The 24×7 newsroom blueprint for advertising
The campaign-based model is rigid; for messages to be heard in 2020, brands will have to adopt characteristics of the realtime, data-driven newsroom. The newsroom metaphor suggests that content has to be produced and delivered in a continuous stream rather than through a ponderous, slow-moving process of months of campaign development. Wieden+Kennedy understood this when they produced 200 Old Spice YouTube videos in 48 hours – moving from ‘brand time’ to ‘human time’.
Prepare for the on-demand age of marketing
With the consumer empowered through technology, marketing is moving towards being on-demand and relevant. This has two aspects; one initiated by the consumer similar to on-demand TV, videos or movies. The other is initiated by the advertiser as a result of the big data in analytics; by knowing about the consumer and his/ her activities at any given moment in time, the advertiser can send relevant information. The challenge is information overload and irrelevant information.
‘Glocal’ builds on unity of thought with diversity in execution
Glocal advertising strategy allows local adaptation of a universally embraced core idea that will resonate in any market anywhere in the world. Johnnie Walker started with the understanding that men around the world seek to advance in their lives. This universal human motivation unlocked both a global positioning — specifically, “inspiring men to progress” — and an advertising expression of this, “Keep Walking”. The initial print and poster elements of the campaign featured inspirational quotes from many cultures: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” from Lao Tsu was particularly powerful in Asian cultures; Hannibal’s “We will either find a way or
make one” resonated in Western cultures. Glocal strategy is not only for global brands as this approach has increasing relevance for any advertising directed at diverse consumer segments.
Ride the Open Innovation tiger or else…
The radical democratisation of advertising over the last decade created by open innovation, crowd sourcing, and co-creation is transforming the business. Victors and Spoils (V&S) created a brief and posted it to its crowd of 7,200 creatives and strategists — made up of freelancers, moonlighters from other agencies, and brand and advertising enthusiasts. Six hundred ideas later the theme of “No Cages” won and it continues to be Harley’s brand anthem two years later. As part of the crowd sourcing effort, V&S created Fan Machine, an app that turns a brand’s social media platform into a virtual creative department, making fans central to the advertising process. Two-hundred-twenty-two ideas and 8,193 votes resulted in the “Stereotypical Harley” campaign launched via twitter.
Act like a conductor to orchestrate the silos in communication
To be effective, you have to deliver the message, not just through traditional media and new media, but through all touch points. You want to try to make sure that you reach the consumer with a consistent message whether it is through product or package design, the sales force, store design, or call centre. We see a lot of advertisers beginning to define the role of the CMO (chief marketing officer) as this network orchestrator.
Redefining advertising objectives
Traditional advertising measurement always had sales as the ultimate objective. Today, you really have to talk about three types of objectives that advertising fulfils; first is addressing consumer needs effectively, second is achieving corporate objectives such as sales, profitability or loyalty. The third, which has largely been ignored till now is about positive social impact. Jim Stengel, the former CMO of P&G in his book “Grow” writes that companies with a positive social impact outperform by almost 4 to 1 the S&P 500.
Leverage the power of big data and analytics to focus on a single consumer
According to Bughin and Edelman of McKinsey ‘digital media drove a shift in marketers’ budgets to “always-on” digital media, such as search, display, and social. And, they will invest in massive analytical capabilities to support the brand’s stewardship of their customers’ information. CMOs will need to hire analysts to manage and track the data flows, data scientists and mathematicians to create ever more sophisticated algorithms, and “data whisperers” to coax meaning from 1s and 0s. Human emotions; the reason to be Studies suggest that emotional advertising is far more effective than rational or cognitive advertising. So, to try really to relate to consumers, you want to go beyond just effect and performance – you want to start developing emotional relations with the consumer.
Consumer data ‘lockers’ turning to currency online
Privacy and permission are important in an on-demand marketing age. However, there is an extreme scenario here – what happens when the consumer owns the data as opposed to the companies owning it and manipulating it for their use. The consumer could then ask companies to pay for the use of that data. This is true empowerment of the consumer. Consumers could create a private secure data vault on their profile; lockers with food preferences, next vacation, sports fan, coffee order, home service providers, restaurant list, bank accounts, and so on.
Adopt an adaptive experimentation philosophy
There is a situation where you spend millions of dollars on advertising and at the end of the year you get some results. However, after spending millions of dollars on advertising, you do not know what to do next. The only way in which you can establish the link between advertising and its impact is through experimentation.
The Future is NOW
I think you can look at today as the golden age of advertising because of so many opportunities and the positive impact on consumers and society by adding relevance. At
the same time, it is really threatening, because it clearly suggests that traditional agencies have to change in their offerings, structure and the way they deliver services. There is a growing call from advertisers for the agency to change its business model, become more responsive and sharing rewards with advertisers.