The Pitch: Monitor your mixed message

By MIKAEL ALDRIDGE

The noughties are bringing significant change to the world of the marketer - increasing budget constraints, a more marketing literate consumer, media fragmentation and a more restrictive regulatory environment. And this is as true in New Zealand as it is elsewhere in the world.

Take media fragmentation. Auckland has more than 30 radio stations in a population of one million. New Zealanders have access to 5000 magazine titles. And only 10 years ago when a strong TV programme could earn 23 rating points, that same programme can now only reasonably expect 15. And yet the cost of television spots is continually being driven up.

Alcohol and tobacco have for a few years now seen increased regulatory pressure, which has driven their marketing departments to explore how brands can be built and sustained in non-traditional ways. The smarter companies have taken this as an opportunity to have new conversations with their consumer.

And the consumer is becoming more cynical and more literate. In the UK, Red Bull's response was to launch itself by marketing staff crushing empty cans and leaving them in the toilets of the coolest nightclubs. The target consumer wondered what these cans were and started asking bar staff in these clubs for Red Bull. For five years, Red Bull had no traditional communications with the consumer and yet managed to achieve volumes higher than its target. Less money, more effect.

So when once shelf wobblers, direct mail and merchandising were the poor cousins of the TV commercial, these below-the-line elements are now being used to build brands.

Which raises the question of integration. How do you make everything work for the greater good? Especially when budgets and reporting lines within the organisation have been split into trade and brand?

Secondly, how do you know just what your postcards, brochures and merchandising are contributing?

Direct marketing certainly provides some insights. But its approach was simple: isolate.

Yet the most effective campaigns are integrated, which means that the financial modelling needs to be a lot more sophisticated.

A brewery in Singapore's response was to dominate a particular medium - and they saw media in a wide sense. It could be beer glasses, coasters, light boxes, magazines, word of mouth, direct mail, postcards or even television. But again that's simplistic and flies in the face of integrated campaigns.

In fact, the particular integrated campaign I had developed and used as a case in point was growing volume at an average of 50 per cent per annum. Incidentally, that same campaign won an international Globe for best integrated campaign.

So, how do you create accountability within this complex communications environment? Actually the answer to this question is the same answer to this one: How do you create an integrated campaign?

It isn't simple, but it can be done and, in fact, combined with specific programme measures, draws on many of the metrics that many marketers already have in place. The trade secret is how these are put together.

* Mikael Aldridge is the strategic planning director at Grey Worldwide.


* The Pitch is a forum for those working in advertising, marketing, public relations and communications. We welcome lively and topical 500-word contributions.
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