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Go to War Against Wasted Marketing Spending


What Marines Can Teach CMOs About Success Under Fire

Published: December 17, 2008

Casey Jones
Casey Jones

As marketers, we jointly spend hundreds of billions of dollars commu­ni­cating what we believe are critical messages to our target audiences. All of us, from entry-level brand managers to CMOs, know there is enormous waste in our industry. As Wanamaker famously said, “I know half my adver­tising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” My strong suggestion, especially in an economy where every single marketing dollar must count, is to improve your aim.

Without looking closely at your marketing spending, I can already tell you that the waste starts because aston­ishingly little attention is paid to the devel­opment of messages that will persuade your key customers and audiences to change their perceptions of your brand or love your products. Like a mob of first-week recruits at Marine Corps boot camp, most day-to-day marketing troops are spraying ammo (your money) at their targets. The first thing I learned many years ago on a Marine Corps rifle range was the acronym BRASS: breathe, relax, aim, squeeze, shoot. My bet is, especially in times of panic, there is a lot of shooting going on and not enough aiming.

The persuasive power of any marketing-communications effort is directly propor­tional to three things: the quality of the messaging; the quality, reach and frequency of exposure to those messages; and the voltage the creative adds to the messaging. Great creative can have an exponential impact on your brand, but if the message is worthless, if your aim is off, all the creativity in the world is going to be off-target.

The battle against waste
I’ve spent an entire career at war with waste. Part of what attracted me to Dell was Michael Dell’s obsession with optimization — of everything. The first thing I learned there was that we had a truly insane number of agencies. The second thing I learned was that there was absolutely no playbook — no standardized system for developing and deter­mining the quality of the assignments we were giving those agency teams. I was not surprised, although you may be if you take a similar close look at your marketing processes.

Here’s the first step: Survey your assignment or creative briefs. Find out exactly how many people in your company are responsible for briefing agencies and spending the marketing budget. Use a simple survey tool such as Survey Monkey to determine how many assignments that involve messaging are being done per quarter. At Dell, the number was in the thousands, against a budget of more than $1 billion annually.

Now the somewhat tricky part: Have every team member who is writing briefs send a copy of every finalized brief that went to an agency to one e-mail inbox. Take the time or have your most strategic team member take the time to audit 5% to 10% of those briefs.

What you’ll find
What you will find will appall you. First, you will learn there is no standard approach for briefing the teams, internal or external, who create your marketing materials. Second, you will discover that the majority of the briefing documents focus on features rather than benefits and are poorly organized, poorly written, too long, overly complex and generally built from internally popular messages rather than key insights into what demon­strably persuades your customers or other key stake­holders. You will also find that a high percentage of the work done does not clearly commu­nicate the key messages in even the best-intended brief.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Casey Jones is a proud veteran of both the United States Marine Corps and Dell, where he was VP-global marketing.

If you take the time to audit messaging briefs on a regular basis, your teams will get the message, and their aim will improve dramat­ically. Don’t think you have time to focus on taking better aim in the middle of a market crisis? The question is: Can you afford not to?

Remember BRASS. Breathe: Set aside time every week to focus on what your brand is commu­ni­cating. Relax: Remember that the brand will not fail if you pause for a moment to focus. It may fail, however, if you continue to waste marketing shots that are off-target. Aim: Make sure your messaging briefs are standardized and contain these essential elements:

  1. A clear definition of the target audience that is focused enough to establish common interests
  2. A clear statement of the audience’s current mental and emotional perceptions of your brand, the context in which they will make purchase decisions, and the competitive set.
  3. A short statement of the “desired” perceptual state — one that is reasonable given your budget. What do you want the audience to think and feel after you commu­nicate with them?
  4. A clear list of the minimum points you must commu­nicate in order to achieve your goal. If it doesn’t persuade, don’t say it!

Now put steady pressure on the trigger, squeeze and shoot. Bam! An on-target shot. Do it consis­tently, and pretty soon, your competitors will be waving white flags.


From AdAge.com 121808
Posted in Business | Tagged | Leave a comment

CEOs: How to Confront the Financial Crisis

BBDO’s Andrew Robertson and Others on the Challenges Facing the Industry

By Michael Bush ??Published: September 22, 2008

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — To no one’s surprise, the first topic of discussion at Adver­tising Week’s CNBC CEO Summit was the meltdown of the financial markets last week.

“You can’t talk about the impact in general terms,” Andrew Robertson, president-CEO of BBDO Worldwide, told the nearly packed Price­wa­ter­house­C­oopers Auditorium in Midtown Manhattan this morning. “You have to look at it on a client-by-client basis. But there are definitely clients where the emphasis is going to switch, and there will be clients for whom the value message is going to become a much bigger component of the overall messaging mix, because that’s something that’s going to be pretty motivating to consumers.”

Moderated by CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo, the panel, made up of Mr. Robertson; Nick Brien, CEO of Media­brands; Sarah Fay, CEO of Aegis Media North America; and Irwin Gotlieb, CEO of Group M, discussed a variety of topics, but the fallout from last week’s financial mess was never far from top of mind.


‘Best-case scenario’

“I’m not sure how consumers will react to this,” Mr. Gotlieb said. “At the moment I don’t think the consumer can comprehend what has just happened. The best-case scenario is that the consumer doesn’t comprehend what went on and goes on merrily about their way.”

He said regardless of a person’s ability to fully comprehend what transpired, consumer confidence has a way of coming back. “There is quite a bit of elasticity in consumer confidence, and it does tend to bounce back, whether the situation is under­standable or not,” he said.

Ms. Fay said one of the questions was just how big an impact Wall Street’s woes will have on ad budgets. She said her adver­tising media company has “just rounded down” its 2008 growth forecast, from 6% to 4.9%.

Mr. Brien said of the financial crisis: “Between natural-resource prices, the housing market, what’s happening on Wall Street as well as technology and its impact on marketing, it’s a more challenging environment in terms of turning suspects into prospects into buyers,” he said. “It’s going to challenge the profes­sionalism of everything we do.”

Funda­mental shift

The panelists also discussed the evolving nature of the marketing business, the need for more integration across disci­plines and the growing relevance of data such as consumer behavior when it comes to constructing a campaign.

“The nature of marketing is going to be less about the vehicles we choose to target and how we use those vehicles,” Mr. Brien said. “It’s going to be more about the fact that we need to refine the persuasion-based activities we have all grown up with with user influence. This balance is going to challenge agency structures.”

Mr. Robertson called this the funda­mental shift that people need to start recog­nizing in order to reach consumers.

“We have to stop thinking of media as bridges that we march messages over into people’s minds and start thinking about creating experiences that change behavior and providing access to those experiences in the most relevant places,” Mr. Robertson said. “That’s a different language and different way of thinking from the way the business was approached even three years ago.”

Consumers behavior

“Rightly or wrongly, the consumer trusts their peers more than they trust some of the most recognized publi­cations,” Mr. Gotlieb said. “And because of that the commu­ni­cations today are not just about talking at the consumer. It’s about managing their perception and trying to get them to participate in the discussion in a way that is favorable to your client. The challenge is none of us can do all of these things. What we have to get to is a single, integrated strategy that can be imple­mented by multiple entities. None of us has the ability to implement all of the components of that strategy.”

Mr. Robertson said the only thing that matters to him is consumer behavior, and marketers should focus on creating experiences to change consumer behavior and not so much on messaging.

“We used to think about messages that created a case for a particular behavior,” Mr. Robertson said. “It’s not about that now. It’s about creating experiences that, by partic­i­pating in them, change consumer behavior. I’m only interested in behavior. Everything else is just a proxy for it. Unless behavior changes, it’s all been a waste of time and money. That’s an important lens through which to look at everything, because there’s a lot of inter­esting stuff going on, none of which is going to change behavior. And our clients can’t make any money unless behavior changes.”

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Things that inspire us today…

Metallica identity redo
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The Renegade Rollergirls rule!

Rollergirls-Shot_Small

Some agencies have great clients. We happen to be one of those lucky ones. The Renegade Rollergirls of Central Oregon have welcomed us with a zeal that’s amazing. Just to explain, these ladies balance jobs, families and their other family, The Renegade Rollergirls. This is no small commitment. In addition to competing pretty much twice a month, they also practice and work out twice a week as a group. Now keep in mind they don’t get paid for this. In fact, they pay to participate. This is dedication.

If you’ve never seen a Renegade bout, you’re missing out. Hands down these ladies are some of the most dedicated, competitive people I know. They also happen to be amazingly genuine and talented people. The events are super competitive and intense yet still completely suitable for family viewing. So, it was with a lot of enthusiasm we began brain­storming a campaign for the 2008–2009 season.

The beginning of our challenge was to look at the experience of the event itself. While the teams were skating and competing the event was riveting and exciting. But before the bout and during the 2 ten-minute inter­missions people were restless.

The second part of our challenge was creating an idea and a look that would translate throughout the entire season and would not get old or be easy to overlook. The previous work that was done to promote the events was well done. However, there was no consistency in the look, feel or message so it made it more difficult to generate any big brand awareness or ownership.

Thirdly, the idea had to suit the mood and tone of the league and be appealing to the ladies that work so hard to be a part of it. If they don’t like it, well let’s just say it wouldn’t have any chance of succeeding. As my mom used to say “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy”.

With these basic challenges in mind we developed several potential directions and finally settled on the idea of “SIDESHOW”. Now this is no freak show. There are no bearded ladies or 3-headed snakes. This is an event loaded with excitement and action you can’t find elsewhere. This idea is also unique visually to what other roller derby teams are doing. And finally, it’s an idea that can be integrated into the experience of the events. Because ultimately, it’s the entire experience that brings people back, keeps people talking and makes it entertaining.

Our campaign efforts will cover many medias and tactics. We’ll have posters all over the area, a radio campaign, smaller postcard size posters with event details and schedule, and a limited amount of newspaper ads as well. But it doesn’t stop there. We are also working closely with the Renegade Rollergirls to develop offers and promotions to drive people to the events. Coming up with ideas to increase ticket sales and retail oppor­tu­nities. And finally, by having an idea in which anyone and everyone can be involved, we make the whole idea come alive.

So here we are, at the beginning of a super fun project with clients that have the vision and deter­mi­nation to create something great. We’ve created our first event poster and radio spot soon to be followed by so much more. We hope to see you there!

For more infor­mation on the Renegade Rollergirls visit www.RenegadesOR.com

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