Pitch Day!

Project 2... The BIG Pitch
It’s Saturday afternoon, yesterday was the end of project 2 where we had to pitch our big idea to a panel which included Paul Ridsdale (Head of Marketing at ITV), Helen Lawrence (Marketing Manager for New Platforms at ASOS) and our industry mentor for the project, Jesper Astrom. (I introduced this project two posts earlier and explained our big idea which led on from our consumer insight so please read that post before reading this one).

Team HEDGE after we smashed our pitch :)

So after detailed research into the target audience and into where the client wanted to position their product in the hair colouring market, we discovered that there was in fact a better opportunity which would increase their potential audience. As a premium priced home hair colouring product, the client wanted to compete with salons and try to take customers away from them. However, we came to the conclusion that women who could afford to go to the salon were unlikely to switch to a home colouring product that was half the price; they’re not worried about money and they enjoy the luxury of going to the salon and having a professional colour their hair.

We carried out primary research and used secondary research to identify that there are actually a considerable amount of women out there who are dissatisfied with their current hair colouring experiences; both who go to salons and who colour their hair at home. 25% of women feel that stylists in salons often impose their opinions too forcefully and 27% of women find it hard to get the right colour at home; leaving them dissatisfied with unwanted results. With this in mind, we wanted to propose to the client that we target these dissatisfied women (salon goers AND home dyers), rather than try to convert those that are happy with their current hair colouring experiences. Without jumping ahead too much, the client loved this idea, their feedback was really positive and they liked that we had challenged the brief and identified a core consumer insight that actually provided a better opportunity for them.

After presenting our research and insights, we introduced our brand solution: to empower women to take control. This is about firstly ensuring that these women are no longer dis-satisfied and actually get the results they expect (by using L’Ireel Tint), and secondly it’s about empowering these women (who we identified as being socially aware and who are prepared to pay a premium for socially responsible products) to give entrepreneurial women in developing countries the opportunity to start their own businesses. As I mentioned in my earlier post, we want L’Ireel to partner with a microfinance organisation, which we later decided on KIVA, whom provides small loans to women in developing countries, allowing them to start their own businesses and become self sufficient. In essence, it empowers them to take control of their lives. Our suggestion was that for every Tint purchased, £1 is donated to this organisation (and because of the nature of the loan structure, it wouldn’t have to affect revenue long term, it is just a loan).

This initiative would help to differentiate the brand, create a conversation (addressing earlier advice that brands should curate, not create), create advocacy (one of the objectives in the brief) and be engaging for our audience.

Now the main point that I haven't really talked about yet is the role for digital. So one of the key objectives of this project was to convince the client that they needed to invest in digital advertising; they are very sceptical of digital media, don’t know much about it and have always relied on TV and print. During the pitch we explained to the client that their audience are active digital users (18.1m million women are online which is just under ½ of the british population that are online, 58% of products researched online by women are beauty products, 72% of women use social networks). So they are in this space, and L’Ireel can be there too. We talked about the fact there are numerous forums and reviews online where women are venting their anger about their hair colouring disasters but no brands are currently in this space offering advice or help. L’Ireel can be there to answer these problems and make these women aware of their product, which with its USPs would generate great results and subsequently satisfied customers.

We proposed the following media split:

50% Digital:

VOD ( YouTube, VOD, ITV Play pre roll), FB homepage/ ASU/sponsored stories, KIVA focused advertorials on guardian online and Daily Mail Femail, mobile app for after sales support, Search (desktop and mobile - keywords focused around competitor brand names, generic hair/colouring terms, hair complaints terms, ethical terms), Display (GDN, Specific Primo Network)

45% TV:

C4, E4, More 4, ITV channels, Sky Living

5% Print:

KIVA focused advertorials in OK!, Glamour, Grazia, Marie Claire

We wanted to keep TV and Print on the plan because they play the vital role of raising awareness using the right programming and titles, but we emphasised that these media channels can be restrictive in that they provide one way communication. We sold digital in by suggesting that it complements traditional channels and offers the opportunity to create two-way communication with consumers e.g. responding to dissatisfied consumers on forums.

These were some of our digital initiatives (a few were mentioned in my earlier post):

- giving customers the option to choose who they wanted to donate their £1 to (through the KIVA partnership); they could then follow their progress online, via YouTube video diaries

- developing a mobile app which provided the user with a step by step guide of how to get the best results using the product

- live Q&A sessions on Twitter

- facebook updates showing that you have supported women in developing countries (similar to the option to share when you have sponsored someone via justgiving on facebook etc)

- after sale services on youtube e.g. videos on how to create the perfect hairstyle for an interview, or how to create the perfect ‘up do’ for your friends wedding


We closed the pitch with a nice cheesy line..... we’ve now empowered you with the knowledge necessary to justify this split to your business and illustrated the ways in which digital platforms are now taking over women’s lives. Now the control is in your hands...

Our pitch went down really well with the panel, they said that we presented really confidently and as I mentioned earlier they loved our consumer insight and the opportunity we spotted for the brand. I was really proud of this because it was my job to introduce our pitch and take them through our research and insight, which obviously I did well :)

They really liked the idea of partnering with KIVA and said that brands find it really difficult to execute socially responsible initiatives well, which really align with the brand. I felt like I had improved considerably from our first pitch in project 1, I was so much more confident in presenting and really tried to engage with the panel when I was speaking, which I clearly did well. Our project mentor was smiling and nodding all the way through which gave us all that extra bit of confidence and after the pitch he said that he was really proud of us. He said that he was slightly concerned about we were going to piece all of our work together, but he said the final result was great!

Post pitch - Gatecrashing Mindshare's roof terrace

So happy post pitch!

I’ve got the weekend to recharge the batteries then it’s onto the 3rd and final project on Monday..... ‘Increase value for a client’

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

Project 2 - Bring an offline business online

Project 2 is the 3rd and longest module on the Squared programme, lasting 3 weeks. This project is led by Swedish entrepreneur, Jesper Astrom (@JesperAstrom) who has worked on hundreds of digital campaigns for big clients such as Pepsi and H&M.

Here are the details of the project to give you a bit of background...

Project Aims:

-  Gain a holistic view of the marketing industry
- Understand the role of marketing
- Understand how marketing can help a business grow
- Gain better understanding of the industry through research
- Practice working with briefs
- Practice cross channel marketing
- Practice client relations
- Practice presenting and selling

The brief:

The world's largest cosmetics and beauty company, L’Irréel are launching a new hair care product, L’Irréel Tint. Your Team/Agency are pitching to win the launch campaign

- Budget: £2m
- Time: Christmas Party Season
- Objective: Awareness and advocacy

The Task:

- Deliver a media plan including placements, formats, and max weights over time

- In the brief, we have given you the client’s usual budget split (80% TV, 20% Print) and investment model. The media plan should re-weight that model to encompass the digital channels you want to include in your strategy. You can also include ATL channels as you see fit, but you should look to re-evaluate the role of digital

- You will be pitching to a panel of real clients; give the client a reason to invest in digital
and demonstrate how digital channels can reach and engage with their target audience

- Put together a messaging journey to work alongside your media plan. Which creative messages will you use on which channels? How will these messages change across the time of the campaign?

- Put together a measurement plan; what KPIs and measurement strategies will you recommend to the client to measure success? Bear in mind the client’s challenges and objectives

Expectations:

- Show Creativity (=innovative + Relevant)
- Demonstrate comprehensive understanding of the client’s needs and branding objectives
- Handle change in a positive and creative manner
- Present your strategy in an understanding and inspiring way

Assessment:

1. Competence: the participant’s ability to apply her/his skills and/or knowledge in context

2.  Attitude: self leadership and the participant’s willingness and ability to adapt to change and collaborate

3. Creativity: the participant’s ability to be innovative and relevant


Pitching Panel:

- Phil Mitchelson, Head of Digital, News International
- Paul Ridsdale, Head of Marketing, ITV
- Selina Sykes, Senior Brand Manager on Lynx, Unilever
- Adam Henderson, Global Brand Partnerships Manager, Jaguar
- Bryn Snelson, Head of Marketing, eHarmony UK
- Helen Lawrence, Marketing Manager for New Platforms, ASOS
- Masha Voskresenskala, Category Solutions Manager, Johnson & Johnson
- Charlotte Greenaway, Mobile Marketer, Telefonica O2 UK


So this time we were split into groups of 4; let me introduce you to Team Hedge...

Team Hedge writing up our team guidelines (guideline 1: Nurture a fun working environment)




A trust exercise before we got going... 

I’ve really enjoyed the last two weeks working on project 2; I’ve learnt a great deal about the process that agencies go through from the very start of receiving a brief from the client. This task is perfect for me as a planner, as it reflects exactly what we do as a planning team and has given me the opportunity to really test the water.

Although it may sound obvious, one of the lessons I have learnt is that it is the responsibility of the agency to challenge the brief; we’ve spent a lot of time over the past 2 weeks researching the target audience, identifying the problem, developing an insight , identifying an opportunity for the client, and SELLING IT IN!!

The product that L’Irréel is going to launch is a premium priced at home colourant, ‘L’Irréel Tint’. The USP of the product is that it comes with a bespoke application tool, which allows women to easily apply colour for a multi-tonal salon effect at home. The target audience are 28-40 year old women who have disposable income , buy designer clothing and who live busy lives (very broad).
We recognised that one of the main challenges the client will face is convincing the target audience that this product is good enough to compete with salons and is worth the premium price of £24.99 (highly expensive compared to other home colouring products). After much research we identified an opportunity; many women who colour their hair at home are often dissatisfied with the results (messy application and not the colour they expected) and many women who go to salons are also often dissatisfied with the results (hairdressers often do what they want to do rather than what the customer has asked for). Therefore, rather than try to convert women who are loyal to their current hair colouring experiences, we want the client to target women who are dissatisfied with their current experience; educating them with regards to which colour to choose and showing/guiding them through the process of actually dying their hair using our product.

Therefore our solution is:


empowering women to take back control and make the most of their head

We've got our solution, so now onto our media plan...

We watched a youtube video which featured Simon Sinek talking about the increasing importance of the ‘why’ for brands , especially in highly cluttered markets. Why is it that that brand exists? Consumers need to be able to emotionally relate to the brand , and if they can’t , they won't purchase from them, and will go to a competitor instead whom they share the same core beliefs and value as . We recognised that the at home hair colouring market is cluttered and brands often compete on price. However, since we are a premium priced product, we cannot compete on price and need to stand out some other way .

Research revealed that our target audience are educated, aware of and concerned about social responsibility and the lack of business opportunities for entrepreneurial women in developing countries. Therefore, we want L’Irréel to support microfinance initiatives as a way for women to help other women who are ‘using their heads’. or who are trying to but do not have the same opportunities as women in developed countries. They will give loans to entrepreneurial women in developing countries to start their own businesses and ‘make the most of their heads’. The target audience will be able to relate to this and would therefore want to be apart of the initiative.

We are still working on the media plan, etc, so I will update you on this early next week, but some of the ideas are as follows:


- creating and uploading video diaries on youtube; for the women who have received the loans to keep the consumer updated on their progress and allowing the consumer to choose who they want to support in developing countries

- facebook updates showing that you have supported women in developing countries (similar to the option to share when you have sponsored someone via justgiving on facebook etc).

- after sale services on youtube e.g. videos on how to create the perfect hairstyle for an interview, or how to create the perfect ‘up do’ for your friends wedding.


The client is stuck in their ways and has always split their advertising budget in the following way: 80% TV and 20% Print. Our challenge is therefore to convince the client to break the mould and introduce digital. Our research shows that the audience are highly engaged with digital platforms and therefore there is a perfect opportunity for the client to reach them in the digital space, but convincing them is tricky! We need to show the client that digital platforms allow brands and consumers to have a two-way communication which traditional media does not offer. This would allow the client to respond to any dissatisfied customers in real time and develop a relationship with them .

To wrap up... we had our first ‘client meeting’ on Thursday, where we shared our insights etc with the client and introduced the idea of perhaps trying out digital for this campaign. Unfortunately we had received the brief almost 2 weeks prior to the meeting and didn't have an opportunity to speak to the client to challenge the brief until Thursday. We know that in real life this wouldn't be the case and we found it hard as we had lots of questions that we wanted to ask sooner, that we just had to make assumptions on.

I felt really under pressure in the meeting, the client made it very difficult for us, challenging us at every opportunity, although this was great experience for what we might face in the real world. We learnt that we were not as prepared as we could have been, failing to provide basic stats about digital and stats on our audience’s media consumption..This is something that we will be better prepared for come the pitch; I think we were so focused on building on our great insight that we overlooked the need for basic information that we should have known the client was going to want to know about. Overall, it was great to experience what a real client meeting might be like where we wanted to challenge the brief and propose a new idea to the client. 

We needed a break after that client meeting!

Media plan, messaging journey and executional ideas TBC......