Revolution or evolution: State of the Media

I attended a state of the media Webinar hosted by Vocus today. The state of the media industry is anything but rosy for sure. The 3rd largest broadcast company files for Chapter 11 last month, major newspapers - and some 1070+ others - folded in 2009, and major magazines with a million readers - decide to publish no more! At the end of the Webinar - I felt like playing taps.

But, is this the demise of the traditional media industry or an evolution occurring in the media industry? Are newspapers and magazines being weeded out or is this the complete demise of an industry the way we knew it? And the big question, did traditional media fail to utilize new media in time to survive?

The Wall Street Journal and the NY Times are two good examples of print media that have overcome the new media blitz - and in fact - have become major players. You may say - yes but they've always been. But, so were pubs like the Chicago Tribune and Gourmet magazine? They were major players too - and look what happened to them.

My take - whether it's local media or national media - you can no longer rest on your laurels as having a built-in audience. Your media product has to become relevant to your audience and always - always available; on-line, on my phone app, podcast whenever the audience WANTS to consume. Rebecca Bredholt called it the Green Eggs and Ham syndrome. I want the content in on my phone or in my home, in my car or at the bar. I want my content Sam I am..

But just as important, the product needs to be relevant - and that means the brand - yes the brand of even the local radio station has to be relevant to the audience. So, you can put more wattage in my cottage - but if your brand means nothing to me...you lose me and your advertisers.

Some advise? Look at how you promote yourself OUTSIDE of your medium. Showing up at the local chamber meeting is nice, doing a radio remote at the local car dealer's ok. But go out and provide unique experiences that only you can provide that taps into your potential audiences interests.

Products like the Wall St. Journal are still valid because those organization's invested in the brand years ago, and continued to do so as the media "weeding" began. So, ask yourself Mr. Editor, Mr. GM - what experiences can you create for your audiences that will make you more valuable to your audiences?

Experiential marketing programs, sponsorships in locally meaningful activities? Just a thought.

Dead Celeb Society

Admittedly, I'd love to post something juicy about the Tiger Woods sponsorship issue. But everyone already has - and I couldn't shed any new light on the situation - less of course he was dating my sister.

However, there are an extremely few number of sponsorship opportunities that involve connecting your brand with a high profile sports figure "brand" that won't end up carrying SOME type of negativity along the way.

Do you account for this at the beginning of your relationship or do you just measure all of that upside the agent is providing? When you do your evaluation - do you take into account the cost associated with your new crisis PR plan?

Dan Beeman gives a great reason to account for this in his blog from Sponsorship Insight Group.

I had proposed a couple of months ago that if companies want to play the celeb game, consider looking at connecting their brands with DEAD celebs instead. Silk products can brand themselves with Genghis Khan, the man credited for solidifying the silk trade route. James Dean recently made an appearance for South African investment firm Allan Gray. Monte Blanc pens provided a great example by connecting Ghandi with their pen co. in support of his worthy foundation.

Point is - if you're gonna do the dance with Iverson, Vick, Phelps, Woods, Rose and so on... be sure to take into account the negative "intangibles" (there's no such thing as intangible - but I'll save that for the Christmas break) and for goodness sake don't put your company in a situation where all your eggs are in one basket.

The Mont Blanc Cause

I typically don't run around in the circles of those in the market to spend $20 grand on a pen. But that's not by choice and by no means the purpose of this blog. It came to my attention the a couple of months ago that Mont Blanc (that's a pen company for us regular folk) has struck a deal with the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation, a worthy cause, to support the foundation's peace efforts. Apparently the pen company has a penchant for cause-marketing options, such as their partnership with UNICEF enabling underprivileged children to learn to read and write. By all means, this makes great sense.

Is it me, though, or does it seem a bit against the grain for a foundation representing someone that stood for peace and minimalist ideals, to develop a cause tie-in with a pen company that is selling a pen for a mere $22k? ($200 - $1000 of which will support the foundation). Gandhi's grandson signed off on the deal.

Carrie Triblet and Nora Rifon's study from Feb. 2006, (reported in the International Journal of Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Marketing) revealed that consumers respond more positively to marketing efforts when the image of the sponsoring company or brand is compatible with the sponsored event or activity.

I'm all for cause-marketing. It's one of the more effective tools in solidifying a brand and creating a purpose for purchase - and is a great measuring tool. But, synergies have to exist between the brand and organization - otherwise it doesn't work.

Just my opinion.

The case for Analytics

In today’s economic environment, marketers are faced with tough decisions. Many companies are cutting their marketing budgets, but unless they figure out a way to stop customer attrition, companies must continue to market. The question is: What should they give up?

In these difficult times, Analytics may be the best budget investment. The simplest definition of Analytics is "the science of analysis". Marketers may choose to make decisions based on past experiences or rules of thumb, or there might be other qualitative aspects to decision making. But, unless data is involved in the process, it would not be considered Analytics.

Analytics should play a vital role in the decision-making process. Analytics should be considered a "need to have" in tomorrow's economy. Marketers should never saddle themselves with cost-cutting decisions without first reviewing some type of performance indicators.

You may be using Analytics to measure the impact of your POS or shelf space program, measuring your media schedule against SKU movement. Yet,what Analystics are using to measure the efficacy of your sponsorships?

There are products to support your measurement of value against your sponsorship spend that will give you data to justify the spend and data on where to cut the spend. I invite you to look at the SponsorshipPro+ program and Pinpoint SES. Both products offer a cost effective method for determining accountability and value from your sponsored properties.

Auto Industry Ad Execs: Quick - Your Cheese is Moving!

2-3-0. I can't seem to get those numbers out of my head.

Forget about recession woes for just a second. Eventually, industry will level off to normalcy with or without TARP, Cash for Clunkers or anything else the government invents. And when it does - the two main selling points auto execs tout in their traditional advertising, MPG and PRICE, will be rendered obsolete.

Why? Well, the next ad promoting an estimated 30 miles to the gallon will seem like peanuts now that the MPG bar has been raised to 230! Give me 200 MPG or it's not worth talking about.

This past Tuesday, a report came out that India's Tata Motors new Nano car passed Euro IV safety tests, which are similar to those required by the US Department of Transportation Safety. With minor modifications - the Tata Nano could start selling in the U.S. by 2011 for as little as $3800.

You have to wonder how an auto brand will be able advertise an $18k car that gets even 50 MPG with a straight face. Where's the market differentiation? In horsepower? Color choices? Maybe it'll be the cool music bed that blares in the background.

Or, perhaps using the same tactics that endeared a Subaru to a core group of outdoor enthusiasts and created an immediate legacy for the Mini Cooper among consumers through VIP treatment at targeted events will be the new method for marketing car brands. If that's the case (which it should be), properties need to be gearing up to make room for test drives and photo ops so event goers can get a glimpse at the emotional appeal "behind the wheel" of something other than a Nano.

Manufacturers Demand More Accountability

Mark Dolliver reported in AdWeek online today that manufacturers are requiring greater emphasis in utilizing on-line advertising. Two-thirds of the respondents are reporting a shift in their online spend to either spending more than in previous years or at least half their budgets for online ads.

Another angle to this story might be that marketers are required to demonstrate greater accountability and ROI in the advertising. Whether its online advertising or sponsorship, over half the respondents are choosing marketing programs that can be measured because of greater pressure to demonstrate results.

So, you might start thinking about how you can demonstrate results for your sponsors.

And if you cannot demonstrate results? Well, 70% of the respondents indicated that if you're unable to measure the marketing initiative - it's slated for reduction or elimination.

Although you may have a great relationship with your sponsors, the CMO is hunting for greater accountability. So, you better be able to demonstrate measurable results. If you don't have benchmarks in place, now might be a good time to talk to your sponsors about how you can integrate metrics so they CAN measure the results.

What results are they looking for now? 44% want to generate new customers, while another 29% want to develop leads, 13% indicated that they want to show they can retain customers and 11% were wanting to increase brand awareness.

So, those signs and banners at your event may not be enough to excite your sponsors. To create sales and sales leads, your sponsor need to be on-the-ground with your event attendees. And while hospitality benefits may help retain some customers, utilizing hospitality to create customers or customer leads is going to be much more important.

As for CMO's looking to build measurable metrics and accountability for sponsorship marketing - you can learn more about Pinpoint SES, an online tool that evaluates potential ROI and measures sponsorship results using company-benchmarks at http://www.pinpointsponsor.com/PINPOINTSESdemo.mov

Measuring Results

It was noted in Jim Andrew’s blog recently that Nielsen research revealed that sponsorship marketing, (forgive me for if I offend for adding the term marketing) is the second most trusted form of advertising.

Yet, just the other day I was talking with the Exec VP of a major retail jeweler that didn’t see the need to invest in MEASURING the value they’re obtaining from their sponsorship.

Measuring our results would be a nice to have, but not a need to have.” Sounds just like that old ad agency axiom from the 60’s that “50% of your advertising works, you just don’t know which 50%.”

The main reason companies don’t measure results from their sponsorship is they have no specific metrics in place to evaluate sponsorship value and nothing in place to capture results. These companies continue to make decisions based on established relationships and intuition (It’s true – look up the peer reviewed study in Journal of Advertising Research – v32, i4 by Farrelly and Quester).

That’s like buying TV time based on your favorite TV show and from your favorite ad rep without caring about HH reach or SKU movement during the schedule.

Many companies are learning to activating relationships and measure the results of their sponsorship marketing (yes, there I go again). Not just by what the sales team heard at the VIP tent, but using tangible metrics that value impressions, potential customer extraction and conversion numbers – even if the conversation occurs 6 months after the event.

Internet advertising, event and sponsorship marketing are 21^st Century tactics that will maximize brand integration into the consumer lexicon. No longer is it possible to justify spending large chunks of advertising budgets on a fragmented broadcast medium that was in its golden era 50 years ago or in a print medium that is dying under the pressure of Internet news sources in a new economy?

But the need to identify and measure metrics is tantamount to understanding and monetizing those results.

Did I mention sponsorship is one of the most trusted forms of advertising?