This week’s panels...

I have written up my notes from this week's panels. The idea of the panel is that a selection of industry experts come in to present to us (10 minutes each) on a particular topic, followed by a Q&A session. I have found these sessions fantastic!

1. The Digital Landscape

A panel discussion, where different perspectives from the industry come together to explore the evolution of the digital eco-system as we know it today.

Panel:

Nicola Mendelsohn, President of the IPA, Exec Chairman of Karmarama
Ben Wood, MD iProspect
Sofia Amin, Director of Marketing and Communications, IAB UK
Nathan Guerra, Director of Innovation, AMV BBDO


Nicola Mendelsohn

Nicola talked about what the industry was like when she first started out in 1992:

- it was dominated by men
- the ideology about what you needed to know about advertising was 3 things: relationships, relationships, relationships
- it was hierarchical, structured and everyone knew their place
- no interest in the consumer; no response wanted i.e. no phone numbers to offer customer service (no customer relations)
- no digital media whatsoever, only 4 TV channels existed (previously only 3 - then channel 4 launched which was BIG news)
- launch of the mobile phone - battery pack was bigger than the mobile phone!
- pre-google was ask jeeves! - where consumers started to feel empowered
- introduction of on demand choice through the red button
- it was only 10-15 years ago that people started to think about the consumer

Then she talked about NOW:

- now it’s all about the consumer - they are KING!
- listen, be helpful, be useful!
- ‘OMG’ is now in the oxford dictionary - shows the power of the crowd! Used to take 60 years to get into the oxford dictionary

Ben Wood

Ben also started off talking about what it was like back in the day...

- only 20% of the UK population was online (£8.1m spent on advertising)
- 1995 - people got excited that they can email, early online shopping
- the internet experience has completely changed; back then AOL gave you a disc to get online
- basic Nokia phone was a smart phone - Nokia led the pack, Apple and Android didn’t exist
- Capital radio, Virgin radio, Jamba, Popcorn - these were on the media plan for Microsoft in 1998; they only platforms that sold advertising space at the time
- tracking performance tools did not exist; no proper post campaign results, just an email saying ‘your 200k impressions were delivered, with a CTR of 4%’
- lack of creativity and engagement; adverts were simply emailed to media owner

£4.5bn spent on online advertising now and today 85% people are online

advertising...

was generic now personalised
was static now dynamic/realtime
was desktop now multiscreen
was niche now superscale

a move away from specialist to integrated; changed the way that agencies are structured

Sofia Amin

You guessed it... Sofia also talked then and now...

- WAP on our phones was supposed to change our lives but it didn’t deliver on its promise = made people cynical of the digital industry
- dial up was noisy, kept on disconnecting, interrupted the phone line
- internet adoption was slow, clients and consumers were used to seeing TV ads and outdoor posters; had to convince people that digital is good and to forget about WAP, but clients couldn’t understand digital
- no TV ads contained a URL
- integrated media plans didn’t exist
- CTR’s and DR were the ways to get clients to spend
- now people are in control through the evolution of social platforms - changing ways of measuring the success of marketing
- none of the current social platforms existed and now ¼ of people’s time is spent online
- social networks have put people in control, no social channels/customer service phone lines existed to respond to bad products, now it is all about the consumer!
- in H1 2011 internet had 27% SOV


Nathan Guerra

- banner ads were the way to get brands on the internet
- 20% of queries in search engines today are from mobile devices

Client: ‘can you take my poster and put it online?’ Didn’t work like that, too much content

Client: ‘can you make me a website?’ every single brand has space on the internet, even though people didn’t care about brands i.e. Domestos. Everyone felt they had to have a destination, but this wasn’t always an effective use of client’s money

Client: ‘build me a viral’. Clients trying to gain exposure

Client: ‘Can you build me an island?’ not as easy as that, need to make people aware of it, not just creating it

Content is KING! - Content is very different to traditional advertising, whatever you do on the internet, it has to have value for the consumer, there needs to be a reason behind it! It needs to be engaging. I tweeted an interesting article in the week called ‘Deconstructing six common digital marketing clichés’ from E Consultancy (@Econsultancy) which talks about the importance of engaging content


2. Cross Channel Planning

A panel discussion on Cross Channel Planning. Panelists will explore how to bring a strategy to life across multiple channels, in an increasingly fragmented media landscape.

Panel:

Our very own David Wilding, Head of Planning, PHD Media
Paul Wilson, Managing Partner, Strategy, Starcom Mediavest Group
Ian Edwards, Head of Strategy and Insight, Vizeum

David Wilding

David was first up and spoke to us about comparative advantage. I had heard David talk about this before so it was a good refresher for me. It was nice to hear that my peers enjoyed the talk and thought that it was a really nice way to look at different media and to decide which channels to pick in times like today when there are so many different variables affecting channel choice.

David explained that the notion of comparative advantage was about looking at different media channels and focusing on what they are uniquely good at doing; what does that one channel do that other channels don’t do?

David talked about the importance of understanding the function of the channel, how people are using it and thus tailoring it. He talked about mobile as an example and that the comparative advantage of mobile is its content. But just because you can watch movies on your mobile, that doesn't mean that we should/ it doesn't means it’s the most suitable medium in which to watch a movie.

David talked us through the Sainsbury’s feed your family for £50 for a week campaign and how it was an example of comparative advantage in action.

Why it worked:

- a behaviour insight - social proof
- comparative advantage - event TV
- context - finals week
- big idea - record yourself today, appear in the ad break tomorrow
- cross agency collaboration - good communication from all sides, daily updates

Issues with the campaign:

- hard to stand out from other advertisers in the ad break of BGT
- lack of participation; asked people to do too much
- KPIs were set around sales, value and awareness, should have also been about participation


Paul Wilson

Paul introduced the analogy that experience is the best school, but the fees are very high! His talk was based around sharing what he had learnt from mistakes he had made in media planning, which was really interesting.

Lessons that Paul learnt:

- know the cost of a first class stamp - ensure your comms objectives are aligned with your business objectives
- know the size of a jar of Loyd Grossman’s sauce - the brief was to sell more of the product to families. Result was that there was no increase in sales. It was only realised afterwards that this was because the size of the jar was simply too small; wrong packaging (simple as that). Lesson to be learnt = to be clear on the problem that comms can solve. In this case, they were trying to solve a function issue
- telling stories - too often we base decisions on our own experience; this is wrong, we need to understand the consumer = base your work on evidence rather than myth and assumptions
- a mobile phone screen - When One to One became T Mobile, they had the touch point at their disposal to inform their customers of the change but didn’t use it. They didn't change the name on the mobile phone screens when the campaign went live = Need to think more broadly about what media is!
- a budget cut - Budget cuts are inevitable so we need to understand the role of the media and prioritize them accordingly, it will be the deciding factor of the media plan


Ian Edwards

Ian talked about 7 principles to help us plan:

1. Plan a conversation not a campaign

It is less about the media plan itself

active fans - on facebook, twitter, bloggers (daily engagment) your most valuable audience!
passive fans - youtube, mumsnet (monthly themes)
broad audience - ATL media Media Partners (large planned activations)

2. Have an insight

3. Curate DON’T create

It’s not so much about creating e.g. content, it’s more valuable to get people talking about a particular subject/brand

4. Reward engagement - correctly

- Client: I want 1 million people to like me on facebook - but why? They won’t actually like you, you’re just paying them to say they do!

= reward appropriately to the time they’re spending with you

5. Empower communities/group

- e.g. giving away product for free to appropriate groups,
- how do you get them to spread the word for you

6. Identify you SO-LO-MO angle

social, local, mobile e.g. spectacle wearer of the year 2012

7. Facilitate personalisation

Heinz ‘Get well Soup’ campaign - based around nostalgia, created a can which allowed you to send a personalised can of soup to someone