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Research Says Add New Media, But Don’t Drop The Old: Study Of Over 400 Successful Marketing Campaigns.

~ K. Quesenberry ~ 2 Comments

Last fall my colleagues and I published research in the International Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications. Our study “IMC and The Effies” analyzed integrated marketing communications touchpoints used in 421 Effie Award-winning campaigns from 1998-2010 – campaigns awarded for marketing effectiveness.

In case you are not familiar with them, Effie Award-winners are proven success stories. Each campaign has supported its effectiveness with verifiable data that demonstrates it has met its marketing and advertising objectives. As indicated below, what we saw was an increased use in the number of marketing touchpoints from roughly two (such as TV and print) to six (such as TV, print, radio, PR, Interactive, Consumer Involvement).

The Number of Touchpoints for a Successful Effie Campaign has Increased
The number of consumer touchpoints for a Successful Effie Campaign has Increased

Of those communications touchpoints, public relations, interactive marketing, guerilla marketing and consumer involvement showed noteworthy increases over time. Over the last 13 years, marketing has changed dramatically and the practice of IMC (Integrated Marketing Communications) has increased greatly. Successful Effie Award marketing has increasingly used more multimedia communications campaigns and less single-media touchpoint campaigns.

Effie Awards
Traditional media used to rule, but now new media is a key ingredient to marketing success.

What can we learn from this? 

First, marketing campaigns should be built on multimedia touchpoints. I talk a lot about the power of social media, but what you will notice here is that interactive (social media) alone is not the key ingredient to success. Traditional media such as TV is no longer the dominate medium, yet it has not gone away. Integrated multimedia efforts are needed today to break through the media clutter and reach an increasingly fragmented audience. Have you been so caught up in the social media hype that you have forgotten traditional advertising media?

Second, public relations and interactive media play an increasingly important role in effective campaigns and should be considered as a part of an integrated multimedia marketing campaign. It’s hard to ignore digital efforts, but are you leveraging PR to its full extent? Public relations is especially important for Startups. Can you hold an event around your product or campaign? How can you turn your marketing into a news story? I saw Alex Bogusky speak at an AWEEK Creativity conference years ago and he said CP&B always tried to create PR-able Advertising. The result was viral successes such as BK Subservient Chicken to their Mini campaign.

Finally, our study over 400 successful campaigns gave another insight. In addition to public relations and interactive media, marketers should also consider direct email, design, cinema, sponsorships, guerrilla, and consumer involvement media. Any surprises here? You’re probably using email, but what about sponsorships? Sponsoring local activities ties into PR and event tactics. Sponsoring non-profit / charity events that your target cares about taps into the increasing influence of cause marketing. Consumer involvement is word-of-mouth, consumer generated media and viral, which should be the fuel adding to your integrated flame.

The Super Bowl is a prime example of these changes – watch the TV ad hype leading up to the game in the next couple of weeks. Even though the Super Bowl is one of the last remaining mass media outlets, advertisers now depend on pre- and post-game public relations and digital media tactics to generate buzz outside the actual broadcast. Successful marketers who have won Effie Awards are adding more communication touchpoints over the years, but not dropping traditional outlets. So as we continue to hype up new media, don’t forget the old.

Can Retail Make Room For Showrooming?

~ K. Quesenberry ~ Leave a comment

Retail stores have had to deal with an increasing threat to their sales as smartphone ownership has crossed 50% and more consumers are using stores as a “showroom” before buying goods online. This especially became a problem for retailer Target when Amazon offered a 5% discount to anyone who used their Price Check app to scan a bar code of an item in a store and then bought it from the website. As a result, Target dropped Kindle from shelves saying, “What we aren’t willing to do is let online-only retailers use our brick-and-mortar stores as a showroom for their products and undercut our prices.” Not too long after Walmart followed suit by dropping Kindles from their stores.

How big is this problem? A recent survey says 50% of respondents with smartphones research prices while in store, 1 in 3 who research prices leave and buy from a competitor, and 96% plan to “showroom” in the future.

So what can retailers do? An article in Forbes suggests three strategies:
1. Begin a strategic conversation between brands and retailers. Through dual distribution or multichannel marketing they often end up competing against each other. Big retailers such as Best Buy need to develop exclusives to keep customers coming and buying. Tom Van Riper from Forbes said this is how Barnes & Noble kept Amazon from closing their business by developing the Nook.
2. Embrace customization as a key area of strategic growth. Large shoe brands such as Reebok and Nike are seeing revenue numbers in the $100 million range with their custom shoe programs.
3. Focus on the customer experience. Forrester research says 35% of shoppers want to purchase custom products to stand out from their peers. But also consider custom buying experiences for long term loyalty and engagement.

Mashable suggests innovation as another way to battle showrooming and talks about a store in Australia which started charging consumers $5 just to walk into the store. Before you start a retail cover charge also consider new digital marketing services that engage shoppers to entice them to stores. For example, Target has announced plans to price-match online competitors, such as Amazon. And Brian Gillespie, principal at a service design firm, suggests encouraging “webrooming” (the opposite of showrooming) where shoppers search for products they want online, and then head into the store to make a purchase.

Gillespie makes a good point. It comes down to retailers creating an in-store experience exceptional enough to keep consumers purchasing in-store. The kind of customer service Nordstrom offers and enhanced with digital environments. But will that kind of service draw a crowd for toilet paper at Target the same way it does for Eau de toilette at Nordstrom?