2009 saw an evolution in media and marketing communications. This has created many challenges and opportunities. Here’s what it meant to our people…

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Posted by: Carmen Campbell
Thanks to: Mitchell Communication Group contributors

Simon Small, Digital Strategist at Visual Jazz (VJs) in Melbourne, has noticed a distinct lack of planning in the digital space. He thinks it’s contributing to a reduction in ROI and clients are missing out.

He also thinks our approach to ROI needs to be broader than measuring sales – that it should consider things like brand awareness and perception.

Here’s our conversation with him:

Q. Hi Simon, thanks for joining us this month. Let’s get started, how did you make your entrance into digital?

A. I got into digital in 2003. I started a digital & design agency providing technical solutions to marketing problems. I realised pretty quickly that it was marketing that solved clients’ problems, not technology!

This year I started at VJs. I’m tasked with reporting, analysis and planning, as well as introducing social media to the agency and clients. I’m currently working with Holden, Tourism Vic, Defence Recruiting and National Foods.

Simon Small,
Digital Strategist,
Visual Jazz, Melbourne

Q. What are you currently most passionate about in this space?

A. I’m passionate about having clear goals so we can develop smart plans that deliver ROI. It doesn’t need to be based on sales and leads, but other measures like brand awareness and perception. Too often I see good work put down as a failure and bad work hailed as a success for the wrong reasons.

Our industry can have an addiction to clicks and not put enough value on the reach of a banner ad, or social media discussions about a brand.

Q. So what else should brands be measuring?

A. Assuming conversions are the campaign objective, a conversion is when the customer reaches a point on the website showing they’ve moved down the purchase funnel. This is usually simply measured by an online sale or an enquiry.

But visiting ‘contact us’, downloading technical information or even returning to the website two weeks later, are all positive signs that the customer is closer to a sale – all too often these behaviours are not measured as success.

It can also come down to asking the right questions. A campaign’s data might show that TV beat all other media in terms of reach, but if the dollars spent on TV were 10 times that spent on online, you’re not comparing like-for-like. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves to dig below the first level of results.

Q. Where does your passion for ROI come from – isn’t digital the place for ROI?

A. Often the digital world is a new place for many marketers, or they’re trying something new within this space. I believe that too often technology & excitement get in the way of a good idea & outcome.

Q. How so?

A. QR codes, augmented reality & Twitter are all examples that create enormous buzz and marketers/agencies develop ideas that use these technologies. Not because it makes sense but because it’s new and exciting. I feel marketers sometimes don’t know what they’re measuring and planners don’t ask, so ROI doesn’t even come into it.

Q. So what comes first - ROI or effective planning?

A. The first step is setting goals. These form a foundation for carrying out insightful research, to develop a smart plan and creative to connect with your consumer. With clear goals you can then measure the ROI of various elements or the entire activity.

Q. What would you say is effective planning?

A. Good plans have research to back them up, clear articulation of goals, consumer insight, full channel media consideration, good creative idea and performance measures (based on previous campaigns) to track if it’s working or not. Where I see planning fall down often is in the last 20% - the detail. So many plans are theoretical rhetoric that don’t actually say anything.

Q. Any pointers to pass on?

A. Two key points:

1. Consider multiple channels within digital media

There are so many powerful channels, technologies and tactics - search, banners, email marketing, smart websites, games, social, mobile apps, mobile sites and SMS marketing to name a few.

Some of these channels are not yet cluttered and great media deals can be cut because you’re not competing for the space.

2. If you build it they won’t automatically come

The whole funnel matters - a good banner ad that points to a bad website is a wasted banner. A great website or game won’t get traffic unless you point people there. Email marketing is a massively under-utilised channel.

You could build on a standard banner campaign by building a targeted landing page for that banner, encourage email signups, and then send people targeted, relevant emails and send them to targeted landing pages, then deliver targeted banners ads.

More simply, look at how many people are dropping out of the shopping cart or enquiry form, or where they’re bouncing from on your website – a 10% reduction on people leaving could equate to thousands of enquiries and sales.

Q. What does ROI mean to clients today? What does it mean to VJs?

A. ROI is not well understood by many clients and it’s not always relevant. Digital is a great medium because it is instantly measurable so you can fix problems & see opportunities early, resulting in better outcomes. It’s critical to VJs as we are very transparent with our clients and if something’s not working we’ll tell them so we can improve it.

Q. Thanks Simon, valuable discussion. Outside of ROI what do you see happening in 2010 in the digital space?

A. Thanks to Android and the iPhone, mobile’s year is finally upon us. With such a massive uptake in the iPhone it’s becoming more viable for marketers to invest in mobile activity. Moving forward, we’ll also continue to see brands stepping into the social media space, with more examples of it being done well and less of it being done badly.

The Retail/FMCG sector will start to embrace digital media and I think it will shake up the way a few businesses work.

Finally, internet spend will move closer to eclipsing TV spend as it did in the UK this year. It’ll happen for us in late 2010 or early 2011.

In his spare time Simon is an avid blogger on all things digital. from.simontsmall.com

Thanks to: Simon Small, Digital Strategist, Visual Jazz
Posted by: Carmen Campbell

In last month’s issue Angus looked at the importance of a brand sticking to its strategic principles, despite the mouth-watering savings on offer. But in the current softer media market, it’s likely you’ll be making savings on your media plans and if you are, what are you doing with the savings?

Do you write them straight to your bottom line? Do you buy heavier weights without increasing spend? Or do you use the savings to try something a little different?

The media continues to evolve, resulting in some great new innovations coming to market. And right now there are some interesting properties that will change the way we plan and buy media in the future.

So if you do find that you have freed up some media dollars, why not consider the below and take advantage of the low cost to entry of what will undoubtedly soon become an integral part of your channel plan:

Neil Burton, Strategist

Digital television

We’ve already seen the launch of Ten’s One HD (24/7 sports) and more recently Nine’s GO! (female orientated entertainment & lifestyle) to positive audience viewing figures.

The Free to Air (FTA) networks know they can’t just repeat the same content they run on their standard channel. What this means to advertisers on FTA is that they can now extend and expand their audience with the one station, while continuing to leverage the benefits associated with solus network buys.

Digital radio

The advent of digital radio provides a new outlet for brands and consumers to engage through a common passion, music.

Forget the technology (up to the second track listings, improved sound quality and the ability to pause and rewind), what makes digital radio so exciting is the choice and diversity of music that will be available. Yes, in terms of reach the numbers aren’t there yet, but brands can now target an audience through their love of a music genre.

This is something Smirnoff is doing a great job of with its weekly show on novanation.com.au

You can also associate your brand to a particular artist as Optus did here with its Optus’ Pink radio, which played nothing but Pink songs and interviews for the duration of her time in Australia.

Online video

It is what it says, it’s video content online. Breaking it down even further, it’s simply watching your favourite content on the box in front of you. Sound familiar?

What makes this innovation so interesting is that it’s now being used to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your TV buy (being thought of as an additional TV network), not as just a nice-to-have addition to your online activity.

Online video delivers incremental reach by serving a TVC (or bespoke content) to a light TV viewing audience and its interactivity enables an advertiser to immediately capture and drive interest to a destination on the web for action or more information.

With the convergence of TV and digital, Mitchells has recently appointed a specialist TV planner and buyer to consult on all online and digital video activity.

These innovations are here to stay and they’re going to play an increasingly important part in the channel plan. By investing a small percentage of a brand’s overall media spend to new innovations, marketers will gain learnings and experience that their competitors may not have, enabling them to better adapt to the changing media landscape.

Especially if you can do it by offsetting the costs with some of those savings you’ve been making in the softer media market.

If you would like to talk about these innovations in more detail email me at nburton@mitchells.com.au

Posted by: Neil Burton

Remember those Saturday barbeques followed by Hey Hey It’s Saturday?

Could it be the old habit is coming back?

Looking at the extraordinary performance of last nights Hey Hey Reunion, it would appear audiences just may be longing to get back to the old days.

Just how well did it do?

• It was the number one program in Australia last night

• The average audience around Australia nationally was 3.2 million, 2.2 million coming from the five capital cities

• It came 9th in the metropolitan top ten so far for 2009

• It even knocked Celebrity Masterchef off it’s perch – it came in at number two with an audience average of 1.4 million

Interestingly, over 500,000 viewers were less than 30 years old, which means it attracted all generations including a healthy number from Generation Y.

The second episode will screen on October 7th and it should do well. Who knows we may be seeing a bit more of Daryl, Ozzie and the gang yet.

Either way, it’s a good addition to Nine’s programming. Maybe they will even consider re-running old episodes on Channel Nine’s digital station, GO!

Posted by: John Alderton, Research Director, Mitchell Communication Group
Thanks to: OZtam

Much is being said of the volatile media world we are operating in at the moment. The GFC has created a ‘sale of the century’ in the retail world and the media industry is no different.

While there are great discounts being offered by media owners, just because something is on sale does not necessarily make it a bargain. Tight black jeans are on sale at the moment but that doesn’t mean I should buy them (for all our sakes).

My advice - avoid buying tight black jeans and consider the four fundamental principles for brands seeking a true bargain in the media market:

Angus Frazer,
Strategy Director

1. Articulate a clear strategic direction
Sounds simple but there has never been a more crucial time to be clear in the strategic direction of media. This direction should be articulated clearly and succinctly, providing justification for media channel choice.
2. Be consistent
Now more than ever people need to see consistency from brand communications. Identify the strategic direction for media and stick to it.
3. Be nimble
This is not contradictory to consistency. There are definitely media opportunities out there. Seize them, but only when they are congruent with your brand’s strategy.
4. Know what works
Brands that understand their return on marketing investment and how it impacts their business are in a strong position to reap rewards in tough times.

With these four principles, marketers can identify a true media bargain - and avoid tight black jeans. If you would like to consider how these principles can be applied to your brand, please contact Angus Frazer at Mitchells.

Thanks to: Angus Frazer