Short term or long term effects from advertising?

We pride ourselves in learning something new every day. Often they are little things coming from our fanatical focus on the results we drive for clients. We are incredibly lucky - we have both a short term lens of daily results and a long term lens of ten years of longitudinal results data for clients. And that, together with our culture, enables us to deliver on our promise of creating growth for clients. But every so often one learns a big lesson. And thus it was last Wednesday. We tipped up at Bafta to participate in Thinkbox’s latest contribution to the insights we have on what makes advertising effective. It was a long morning - four hours of learning from 996 case studies with over 30 years of data - beautifully synthesised by Les Binet and Peter Field into clear and concise guidance for advertisers. In a nutshell: if you want income this month there are a set of clear behaviours to follow. BUT if you want more income over the next three years, then consider a different (but not exclusive) set of behaviours. Their work is worth more than two lines and I recommend you have a look here: http://www.thinkbox.tv/server/show/nav.2211 We were flattered to be asked to validate their academic learning with our practitioner dataset. And we were equally surprised at how good a fit we found between theory and real world. It brought home a lesson that we all learned a long time ago, but don’t focus on enough. One can generate good and profitable short term response from promotional strategies. Enough focus on message and media and anyone can make the tills ring tomorrow. The trick is to generate short term response from a brand centric proposition. Then three things happen. The tills ring short term. BUT the campaign can also sustain investment in media vehicles that generate medium and long term response as well as immediate sales. AND, as a result, one starts to build long term brand equity. And that ensures a long term competitive advantage, especially via a sustained price premium. It’s a lesson we all learned a long time ago. It’s one we see illustrated every day in the best brands we work with. But it’s one that is easy to forget in the muck and bullets when the December sales target is just out of reach. But we have a very specific view of that lesson, and that’s this: Campaigns that are effective in the long term are ALWAYS effective in the short term as well. The foundations for long term growth are based on solid short term success. And that means we may sacrifice a little short term growth to ensure better, more sustainable long term growth, but it doesn’t provide an excuse for short term failure. Mike Colling, Managing Director

What's hot in digital?

Last Wednesday we held a joint seminar with our partners, Jack Media London, on the latest developments in the world of digital media. Hosted by our own Mike Colling, speakers included Ed French from GDM Media, Matt Bush from Google and Rupert Staines from Radium One covering a range of subject areas from the growth of RTB to the importance of video and mobile in your media mix to the prominence of sharing on the open web. Our colleague, Jon Morgan, at Jack Media has produced a great summary of the sessions and we can think of no better way of telling you about the event than by referring you to his blog! If you'd like further information about the day or any of the subject areas covered, please contact Ian Prager on 020-7307 6119 or at ian@mcand.co.uk

Insights and etiquette: making money from social media

Two incontrovertible facts in social media. Firstly there are enough eyeballs spending enough time on it that any other media owner would have monetized them. And secondly (as Facebook share price indicates) to date they haven’t been. To our minds it’s a matter of etiquette. Something, that really hasn’t been formalized as yet online, but is beginning to emerge. We think of Facebook as being your friendly local pub. You hang out with your mates and chat. And just as one wouldn’t want advertising over a pint with mates, one doesn’t want it in one’s virtual pub. But this being the data rich online world in which we live, we can take and use the insights that chat creates. We can take the subjects being chatted about, and the network of individuals chatting, and use that data to target them outside of the “pub”. Social media insights, applied to web wide display advertising. It’s a group you know are interested in your product or service, even if they haven’t been to your website yet. Proper behaviour from advertisers, but leveraging real consumer behaviour. And do we like the results! Mike Colling Managing Director

Giving to charity is down - it might be a good thing

Yesterday saw the publication of a survey from the Charities Aid Foundation into the state of charitable giving in the UK. Total giving is down by 20% year on year, or by circa £1.7 bn. CAF see this as “deeply worrying”. We are not sure we agree. We work with 20 of the brightest and best charities in the UK. Almost without exception results to donor recruitment and donor appeals are up year on year. So if some of the sector are stable or up, some must be down by way more than 20%. And that also seems to be true. In some of the cases we have seen coming to us results have been down by up to 50%. And it makes sense to us. Donors are consumers. And in the rest of their lives they are looking for better value. Why shouldn’t that be true of their charitable giving as well? In this year more than ever before consumers are prepared to switch brands in search of better value. That is obviously good news for any organization wanting to grow their donor base, and capable of expressing a coherent case for support. We would also argue that it’s good news for the sector as a whole. Flabby fundraisers who cannot demonstrate the value of their cause and the impact their fundraising generates damage the credibility of all. Not all organizations have a God given right to survive. So maybe, if your results aren’t up this year, instead of saying “that’s 20% ahead of the sector” maybe you should ask “where else have those donors I could have recruited gone?” Mike Colling Managing Director

One media owner or many?

We are currently addressing a challenge for a new client, with an old problem:- How do they launch into the UK market with a limited budget and maximize both consumer impact and hard (sales) returns? 30 years ago the solution would have been buy media from one media owner, probably ITV. A single spot would have reached 50% of almost any target audience. Over the last 30 years, however, we have lived through the greatest proliferation and fragmentation of media opportunities in history. And media planning solutions have reflected this with schedules becoming more and more complex, adding more channels and media owners. The IPA effectiveness datamine casts an interesting insight here - the latest results show that the most effective campaigns are using 8 or more media channels. So I was fascinated to be part of the team that has created a different solution this week - focusing budget on a single media owner, rather than spreading expenditure across multiple opportunities. The client was initially sceptical, as was I! But this solution reached more of our audience, was more cost effective, and provided a more apposite environment for the messaging than a typical multichannel schedule. Now to be honest, this solution is only possible because of the changing nature of media owners. 30 years ago a media owner was defined by a single channel. ITV were TV broadcasters. The Sun was a daily newspaper. For the larger media owners today that is no longer the case. With one deal we can now encompass print, video, data, and multiple platforms from paper to PC. These single media owner deals have much to recommend them:- •they address what is actually a single community, united around content, that happens to be distributed across several platforms •they move what is otherwise a commodity media buy to an aligned media partnership, with both sides working together rather than in combat for share and rate •they reduce the clutter in the communication planners’ and clients’ minds, allowing focus of the most valuable resource of all - intellectual effort - and improving significantly the return on that investment. How the wheel turns! Mike Colling Managing Director

New media niches

I flew from Amsterdam to Pisa last Friday, on Transavia, the Dutch equivalent of Ryanair. Not remarkable in itself, but what was remarkable was the experiential media opportunity in flight. A cosmetics company had created a sampling opportunity, complete with data capture, using the in-flight service team to offer their wares. They had read their audience perfectly. The passengers were almost exclusively young mass-market families going to Italy for some cheap sun. The yummy mummies were in holiday mode, and ready for some pampering and prepared to spend. A brand making a fuss of them, in a time where their only alternative was to pay attention to the demands of their children was welcomed with open arms. It’s not often that I say “I wish I had done that” but in this case I did! A bright media planner somewhere had identified a niche where no other brand would impinge, and where their brand could really engage with its audience. If it’s your plan and you are reading this, then send in your CV. Mike Colling Managing Director

Selling on social media – right or just plain wrong?

A snippet of Facebook news caught my eye this morning. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not a complete Facebook detractor. Anything that captures the attention of circa 40% of us for an hour a day (double the time we spend reading newspapers or magazines) has got to have value. But, please, not for shopping. ASOS is the mail order company for this generation. I started my direct marketing life working with catalogue companies like Grattan. Huge books that landed with a thud on the door mat! ASOS have brought their digital skills to this market, and to datem have stolen it with great success. But, as with all growth stories they have just reached their “bridge too far”. They have recently taken down their Facebook shop, and triggered debate as to whether this is the end of “F-commerce”. But there shouldn't be any debate, and there should be no “F-Commerce”. It’s an oxymoron. Facebook is Starbucks or your old man’s pub. It’s a place to hang and gossip. It’s not a place to be sold to in. Sure, add social commentary features and reviews to your Ecommerce site, so users can praise you. But please don’t invade personal space to sell. When will we ever develop a digital etiquette? Mike Colling Managing Director