Christmas thanks

A few brands deserve my thanks this Christmas.

> Thanks to Waitrose for adding a little bit of festive spirit and emotion into their Christmas advertising. Their ad stood out like a lighthouse in a dark, relentless sea of kitchen, bedroom, sofa and DIY sales.

> Thanks to John Lewis for the excellent email that gave me an early start in their online sale. The nursery is getting closer to completion at every click of the mouse.

> Thanks to Pro-Active for the hamper. The chocolate covered coffee beans have been popular all round.

> Thanks to Dubai Holdings for making Fi and Lucy’s Christmas.

> And thanks to UGG for getting me in the good books.

Now I'm off for a well deserved Chesterfield ....

Brands are for life. Not just the credit crunch.

So should we spend our way out of it as Chancellor Darling (and John Maynard Keynes before him) seems to be advocating or should we batten down the hatches and come back when it is all over (as Pete next to me in the office is advocating)?

Personally I am not sure either route is preferable. For one I don’t have any hatches and for two I can’t help thinking that the ‘spend now, pay it back later’ approach was the thing that got us into this pickle in the first place?

Anyway, clearly I am no economist so I will bring the question back to a marketing theme and ask: What should brands do in a downturn?

It is well documented that brands that increase advertising during a recession, when competitors are reigning in spend, can improve market share and return on investment at lower cost than during good economic times. But how should brands behave during such times? What messages should they take to consumers?

Well hopefully Xtreme will have part of the answer. A recent email informed me that they have put together a report that ‘explores and analyses recessionary marketing communications tactics and strategies from around the world’. I thought this seemed like a nice idea so we have ordered a copy.

In addition to generating them a sale, the Xtreme email did another job. It prompted me to recall a rather jarring brand experience I had had courtesy of Orange a day or so earlier.

I had flicked through 5 or 6 pages of press doom and gloom – Mumbai, house prices, the pound against the dollar, more failing retailers and another round of job cuts – when I logged onto Orange broadband at home.

The message on the home page read “How bad will it get?” with the usual ‘expert’ telling me it could undoubtedly get worse. Now I am not sure I want to see Orange jump on the back of the credit crunch band wagon. I expect it of Tesco. I expect it of Asda. But I want Orange to tell me it’s all going to be OK. That things are rosier than we might think. That the future is bright for gawd’s sake!

So what does my own reaction tell me? It tells me that marketers and agencies need to think twice when the idea of a credit crunch campaign falls hits the flip-chart. Credit crunch busting offers and promotions might drive penetration in the near term but we must question what the effect will be on the brand in the long term.

Brands are precious. They are for life not just the credit crunch. Be careful out there.

The Art of Integration

Is Integration becoming a dirty word in agency land?

We always keep an eye on the competition and one thing is certainly true, it has never been a more popular term to describe an agency’s offering!

So it may not offer much differentiation for agencies going forward, but more importantly what does it mean for clients? We recently spoke to around 60 international marketing directors to get their views.

Our research points to different client segments requiring very different engagement models. At the one end there are clients who value the full-service agency model. They are often resource constrained and work for businesses that perhaps don’t value the marketing function as much as they possibly could. They want the efficiencies an integrated agency can bring and the convenience of having ‘one throat to choke’!

At the other end of the scale are the more sophisticated marketing operations. These are brands with bigger budgets, more marketing resources and, more often than not, communications functions that are organized by discipline (or ‘silo’ if you are a true integrated believer!) They buy specialists – direct marketing agencies, digital agencies, advertising agencies, branding agencies and media agencies – and often build rosters of similar companies to drive competition and / or manage workload.

So one questions is, are these bigger clients uninterested in the idea of Integration?

We certainly think not. We see an increasing trend towards a requirement for more Integrated Planning, with agencies being thrown together to collaborate on initiatives. Whether this works and is effective against the original objectives always comes down to the agencies and individuals involved. The client can always help by ensuring there are clear areas of responsibility … especially when it comes to delivery of the plan! And the agencies can help (and make things easier for themselves) by cutting back on the number of people involved from each side!

We are certainly comfortable with both the above approaches as I am sure are many of our Integrated competitors. Our approach has always been rooted in Integrated Thinking rather than simply Integrated Deliver. It is not about being full-service or a one-stop shop. It is about solving clients’ business problems and we are always happy to work with other like-minded agencies to achieve that goal.

Thrifty or Green?

So the economy is in a tad of trouble and all our concerns over the environment immediately go out of the window? That seems to be the basis of the countless 'thrifty consumers' articles I have read recently.

We weren't comfortable with that prognosis at Gyro (surely this will be about different segments? and why are the two mutually exclusive?) so decided to conduct a spot of research to see what the true situation was. We spoke to over 2,000 consumers and markers in the UK, Europe and the US and discovered that things aren't so black and white ... they seldom are.

We'll be publishing a report on the subject after Christmas but safe to say we have found some interesting differences in views ... especially between the consumer and the marketing professional!

Let me know if you would like a copy of the report.

More on Loyalty and Customer Marketing ...

We recently conducted research in this area, both with end-customers and the marketing directors employed to build a relationship with them. We found a number of key areas that brands simply have to deliver on in order to drive loyalty and ultimately advocacy:

> Loyalty starts with the basics and a brand’s ability (often via its sales force) to deliver on its promise. Damage is inevitable when there is disconnect between marketing’s promise and sales’ ability to deliver.

> Customers want the brands they choose to be open and honest. The moment something goes wrong it is on your ability and energy in fixing it that you will be judged.

> Loyalty can be built by rewarding customers. But different customer segments value very different types of rewards. A student might want a free cinema ticket from his bank but a small business owner might be happy with an unprompted letter thanking him for the 20 years he has been the bank’s customer.

> Brands that succeed retain their relevance to people as they move through the different stages of their life and career. Think about a technology specialist who moves up the corporate ladder to a board level technology or business role. Think how IBM’s brand deals with this versus some of the more product focused IT vendors.

The same research also looked at the link between the current economic situation and marketers focus on loyalty. The results were interesting:

In interviews with marketing directors from a range of industry sectors, 51% said that they have increased their focus on loyalty marketing as the full effects of the credit crunch start to be felt, with 38% of this group saying that they have significantly increased spend in this area. Of those consulted no on had reduced their focus on brand loyalty and loyalty marketing schemes.

We also found that 83% of marketers are investing more in building or sustaining relationships with existing customers. With only 2% saying they had reduced investment in these relationships as a result of the unstable economic environment.

Get a summary of the research here:

http://www.gyrointernational.com/press_office/loyalty_for_life.html

Getting the best from planning

I was asked today 'how can an agency get the best out of planning'?

I obviously have my own views but I thought I would canvass the opinions of others so asked a couple of creative directors, a number of other planners I know and our new business director.

People had various views but it all came down to three or four key areas:

• Involve them early - easy if it is an account they are working on but sometimes is forgotten when a new opportunity walks in the door. I would concur with this and let's face it there is nothing worse than getting a brief second hand or so late that the Account Team can't go back with further questions.


• Give them time - finding that insight or inspiration for a new positioning or strategy requires research, understanding and thinking. I.e. It takes time.


• Let them focus - don't ask someone to be the voice of the customer; to understand the client's business, market and competition better than they do; to be the brand guardian within the agency ... and then ask them to do that across 10 brands!

So for many agencies (who use planning as a new business tool or on just a few lead accounts) that means a simple truth ... give the planners you have the time and focus they need and if that means that you need to increase the number of planners you have then do it .... and in doing so make decisions about which clients really need, want and deserve that level of strategic engagement.

Take a Packed Lunch .... or Jamie Oliver

We met my sister, Darren and nieces at Legoland Windsor today.

Lunch time came and the choice of food for us and all those thousands of kids came down to burgers, hot dogs, pizza and quite possibly THE worst chicken burgers imaginable to man.

As we munched our way through our cholesterol busting food I pondered why there was nothing healthier available? ''They make more money from this stuff don't they" replied my 6 year old niece? Mmmm .... spot on I thought.

So if you are planning on a trip to Windsor anytime soon, my advice would be to take a packed lunch. Meanwhile, lets hope Mr. Oliver takes on theme parks as his next target.

Legoland - we deserve better.

Don't Knock The Monkey

So a report last month from TNS showed that Dairy Milk sales have been growing at less than 2%, while sales of Galaxy are growing at 12%.

The headline writers and integrated marketeers hit their stride. The Monkey on Drums ad didn’t work. And TNS had a nice bit of PR.

Now I don’t have the tracking stats but even accounting for the skew factor of working in the London ad industry bubble my instinct tells me that on the measures it should have been judged, it worked. Find me a hat and I’ll eat it if it didn’t.

So why has Galaxy outperformed?

I think the answer can be found further upstream than a single piece of communications, no matter how hairy it was.

Has Galaxy’s clearer focus on the chocoholic female market paid dividends? Is it down to their premium positioning? Or has their new product development and premium innovation machine simply done a better job?

I suspect it is a mix of both plus a few other factors so let’s not knock the Monkey. It was and is a fantastic piece of creative work. And who remembers the last Galaxy ad? Well I don’t but maybe that’s because I am not target market.

Ryanair

I had my second Ryanair experience this month, traveling with Ireland’s finest down to Sicily for a very pleasant one week break.

The first experience was a fuzzy memory. It was a journey down to France for a funeral on a plane that, if I recall correctly, was sponsored by and thus adorned with a stunning livery by “The Sun”.

So happier times and years later no sponsorship or livery – yields must be better. But what about the brand experience?

Well, the first thing to say would be that we got there and back both safely and on-time. And the flights were £70. A good £200 less than BA. Big tick!

The second thing to say would be that we were offered scratch-cards half way through the flight. And I think in that moment, there was Ryanair in a nutshell.

Scratch-cards.

B2B and Competition

I was asked today about competitor analysis in B2B markets – how do to do it and what are the challenges?

‘Interesting’ question I thought. So I polled (delegated to) the planning team and got the following response:

The first thing to say is that in marketing terms, we would never look at competitor research as a discrete activity. It is when competitor analysis is combined with real audience and category insight that we – as a communications agency – can find the positioning opportunities that create real value for brands.

So our recommended approach would always be to understand the audience and market drivers first and then work out how your brand stacks up against your competitors against each of those drivers. We tend to use qualitative research (groups / interviews) to understand the former and quantitative tracking studies to monitor the latter.

For any given campaign, our research always boils down to a Value Proposition. This is a three or four paragraph summary which articulates why ‘I’ need and why ‘I’ should buy ‘this’ particular product or service. Inherent in this is the need to explain why the offering delivers superior customer value to next best alternative. We try to find the one or two things that are most important. This is not always easy for agencies and clients to establish and requires customer value research rather than a long list of points of differentiation.

In terms of techniques for competitor research / analysis we have obviously seen a real shift to online tools and resources. We use software to track brand share of voice (positive and negative) in the ’blogospehere’ as well as in traditional / controlled channels – traditional SOV and SOV2.0! We also run tracking studies through online research panels and use shared websites to capture and share information.

One of the obvious challenges in B2B is the direct nature of much of the marketing activity. How do you get hold of the DM pack that your competitor sends to an IT Director for example? There are ways around this – it just takes a little imaginative thinking.

I guess I need to check what ‘imaginative thinking’ means and make sure our tracking activities are not crossing the boundaries into espionage!

Honey Trap

I returned from a great, sunny week in Sardinia recently with 3 identical jars of local honey.

Nothing unusual in that - the Sardinian people are well known for their production of bitter sweet honey. The interesting thing was how we got them.

It seems that the hotels and agriturismos of Alghero and Olbia have discovered the combined power of honey and the internet in pulling in overseas visitors. Specifically www.tripadvisor.com where, in return for each delicious jar of honey, we were kindly asked to post our glowing reviews of each of the 3 places we stayed.

Three different places. Three identical jars of honey. Maybe the honey farmer is the real smart guy here.

Anyway, they got their reviews (and in this case they were all great) and I have got a couple of early Christmas presents. So all good.

And for the record, this was the best hotel of the 3 – Hotel Lucrezia near Oristano.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g187884-d578775-Reviews-Hotel_Lucrezia-Oristano_Sardinia.html

Madonna, Mum and Dad

I was enjoying a meeting yesterday when the subject of the ‘grey’ pound came up. “Good idea – get the over 50’s in our target audience matrix” came the cry!

I sensed we had a problem.

Stats from Age Concern show that as much as 40% (£260bn) of total UK annual consumer spending can be attributed to the UK over 50s. In 2003 one in three people in the UK were aged 50+ and by 2031 this is predicted to rise to two-fifths. There are already more people aged 60+ than are aged 0-14. People aged 50-65 spend twice as much on leisure and entertainment as under-30s The over 50s buy 80% of all top of the range cars, 50% of skincare products and 80% of leisure cruises. Go mum and dad! And Madonna!

There is no doubt it is a very valuable segment, but also a very large and diverse segment. This is not an audience that can be seen as a homogenous group. To generalize is to surely miss out.
Do marketers understand this? Of course many do but that doesn’t seem to stop advertising often falling short. I spotted some research from The Leadership Factor research panel that showed how the 0ver 50s believe marketers treat them. The findings showed room for improvement (!):

• 55% said ‘patronising


• 29% said ‘old fashioned / technophobes
  
• Only 16% said intelligent / discerning

The same research also looked into the different product categories that are pushed towards this age group. As the chart shows they would rather hear about cars and travel than life assurance or dentures!

So it looks like the message is clear -- more thought needs to go into segmenting and targeting Madonna and her 50+ peers!! How? That's up to you - it's time for the pub now …..

Crunch Time

We did a quick poll last week with just over 2,000 UK consumers using our online research tool >ENGAGE.

We’ve been working on cars and wanted to get a feel for how the current economic climate and the media’s coverage of events were influencing consumer purchase intentions.

We asked: “Thinking about the current economic environment, which of the following purchases were you considering 6-12 months ago that you are not considering now?”

Top answers were:

- Holiday 26%
- Home extension & other improvements 22%
- New car 18%
- New home 8%

What does this mean?

Well in our case it makes selling cars more difficult (!) though behind the top-line numbers we found some interesting insights. One of these was that the over-50s seemed to be far more resilient to the current economic challenges. In fact the ‘grey market’ – debt free, with significant savings and a hold on 40% of UK consumer spending – start to look like a relatively recession proof audience.

We plan to dig deeper ……

Another useful source of research in these turbulent times – for B2B marketers – is the B2B Marketing Insight Report 2008. It was created by B2B Marketing and Gyro to provide a definitive picture of the rapidly emerging B2B marketing sector, during the heart of the credit crunch.

More details can be found here http://www.b2bm.biz/insightreport/

Football - How Big Will The Bubble Get?

Came back from a meeting this afternoon to find a trail of emails featuring a lively Friday afternoon discussion on the state of football. Seems some of my premiership friends - Man United, West Ham and Pompey fans in this case - are feeling more detached from their teams, their players and the game as a whole than ever before. I can relate to that (being an Owl) but it was interesting to hear it from these guys. They would usually be in full Sky watching mode by now.

So I guess the question is does football keep getting bigger and bigger or is there a point when the football bubble starts to deflate? Isn't that inevitable if it loses touch with its audience as it seems - based on today's inbox chatter - it is doing? Looks like a classic brand problem that - whatever the outcome - will be textbook stuff of the future.

Is the end nigh? Or do we have European super leagues and the further demise of international football to look forward to first?

Watch this space ......

Loyalty for Life

That's today's question. Is it possible? An achievable goal? Or is it a forlorn aspiration for a brand? The following website poses the same question and has managed to draw in contributions from folk around the globe.

http://www.loyaltyforlife.co.uk

Have a look and post a comment.

A quick skim of the results so far is interesting. We want brands that change and grow with us. Brands that offer us something at every step. The younger audiences talk about this a lot. They also want to feel that they or their tribe are getting something back from the brand.

People talk about football teams as the ultimate in loyalty. You pin your colours to your chest early on in life and you do not change. No matter how badly they might let you down. Can brands in other catageories match that? It's difficult but you can draw similarities between other high commitment brands, brands that take you from prospect to customer and to advocate in the blink of an eye - take Skoda for example.

For the older audiences the basics have to be in place. The product or service has to live up to the brand promise. Always. And then people want to feel valued. A simple letter will do. A thank-you. When was the last time your bank wrote to you just to say thanks for being a customer?

The post that sums it up for me is this one: '"Tune into my aspirations and values; change with me through my life; be easy to find; give me something back; don’t ever assume I will come back to you and when I have a problem, surprise me with how easy you are to deal with. Simple really."

Check out the website and share your views.