Media Alignment

Let me start with the obvious. When using more than one medium in a campaign it's important to determine before launching that campaign whether these different media will each seek to achieve the same objective (create awareness for a new product), each touch on different parts of the purchase funnel (i.e. broadcast drives awareness while direct mail drives sales) or a combination of both where media may overlap in some areas. While obvious, this point is important because right now we're often seeing each medium's purpose being designated by the degree of measurability they offer.

Since TV isn't measurable, TV should drive awareness. Since online is measurable it will serve as a direct response medium and will be measured 100% against sales. Time out. This just doesn't make sense!

TV absolutely can be measured. Infomercials develop their creative and buy their media using highly scientific formulas to drive success. But it's not just TV. Think of any infomercial-esque product you've seen advertised lately - any medium - and it's likely they were very successful using direct response marketing. Using this line of thinking, Why then shouldn't 100% of our media be fully measurable? Why ever run a brand ad?

Because of the purchase funnel, that's why! See our previous blog post about the man who goes to buy the engagement ring. If everyone skipped all steps of the dating process except the proposal, very few people would ever get married. The same applies to marketing a product, service or brand. This seems so darn obvious but because most marketing isn't measured, it's natural to desire nothing but the end result when measurement is possible.

We talk to clients all the time who pour hundreds of millions of dollars into creative and media and have no intention of measuring one dime of it. And I'm not just referring to measuring it against sales. It's not even held up against metrics from an A&A study to at least ensure they're moving in the right direction! Inevitably when we're called in, the program must be 100% measurable.

It may be surprising but we love this. The more measurable the better. What should be understood, though, is that promotions which are 100% measurable can't use the same tactics as top or mid-funnel brand advertising does. For instance, in our last post we talked about program, content and site quality. In top funnel campaigns, placing advertising within recognizable content (i.e. Prime Time TV) might make sense. It's doubtful that awareness will skyrocket upward after a schedule centered around spots running solely from midnight to 6a.

However, the lower in the funnel a brand targets, the more efficient the promotion and associated media must become. In this case, those late night/early morning rotators might be the most efficient plan to drive positive ROI. Tactics like this, whether in traditional media, experiential, or online and emerging media, all have tremendous benefits and stand a better chance to drive a positive ROI because the marketing elements being used are less expensive to begin with.

The real question then is whether or not a company has the stomach to take this traditionally unpopular route of disregarding how recognizable its programming, venue or site list is in favor of a better chance of increased ROI. The answer to that question will correlate proportionately with how measurable that portion of the marketing plan can be.