Recessionary Marketing Theme #4
Our firm conducted research over the past year on the topic of marketing in a recession. This is the last of four themes that we uncovered as input to our CMA Marketing Blog with the hope of stimulating more dialogue.
The Need for Integrated Marketing & Measurement
Marketers will have limited success with ‘silo’ marketing tactics - for example, solely using social media or traditional advertising. In order to maximize the impact of marketing communications, brands need a combination of new, social media tactics and more traditional, mass marketing tactics.
According to a recent Booze Allen Hamilton study, 80% of marketers are spending more on digital marketing than in the past. This statistic is not surprising as marketers increasingly understand the need for integrated marketing communications planning to create a better experience for consumers by incorporating new media into their communications tactics.
Industry experts agree that there are two streams of marketing communications, (1) tactics targeting the masses (fixed, long-term focus) and (2) the more immediate stream addressing market opportunities as they arise (tend to include digital media). For example, the Doritos Guru campaign maintained their traditional mass marketing but added a social, consumer co-creation element to allow a pocket of their core customers to easily engage and contribute to the brand – supporting the idea that ‘brands belong to their customers’. Essentially, the campaign allowed a community to live online, and it also created general awareness. The fame attached to your brand helps.
Nissan Canada chose a different strategy to launch the Nissan Cube through their ‘Hypercube campaign’ as the launch campaign only used social media. The campaign was based on a contest that awarded 50 individuals with a Cube based on individual creativity and social networking abilities (participants must audition). The auditions gave the Nissan marketing team real user-generated content that can be leveraged in future communications.
It is difficult to measure the impact of social media compared to traditional media in integrated marketing communications planning, and as such, it creates additional challenges for marketers to clearly define the ROI of new, digital tactics. Just as marketing communications planning has evolved to become increasingly integrated, marketing tracking and measurement will evolve to measure the impact and relationship between traditional and digital media.
What has your firm's experience been with measurement of integrated marketing campaigns?
