And the award goes to.... hmmm, maybe not anyone!!

Last night the glitterati of Hollywood graced the red carpet for the prestigious Academy Awards.  Dressed to impress and doing their best to enhance their public brands, the stars in attendance were hoping to scoop the acclaim and accolades of the industry. However, the cream of Hollywood’s exclusive crop weren’t the only ones looking to grab the media spotlight last night.

It should surprise little that last night The Brand Avenger cared less for A-list Movie Directors, actresses tripping up over their fine silk dresses, or the planned alcoholic consumption of George Clooney.  As we live in a world where needless brand expenditure is rampant and businesses plunge into bankruptcy daily my attention is always fixed firmly on how business use events such as this to position their brands. After all, the sheer size of audience the Oscar’s attract also brings with it a huge slice of premium priced ad space for the big brands to fight over.

As it turned out 2013 would be the year the metaphorical ‘asking price’ bar was raised. Reports from my trustworthy sidekicks on the interweb suggest Disney charged anywhere between $1.6- $1.8 million for advertising space during last nights ABC coverage of the event; the highest asking price for 5 years.  Despite the massive price tag it was also reported that demand was the highest it had been in years! Seems like the premium pricing did little to dampen the spirits of enthusiastic brand managers. Indeed some of the brightest brand stars in the land strutted their stuff last night including but not limited to Coca’Cola, Samsung, McDonalds and Neutrogena.

As a protector of brand identity I can’t help but looking deep within myself and asking the essential question everyone should be asking- Was it all worth it?... Was it all worth it? Well, first of all it certainly wasn’t the most extravagant ad purchase one could have made this year. Of course the honor of that goes to a little thing called the Superbowl and the television time devoted to ads before, during and after said event. If you choose to pitch your brand tent in NFL space you are looking to part ways with $3.7 million before even knowing if the investment was worth it! Seems like a lot of money? That’s because it is nub nuts! Especially if your campaign isn’t integrated across media platforms meaning you have little chance of measuring ROI.

Why are integrated campaigns better for the health of a brand? The explosion of social media use over the last 7 years has led to what industry experts describe as the ‘second screen’ phenomenon, As consumers watch TV they are less likely to be paying their full attention to one screen and more likely to be at least partly engaged in what’s happening on their smaller screens as well. Since your consumers attention is most likely to be split between a handset, laptop, TV or tablet it seems to me it would make sense to follow up the message you have just spend millions of dollars on across multiple channels… I don’t know, maybe its just me.

Maybe this type of spend is only suitable for brands with strong online presence. At least this way the effectiveness of the advert can be measured through the very delivery channels. Which is the brands bread and butter Darren Rovell’s account in the below article speaks volume on how important this can be. Reebok won acclaim for the Terrible Terry Tate campaign… that is until only 55% polled remembered it was advertising Reebok. Compare this to Monster.com and the success of its  ‘When I grow up’ campaign. No one can deny an increase in resume uploads from 83,000 to 2.3 million on its website 24 hours after the advert aired was a all out success for the brand AWARENESS if not anything else.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page3/story?page=rovell/050203

This is why my sizeable blood pumping heart muscle belongs to those companies who realize the value in creating a multi-channel communication strategy and the synergy between TV and subsequent social media or dot-com campaigns. At least this way companies give themselves more of a fighting chance for strong brand advocacy, brand building and overall buzz for the brand.

In closing I’m not going to sit here in The Brand Avenger Ivory Tower and tell you not to invest $4 million in a 30 second advert. But if you are going to follow the other companies and jump off the big TV spend cliff at least make sure you either have wings in the form of an integrated message or a padded cushion in the form of an adequate measurement method.

It's in the game

A twenty something male strolls down the street before making a sharp turn through an inconspicuous red door. Lionel Messi is waiting at the entrance with a cheeky smile to welcome the new arrival and before you know it they are engrossed in a game of EA’s widely popular Fifa franchise.  The frequency and breadth of EA’s television advertising for Fifa 13 across multiple channels and continents, as well as the presence of celebrity endorsement from several footballing personalities throughout the advert goes a long way to expose the cost of this campaign. But is it a cost which is justified when measured against the return?

At the same time the advert airs a 50 something single female in an affluent neighbourhood with an above average income sits down on her sofa and turns on the TV. There is no doubt she has assets at her disposal however within 5 seconds of viewing Fifa’s advert she has lost interest, changed channel and the message is forever wasted. But don’t just take the 50 something female as an example… think of grandpa, the mother with a new born, and other consumers who don’t even own a games console in their household!... the list goes on and on.

This of course begs the question of what value EA can truly drive from mass advertising of a brand such as Fifa? You would find it hard to believe the Ad Exec who made the decision on the marketing investment didn’t know their target demographic in finite detail. For Fifa it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to guess the target ranges anywhere from 6 to 35 year old males across continents and across ISBA regions with some sort of access to, or interest in gaming. With so much information on such a large group of consumers why would EA need to waste money on television advertisings to a mass audience?  If you were to measure the return against all who were exposed to the advert you would find a weak and frail comparison of value compared to other methods of targeted marketing communication.

The above scenario has long been the catch 22 of television advertisements. When the industry was less refined and volume of the message was the main objective, mass advertising such as TV was seen as the weapon of choice. However, in 2013 it is not about who shouts the loudest but who articulates the message in the most effective manner. The world of broadcasting and the way in which we consume media content has changed. We now live in an environment where data is more readily available than ever before. In this environment there are no excuses for wasting marketing investment when there are so many opportunities to reach the truly relevant audience. And don’t underestimate the power of relevance. Translated to companies like EA relevance equals profit to the bottom line.

This explains why an online banner campaign will yield more measureable value than a mass media production and why more and more companies are shifting investment into social and online advertising. After all these channels give you access to numerous data points on your consumer such as, but not limited to…

·         How old they are

·         Where they live

·         How much they spend

·         When they spend it, etc.

But all is not lost for those who work in television advertising, or for those looking to invest in the good old fashioned audio visual display on the telebox. Of course it’s almost a certainty that the significance of such investment will be scrutinised in much greater detail as the years roll on. However network and TV advertising executives are beginning to take best practice evaluation techniques from other marketing areas to help measure the value of investment. Take for example AT&T adapting online targeting tactics to inform when and where TV ads should be aired (http:/www.technologyreview.com/news/510186/att-brings-online-ad-targeting-tactics-to-tv-commercials/).

Through readdressing the ye olde strategy of casting your ‘marketing message’ net far and wide to instead focus more and more on significant data points, TV and broadcast content could begin to play a much more significant role in reaching the consumer thus creating relevance for the products featured within the campaign. This way companies like EA can ensure expensive investments such as the placement of an international soccer celebrity is properly recognised as Messi and not a messy waste of resource.