Kelly Global Chief Executive Officer UM
- Joshua Spanier Director of Communication Strategy Goodby Silverstein & Partners
- Paul Woolmington Founding Partner Naked Communications

Moderator: Antony Young CEO Optimedia US

Link to the video of the panel.

Filed under Views on Communications Planning Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

5 Questions for Optimedia’s Antony Young

March 30, 2011

Into the brand breach armed with Young’s new book Brand Media Strategy

To read full article, click on:

http://www.yadvertisingblog.com/blog/2011/03/28/5-questions-for-optimedia%E2%80%99s-antony-young/

Filed under Views on Communications Planning Tagged with , , ,

Who should lead communications planning?

March 16, 2011

By Antony Young, appeared in MediaPost on March 16, 2011.

Media used to be the last five minutes in the meeting.

In an era where creative ruled the roost, selling the big advertising idea was the stuff of legends. “Just Do It,” “Priceless,” “Where’s the Beef” … great slogans and great ads in a time where advertising and brands were more easily able to penetrate the consciousness of the consumer on mass. Today, we live in a more personalized and connected communications landscape that has blurred the lines between analog and digital; content and context; and audience and editor.

There are just so much more media and tactics that marketers have available at their disposal. As a result, agencies and clients have elevated the media agenda. And this is why communications planning is now a hot topic of discussion and was the subject of a panel I chaired at last weeks 4A’s Transformation 2011 conference.

Communications planning has become a fertile battleground for the media agencies. It is seen as a critical area to increase their value proposition to clients. Media buying and execution, while important, have become more commoditized, or at the very least, less differentiating.

Comms planning encapsulates the shift in role from delivering the creative message to exploiting media to creating more relevant, memorable and interactive occasions with the brand. It has become a chief ingredient to the integrated marketing communications recipe.

Speaking on the panel, Jacki Kelley, UM’s Worldwide CEO summed up this shift by describing communications planning as a more consumer-centric approach to planning media, describing it as “a holistic approach to understanding key behaviors that a consumer is taking in order to better connect with them and the brand.”

Communications planning isn’t just the domain of the media agencies.

Creative powerhouse, Goodby Silverstein & Partners has embraced the function for many years. Joshua Spanier, the agency’s director of communications strategy, believes that bringing together creative and communications planning strategy offers powerful synergy. He argues that the separation of creative and media was a set back for agencies.

A recent development we’ve seen is the interest in communications planning by the digital agencies, in part, due to them branching out beyond their digital realm. As the general agencies have digitized, many digital agencies are now massaging their positioning as more rounded communication agencies.

What they are able to bring is a heavier leaning on analytics, adding more rigor to the planning process. “The integration of previously disparate data-sets and tools are moving into one common language and currency that can break boundaries,” commented Scott Hagedorn, CEO of Annalect, who was previously CEO of PHD.

Founding partner of Naked Communications, Paul Woolmington argued that any agency that was tied to execution [presumably creative, media or digital agencies] couldn’t truly be media neutral … a critical criteria in developing a communications plan. He added that in his view “everything communicates” and therefore, marketers need to consider all their options rather than lean towards a particular channel.

While the panel couldn’t entirely agree on which agency should lead, they were all in agreement that clients ultimately were responsible for owning the communications strategy.

The panel felt that media owners can play an important role in communications planning. One considerable area is in helping them to better understand the latest consumer trends and how to engage their audiences. For example, what doesn’t MTV know about GenY? The editors at The Wall Street Journal know better than anyone else what’s keeping CEOs up at night.

UM’s Kelley candidly confessed: “One reason I came to the agency side of the business … is that I found – while being a seller – there are very rarely people at the agencies unlocking the insights that I could have provided.”

Spanier added that “content has gone beyond just advertising.” Access to co-branded content by media partners is proving a powerful strategy for some advertisers.

Communications planning is increasingly becoming a requisite discipline in the agency world. There remain contrary views on how it might be executed, and who should lead. But what appears clear is the need to provide a solution for clients to help deploy their budgets and navigate across the plethora of media channels and platforms.

Filed under Views on Communications Planning Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

← Older posts

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,080 other followers