Direct Marketing

Time to Call-aborate

The new Do Not Call Legislation sends a strong message to companies to re-examine howthey do business with their customers. The days of unsolicited cold callshave been eliminated and professional marketing companies now need to focus their efforts on permission-based marketing techniques to acquire new sales more than ever.

This has been somewhat of a mixed blessing for direct marketing professionals. In the environment of a test and learn mentality, an ongoing challenge is the exploration of new collaborative methods and test vehicles for their business. Key drivers of these initiatives include exploring new methods of reaching customers in the on-line environment including directing more people to on-line websites, targeted email campaigns and/or personalized URL's (PURLs). Using these approaches either together or in part is definitely an advantage for those companies who have their own internal sales teams or call centres. Typically, sales teams have been an outbound group but have now been challenged to reinvent their contributions on daily processes to speak as inbound reps. The new focus is specifically on either existing customers to up-sell them or prospects who have made inquiries which will now allow the reps to speak to these prospects with the goal of closing sales.

Regardless of the products sold - these methods generate new sales, increase a company's brand awareness and will easily highlight those companies that are taking this strategy to a whole new level of customer care. The result in part of a company's reputation actively pursuing this strategy will be one that is personable, respectable and environmentally-responsible which will definitely result in win-win situation for both the customers and the business.

Crossing the Line – Are You Using Mass Insights to Improve Your Direct Marketing Campaign?

One of the tenets of direct (below the line) marketing is the USP. So, if you are a direct marketer you may be slightly disturbed with the following statement:

…Consumers do not want one characteristic or one USP. Consumers want it all .Why should a consumer have to choose between the longest lasting pain reliever versus the fast acting, or the safest, most gentle, or the cheapest priced? The concept of marketing a USP is not a consumer-centric view.

It comes from ‘Lessons Learned’, downloadable excerpts of John Hallward’s book: Gimme! The Human Nature of Marketing, and, well…it is about above the line advertising…or is it?

Quoting the iconic and USP-absent silhouette iPod ads by Apple, John proposes that emoti-suation, the powerful use of emotional associations to connect a brand with consumers and not the use of a USP, builds brand equity (Aside:according to the Moore & Harvard School of Business, brand equity is a more meaningful metric, long-term, than sales).

Emoti-suation!? Direct marketers take pride in numbers, data and insights coming from n iterations of list, offer and creative …It’s one thing to remove the USP from a TV Ad but can we replace the USP with emotional associations in a direct mail piece without being trite, without crossing the line?

May be it’s time we move from channel agnosticism to marketing agnosticism and make use of the emotional wisdom above the line advertising has built over the last quarter of a century…

Here are a few points direct marketers can play with:

- Emotion is a key element in the decision-making process; example: fear was designed to drive us into action (flee danger)
- Humans evaluate a purchase on emotional pay-offs subconsciously and on rational points consciously
- Humans are sensitive to the IRREGULAR; the human brain will pay less and less attention (desensitized) to the familiar
- Humans cannot cope with too much choice; example: an experiment was set with two shelf units of jam; shelf one had 24 flavours of jam; shelf 2 had 6; consumers were given the choice to pick jam (at same discount) from either shelf; shelf 1 had 60% attraction and 3% purchase; shelf 2 had 40% attraction and 30% purchase
- The more senses engaged in the human brain, the better it files and retrieves information
- Brands that score high on many emotional associations achieve greater commitment in the consumer’s mind

Implications for DM:

- What emotional rewards do we evoke upfront in a direct marketing piece before even moving to the rational portion of the decision, i.e., the call to action?
- If we know that brain (decision) activity filters through an engagement and disengagement mechanism (irregular vs. familiar), can we ignore the importance of testing new formats and creative?
- Can we effectively incorporate archetypes/universal myths in one-to-one communications?
- How well can we link emotional rewards to commodity products?

Case in Point

Linking brand emotional associations to a DM piece is a case-by-case exercise. In terms of engagement, however, direct marketers can make use of the human brain’s preference for the irregular with direct mail’s tactile, visual and yes, even olfactory triggers: unusual shapes and sizes and scented mail. Applications of this principle can also be applied to a multi-drop campaign. As frequency of communication replaces reach (due to better targeting and the need to be relevant), the irregular will play a key role in ensuring your 2nd or 3rd drop will not end up in the recycle box.

Charting a course for digital marketing leadership: What we’ll explore at CMA's Oct 2 roundtable

As you may be aware, the CMA Digital Leadership Roundtable is later this week, first thing Thursday morning, Oct. 2 at the Harbour Castle. Your panel – a frankly great group, consisting of Doug Checkeris, CEO, MediaCom USA –back home in T.O. from his New York base for the day, Goodwin (Goody) Gibson, President, MacLaren MRM and Tammy Scott, Vice-President, Marketing, Telus – got together over lunch lat last week to hash out our strategy for the presentation. Trust me, based on my notes – as many as I was able to take amid the rapid fire conversation - there’s going to be no shortage of smart insight on the question at hand.

To paraphrase, the core of the subject of the morning: what does the industry and individual companies need to do to reorient themselves to succeeding in the digital marketing reality of the near future if not now - and who should lead that charge and how?

We thought we’d share with you most of the questions we’re planning to try to speak to. The idea is two fold:

• One we hope they’ll interest you and incite you to come out.

• But also, we want to invite you to send along any other questions you’d like to see addressed on Thursday. You can post your questions here in the comments section, or email me at sesutter@cogeco.ca

So here are the questions/themes we’ve got so far (and warning: actual verbiage and order may vary based on the panel’s interaction, new insights and whims:

1) Let’s get some thoughts on the core premise of this roundtable: digital spending is apparently going to continue to accelerate exponentially at the expense of traditional communications channels, and yet a good 25% - a full quarter of marketer - admit they don’t know how to proceed (and I’m sure there are those who won’t admit it, and those who don’t know what they don’t know yet). From your perspective, does this ring true? How bad is it? How big a challenge or opportunity is this?

2) What’s got to happen? What do organizations need to do, structurally and culturally to get on top of the digital sea change?

3) What are you doing – whether structurally, culturally, process-wise, or in terms of staffing and training – to adapt to the digital environment?

4) Who do you think most “gets” the digital future, aside from yourself of course… your competitors, your clients, others? And what they doing that we should all emulate?

5) My perception is that the general consumer is way ahead of most businesses – and most senior and mid-level management in most businesses - in adapting to and embracing the digital world… that they really are owning the whole experience, and a lot of companies with their legacy systems and mind-sets don’t even know it. Do you agree? Disagree?

6) Related to above question: Are your people digital savvy enough? Does your CEO have a Facebook page or a blog? Does your team know of to Twitter? Should they? Should there be a bare minimum of what people in marketing communications need to know to work in a digital future? What is that?

7) How is branding, vs. tactical marketing, changed by the new digital paradigm?

8) Who should be taking the lead on interactive or digital ideas and programs? … digital agency, media agency, client? Within clients, should it be marketing depart, CEO, IT?

9) Want to open up the measurement can of worms. We seem to have both not enough data and maybe too much at the same time?

With all things digital seems to be this double-edged sword. At one level, you are able to track people’s connections and interactions with most digital communications with unprecedented precision. And yet there’s lots of complaints that there’s no common definitions, things are confusing, and the data doesn’t tell you enough – and in a way it seems these new mediums and tools, by the very fact that they are potentially more accurately track-able, are held to a higher standard than other media, especially in their emerging phases.

What’s your take on the uses and abuses of measurement in the digital age?

10) Let’s talk money. Part 1: Where is the money going to be within media and content creation spending (and research spending)? Where should it be going? How should content be funded in the future?

And related to this: There are a couple of competing views out there. One is, compared to mass media productions and media buys, digital is cheap. Another is, this new technology stuff is pretty expensive, and there’s always something new to invest in just around the corner. What’s the reality?

11) Money Part 2: How the heck should marketing companies/agencies be compensated now that the old commission and fee models seem to be obsolete?

12) What’s the “next” big thing that’s going to turn the communications world on its head?
What do you think? What else should we talk about here?

Hope to see you Thursday.

-Stan Sutter, CMA Digital Leadership Roundtable moderator

Catalogues - What Should The Print Order Size Be?

A recent survey result from our sister counterpart – the DMA, positions print catalogues as the primary sales channel. In addition the data suggests a consensus among successful marketers that an integrated or multi-channel approach to supplement the sales from catalogue promotions. The survey commissioned by the DMA indicated 62% of the merchants polled consider catalogues their primary sales channel while only 20% cited the web and 6% indicated retail. The survey also highlights that print catalogue remains the largest revenue generator among all channels accounting for approximately 50% of all multichannel sales in 2007 & 2008 although the web will continue to grow. And the volume of print catalogue in circulation has increased since 2003 as companies are leveraging their books to drive customers to their websites. In the same study, 90% 0f the respondents now track response for online buyers separately from offline buyers compared to 60% in 2006 while 32% use search marketing in addition to email promotions and web offers to cross-sell offline buyers online. The same report also highlights that 50% of businesses have fully integrated their marketing functions and between 60% - 70% have also integrated their operation and consumer front-end functions.

Yet, marketers need to take into account the impact that is currently confronting the direct marketing industry. External factors such as rising direct costs in paper & postal, manufacturing, oil fuel surcharges, and the strength of the Canadian dollar are all factors that we as marketers need to take into account in running our businesses. Coupled with environmental and regulatory factors, marketers need to be more diligent, faster, and in touch not only with these issues but more so than ever with the wants & desires of their customers and consumers. Competition is fiercer than ever and in a multi-channel environment which includes not only the web, but mobile, satellite, and podcasting – we need to ensure that consumers’ specific interests are addressed in a much more targeted and marketed at a 1:1 level.

When Canadian Tire announced last May that it was no longer to publish a print version of its catalogue it marked that first time in over 80 years that it is ceasing the publication to households which was estimated to reach over 9 million households! The catalogue was launched in 1927 in response to the need to sell automotive supplies to distant customers. Canadian Tire decided to no longer distribute the catalogue due to rising costs and environmental issues.

In the U.S. an activist web site called Catalogue Choice is a do not send catalogue listing that was launched almost a year ago and this past June has attracted its 1,000,000 member opting out of over 11,500,000 catalogues! As you may be aware at the end of this month the Do Not Call National Registry will be in effect in Canada. In the US. – the counterpart DNC listing has reached over 120,000,000 registrants!

Last February another activist web site was launched: Red Dot Campaign

CPC launched its own program in May’08: Canada Post/Green to encourage more sustainable practices for business and consumers when it comes to direct-marketing packages. The Consumer Choice program managed by CPC enables consumers to opt-out of receiving Unaddressed Admail delivered by CPC. Unaddressed advertising mail is one of CPCs fastest growing revenue streams generating 339 million in 2006 up 14.4% from 2005.

Direct marketers and cataloguers will need to be fast and innovative in a green shifting/consumer advocating environment which will be an ever increasing factor in the future. Innovation techniques such as variable print and digital catalogues will become much more prevalent in the future. Cost barriers are becoming less of a factor as the technological advances and become more main stream. Targeted promotions through database modeling of behavioral, transactional, demographic and lifestyle data cross referenced with advertising communications is one of the fastest growing revenue streams in the advertising world. This principle also holds true in the catalogue market. In fact with the advent of digital/online catalogues, behavioral targeting may also be an area of business that will be impactful and engaging for consumers and advertisers alike. As electronic data evolves and social marketing continues to grow – we as marketers will need to be able to communicate to consumers and/or communities of interest – when they want and how they want they want to receive information.

We are also learning as we go. In a multi-channel environment, targeting individuals via an integrated marketing approach is paying dividends and is sustaining the DM business while other new channels (digital, mobile, satellite, etc.,) continue to grow. Also, we are now realizing the Customer Life-Time Value (CLTV) is greater from an integrated approach versus solo efforts. Customers who respond to DM and web or phone (mobile) generate a greater ROI than individual or single channel efforts. The ingredients to a winning recipe is providing consumers and customers what they want in a manner they want to receive it and when they want. It’s not an easy task but a challenge that marketers need to address for the sake of our businesses and industry.

Optimize Your Mix: Five Lessons from Email Marketing

I am frequently approached by senior marketers – from across industries – who confide in me that they are grappling with how to achieve an optimal ‘marketing mix’ in light of all the available new media and traditional media. They want to build on their history of success in one medium or technology platform (e.g. mobile, print, web) and leverage all marketing media.

As someone who has seen many marketing and technology trends over the last 13 years, I have identified some consistently powerful lessons that, while drawn from permission-based email marketing, can be applied to improve marketing results across all platforms. These five lessons include:

1. Always Deliver Relevant Content and Segment

Technology has progressed to the point where recipients can choose key components of the marketing information they are to receive – including method of contact, content, timing and frequency. When customers and prospects have control over what marketing information they want, when they receive it and how it arrives, they are dramatically more likely to act upon a marketing campaign’s call-to-action.

2. Collect Your Customers’ Permission: They Demand It

Because gathering permission helps marketers build a positive brand experience and engage with customers, it has become a fundamental to all marketing campaigns – online and offline. The Do Not Call List is another demonstration that securing customer permission is every marketer’s obligation and responsibility. Furthermore, Canadian privacy legislation (PIPEDA) mandates permission is gathered.

3. Test. Measure. Test. Measure.

There are four key lessons regarding measuring and testing:

• Campaign metrics need to be tied to specific business goals at the onset of any campaign. For example, ‘brand reach’ can be linked to the number of new subscribers and successful initiatives to build referrals.

• Use campaign-specific and company-established benchmarks in addition to industry-wide stats.

• As technology and campaigns progress, the meaning and importance of metrics evolves. For example, at one time, email open rates had been held out as the key measure of campaign success. However, with image-blocking software and the popularity of preview panes, the focus has switched to achieving specific conversions.

• As marketing technologies have evolved to allow for variable delivery options, so too has the ability to test several component parts of each marketing campaign. In email marketing, that means the ability to test subject lines, copy, personalization and the specific offer.

4. Focus on “Relative Time” Rather Than on “Absolute Time”

Marketers have long recognized that timing can make or break a campaign. The challenge however is the tendency to seek a ‘perfect time’. Throughout the year, email marketing studies are published that point to a particular day of the week and/or time-of-day as ‘the best time’ to reach out to customers and prospects.

However, because marketing is about establishing, nurturing and enriching relationships, choosing the right times to optimize a campaign’s results involves addressing several items such as: when the previous communication was delivered, the nature of the communication and the time-sensitivity of the message.

5. Integrate with Business Applications

Whether you are leveraging call centres, point-of-sale tracking or any other media, integrate the flow of appropriate data into business applications so that the effectiveness of each campaign can be tied to key metrics such as revenues and acquisition costs. One of the reasons that email, for example, is poised to become an even more powerful marketing tool is because it can be easily integrated into business platforms such as Customer Relationship Management systems and Content Management Systems.

As senior marketers, we are all working towards one common goal: creating and sustaining a positive experience to acquire and retain customers. These lessons, drawn from permission-based email marketing, allow every marketer to harness and optimize their marketing mix.

I welcome hearing any lessons that have helped you optimize your marketing mix - share here on the CMA Blog, or feel free to contact me directly at president@thindata.com.

SEE YA LATer BEAVerS

Have you noticed the billboards and the station domination at Bloor Station with the ubiquitous "er". You can't really miss them. They're everywhere. I have to admit, I've been intrigued. But my first thought when I saw this teaser campaign was, I hope they don't let me down when they pay it off.

Well, you be the judge. Here's the pay-off:http://www.bell.ca/home/

From my perspective, it's actually not bad. But does it make me want to send the link to all my friends because it's so differentiating for a rather commoditized brand? Not so much. Is it clean and smart and more appropriate for the brand? I think it is. I do wonder however, whether Bell has gone from one extreme (cute beavERs, retail) to the other (clean, corporate, even a little cold) a little too quickly. Even the new logo removes any connection to humanity. (Remember the yellow swirl around the face in the old logo?)

In the end, it doesn't really matter. Bell is trying to do things differently and that's probably a good thing. But can the service and product offering fulfill on the promise of the new "BETTer" brand?

Someone actually told me a story recently that best represents how seriously Bell seems to be embracing change. The phone rang, my friend picked it up, said hello and heard: Mr. [Smith], I'm calling from Bell. How can I help you today?

In disbelief, my friend said, well, I'd like a FREE Blackberry Curve.

His account was credited $400.

Seriously.

Maybe, in keeping with the times, this is change we can believe in.

R.I.P. Beavers.

Does LTV even exist any more?

As a traditional Direct Marketer, I was raised in this business to focus on response, results and the bottom line. If you didn’t have a sense of a customer’s lifetime value – you were doing something wrong. At the risk of sounding outdated, CLTV was the catch-phrase of ‘the day’. Obviously, this is no longer the case. I know this because I’m still a direct marketer – but rooted much more in the online space. I said to a co-worker the other day: “Do we have a sense of the CLTV? It will make the response projections much more meaningful.” Not only did I get a blank stare in return, not even the client in question had this figure readily available.

So if not CLTV, what’s the new accepted standard of measurement online? We talk about click-throughs, unique visitors, conversion…but even these terms are meaningless outside of specific industries and without knowledge of the online offering. Is it an e-commerce site? Well then traffic and conversion are King. Is it a brand site just looking for consumer attention? If so, length of time on site and volume of user generated content may be relevant. Regardless, the evolution of the World Wide Web (in the form of Web 2.0) has brought about significant change to not only what we measure, but how we benchmark and classify ROI across the board.

So here is my own 2 cents based on constant banter and discussion around the topic of measuring truly interactive, two way online properties.

Instead of talking about CLTV as the be all and end all, we start thinking about results in a different light. Perhaps it is at times less tangible then what we grew up with in this industry, but still valuable in a marketplace that is constantly changing.

I call it E3: Exposure, Experience & Engagement.

Exposure…obviously, how many people hear about your site, visit the site, passively browse around your pages, etc. The starting point for any analysis and a critical measure that is a carry over from the traditional advertising days.

Experience…where we start to divert from days past. How many of those exposed to your site actually experienced your brand? Did they go deep in the site? Did they read product reviews? Did they view consumer generated videos? Did they link through to related properties? It’s exposure on caffeine.

Engagement…think active experience. Not just sitting in the audience but volunteering to be part of the show. Posing a question to an Ask and Answer forum, uploading your favourite tv commercial, ordering product, posting an article to your Facebook page. Engagement is difficult to achieve and getting more and more challenging as brands realize the need to truly connect with consumers in an honest, relevant and open manner. Without mentioning names, we’ve all heard the horror stories of big brands seeding comments in blogs and so forth. Engagement can’t be forced – it must connect to real consumer insights and answer the timeless question of “what’s in it for me?”

When analyzing online activity, it’s critical to look beyond session-based data as it only reveals a partial picture. By reviewing a multitude of variables from the passive (exposure) to the interested (experience) to the involved (engagement) – the value of your brand online begins to clear up – and reveal the new value in your customer.

So what’s the new CLTV? Is it E3? Maybe. Is it some other formula? Possibly. At this point, the only sure thing is that measurement will continue to evolve and it’s up to us Marketers to look for ways of showing the different dimensions of ROI.

Up with UPS

Last week I posted an article about a commercial that, well, let me just say it’s not my favourite commercial (understatement). However, there is a commercial out there right now that I think is one of the most original on television. Better yet, when you go to the website, you are immersed in an environment that not only cleverly expands on the creative concept initiated by the television but makes you want to stay and explore for a long time. It’s that fun and that informative.

So now that I’ve given you that huge build up, do you agree?

It’s the UPS Whiteboard campaign.

(Interesting side note: The guy writing on the white board is actually the Creative Director on the campaign. His name is Andy Azula.)

Now that you’ve seen the commercial, all I can say is go to the website http://whiteboard.ups.com/ and spend some time there. You won’t be disappointed. And you won't want to leave. I didn't.

Too often, company websites are “brochure-wear”. Long copy all about the company. Very rarely is the site about what "YOU" can do. And rarer still is a site that you actually feel like diving into.

A tale of two Dads and the 20-minute work-out.

I have a question for you. Is it possible for a television ad to overstay its welcome? An excellent example is a long running television spot for Rogers Home Phone. Have you seen it?

"Hey, it's me. Dad. Ever notice that one day you're just hearing about something. And then everybody's talking about it..?"

This commercial has been running, it seems, forever. And not just every day or so. And not just several times a night. I'm talking about several times during the same show. Or even several times during the same commercial pod.

Thats what got me wondering...does overplaying a commercial (especially one lacking in originality or creativity) start to hurt the brand? Does bad advertising make a loyal customer want to switch? I don't think so. But can it turn off potential new customers? And how many GRPs are too many?

On the other hand, no campaign in recent memory has saturated the market more than the Koodo no-frills cell phone campaign -- the one inspired by the old 80's 20-minute workout television show. It feels like it's been running for months on television and outdoor. Yet I don't find myself getting sick of it. In fact, the longer it runs, the more I enjoy it. It's always fun to watch, there are several different executions and they're all well directed.

It's also interesting to note how consistent the campaign is for Koodo versus most of the Rogers work where you find wild shifts in tone between spots.

The best Rogers spot is the one for Personal TV where the young son can't sleep. The Dad lets him watch the hockey game with him and rewinds it to show him a great goal. A sensitive spot. Well done. And a nice, real moment captured. But it's a world away from the smug Dad in the Home Phone commercial.

So I'll end with a few questions for you: What commercials are you sick of? Do you think less of a brand when the advertising turns you off? What commercial can you not get enough of? And where were you when the 20-minute work out was at its peak.

Can Direct Mail be Environmentally Friendly

I am probably going to regret opening this can of worms but lately my thoughts have turned to the impact on the environment of direct marketing. I am not crazy enough to tell you that marketing (especially direct mail) is a positive environmental force - a few industries today can claim to be that. But I do think that my colleagues and I are reducing the impact, albeit in a small way.

By focusing on customer data, companies can dramatically change the environmental impact of their direct mail initiatives. Specifically,

1. By building a complete view of the customer (linking disparate databases), companies can reduce duplicate mailings and control the flow of communication to their customers.

2. Using analysis techniques such as predictive modelling and segmentation, communications can be targeted maximizing the impact of every piece of mail. This can ensure that only those most likely to respond will receive a piece of direct mail.

3. By cleaning up databases, and fixing addresses, undeliverable mail can be reduced.

4. By enabling opt-outs (and using the CMA opt-out list)- and specification of contact preferences - companies ensure that those who do not want to receive mail do not get it.

5. By merge-purging external lists against one another and internal files, targeting of the same prospect multiple times can be avoided.

My response for years when asked "Oh, so you are responsible for all this direct mail I get" has been "No, I am responsible for all the direct mail you DON'T get". I have a feeling I might be asked that more and more in the coming years!

For more on this read the Aberdeen Group's report:
Green Marketing: Leveraging Customer Data to Reduce Direct Mail Waste by Aberdeen Group.

I am also encouraged by the new focus being shown on this issue by our key industry groups – perhaps too little too late but all action is better than nothing:

- NAMMU (National Association of Major Mail Users) has an annual award that recognizes innovation in making the mailing industry as environmentally friendly as possible. The winner in 2007 was Domtar for their EarthChoice Paper.
- DMAT (Direct Marketing Association of Toronto) has recently announced the creation of a taskforce to study the issue of environmental responsibility.
- The Forest Stewardship Council of Canada (FSC) launched their FSCXpert (FSCX) Program late last year – this is an educational program and designation for graphic designers, and communications and marketing professionals committed to responsible forest management.
- And, of course, the CMA has a variety of case studies and green tips available to marketers who want to reduce their environmental footprint.

Leverage Your Data With 1-to-1

Let’s take a magic carpet ride through the space-time continuum.

Fast-forward ten years from now. Will anyone be doing mass advertising? Will there be any value in Television advertising, unless it’s targeted to each household or individual. The future of marketing can only be as good as the technology available, and considering where it’s at now; we’re in for some hardcore one-to-one marketing.

Right now, personalization is where TV was 40 years ago. Everybody knows it’s there, but no one quite knows what to do with it yet.

Early response rates on personalization have been very promising – three times the industry average, with many running higher – but there’s not enough of a track record to make accurate predictions. Marketers like to go with what works, and having an X factor can be intimidating. That enchanting unknown territory of “potential ROI” is like the land of OZ.

It seems like a lot of people are getting into personalization, including companies as diverse as Xerox and Canada Post. These companies offer complete conception through production one-to-one services. There are other companies such as Lift Agency that specialize in personalization and have been pulling in impressive results for clients such as Telus and Mercedes.

Personalized mailings aren’t in any way new. Variable print technology has been around for many years. But advancements in client databases and increasing awareness with one-to-one marketing is starting to perk up some ears to the idea of leveraging available data to really speak to customers in a way that resonates and promotes stronger relationships.

So if you have the data, why not use it?!

Comparing Apples to Apples.

Recently, I have had the same conversation with two separate people. We were talking about the Dove Revolution campaign. The people with whom I was speaking both said they couldn't believe how well that spot had done at Cannes. It did well in the interactive category. They were aghast that what was basically a television spot would do so well in an integrated category of an award show. After all, there was no real interactive component. How dare they. There was no "online experience" to be had. Nothing to do but watch the spot. I've heard this lament time and again about various campaigns. In fact, the same argument has been waged in the pages of Marketing Magazine recently where, in the letters to the editor section, one Creative Director took another Creative Director to task for arguing that a television spot or outdoor billboard posted on YouTube does not make it "online creative". Perhaps not. But here's where I have to play devils advocate.

To my mind, the internet is obviously a place where you can interact with creative. But it's also much more than that. It's also, like television, a place where you can build a brand and create awareness. Like a direct marketing campaign, it can generate a lead, collect customer information, be extremely personalized, and provide an offer. Like a retail promotion, it can get you to enter a contest and win something spectacular.

Of course, the online space is a discipline. There's a way to produce online creative that is obviously different from how you develop other creative, and you have people who specialize in the space. But it's also a channel with the power to build awareness, generate a response, and engage a consumer.

And that brings me back to the campaign that started the conversation in the first place, the Dove Revolution spot, and the reason I'm writing this post. This was my role as the devil's advocate in my conversation with my friends.

The Dove campaign won at Cannes because it was brilliant creative. Plain and simple. It didn't matter where it appeared. It ran online, but why can't the online space be used to build a brand and generate PR? People who work in the online space know its potential. But do they harbour, dare I say it, some bias that online advertising can only be immersive and clickable? Only "interactive"?

Then, after having had both conversations, I had a revelation. Perhaps the award shows themselves (like Cannes) are creating this controversy and encouraging this argument. Perhaps the problem isn't the creative. Perhaps it's the way the work is submitted and judged. Maybe it's the categories in which the creative must be entered. Was the Dove campaign competing with work that was more experiential? Were apples being compared to apples? And if not, why not? Why don't interactive award shows create categories that break the work down into the objectives of the campaign. Mass/Awareness online ads should compete with online ads that were created to do the same job. Promotional campaigns should compete with campaigns against those objectives. And so on. Perhaps they'd have to rethink how the whole award show is built. Perish the thought!

In the mean time, don't blame the Dove campaign for being beautiful. Just let it compete with its own kind.

Name that Spot!

I just saw a car commercial while watching one of my guilty pleasure shows (don't ask) and paused it before any branding revealed itself. I turned to my wife, who had seen the spot several times, and asked her who the commercial was for. She couldn't remember and neither could I. We both took a guess and we were both wrong. The logo isn't actually revealed until the end of the spot. Go figure. Here are descriptions of 5 current spots running on Canadian television (including the spot in question). See if you can name the products they're for.

1. A team of contortionists form the shape of a car.
2. A woman puts her baby to bed. An alarm goes off and the baby is now a teenager getting out of bed. In the next shot, we see him kissing his mom goodbye and leaving the house as the mother looks on lovingly.
3. A computer is pulled out of an inter-office envelope while a cool song is playing in the background. (Come on, that one’s easy.)
4. A woman is climbing on a rock wall as a grandmother repels down beside her. A microwave then drops down on a rope. The grandmother opens it, takes out the product (still hanging from the rope) and feeds the younger woman this product.
5. Two identical fish float unto a white background to a cool song.

Clearly some of the above spots are more effective and memorable than others. Some are easy to connect to their product because the product is central to the concept of the commercial. The creative doesn’t overpower the message or the product. Or the brand is so consistent across all media that the spot could only be for that product.

The key benchmark for evaluating whether a TV commercial works or not is, can you remember what the commercial was for after being entertained by it. Do you remember it the next day or a week later. If the answer is no, the spot in question wasn’t worth the money it took to produce it, or the cost of the media. It wasn’t worth a dollar. It’s that simple.

Service/Delivery Analytics: A Renewed Frontier?

There has been quite a lot of attention again put on marketing ROI (Return on Investment), ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment) over the past year as companies and practitioners continue to look for ways to demonstrate the impact of their marketing efforts.

The entire space of marketing analytics has seen phenomenal growth over the past decade as more and more companies have sought to refine their marketing activities, especially direct marketing. Thanks to its nature, it is a relatively straightforward thing to apply rigorous testing and analysis to direct marketing efforts to demonstrate the lift and ROI on a particular marketing campaign. As a practitioner myself for the better part of 15 years now, I know that with even a little bit of data I can design and deploy a successful direct marketing initiative and clearly demonstrate an ROI (usually positive!) for a client and repeat that success over time to generate piles of money on their behalf.

However, I’ve recently begun to wonder whether we’ve pushed too far into a cycle of ever-refining our marketing efforts without thinking of the bigger picture in which we are doing it. This has been informed by a recent personal experience that I’ll share quickly to set the stage for the remaining comments:

My roof is missing shingles and part of the fascia on the front gable of our house. It has been for the better part of a month now. I’ve called 5-6 different suppliers to get quotes to fix the situation. Out of the 6, three have actually provided me a quote. One never called back, two (2) told me it would cost me money for them to receive the privilege of a quote.

Of the ones that provided a quote, one said they wouldn’t warranty their work. When I asked “why?” they said it was industry practice on repair work because they don’t want to be responsible in case the rest of the roof has a problem. I tried to explain that I wasn’t expecting them to warranty my whole roof, only the part they fixed in case it has trouble. No deal, so I eliminated them from the search.

I finally settled on the one company that provided a prompt quote and seems to have the experience to do what I needed. They have a great website you can visit to see the type of work they do, how long they’ve been in business, etc. The trouble is, I’ve been waiting for the better part of 3 weeks now for them to actually come and do the work. When I call them to find out why they haven’t come, I get a lot of excuses (the guy is sick; they tried but it was too cold or windy) but here I still don’t have a solution to my problem. The best part is, when I call and am put on hold, they have a lovely-voiced woman who soothes me with talk of how much this company values my business, and how their business is built on referrals and happy customers.

By now I hope you are getting some of the point to come. As a direct marketer and marketing consultant, I am quite confident I could go into this business and help them better target their efforts and make more money doing so, but if they can’t deliver on that business, am I really delivering them a benefit or am I just letting more people experience their terrible service, thereby destroying their long-term referral and growth potential? They have no doubt spent quite a bit of money on building their business and branding it via their website, however their service experience is in direct contradiction to what they promise.

This brings me back to my original point. Perhaps instead of focusing ever more finely on our marketing ROI, we need to step back and think harder about our abilities to deliver our products or services. I still see a lot of companies that are excellent at direct marketing put barriers between themselves and their customers, making what should be simple experiences complex because of “industry standards” or “policies”.

I’m not saying abandon ROI, because it is and should remain the benchmark of evaluation for marketing efforts. However, have you given any thought in the last little while to some of the following questions related to service delivery and fulfilling your promise to customers?

1. Do you know how many times an average customer has to call you to get their problem resolved?
2. Do you know how many of your calls are resolved in one shot vs. the service situations that require repeated call backs on your and the customer’s part?
3. Do you know how much money it costs you in dollars and cents to have to keep going back and forth with a customer to resolve a complaint or improperly fixed problem?
4. Do you have any measures of your service delivery success or failure in terms of how the customer experiences the situation?
5. What are your policies and procedures with respect to customer facing situations? Are they designed to make it easier for you or do they actually make it easier for your customer to deal with you?

When you look long and hard, some of the numbers can be staggering. With one of my previous employers, we went through the exercise of trying to calculate how much money we could save by refining the account opening process. By our estimate, it would have been about $180,000 -$250,000 per year and it would have shaved two days of customer time out of the process.

This type of effort garnered a lot of effort back in the heyday of CRM as companies were looking at automating various capabilities within their organization, but it seems to have waned in recent years, at least in my experience.

In closing, I still believe we do need to keep our focus on ROI and the benefits of our marketing efforts, but perhaps the time has come to target the guns at our service and fulfillment areas as well. It will benefit both companies and customers.

P.S. If you want a list of bad roofers, give me a call.

Why Don’t the Same Rules Apply?

Whenever new marketing technologies arrive, marketers often seem willing to dispense with the traditional metrics and ROI calculations. As email marketing arrived on the scene, marketers were so enamoured with the speed and low cost (more on that later!) that they forgot to see if it actually had a positive impact on the customer behaviour. Throwing the direct marketing rule book out the window, most proponents seemed happy enough to look at “open rates” and “click throughs” regardless of how this translated into something more tangible like sales, value or even, perish the thought, ROI.

But isn’t that what makes direct marketing so interesting in the first place, the ability to accurately quantify the actual impact on client value? The last few years have seen a move to make email marketing campaigns as measurable and accountable as more traditional direct marketing. However, in my experience, many still forego the basics like “control cells” and assign all purchases to the success of the campaign, as though no one would have bought the latest Britney single without receiving the e-newsletter promoting it.

New and potentially interesting technologies arrive on a daily basis providing an ever increasing set of channels in which to communicate and interact with clients and potential clients. Podcasting, Facebook, Blogging, Neural Implants (oh wait, that one hasn’t happened yet). However, as each one enters the marketers’ toolbox, there seems to be little effort put into how exactly are we going to measure it. Again people fall back on somewhat less interesting metrics such as the number of “members”, “posts” or “tags” something achieves. While those are indeed measurable, without better linkage to behaviour, there is no way to determine whether these investments in time, money and brand are generating a positive return for the company.

Back to the low cost issue. Yes, many of these technologies are relatively inexpensive and the time to delivery can be fast, however, they are definitely not free. There are still some hard costs in terms of dollars. But there are also soft opportunity costs related to the time spent by marketers regularly managing and updating a Facebook page versus working on other marketing opportunities. And perhaps the larger cost is the potential opportunity cost of flooding clients / prospects with a non-stop barrage of contacts from you. This may ultimately translate into decreased receptivity of other marketing messages, which would then have a much higher cost to the company.

I’m no Luddite, but I think that we need to continue to strive to find ways to apply the same rules of measurability that made direct marketing so successful in the first place to these new technologies as they arrive. This will help marketers prioritise their efforts and investments and identify which new tools actually can provide marketing value.