7 considerations when deciding the most appropriate budget mix for traditional and emerging communication content forms and contact vehicles?

February 24, 2008 at 12:56 am | In Digital thinking, Evangelism, Integration | Leave a Comment

Content or Contact mix decisions should not be arbitrary. There is no one rule and decisions should be made on a brand specific basis. Below are some considerations that may help you determine your brands right mix.

1. Where does the money come from to fund internet?

The Brazilian market is still using internet primarily for building awareness, advocacy and affinity. Markets where Digital has taken a stronger hold generally potentialize it´s benefits throughout the whole purchase decision process. Hence, although digital is a powerful affinity driving tool, in other markets digital is dragging money up from below-the-line more than shifting traditional media funds.

2. Purchasing process disruption forcing an integrated communications digital presence

The traditional path-to-purchase process is broken for many categories. Consumers are changing their expectations and the way that they consume content. Being able to connect with content in a self-service manner has dramatically shortened decision making cycles. Internet on-demand content, social networking and communications are facilitating quicker decisions that demand a constant multi- dimensional marketing presence.

3. Belgium and India (Brazil is five countries in one).

Lack of online critical mass / poor internet penetration can no longer be an excuse for inertia in shifting funds for many influential targets. With weekly internet penetration now ranges from 83% (AB Men 18-24) to zero depending on the target and the state. For most high value consumers, penetrations are well above many in markets considered developed.

4. Perceived or real risk?

Resistance to shifting money to digital is more a result of perceived risk rather that real risk. For many brands, innovation is fundamental, but lack of digital knowledge (driven by many years of digital separation) has created a large gap between perceived and real innovation risk. Often a huge gap exists between the innovation the brand requires and the risk the decision stakeholders are willing to take. This dramatically affects our abilities to get innovative ideas approved.

5. Is internet more effective and efficient that my traditional communication?

30sec video content (and many other traditional content forms) distributed via mass media is still an extremely power and persuasive form of communication content.

It is commonly believed that interactivity is one of the most effective content engagement mechanics, but while digital still has limited reach, it is yet to be proven if interactive is both more effective and more efficient at building affinity with your consumer.

For most integrated marketing campaigns with a central consumer insight focused core idea, digital can be an effective central destination to link each contact channel and drive communication synergies.

6. Which brands need to act urgently?

For many categories that do not have a disrupted path-to-purchase, we may need to first prove that alternate forms of content are both more efficient and effective before shifting investment. E.g. most package consumer goods, mass marketers skewing to broad audiences (that don´t have a specific need for segmentation).

That being said, if your focus is building Brand affinity to AB <40 targets, their expectation of how you connect with them has irreversibly changed. You definitely need to balance your traditional communications content with more conversational content forms.

Here are some other obvious extreme categories where path is disrupted and a constant aggressive presence addressing all parts of the decision path is required:

  • High Innovation Demand Products: Soft drinks, Snack foods, fashion, music, mobile phones
  • Anything where business model is inherently digital: some Commerce, Banking, ticket purchases, software,
  • Info / WOM opinion rich decision process: Travel, Car purchase, house purchase, PC, technology,
  • Any other product that can be sold via eCommerce and is easily and cheaply shipped: Books, movies, fast food etc

7. Responsible Innovation (Beware of expectation bubbles)

Ad hoc projects without a strategic vision often burn bridges and retard sustainable integration. Before investing in innovation, we should clarify the success metrics and align our efforts with an integrated strategic vision. Tactical actions should be evaluated in the context of how it will enhance our consumers Brand affinity and ultimately convert to sustainable demand. Ideally, programs should be based on a brands innovation needs and target content insights. They should be a sustainable process of incrementally building capabilities by setting clear success metrics, testing, learning and quickly reapplying.

Cheers, BC

“I want to have more digital?” – Transition management

February 24, 2008 at 12:54 am | In Digital thinking | 2 Comments

Like many senior business decision makers, I lose sleep concerned if my staff and clients realize what ‘going digital’ means.

Many believe that it is including marketing using the latest gadget or simply including internet advertising in their communications mix.

Actually, going digital has very little to do with the technology. Digital represents a culture of change.

Digital is more about business becoming more sophisticated, evolving its capabilities and moving from a reactive to a proactive posture to attend to a faster and more detailed flow of content.

“Who moved my customer?”

Digital content is changing consumers expectations, and the most disrupted are extremely influential customers. E.g. AB SEL <40.

Businesses need to quickly realize that these disruptive experiences are permanently shifting customers perception of value. The challenge now is to identify which are fads and which are the true disruptive experiences e.g. will new content interfaces like Joost, Wii, iPhone have the same effect that Palm pilot had on Filofax, mobile phones had on fixed lines, Napster had on CD´s, Broadband is having on dial-up etc.

Digital evangelism retarding cultural change

Unfortunately, separation of digital within business has alienated the majority of business decision makers, exacerbating the problem by increasing the perceived risk associated with communication related investments.

There are few professionals who currently have a holistic view of communication and understand how to integrate across both traditional and emerging communications and also through the purchase process.

In the medium-term, Integration is a far more scalable approach and much more effective in balancing the ongoing needs of disrupted and conventional customers.

The emerging business professional

The new measure of the value and equity of a business professional is the ability to filter through the noise, isolate and deconstruct the dynamics of change, reconstruct the elements (connect the dots) to uncover trends , form a vision, provide thought leadership and resolve business problems in an innovative way.

To achieve this, we first all need to have opinions. A good place to start is to analyze our own content and delivery device experiences. E.g. is the user interface intuitive, will it change my value proposition. Right or wrong, opinions are critical to help us initiate a conversation to refine our point-of-view.

Ask the tough questions to innovate

For many industries and business professionals, the opportunity cost of doing nothing is greater than trying and failing.

Ignorance, politics and business culture unfortunately, force many business professionals to be risk-averse. The mix of innovation in a marketing plan should be treated like a financial portfolio. Even the most conservative portfolio has a small proportion of risk built in to keep up with the market.

Although easier, uncontrolled tactical risk is counter-productive to the digital economy. The most practical approach to innovation is to: create a vision, map a path to the vision, determine the gaps in knowledge or capabilities to achieve the vision and construct a research and development plan to evolve your capabilities.

Remember, once a problem is defined, it is much easier to resolve. Encourage your staff to be curious to ask the tough questions.

Good news: The fundamentals of marketing haven´t changed

Contrary to evangelistic prophesies, the marketing model is not broken. It is just evolving to a more sophisticated model (driven by the new disciplines of the digital economy).

Customers still go through the same process to form opinions or reaffirm existing beliefs when deciding on a product purchase (but now the decisions can be quicker). Marketing is still about creating big ideas that open the door, get our customers attention to start a conversation.

The secret to integration success is not to concentrate on differences, but to draw parallels between the old and new economic models.

Digital is the catalyst for broader change

Digital thinking accentuates many of the dynamic elements of the emerging economy. i.e. the need to:

  • better understand customers and uncover ownable insights to effectively converse with them and influence their purchase decisions
  • innovate content and contact channel forms to encourage customers to engage with our communication messages
  • plan to an increasing level of detail and integrate to harmonize all elements in the marketing mix to provide a consistent brand personality across all phases of an increasingly accelerated purchase decision process
  • anticipate customer trends to gain a competitive advantage
  • define success metrics to ensure our marketing programs have benchmarked objectives and relevant measurement tools

Cheers, BC

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