What Brands Want Hasn’t Changed Much

March 6, 2013

Top-Marketer-Concerns---ANA-2012What Brands Want Hasn’t Changed Much – a great article from Brian Morrissey today. He covered recent research from ANA – the 2012 survey of marketers‘ Top  Concerns.

I’ve known folks at Digiday for a year or so but had the distinct pleasure of meeting Brian for the first time last week at IAB. Yeah, it’s nice to put names and faces together so that meeting probably grabbed my attention when I saw the email come in, but his coverage of this research really hit a note with me.

For all of the column inches of text covering “shiny bobbles” like the latest social media tip or mobile ad feature, what marketers really want is:

  1. Accountability 64%
  2. Integrated marketing 50%
  3. Innovation
  4. Building strong brands

Top marketers are focused on delivering strong data-driven customer experiences and shareholder value… What a breath of fresh air!

Leave a Comment » | Multi-channel marketing, Strategy, Thoughts | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Mark Ogne

Reaching consumers has become more difficult…

June 1, 2010

The challenge has increased exponentially.  There are more channels, more screens and more data than ever and the rate of change is increasing. Adoption driven by accessibility and affordability, technology enables consumers to access a vast wealth of information, on their terms. Starting in the last few decades, the trajectory of change has ramped up fast and is not projected to slow down.

Selecting one of the top spend channels, TV, we can see dramatic intra-channel shifts: From a peak year in mass TV advertising, 1965, until 2002, the number of 60 second spots necessary to reach 80% of one’s target audience has increased from three to 117[i]. Translating this to trust and recent research surrounding brand message acceptance, 60% of respondents said they need to hear information about a company three to five times before they believe it[ii]. Correlating these two points, an advertiser would need to provide at least 351 60 second TV spots to provide sufficient TV exposure to satisfy 80% of one’s target audience need for message acceptance. This, all while nearly 40 million US households have DVR capabilities and 59% of them “currently use a DVR to skip through the commercials”.[iii]

Fast-forward to the current decade. Today’s teen has become a moving target. Nearly all are double or triple tasking while watching TV.   U.S. teenagers trust information from each other 5X more than adults and 10X more than ads[iv]. If you think about what this world looks like 5 to 10 years from now, this scenario will be even more complex as this demographic will be your future target.  It will pay to get on top of this challenge sooner than later.

Complicating this, pushing more “noise” at consumers who have become increasingly insensitive to the charms of marketers has proven to risk exacerbating the issue and drives negative long term brand impressions.

The above is an excerpt from an upcoming whitepaper I wrote. I’ll update this post when the final production is available.

Mark

[i] Tim Stengel, former CMO at P&G

[ii] Edelman Trust Barometer, 2009

[iii] eMarketer – Mintel, “Attitudes toward Traditional Media Advertising and Promotional marketing – US”, 2009

[iv] eMarketer – Deloitte, “State of the Media Democracy Fourth Edition: Select US Highlights”, 2009

Leave a Comment » | Customer Experience, Differentiated Value of a Customer, Multi-channel marketing, Strategy | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Mark Ogne

The changing consumer -> the adoption of technology -> the changing role of a marketer

March 11, 2008

consumer marketing evolutionRecently I read that a kid entering middle school today has been subject to more information than a scholar of the late 19th century. Information and commercial communications are bombarding consumers at an unheard of rate, and it’s only escalating.

The adoption of technology, specifically the Internet, has empowered consumers who are now able to amass the “perfect knowledge” previously thought to be held by brand marketers. In the past, these marketers would gather this information and then sift it through their “brand filter” to distill the appropriate message, shining a kind light on their offering for their target audience. Today, these same consumers have access to the “unfiltered” information and a marketers job is forever changed.

Consumers now have the ability to transcend traditional boundaries of geography, time, and communication channel to gather their own impression of a marketers offering. This empowerment has increased their savvy, creating less patient consumers who simply expect more from their trusted brands.

This consumer transition can be viewed as a parallel relationship between the adoption of technology and both the increase of visitor knowledge and the inpatients it has rendered to consumers. Through this transition, consumer reaction to and consumption of traditional communications has dropped. The really unfortunate thing is that marketers have reacted to this by doing more of what was becoming less efficient, trying to beat their message into the minds of their target audience. In turn, this increase in the communications drum beat is further deafening the ear of consumers. Making the whole issue even worse.

I’d love to hear your thoughts –

Mark

1 Comment | Case Study / examples, Strategy, Thoughts | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Mark Ogne