08 The Year Ahead – Integrated marketing

The Inside track to spreading the advertiser’s word 

Fragmentation of media and changing consumer media habits means integration is the watchword for canny advertisers – but this approach calls for deep knowledge of the separate niche markets. By Rob Tomalin, EMAP2

As pioneers of cross-media and fully integrated advertising solutions, 2008 is set to be an exciting year for EMAP Advertising. Changes in consumer behaviour have meant that integration is becoming increasingly relevant for advertisers and media agencies, and EMAP remains well placed to offer truly integrated, cross-platform advertising solutions with many of the UK’s best known brands.

The cross-media campaign is well positioned to grow as an advertising tool in our converging digital world. Properly executed, it combines the strengths and reach of radio, TV, digital, mobile and magazines to deliver impressive returns to the advertiser. Sending a campaign cross-media allows you to create multiple touchpoints throughout a day.

Splintering audiences
Rapid audience fragmentation has made it harder for media professionals to service advertisers with in-depth expertise on a growing number of niche audiences. EMAP Advertising is bridging this insight gap with the battle tested consumer knowledge that has underpinned its own success in fierce consumer markets, and from an advertising standpoint, its unrivalled experience in providing creative solutions to its customers. The core of this activity is The Inside Panel – a 10,000 strong consumer group that helps generate new knowledge and identify lucrative behaviour patterns. Knowledge generated from the panel is the basis of our crossbrand work and was clearly demonstrated when we put together the Sony Ericsson Soundtrack 

The Soundtrack To Your Life campaign took the form of Sony Ericsson Walkman phones sponsoring the music Electronic Programme Guide (EPG), which includes all of EMAP’s music TV stations. It also included advertorials in Q, FHM & Heat and was supported on radio through a nine-month partnership with Kiss Radio’s Open Aired programme, which delivered the latest news and live DJ mixes from summer festivals. In order to keep music consistently at the heart of this campaign EMAP’s ticketing service site, Aloud.com, ran a special festival guide for users throughout the summer months which was sponsored by Sony Ericsson.

With the recent Rajar figures showing that one in four Londoners listen to our Kiss and Magic stations in the morning and that EMAP Radio commands a 25% share of the commercial radio market, we provide our advertisers with a major opportunity. The same message heard on the radio can be reinforced with the internet when they log on at work. Our latest research shows that the line between work and pleasure is blurring in the workplace. Only 6% of people stated “they never used the internet for pleasure at work” and that 34% of internet users will dip in and out of personal websites throughout the day. With major websites such as FHM.com and Heatworld.com we can reach well over 4,000,000 unique users every month. 

Magazines play a major role in people’s leisure time. FHM has a readership level of about 2.3 million (NRS) and Grazia commands 220,215 readers a week and was one of the UK’s fastest growing titles in the sector (ABC JJ07). Through magazines, advertisers can reach their target market with traditional ads, advertorials, specially designed inserts or the most recent development – QR codes – which allow readers to interact with the magazine via their mobile phone. QR Codes are barcodes printed in magazine ads, the user takes a photo, texts the photo to a number and gains access to special branded content: photos, ring tones and movies they can share with friends. 

Turning up the Heat
The emergence of Mark Frith’s Heat World over the past year has demonstrated the power of dedicated cross media brand extensions. Heatworld. com was launched when we realised our readers were seeking even more immediacy than the weekly print and online magazine. Heat Radio’s launch in October was a groundbreaking innovation – a commercial radio station without ads that interrupt the listening experience – the advertising revenue is provided by key partners who sponsor the station’s shows.

In the past seven years cross-media campaigns have secured a position in the mind’s of advertisers as a key tool in delivering messages to consumers. An integrated media campaign is the natural evolution of advertising in a converging digital world. 

Rob Tomalin, Head of Cross-media Arm, EMAP2

 

Getting the correct blend

A successful integrated campaign needs much more thought than just a mix of media with similar branding. By Richenda Wilson

John Armstrong was at Unilever 20 years ago when he first appreciated the importance of integrating the various elements of a marketing campaign. While he was discussing a TV ad for Persil Automatic with JWT, he was also about to organise the associated door-drop with the local printer. No one was talking about the fact that the two bits of work should have the same creative idea to back each other up and resonate with consumers in a consistent way.

Armstrong has spent the years since focusing on making campaigns as seamlessly integrated as possible and is now chief executive of integrated agency Momentum, which was created out of five specialist shops. He believes that integration must be treated as a specialist discipline in its own right with its own skill set. “You need to create a unifying big brand idea, not just a creative execution, that recognises the brand’s objectives and ultimately moves your client’s business forward,” he says. 

“By basing your idea on traditional brand planning insights as well as a good understanding of communications planning you will be able to define how best to integrate the campaign across a range of disciplines,” he adds. “If you have created your idea based on sound consumer brand and communication planning, you may find that the best way to answer the brief is in fact a single discipline.” 

Momentum often works alongside other agencies, a set-up that can cause problems if not firmly managed. Armstrong says: “The client has to lay down the rules from the start and make it clear to all the participating agencies that there will be no prizes for treading on each other’s territory.”

Mike Colling, managing director of Mike Colling & Company, agrees that a lack of territoriality is key: “Inevitably a number of different skill sets are required to pull a great integrated campaign together. Sometimes these lie in separate organisations. The client or team leader needs to create a cultural and financial environment that supports the development of great ideas, from whatever source, and rewards the united team, rather than encouraging individual bids for stardom.”

However, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of healthy competition, believes David Atkinson, managing partner at integrated agency Space, as it leads to “a raising of the bar among agencies and a surge of activity to shine, to add value to the client’s experience”.

The gift or curse of ‘the big idea’
“Integrated marketing should always be led by a big idea,” says Atkinson. “That idea then becomes the core, which is translated into every relevant discipline. This doesn’t mean that only one agency can work on it, just that someone controls the process, egos, influence, budgets and agencies.”

But the suggestion that this “big idea” is the holy grail can cause problems of its own, say some. “Successful integration should certainly  start with an idea,” says Euro RSCG KLP managing director Hugh Treacy. “But it should be the right idea that provides the best solution to the marketing problem. Success is born from an understanding that consumers behave and react in different ways, at different times, to different messages in different media. If the right idea is good enough, it will stand the test of interpretation and adaptation across the marketing mix.”

Technology at the heart
There are several simple technical elements that need to be integrated to ensure marketing works, but they are often neglected, believes Grant Kellner, director for EMEA at Acceleration. “Businesses with call centres are not taking  advantage of e-mail by closing the ‘conversion loop’. 

“Say a prospective customer telephones for an insurance quote. The operator asks questions and inputs data to an interface. This can be integrated with an e-mail tool. As the data is entered, a template pulls the information from its content system, and an e-mail is sent after the call, pushing a call to action.” 

Francis Wallinger, managing director of Alchemetrics, also emphasises the need to get your CRM systems and technology working together: “To be able to deliver integrated multichannel campaigns, companies need a technology infrastructure that supports this, with a marketing database at its heart.”  

And Mark Patron, chief executive of online analytics specialist Redeye, adds that technical knowledge is also vital for evaluating campaigns: “To measure performance across the marketing mix and optimise the integration of various channels, a good understanding of data mining, database management and Web analytics are prerequisites of a successful integrator.

“However, few brands are developing an integrated customer view across off- and online where, in reality, planning and single customer views are paramount to successful integrated strategies.” 

Richard Tremellen, partner at Experian Integrated Marketing, believes integrated marketers need to “possess skills that include customer portfolio management, contact strategies, optimisation, process development, analytics, interactive learning and data-based technology.”

But he adds: “There are only a handful of marketers in the integrator role in the truest sense, making decisions on how marketing budgets need to be allocated across multiple channels with a clear understanding of how each channel impacts the overall mix.”

When brand managers stop using the 1960s siloed marketing model as their benchmark and gain a clearer understanding of how consumers are viewing messages across multiple channels, campaigns will be both more integrated and more successful.