Marketing Innovation (recessionary marketing theme #2)
As mentioned with our last post, Brand Matters conducted research on the topic marketing in a recession; what does it take to win. This is the second installment sharing our findings with theme #2, Marketing Innovation.
As companies tighten marketing budgets, marketers are increasingly expected to do more with less. The value proposition remains at the core of a brand’s offering; however, marketers are taking an innovation angle rather than price cutting.
Experts agree, in times of economic downturn brands must continue to invest in marketing. There is increased competition with value brands growing, premium brands lowering prices, and private label brands beginning to advertise. As a result, marketers are faced with the challenge of finding more innovative/compelling strategies to break through the clutter and effectively reach consumers. Marketers need to find fresh, cost-efficient ways to not only communicate with consumers, but also attract new customers as competitors eat into market share. If competitors do slash prices, this is when brands must be innovative in order to sustain their competitive value offering.
No longer are agencies providing the ‘big idea’, instead, innovation is appearing in the form of smaller, more practical tactics – for example, digital media and community building are being used to better serve the needs of a more targeted group of high-value customers. As Brenda Truant says, “With less resources, you [marketers] must work smarter not harder."
Examples of resourceful marketing tactics include:
(1) Co-creation with consumers - the Doritos Guru campaign successfully accomplished by achieve over 1.5 million exposures),
(2) Brand partnership – seeking out potential brands to partner with who share the same customers or have a similar brand character. For example, BMW.
(3) Gain deeper consumer insights – analyze user generated content to identify consumer insights and refine marketing communication tactics. As the insight analytics business continues to grow, there is an opportunity to review this consumer-generated content to truly understand their branding needs and identify the most appropriate marketing communications tactics.
Organizations lacking cross-functional internal alignment and trust, especially between marketing and finance, will find it more challenging to gain buy-in and support for new marketing communications initiatives.
Although new marketing communications initiatives are often tests, experts agree that they should not be referred to as ‘tests’ internally – instead they should be folded into an integrated marketing communications plan with more traditional tactics. These tests are important as they will help develop the marketing communications innovation pipeline which will result in future marketing communications programs. Marketing must own testing, as stated by one participant, “without experiments [tests] there is only measuring and tracking.”
Do you have more to add with examples of successful Innovation Tactics that have been developed by your organization?
