Daewoo offer break-sharing opportunities

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In “Motor ads need to make their marque” (MW December 13) Sean Brierley reports: “Media buying for car companies is arguably as unimaginative as the creative work that goes with it.” If this is a truism, then like all truisms it is reversible – media buying for car companies is arguably as imaginative as the creative work that goes with it.

You can imagine our delight to find the “Mould” press execution for Daewoo had a recognition score almost six times that of its closest rival. Does this mean the media buying was also six times better?

What is clearly true is that the creative work pioneered by DFGW for Daewoo that avoids “straightforward parading of cars” has led to a clearly differentiated creative strategy negating the “wallpaper effect”.

It is the differentiated creative work, and the unique Daewoo proposition, that has allowed the media buying to elevate itself from the depths of “unimaginative volume buying”. Earlier in 1996 CIA Medianetwork placed Daewoo’s anti-delivery charges ad in adjacent positions to other car advertisers. The fuss generated by the predictable “first car in paper” exponents of media buying resulted in a situation where other manufacturers refused to share newspaper space with Daewoo, only helping to amplify the Daewoo stance.

So can differentiation be the solution to the exclusivity debate? The launch of the “Daewoo Promises” on TV in April 1995 witnessed differentiated creative work and a differentiated media-buying strategy – the four “Daewoo Promises” were drawn together by buying top and tailed consecutive breaks.

This proved a resounding success with ad awareness at a level greater than the highest spending car manufacturers, according to Millward Brown figures. A host of these manufacturers are now mimicking the strategy. So confident is Daewoo that its differentiation is the key to their success, that CIA Medianetwork has approached the “airtime oligopolists” on its behalf with an offer to share breaks with other marques in an attempt to negate accelerating airtime inflation.

Through correct targeting and positioning within breaks and the programme environment, we can maintain our competitive advantage while using shared breaks. Until now sales houses have been unable to convince other manufacturers to share our breaks, although you may question the motivation of a salesman in reducing scarcity, and thus the price, of his airtime.

Is it the Daewoo differentiation that is the obstacle, not the solution, to the exclusivity issue? Whatever the reason, why should an advertiser pay a premium for exclusivity that it does not demand?

Matt Andrews

Account planner

CIA Medianetwork

London SE1

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