Integrated Marketing – Grab vs. Growth

Trickle-Down Effect

I’ve been working with the internet since 1996, and full-time since 1999. In many ways it feels more like 20-years due to the rapid-speed at which technology drives change, and change sparks innovation. I’ve come to a simple conclusion: Show me someone that bills themselves as an internet “expert” and I will show you a delusional liar. To be an expert on the internet would require a person that had 20/20 vision on what the future holds... what tomorrow will bring. To acquire such vision, you’d need to not only predict new technology and online tools, but the manner in which each individual on the net would adopt such technology.

At best, you may be able to predict an institution’s future response to past innovation. What we’ve witnessed at Remerge, is that advertising and media shifts take a long time (in internet time) to develop and present themselves. About a 3-year cycle (on average) from what we’ve witnessed. This is the span of time it takes for the big national agencies to spot a shift in consumer behavior online, respond – and then have the regional agencies follow, before it eventually trickles down to your local agency level.  If the three year cycle holds true - it means whatever the big boys are doing today will be what the little fish are doing in 2011. Should you wait, or should you be prepping the field now?

The Big Fish Focus

David Verkin is the former CEO of Carat – and author of the book “Watch This, Listen Up, Click Here”. Carat’s parent company (Aegis Group) is the 4th largest buyer of Ad time and Space worldwide… a big fish. Look at what David has to say about 2008: “Eyeballs – audience size and raw impressions… used to matter. By 2008, engagement (involvement) will be the metric that matters to marketers. Action will replace watching as the new criterion.”

When you’re dealing with regional and local agencies today (little fish) – you’ll be trolling through a sea of impressions, click-throughs, and number requests. Audience size and raw impression requests… three years behind the big fish. What your advertisers (the real clients, not the agencies) are looking for are ‘results’. They know your mass audience likes rock music (or country, or adult contemporary, or jazz, or talk) – what they really care about is how many of those want to buy a car (or furniture, or clothes, or jewelry) this month.

The only way to establish this type of information is through more effective qualitative info on your audience. While it may not be of interest to your banner-clicking, number-crunching, local ad agency today – be assured… it will be in the very near term… say, about three years from now. So, if you start defining your audience (not an estimate of your audience) qualitatively today – imagine the type of information you’ll be able to present to local and regional agencies tomorrow. How will that assist you not only on future buys, but on future programming decisions for better interaction with your audience?

Megaphone In The Desert

Last summer we visited over 30- radio stations in 30-days. Talk about your focus group! We often tell clients we are not cookie-cutter in our approach to new media integration, and trust us… it would be impossible. Not only are different stations on different levels when it comes to providing new media solutions to their customers, their focus and urgency levels vary drastically. While having a “great website” will not be critical to your station’s survival – your strategy for integrating new media (solutions beyond your stick) will play a crucial role in ‘grab vs. growth’. If your focus is to grab as many available radio dollars you can, then a new media strategy probably isn’t that important. If your focus is to grow your revenue, then such a strategy will be imperative.

Radio has a lot of people to pull from when it comes to interaction with new media. However, without a plan on how you want them to interact, and a road map for implementing new media solutions for your listeners and advertisers (in conjunction with your radio station’s mass audience) – you will be the equivalent of a megaphone in the desert. While that might not become obvious to you… it will become obvious to your advertisers who are looking for more than audience size and raw impressions. It will also become obvious to your listeners as other media solutions provide them greater control of their time & entertainment.

People Meter Mambo

We all witnessed articles and rants over the short-comings of the people meter. This rumble that has been gaining momentum since the people meter was introduced came to a head in late 2007. The sad thing is that while Arbitron creates new arguments to defend the accuracy of its struggling new vision, it inadvertently (and sometimes blatantly) trashes the accuracy of its old diary method. This only serves to raise more questions and concerns from advertisers in the new world of accountability and accuracy that has emerged since the Enron debacle. And while Arbitron continues to revamp, rethink, rework, and reevaluate the people meter – one has to ask the obvious – will the meter matter in the long-haul? Is it simply a new way to deliver audience size and raw impressions to a world that will be looking for more detailed behavioral information? How will perfected data collection by the meter be viewed by those who are focused on engagement and action?

The Cycle

Here are some final thoughts on the three-year cycle. Consider this perspective about today’s ad agencies from USA Today’s Doug Weaver back in October of ’07: “The world has turned, vertically. What was up is now down, and down is now up. The once mythical creative process has been demystified, commoditized. Post-production work is now done on the desktop. Increasingly the "creative" idea is simply a reflection of the increasingly frenetic 24-7 media whirl that surrounds us, rather than a groundbreaking new concept. Agency people are like aging arena rock bands that now play county fairgrounds.

The easiest way to land a new media services account is to promise the client (a) a lower overall price for media and (b) perfect accountability for every dollar spent. Having done so, you will promptly (a) lose the account to another media services provider who promises an even-lower overall price and (b) you will burn out your staff and disillusion your customers chasing a phantom. I'm convinced that to realize the true future and potential of media services, you need to bury the tools of the past. Trying to cram all this richness and depth into predictive media models and third party research panels just isn't going to work. The media strategist needs to skip Statistics and instead audit Human Behavior, Information Architecture and Social Networking 201… to understand the fabric and feel of both media development and media consumption.”

Chuck is VP New Media Strategies, Remerge Media