The Best of Times

Let’s inverse Dickens. These are the worst of times; these are the best of times for marketers. The decline in advertising spending in the region last year has been the most precipitous since the Second World War.
Whilst the national and European woes have been grabbing all the headlines, the Southwest has been hit as hard, but differently.

There are seven major trends impacting the world of marketing communications. Three of these are structural, four are executional. All of them have special relevance to the Southwest and all of them offer marketers major opportunities should they choose to grab them. That’s why, properly practiced, these could be the best of times for regional marketers.

But before we explore these changes, let’s debunk a couple of common myths. I recently received a brief from a prospective client that stated, “we do not want an advertising proposal, we would like the agency to propose brand activation through events, viral and digital means.” I threw the brief into the trash.

Myth One: Advertising is restricted to traditional media. In fact advertising, which is defined by OED as “to describe or draw attention to a product or service” encompasses every consumer engagement point, be it newspapers, television, radio, events, sampling, social media, internet, mobile, viral.

Myth Two: Digital is separate. Today we have moved beyond this; digital is everything, digital is mainstream. Newspapers, television, magazines are all digital. You can read (or hear) them online, just as you can have interactive events, gaming and virtual parties for product launches.

The idea that digital should be treated separately from the main advertising strategy is as incomprehensible in 2013 as having a separate radio strategy would have been in the 1920’s.

Charles Darwin is often misquoted as saying that the strongest of the species survives. What he actually said was, it is the species most adaptable to change that survives. And change is what marketers must do to be able to tap into the golden opportunity of growing consumerism in our region.

Which brings me back to those seven changes:

Decline of global ‘one-size-fits-all’ communications.

The argument was good whilst it lasted, everybody brushes their teeth, everybody sleeps in a bed. But essentially in order to speak to a broad band of customers, global communications has to preach a message. That won’t do. The customer is king like he’s never been before.

He has different desires, wants, needs depending or where, who or what he is. Brands that want to succeed need to connect with customers at a visceral level. And that cannot be done by someone sitting in New York whose prospective customer is sitting in Tavistock.

Brand and Engagement planning is at the heart of everything.

If marketers have to create demand for their brands (as they must), an off-the-wall creative idea will no longer cut it. Greater investment in planning and engagement strategies is now essential for marketers to uncover the insights that will drive this demand.

Where does this leave the former Masters of the Universe, the creative department? Well, not where they were, for sure. But the best creative directors I’ve ever known were also the best strategists I’ve known. So they’ll be around for a while yet.

Agencies represent the consumer, not the client.

This is a reversal of the traditional role. But agencies are increasingly finding that they must start with the consumer and then connect them with brands. To make brands part of popular culture, they must be structured around consumer motivations rather than categories.

Mobile technology will drive communications.

We already describe the mobile phone as “the first screen” in peoples lives in this region. The second screen is that of the computer, the third screen is that of the television.

The mobile phone or pad is now a multi-functional computer, camera, net-surfing, gaming, texting, reference, music playing tool. Marketers need to harness this tool. If successful they will create a win-win situation as, just like television before it, advertising will subsidize operations and ergo, uptake of modern devices and services.

Virtual communities will be as powerful as real communities.

This has special relevance in our region, where groups of like-minded people with linked interests are connecting with each other. It’s cross-border, cross-demographic, but rarely cross-cultural. Virtual communities should not be confused with social networking, which is broader, though it often uses the same tools such as special interest groups on Facebook. If your product or service strikes with relevance to these virtual communities they can be a valuable source of brand learning and can, if the campaign is well executed, become brand ambassadors.

Viral is great, but is uncontrollable.

There is nothing new about viral communications. It used to be called word-of-mouth and be recognised as the greatest advertising medium of them all. Interestingly, I never received a brief asking us to create a “word-of-mouth campaign”, yet I regularly see briefs now asking us to develop a “viral” campaign.

This is a natural aspiration. Viral is a great strategy when it works, but once it’s started rolling it’s largely uncontrollable and may take a brand somewhere it shouldn’t go. And marketers are competing against everyone out there – not just other brands.

Customization will become the norm.

Target groups are now so fragmented that marketers have to tailor their communications subtly to appeal to many different groups and sub-cultures. This is especially true for our region due to the increasing rise of tribalism; be it religious, racial, language or community. But if you’re going to make meaning and connect with people’s needs, it’s the way you have to go.

Of course, with all this excitement the temptation is to jettison the old. But in many, even most cases, that would be wrong. Television will remain the top advertising medium for at least the next ten years. In fact, television viewership rose in 2012 over 2011! All that is happening is that our palette is expanding and we’re painting in different ways. Appealing to different groups in different ways. I’ve listed seven changes that are already of the now. It could have been ten, fifteen or fifty. That’s not important.

The important thing is that really these are the most challenging and yet the best of times to be marketing because when we get it right the world, not just the Southwest, is ours.