Campaign Asia-Pacific
Tim Riches, Futurebrand
Tim Riches, chief growth officer for Asia-Pacific at Futurebrand, reflects on his experience as a judge at the Asian Marketing Effectiveness Festival in Shanghai last week.
Over the last few weeks I have had the pleasure of judging submissions for the Asian Marketing Effectiveness Awards – an annual conference and awards ceremony in Shanghai. As my first major award judging experience it has been a fascinating process, diluted only by the fact that I was given 108 entries to read, view and score on 4 dimensions: strategy, creative/innovation, execution and results. Quite an onerous task!
I reviewed entries in the categories of Best Sustained Success, Design/Packaging and Best Idea. As you can imagine, assessing effectiveness is quite a different challenge across these 3 – relatively confined for packaging, very broad in idea and harder to prove in sustained.
Some entrants took the sawn-off shotgun approach and entered multiple categories with the same entry, often not tailored to the category, which highlighted one of the key issues of this process – the fact that because effectiveness is a diverse and multi-faceted concept, the categories themselves have a role to play in becoming sub-sets of the overall idea. More on that later…
A tangled web of lies, damned lies and effectiveness metrics
I remember the first thing I read when doing a marketing course at uni was the classic John Wanamaker quote: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half”.
So it goes without saying that knowing whether we’re really making a difference as marketers or agencies has been the perpetual challenge. The challenge for marketers in terms of their influence within their companies; the challenge for agencies in terms of substantiating their value proposition (or at least the size of their invoice). That’s why these kinds of awards are so important.
Overall, I thought that the quality of submissions I reviewed was higher than I actually expected, with nearly all of them able to field some semi decent data on the alleged effect of the marketing investment. Few attempted an actual “ROI” calculation though, preferring to rely on campaign KPIs rather than business investment.
But what was quite palpable was the amount of selectivity and even “spin” in the data shared in the entries – should I have been surprised? Many of them read more like selling documents than submissions that would receive critical examination, showing a lack of self-awareness that’s often displayed by agencies who struggle to achieve business credibility with senior clients.
Despite the importance of the effectiveness challenge, and the effort displayed by agencies to demonstrate it, reviewing the 108 entries brought it home to me how complex effectiveness is in the marketing concept – as soon as you move outside very specific, self-contained initiatives.
However, there were 2 factors lacking in most entries that really did get in the way of building the effectiveness case:
Isolating the marketing effect – the majority of entries I reviewed made insufficient attempt to isolate the effect of the marketing activity from key external factors that may drive change. Most entries of course examined market share and category growth – as they were required to – but few took the trouble to address the wider context. And we should bear in mind that for business leaders, those that marketers and agencies often criticize for “not understanding” marketing, the broader considerations of the opportunities and threats of the market environment are precisely the focus – not the artificially constrained world of traditional marketing metrics.
Although I won’t mention names, and without any comment on how these ended up being scored, two examples of neglecting key external factors from “marketing results” that I saw were:
- A defence force recruitment campaign, that while impressive in its detail and very well argued, took little account of what is surely an important factor shaping perceptions of what serving in the armed forces might be like: the deployment of that armed force in action in Afghanistan, a conflict which appears in media as diverse as the headline news and Iron Man movies! Surely such factors impact how people feel about “signing up” – one way or the other.
- A national tourism communications initiative that claimed itself to the primary driver of increased inbound arrivals from key regional markets, even though the period in question coincided with the launch of three major international tourism attractions targeting exactly those same markets.
Now, regardless of the factual importance of these factors (although one must surely think them significant) they should be given consideration in terms of the credibility of the entry – because they go right to the heart of the big challenge, knowing whether what the marketing activity made the difference.
The “golden thread”
Considering the point above, it’s probably close to impossible in the world of marketing to be totally watertight on cause and effect.
But in light of this, when considering the question of marketing effectiveness, this only places more emphasis on establishing the “golden thread” of a logical link connecting business objective, consumer insight, marketing strategy, creativity, execution and results. For marketers, the integrity of the entire chain is crucial as it’s the core of a marketing business case. For agencies, the close nexus between insight, strategy, creativity and execution is surely the focus.
It was this golden thread that I found notable by its absence. The submissions typically included these elements, but often did not credibly connect them together, especially addressing the hard questions of how a consumer insight was really at the heart of the approach to creative and execution, how effective was the message “take-out”. In fact, there was often a sense of disconnect between insight, strategy and execution – despite the fact that the process of entry-writing must surely be the process of weaving together these elements which may in fact have been delivered by different departments, if not entirely different agencies.
Conversations I had during the event with senior clients confirmed this problem – between the “unbundling” of the traditional ad agency, media fragmentation and the emergence of more specialist agencies, there are many agencies fighting for the steering wheel. It’s very hard to achieve actual synergy of effort. Plus of course you have the client in this mix too with responsibility for selecting agencies, defining their relative responsibilities and translating business objectives into marketing activities.
In this environment, maintaining the integrity of the “golden thread” is a challenge indeed, notwithstanding the ever-increasing appetite for robust marketing investment cases.
What about brand effectiveness?
Coming at all this with a brand consultant’s perspective is interesting too. Because we tend to view brand in a broader sense as a business asset, rather than an aid (or impediment) to a sales initiative, I guess our natural orientation is to take a long term view of the evolution of the brand over time: what is the heritage of the brand, how has its story unfolded over time, what’s driving it in future, and how does a branding initiative seek to align that changing story with drivers of business value.
Very few submissions I saw, even those in the “sustained success” category really examined this point – how a brand improved its relevance and value by evolving its meaning over time, although it was a topic of some discussion during the judging process.
Of course the obvious metric in branding is brand valuation, and no entry I saw incorporated changes in brand value as an effectiveness metric either.
What does all this mean?
Effectiveness is complicated in marketing, and the bigger the marketing challenge, the harder it is to show what you’re doing, isolated from its context, is making a real difference. I think this is why most entries addressed effectiveness in terms of KPIs not ROI. It’s a significant difference: KPIs are typically based on benchmarks and goals expressed as marketing measures – really from the point of view of a marketing director. ROI is a business measure. As a business, I spent $x and achieved a financial outcome of $y – it’s a CEO perspective, weighed up against all the other things a business can do to drive income. Clearly it’s also a perspective that both marketers and their agencies don’t always find it easy to engage with.
It seems to me that the complexity of the effectiveness challenge highlights the opportunity within the awards process to use entry categories to more closely frame effectiveness: tailoring effectiveness definitions by category would help in this regard.
One of the best submissions I saw, from a rival brand consultancy, demonstrated the effect of insight-driven packaging change in terms of brand appeal – with impressive results. But outside the nice, neat world of packaging changes, branding seems very hard to submit to the effectiveness microscope. It seems to me that branding, with its longer perspective and deliberate engagement with business change, category dynamics, the innovation agenda, talent attraction and motivation is even more difficult to isolate and assess as an investment.
Cultural nuances
One of the most interesting aspects of reviewing entries from around a region as diverse as this is the insight that the entries provide into some of the cultures in which. Some lighthearted observations on three that stood out to me:
India – Is Hyperbole as city in India? For stories of epic human drama, unprecedented achievements, intellectual breakthroughs of Einsteinian significance, David and Goliath challenges of unimaginably heroic valour, look no further than marketing in India – only for the brave, it seems… Also the clear leader in the fine art of charts and graphs, many of which show how many ways there seem to be to justify using a Bollywood star for “women’s” brands or a cricket player for “men’s”. In the unlikely event that no celebrity is appropriate – or perhaps affordable – then some kind of positive social outcome is preferred, maybe literacy or environment.
Malaysia – earthy, cheeky humour and connecting with the “man on the street” seems to be the order of the day – evidenced by the hitherto untapped marketing potential of circumcision in the telco sector. Certainly an eye-opener for me! There’s also a healthy a dash of the Indian appetite for dialing up the drama of the challenge and the genius of the solution, must be that “Truly Asia” mix of influences…
Singapore – hmmm, a bit boring I’m sorry to say, although certainly the leader in effective social conditioning – how to act towards your parents, which uni course to choose, how to behave in public, the list goes on… If your agency isn’t doing its bit to shape the future of the nation, what is it doing? How can you have a business? And at least there’s living proof of effectiveness, ROI – return on inculcation.
And finally the judging panel. Despite some recent umbrage taken by Sir Martin in a media interview to a question on the apparent dearth on local talent in senior agency roles, there were very few Asian judges in the room, and those that were, were all client-side, not agency. And of the “expats” in the room, there were certainly some pretty colonial views in evidence. Surely this is not an accurate reflection on the state of the agency world in Asia…?
Deric Wong is strategic planning director at Omnicom Media Group Hong Kong. He writes from the Asian Marketing Effectiveness Festival which took place in Shanghai on 12 and 13 May 2011.
Deric Wong, OMG Hong Kong
As usual the AME conference is held over two days, I was looking forward to the content on the first day – ‘Models for a New World’. It’s always interesting to hear agencies’ leaders speaking their point of views about what drives success in the new world, but what models are really new and insightful?
Not surprising, the studies of human psychology mesmerised the audiences – similar to last year when Martin Lindstrom delivered ‘The Buyology of an amazing idea’. Rory Sutherland, vice-chairman of Ogilvy Group UK, reinforced that understanding of human behaviour is important for the development of marketing initiatives, if you want effective business results. Fascinating speech and thought-provoking approach, but wouldn’t it be more interesting to have a psychologist widen our perspective next year?
If you are wondering what communications strategies are effective in the new world, Peter Field, consultant for the IPA in the UK showed his valuable 30 years long analysis and advised the audience that effectiveness require two crucial elements – building Fame for brands and Emotional strategy is more profitable. He questioned why reducing ‘price sensitivity’ is never an objective for a marketing campaign. True, especially in a time where price competition takes precedent, inspiring consumers to pay more could be a better approach than to increase loyalty or penetration. Peter also found that creatively awarded campaigns are more effective in driving business results. He believes that marketers should start promoting creativity, if they haven’t already done so, which helps to reduce brand risks. Surely agencies would echo that point. No matter which party is taking the driver’s seat for creativity, we, the agencies coming as ‘one’ is more crucial than ever for a client’s business.
As you would imagine, digital topics prevail. What was interesting in the conference was a lack of media agencies taking part in the presentations this year as well as representatives from the other emerging market – India. Digital discussions were mostly delivered by creative counterparts. Views were shared on how to tackle digital communications. There was an argument about the usage of digital behavioral data could enhance creativity. From a planning perspective, digital as a platform should be treated with the same planning approach as you would for other media channels. One view I do share is the understanding of users’ online touch points inspires creativity, encourages channels integration and potentially opens up a lot of consumer engagement opportunities through media partnerships.
The AME conference continues to draw senior executives and clients from the region and is one of the must-attend conferences in Asia. For the benefits of all, I believe those who are involved in the implementation of marketing plans should also attend the event. What good does it do if the knowledge does not cascade down to the working level?
ShuFen Goh, principal at R3, travels to the Arizona Desert, USA, to attend the annual American Association of Advertisers (ANA) Financial Conference. Here is her account of the second day.
ShuFen Goh (R3)
Well, 500 of us all went our own ways after the first day to reflect on paying agencies on value – and today we met Kate Short, Strategic Sourcing Manager of Intel to learn that it’s time to de-couple from agencies. Up until 2008, Intel worked with one holding company for all its needs, before appointing OMD for media globally and a new retail marketing partner. And last year, they launched an “Open Source” model, using Venables Bell for creative and production house TAG for distribution. The room was lapping up the stats of 12-20% cost savings , combined with 30% time improvement. And wait – the Intel work actually won an Effie Award, surely a first for this kind of structure. Who will be next to experiment with the agency model to find greater value?
Last year at this event, a shocking survey on the perception of sourcing professionals was released – with massive image problems for the group with agencies, and mixed reviews with marketers. So , for the last twelve months, it’s been Extreme Makeover, Procurement Edition. Three task forces were set up – one to mentor younger procurement people on how marketing and agencies work, one for PR for the industry (yes, I said PR) and one for education. Leaders from JNJ, American Express and A-B InBev shared the progress, and believe it or not, they may be onto something. Certainly , the sharing of case studies of how to more professionally search, audit and pay agencies is a great leap forward.
After a smart lunch where we learnt that Click Fraud is almost as common in the US as in China, we joined a session “Audit Your Agencies and Have Them Thank You for It” (imagine that?) – with pharma leader Allergan onstage with their auditor, and finance heads of two of their agencies. Allergan make , among other things, Botox, but it seemed they weren’t stretching things too far in this case when they talked about the importance of a fair and transparent audit. The group also handed out a new Best Practice process, which we sure hope Asian marketers will embrace too.
And at the main dinner tonight, just picture 500 procurement people letting their hair down and hitting the dance floor – “it’s just a step to the left…”
ShuFen Goh, principal at R3, travels to the Arizona Desert, USA, to attend the annual American Association of Advertisers (ANA) Financial Conference. Here is her account of the first day.
ShuFen Goh (R3)
Advert in the Desert: Day 1
It might be 35 degrees outside, but for some reason, event organizers wanted to see “how low can you go” on the aircon inside the ballroom – “bring your sweater” as some canny veterans did.
This event is one of two ‘biggies’ for the year for this group of the US’ top companies, attracting more than 500 marketers, agencies and consultants to three days of finance, fun and food.
While the attendees were mostly from the US, the interest was anything but, with most of them coming to a ‘pre-conference’ talk by us on Sunday on global trends.
It might have been our content, but probably, it was our free T-Shirts that did it. We talked about the BRIC markets (I hope you know them already – Brazil, Russia, India and China) , and came up a brand new word – BROIC – putting the ROI into BRIC.
According to Aegis, 48% of the media growth in the next five years will come from these markets alone, with the US providing only 22% . So most of the people in the room have now realized they need to get a passport and get busy.
At the opening night dinner, ANA CEO Bob Liodice kept it short, but was the one who let us all know about Osama – to rounds of applause and instant googling from the room.
Next morning, Bob also interviewed John Wren, CEO of Omnicom, in a casual one-on-one session on a whole range of topics. On his compensation structures , Wren said “We have 5,000 clients, and probably 3,000 types of agreements – as long as there’s a fair chance for us to get paid well for good work , we’re comfortable with this.” On the increasing role of procurement, he mentioned “I’d rather deal with the procurement guy who is only used to buying screws – because he will have a solid process of working, he will have manufacturing standards for those screws, and he will be efficient and clear in his brief and needs.”
Also today, Stew Atkinson, a VP of Product Supply, Global Brand Building Purchases from P&G gave a sterling speech of how they approach procurement with a balance of art and science. The world’s largest marketer knows better than ever that cost reductions alone is not the role of procurement, with more than 2.5 times their savings now coming from Value Added – “we used to treat agency partners at arm’s length, now we treat them with arms locked” he added. Procurement and agencies take note – is a new world coming?
Finally, Sarah Armstrong, Director of Worldwide Agency Operations for Coca-Cola gave their company’s update on Value Based Compensation, a new initiative launched at this event two years ago. Well , they have since covered 213 agency agreements across more than 50 countries, with a bunch of positive comments from internal Coke people and their agencies. Their approach has been “Invest in the Best” – best talent, best value, best in industry and with a goal to be the best client of the agency. This finally seems like The Real Thing. Anyway , I have to get to the Outlet Mall before dinner……time for some value based negotiation….
Almost every manufacturer at Mobile World Congress this year seemed to be showing off their new tablets – and almost all were running some version of Google’s Android operating system, whether this was Android 2.2 Froyo, Android 2.3 Gingerbread, or Android 3.0 Honeycomb. Likewise, we saw a plethora of ‘smartphones’ with 4 inch + form factors. The distinctions between device types are blurring.
Given that so much of our digital world is mobile, have we now reached the stage where the ‘Mobile’ part of ‘Mobile World Congress’ is essentially meaningless? Does classifying the event as ‘mobile’ merely fuel the industry’s obsession with distinguishing between devices such as laptops, netbooks, smartphones and tablets and comparing relative merits?
The trend amongst mobile workers, particularly at this Congress, has been firmly towards carrying many different devices with many different form factors around to support different patterns of mobile working. This will be supported by current trends in data charging. T-Mobile’s announcement on Tuesday, that it is introducing flat rate charges across all of its European markets from March to encourage users to access data when roaming, is likely to be matched by other operators. With the advent of flat charging, the decision over device no longer becomes a decision about cost, but becomes one about function.
Manufacturers increasingly want us to buy not just their device, but their ecosystem – and are using interoperability between devices on ecosystems as a selling point. The new HP TouchPad, for example, features the ability to easily share an URL with another mobile device running WebOS such as a Palm Pre. The Scrabble “Tile Rack” App is an example of the same kind of phenomenon for iOS – an additional iPhone or iPod Touch being used to solve a design issue.
Leading providers of internet services have also picked this up through their market research, and are designing their services accordingly. Facebook is leading the way with the new version of its ‘Messages,’ which promises to provide a seamless experience across devices. Comparing types of devices is misleading – a more apt subject for comparison would be ecosystems and form factors within them.
Mobile World Congress – batteries again! This year, as with every year it seems, I’ve found myself walking past irate looking mobile industry executives shouting into three handsets at once, and saying something equivalent to, “My battery is about to die, I’ll call you back in a minute.” On all three handsets.
Consumer expectations are only going to rise as smartphones become more prevalent and the industry transitions to LTE and HSPA+ devices. One of the key talking points at this Congress has been LG’s dual core technology – what they call “Speed Evolution.” This kind of technology is going to allow phones to be able to do things which they have never been able to before.
This is, of course, a double edged sword. We want smarter, richer apps which leverage contextual information from devices to power experiences, but we do not want this to come at the expense of battery life.
It was not lost on us at InMobi that while we were talking on the, “Making Apps Smarter” panel and discussing how developers could leverage context to deliver more personalised experiences, many in the audience were grumbling about the dead batteries on their handsets. How can the industry help make Apps smarter – and more efficient?
Chip manufacturer Qualcomm is one of the organisations which are leading the way here. Last year Qualcomm launched its QDevNet platform, which helps to support developers who wish to develop for Qualcomm chipsets, and provides resources on how to optimise apps to make the most efficient use of the chip. Organisations which put this kind of effort into developer outreach are going to be those which reap the dividends.
The challenge is also to build development toolkits which allow developers to code once and write to many different platforms and devices. How can we make it so that developing scalable apps for each platform is part of the same easy workflow? It stands to reason that the less time developers have to spend worrying about scaling issues or cross-platform issues, the more time they can spend thinking about how to provide a rich experience which does not drain battery life.
One of the ironic things here is that everyone in the industry through to end users wants the same thing. They want to be able to enjoy the richness of experience which technology such as LG’s dual core technology, LTE and HSPA+ promises without worrying about battery life. We could do worse than supporting the developers.
Campaign Asia-Pacific