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Berlin Wall

I stood looking at a picture from decades ago that showed the Berlin wall, and Checkpoint Charlie. Adam Coleman, Marketing Evolution’s EVP was my guide. He had been to Berlin many times when responsible for Global Advertising Research at Microsoft. As he pointed, “See, here in the picture, there is the wall, there is the underground station, and there is the same underground station down the street over there.” “So,” he concluded, “we must be on the east side.”

There we stood, on the other side of a wall that no longer existed. We had passed so easily from formerly west to formerly east – no wall, guards, or guns. What an amazing feat to tear down the wall. I remember that day as the images were broadcast on television. I wished I was there. Once the wall started to come down, throngs of people from all walks of life came to join in and tear the wall down.

“You know,” I said to Adam, “The wall is gradually coming down between online and offline marketing too.”

Will we look back at some point in the not too distant future and wonder how quickly the walls between Online and Offline media eroded? Or will we still be living with these walls between Online and Offline, these vestiges of the dot.com media bubble that artificially divided media?

"The walls between online and offline serve no purpose today and they directly undercut return on investment (profitability) of marketing. The walls are a tax on smart marketers aiming to follow consumers and achieve cross media synergy – but forced to work harder to get the job done because most media owners aren’t organized to deliver."

He nodded in agreement, and pointed to a bar on the corner. "This is a better conversation over a good German pilsner."

"It seems that savvy media owners recognize the opportunity of cross-platform programs and are making it easy for marketers. And, these media companies with smart cross-platform deals are winning business from the slow or intransigent media companies that can’t put the cross-platforms together." I continued as Adam orders us two "Berlins".

"Yes." he added. "But, not all marketers are organized to make it easy to sell cross-platform deals. There are silos within marketers that make it difficult to string together budgets to pay for cross-platform deals. Marketers that are serious about IMC [Integrated Marketing Communication] need to make sure they have a cross platform czar."

"A cross-platform czar?" I asked with eyebrows raised.

"Well, maybe czar is the wrong term given the history of this city! The idea is that marketers need to have a person with authority and budgetary control that can support and encourage more cross-platform programs and cross platform measurement." Adam concluded.

"What do you think will happen to the advertising agencies?" I asked. "Some seem to be standing by and watching as marketers and media owners ink cross-platform deals and work together leaving the agency out of the loop – or, worse, in the role of simply finishing the paperwork. Agencies can’t be happy about that!"

I wondered, perhaps there is nothing to get agencies to change faster than the experience of standing on the sidelines unable to add value. But then again, what about some in the agency world who undermine a cross-media platform deal that they were not part of developing? I thought about an instance I’d heard of where a good new marketing idea was unraveled because the agencies worked together to undermine it because the deal was done by cutting them out of the loop. The story was a personal experience Greg Stuart observed over a decade ago – have times changed? "Will agencies play nicely in the sandbox?" I asked.

We sipped our beers in a moment of silence as we pondered that question. Our hands were still cold from the winter temperatures in Berlin. Adam ordered a cup of hot mulled wine.

I dove into the topic again, leaving the question of agencies to one-side. "The walls are going to come down regardless. If you are interested in watching the wall fall, here is what to train your eye on – there are four parts to the puzzle:

1. Consumers

2. Marketers

3. Media Owners

4. Agencies

The walls are eroding faster for some, but the walls will come down for all the groups. The reason: The walls make no sense. They don’t reflect what consumers do, they don’t reflect what marketers want. And, ultimately, the job of media owners is to give the consumers and their customers (marketers) what they want. As media companies get with it, agencies will either adapt (many are taking the first major steps to do so now) or be dis-intermediated on big deals as marketers work directly with integrated media companies."

As he held the warm cup of mulled wine to thaw his fingers, he reiterated, "But the silos – they’re like rebar, encased in concrete and holding up the wall. Many marketers have to tear down their own walls."

"If marketers are serious about being customer centric, the wall will come down. The wall eroded for consumers years ago, marketers follow consumers, and agencies and media owners follow marketers and consumers. It is like gravity. The wall will fall. It’s a matter of when, not if." I responded.

Then I thought of our clients. Which of our CMO clients will be play the Ronald Reagan role to be the first to stand on stage near our Brandenburg Gate (that would be somewhere in mid-town, New York) and demand, "Ms. Agency and Mr. Global media company, tear down this wall"! Then who will play the Michael Gorbachev role and hold out there hand to accept the responsibility to drive changes.

As I think about the bold leaders we work with, that have already brought in a new generation of marketing measurement tools that deliver on the promise of accountability, I would bank on the walls falling down sooner than later.

Others may read this and say, the walls have been here for awhile, they’re concrete, they’ve got barbed wire on top and guards with guns. They aren’t going away any time soon. But I think we at Marketing Evolution see something different. As one of the leading firms measuring marketing ROI, Marketing Evolution has a unique vantage point. We work primarily for marketers, and on occasion for media owners and agencies. And, we are constantly monitoring and measuring consumers and from this vantage point, we see clusters of people pounding the wall with pick axes and hammers. It is just a matter of time until the CMO shows up with bulldozers to obliterate the walls.

And on the other side of the wall we see small clusters of people at the best multi-platform marketing companies digging into the wall with their own pick-axes. They are putting together cross-platform programs that unify media. In some cases it is television, the web. In other cases it is magazine, events and the internet. We get calls to measure these programs and I know that "marketing channel synergy" isn’t a unicorn. It is real. Synergy delivers bottom line increases in marketing profitability.

As we walked back to our hotel over coffee-bean colored cobblestone, I glanced down to see a lighter colored beige cobblestone. A dull but visible line left there as a historical footnote to a barrier that divided people and the bravery of the people that tore it down.

Do you know any good candidates to play the ‘Ronnie’ and ‘Gorby’ roles?

Getting Attention

Recently, I shared my insights from remaining silent for seven days straight. The silence wasn’t a choice I would have made. I didn’t go to a monastery and take a vow of silence as some attempt at deeper reflection. The silence was imposed by Laryngitis. Remaining silent led me to reflect on how marketers go about getting attention. To get attention without a voice, I had tried smiling, but when that didn’t help, I had to resort to waving my hands in an attempt to catch the peripheral vision. And, when that didn’t work, I tried whistling. None of which were very successful. Marketers have the same challenge. They smile nicely – nothing. They wave their hands – nothing. They whistle – and the only reaction from the consumer is annoyance.

Is there is a better way? When I was at iMedia, I may have gotten the answer (or at least, a strategy). The answer came not in one of the many excellent sessions, but during the networking. (Networking is what we call hanging out at the bar to make it sound more work like.)

I stood next to someone from the advertising agency world (I’ll leave out his name to provide a little bit anonymity). I couldn’t help but notice his black nail polish and interesting knuckle ring.

What possesses someone to where black nail polish? I had to ask. So I did. He thought it was cool that I noticed and was happy to share that as a recently divorced male, his black nails and knuckle ring are "chick magnets" (not his words, not my words paraphrases his description). And, he likes that they notice. They see it as a bit more edgy, expressing the idea of "not afraid to take risk" and "confident enough to be a little different." And, for the agency – and someone in media (not creative), it helps him stand out. "You noticed, didn’t you? So it works."

He is right, I did notice. And, it invited me to approach him and ask. While his goal wasn’t to get "the research guy" (who can’t help but to ask) to approach him – he assured me that it has worked brilliantly in attracting the opposite sex (mostly). And, that encapsulates one strategy for brands. Rather than shouting, invite conversation.

My first thought is that "invite conversation" is right, but a bit hollow. Easier said then done. Moreover, as a researcher at heart, I want to see data that proves the ROI of this approach. I began to lament that this is another marketing bullshit advice – and it’s been said before without data back-up by others. But then I remembered some work we (the team at Marketing Evolution) did for Philips Bodygroom and shaveeverywhere.com. Tribal and OMD did a great job pulling this off and we have the data to know exactly how it works and the ROI. I’ve presented this data with Philips before. It is a great case study.

And, then I thought of the great work Ogilvy did for Dove Unilever on AOL. The webisodes using Desperate Housewives star Felicity Huffman are among the most effective forms of advertising we’ve measured. And, again the client learned how they worked, when they didn’t and how to repeat the approach.

And, I smiled as I thought about the idea of inviting conversation. Both examples were relevant to the consumers segment and both proved out through rigorous accountability measurement. It can be done. It is a solution (one among many, I’m sure) to marketers being ignored because they’ve lost their voice from shouting too much in media.

I invite you to share your solutions and ideas to getting consumers attention and engagement?

Laryngitis Lessons

This week I have laryngitis. I’m following Doctors orders to not speak and have taken this week off from public presentations. And, the experience of not speaking, yet still trying to communicate, has given me some much needed reinforcement of communication concepts learned at University years ago. I think you might find them useful to advertising as well. Here are three nuggets – call them lessons of laryngitis.

First lesson of laryngitis: The first challenge is getting someone’s attention.

For all that has been written about marketing and dialogue, let’s never forget that the first challenge is getting someone’s attention. In two basic modes:

1. Someone seeking my point of view (easy to get their attention)
2. Me trying to get a response from someone else (much harder to get attention and dialogue started)

In the first mode, It is relatively easy for me to communicate (even without a voice) when someone comes into my office to get my point of view on a topic. Just like a consumer coming to your home page, or into your store for your perspective, a dialogue simply requires listening and responding to what the person wants. Figuring out what the person wants is actually easier with laryngitis because I’m all ears. As I heard many years ago, “God gave you two holes in your head to listen with and only one to speak with for a reason.” If marketers practiced listening better, I suspect that research on what consumers come to a website to learn (or explore) would boost the value of the website substantially.

The second mode, trying to get a response from someone else, is much harder and somewhat frustrating. This was particularly true at home. It was quite easy for my wife to ignore me, or at least be oblivious to my attempts to get her attention. Having seen reems of data from advertising, I think that most marketers find themselves in this boat where they are trying to engage a consumer, but only with marginal success. The situation can be summed up like this: The consumer isn’t looking for a dialogue, but the marketer feel they have something important to communicate and therefore tries valiantly to get the consumers attention.

My own attempts to get my wife’s attention included smiling (I don’t think she even looked at my face to notice), waving my hands, and, when that didn’t work, whistling. None of which were very successful. Now I know how a marketer must feel. They smile nicely – nothing. They wave their hands – nothing. They whistle – and the only reaction from the consumer is annoyance.

Did you know that when Marketing Evolution analyzed dozens of studies we found that if marketers advertised to 100 consumers, the typical response in terms of attitude shift was about 4. That means only 4 people out of 100 were engaged such that they got the message and their opinions improved in favorable manner. For all the smiling, hand waving and whistling marketers do, getting the consumers attention turns out to be a pretty difficult task.

Is there a better way? Stay tuned.

The Last on Reese's

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?

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?

You Stuck Your Advertisement in My Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups!

Remember those ads from years ago with funny collisions of a person with chocolate bar and a person with jar of peanut butter. In the TV commercial, you’d see someone carrying a jar of peanut butter, and out of their line of sight, wielding a chocolate bar with reckless abandon, was some other snacker. And wouldn’t you know it, the two simply couldn’t avoid colliding. You’d hear exclaimed “You stuck your chocolate in my peanut butter!” Then the counter accusations began flying. While at first the two seemed annoyed at one another, arguing about who stuck what where, for the sake of world peace, they’d move quickly to resolve the conflict by trying the new flavor combination. And, all this drama was packed into a 30 second ad.

Today I found that Hershey’s has stuck their ad in my Peanut Butter Cup. Yes, it seems that Reese’s has combined their tasty Peanut Butter Cups with advertising saying “Try Hershey’s Kissables” –candy coated mini kisses (as the subtitle clarifies). I guess I should yell out “You stuck your Kissebale ad in my peanut butter cup package.” But not only does that lack the poetic flare of the chocolate and peanut butter arguments of yesteryear, I am on a flight on the way to New York, and I just don’t think the flight attendants would get the joke – even though airlines have loaded up their ticket sleeves, food trays, napkins and even the sides of airplanes with marketing messages.

Much of this marketing goes unmeasured. In fact, because there are no ratings for it, some in the agency business group this media as “unmeasured media” in their plans. Or, leave these marketing messages off their media plans all together. But this is smart marketing and should be valued. It is an interesting issue of valuing messages like this and highlights the increasing complexity of marketing ROI measurement. It underscores the increasing complexity of ensuring the effectiveness of marketing across all the touch points.

I will muse about how such marketing elements can be measured. For now, I have some Peanut Butter Cups to eat.

Rev'd Up Over Statistics

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

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?