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The Last on Reese's
Name a quest that both Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Disney are on?
You Stuck Your Advertisement in My Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups!
Rev'd Up Over Statistics
The View from Seoul

 

The Last on Reese's

rex.briggs | 10 October, 2006 05:09

Previously I raised questions about whether marketers focus enough on their internal media and marketing tools. Do they know the ROI and work to optimize their internal marketing tools? And, if you wanted to measure it, could you? We started with Hershey’s Kissables advertising within Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup packaging and brought into the fray McDonald’s, Disney and ESPN.

Let’s first tackle the question of whether or not marketers focus enough on their internal marketing tools. I don’t think most do and that seems to be the feedback that I’ve gotten on this thread from our well studied readers. There are exceptions. I know that ESPN gets how important their on-channel advertising is. But, because the marketing is relatively inexpensive (internal production costs are often the only "cost") there is tendency to under-leverage this great asset that marketers have with their best customers. And, if these programs are under-leveraged, marketers need to gather insights on how to get the best results possible from these programs, and this takes research. But many assume that such programs are not measurable. Nonsense. With a bit of creativity and flexibility, methodologies like ROMO can help marketers execute design of experiments to isolate the programs effectiveness. But, would a marketer look at the research cost to measure a "free" media, and balk at paying to measure something that is free? Maybe. And if so, that would be a shame, because I would be willing to bet that most marketers could double the effectiveness of these internal marketing programs with a bit of research.

But, until you try it, you wouldn’t know. Just like with Peanut Butter and Chocolate. Until you try mixing them, you’d never know what a great combination they make.

Name a quest that both Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Disney are on?

rex.briggs | 05 October, 2006 03:22

The answer (or at least one possible answer) is the quest for synergy. The synergy of peanut butter and chocolate? No. Cross-marketing synergy. Tuesday, I highlighted the advertising for Hershey’s Kissables inside the package of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. This is an advertisement, though it may not show up on a media plan or be measured for its ROI. That’s a shame because it may be a greater asset than most marketers realize.

When Marketing Evolution has worked with ESPN (owned by Disney), we would often see a line item in their media plans called "Synergy." This was internal Disney speak for media elements that ESPN could use to promote their programs within other Disney properties. The idea is that Disney has such a vast array of powerful media that it should make some available to its own family of companies. But even more important than the synergy advertising is ESPN’s own on-channel advertising.

As Marketing Evolution has contemplated and measured the value of on-channel advertising for various TV networks, it’s got me thinking about that Reese’s ad inside their packaging. It’s got me thinking of a conversation with McDonald’s awhile back. McDonald’s once told me that they reach more consumers in a week than most of the media companies that come to them to pitch McDonald’s on buying their media. The McDonald’s executive half jokingly said, he should be selling them McDonald’s tray liner for advertising their media brand. Given the deals with McDonald’s and Disney, McDonald’s does in fact sell media companies. But at what point is it financially better to keep your own media for cross-promoting and at what point is it advisable to sell someone else product? And, what is the ROI on your own media? Are certain strategies more effective than others? Is a simple "Try Hershey’s Kissables" enough to get someone unfamiliar with the product to try it? Or, will it only work with someone familiar with the product to get them to devote a greater share of snack purchases to Kissables?

And, since much of this media is under the radar of traditional media planning, how do most marketers care to calculate the ROI and optimize the effectiveness of these internal programs?

Rev'd Up Over Statistics

rex.briggs | 18 September, 2006 09:56

I am fascinated by the way in which brands develop meaning, and how that meaning is communicated across various touchpoints, from Television, to the internet, to the buying experience itself. From the emergence of the earliest brands on pottery thousands of years ago, to the insights from neuroscience on the role brands play in constructing meaning - advertising and marketing fascinate me.

I am also intrigued and in love with sports cars, particularly Ferraris. Ferrari is one of those spectacular examples of a brand whose meaning is carried across touchpoints brilliantly in the product, their marketing, and the meaning consumers share with one another online and offline. I enjoy watching car racing, particularly Formula 1 (where the race teams intensively analyze over 4000 data points with teams of statistician making every adjustment possible in real-time to gain the winning edge). I also love the challenge of racing down the track myself whenever I get the chance.

The View from Seoul

rex.briggs | 13 September, 2006 13:38

As I look out my hotel window I see two fascinating sights. First, atop the beautiful and green mount Namsan is a dominating communication tower. I’ve read that it is the first complex broadcasting tower in Korea. It is equipped with a TV and FM sending antenna, cable antenna, communication antenna for mobile phone, and internet sending antenna. What a mix of media. I ponder which parts matter most to Koreans these days. It has to be the mobile phone and Internet, right? After all, this is one of the most advanced broadband internet economies in the world. I think back on the last evening before I finish packing my computer and heading for the airport. At dinner, a client showed me her home page. Everyone in Korea has a home page, she tells me. She shows me it on her mobile phone. When that tower was first opened to the public in 1980, it didn’t have mobile telephone technology or an Internet sending antenna and I doubt that they could have envisioned that in 25 years hence the importance of mobile and internet. The tower stands above the site of six ancient smoke stacks used to communicate hundreds of years earlier. The smoke stacks are simply there for decoration now. The communication now takes place every moment of the day through that amazing tower.

And then, I notice the second tower of communication. A much smaller tower. It is down on the corner. It is a bright red Coca-Cola vending machine. There aren’t as many of them per capita in Korea as in other countries such as Japan, but they play an interesting role – sitting there communicating. But are they communicating enough? Maybe once it was enough to simply repeat a brand name, but if that was ever true, it is less so today. Seems that today successful communication is about conveying meaning and that takes more than a logo. I look at the can of Coke at the minibar. Coca-Cola has done a great job getting the most out of the limited space of a can to communicate something about the brand. In fact, they have done more on that little can than they have on the much larger vending machine. That little tower shaped can has the yellow jerseys of the World Cup Football team – and by including them on the can shows Coke’s support of the team, and the connection of the beverage with the sport, and the sport fan. Sure the real estate on the can is limited, but Coke has made the most of it. Why doesn’t the vending machine do the same thing? Why is that vending machine tower under-communicating? And then my eyes return to the communication tower. How many marketers are simply pushing their logo and not greater meaning in their messages that they pump out of that communication tower over FM radio, Television, Cable TV, Internet and mobile devices?

Here’s a point for discussion: Do most marketers rely on their logo and fail to connect their brand with meaning for the consumer? Which are the media that offer marketers the best environments to convey meaning and why?

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