By Manoj Nair, Associate Editor
Dubai: One ad message for all platforms - today’s audiences want it that way and marketers and advertisers better pay heed to it.
And even if marketers say their campaigns are “integrated” to fit all channels, their consumers need not agree.
A majority of consumers still reckon this is not the case, according to a global survey by the research consultancy Kantar Millward Brown. In stark contrast, 89 per cent of marketers vehemently say their strategies are integrated.
This gap between perceptions will cost marketers. Whenever a campaign and its theme are seen as a perfect fit across channels, its effectiveness goes up by 57 per cent, according to the findings.
“Consumers feel overwhelmed by advertising from all angles while marketers struggle to make the most of ad formats and channels to best reach consumers,” said Duncan Southgate, Global Brand Director, Media and Digital, Kantar Millward Brown (KMB). “Media channels will continue to fragment and evolve, “but smart marketers will see the opportunities to connect with consumers in new, meaningful ways. We know using more media channels can improve campaign effectiveness, but only if the channels work synergistically.”
But why is there such a mismatch between marketer expectations and consumer mindset? According to Prashant Kolleri, Managing Director Saudi Arabia & Pakistan at Kantar Insights, the many digital platforms available have a lot to do with it.
“Digital media in particular needs a different treatment for integrating well with other mainstream media (TV, out-of-home),” said Kolleri. “With a high level of fragmentation within digital and it being an active media, the demands on creativity and story-telling is even higher.
“Integration therefore needs to happen more at the idea level than trying to work backwards from your TV ad.”
It wasn’t supposed to be this way at all. With video emerging as a favoured advertising option on digital/social media channels, it would have been so much easier to edit a 30-second TV commercial into a byte-sized video for an Instagram or Facebook.
But reality is quite a different game.
“This would be fine if social media is the bulk of the ad spends for a campaign,” said Kolleri. “Video being the story telling format, this spread of video format in social media does give the opportunity to gather feedback before treating it as “one size fits all” content.
“But again one needs to be mindful of the differences in formats between channels within social media. Facebook and YouTube provide very different viewing context; and this impacts receptivity of the creative.
“For example, YouTube may give more room for story telling while Facebook videos could be strong on product messaging.” (The KMB study - released on Tuesday (January 16) is based on quantitative research in 45 countries and multi-channel copy testing of 12 campaigns from eight countries.)
As such, integrating brand themes over channels should not be such a stretch. “Brand cues need to contribute to the campaign effectiveness… and the more cues the better,” said Kolleri.
“However, they must be consistent; for instance have the same characters or personalities, and consistent voiceovers and music will also help to integrate the campaign, while remaining relevant to the media type.”
And the biggest mistake marketers make? “What sometimes gets overlooked - or doesn’t get challenged enough - is the need to have the common theme built on strong consumer insights,” said Some fundamental need connecting consumers with the brand purpose, that can give a strong foundation to the creative idea.”
A few simple steps towards ‘integration’
Kantar Millward Brown’s survey offers these suggestions to help marketers with their messages:
* Integrate more campaign cues
Integrated campaigns are 31 per cent more effective at building brands, yet “one in four of the campaigns analysed were not well integrated”, the study notes. “Consumers expect multichannel campaigns to deliver basic connective elements like the same logo and slogan. However, consistent characters or personalities are the individual cues which most help brand impact.” The strongest overall synergy combinations are between TV and Facebook, and TV and outdoor.
* Start with a strong campaign idea
Come up with a “strong central idea to act as connective tissue across all content”.
* Make each ad in an integrated campaign “amazing”
Campaigns are defined by the “average of all executions” and more so than the best or worst individual execution.
* Invest only in channels that have a clear role in the campaign
Marketers need to tap channels that have a clear role in the campaign and in reaching the target audience.
* Customise content for each channel
A strong integrated campaign must be flexible enough to enable novel, complementary content, but familiar enough to link the key campaign elements.
