Category: The MediaShop

Maggie Pronto, Media Strategist at The MediaShop says it’s the eternal agency debate, whether you’re full serviced or specialised – to integrate or not?

 I was lucky enough to start off my advertising career in a full service agency. It was the days where everyone sat in the same room from brief right through to third review to ensure that everything tied in, from the research and communication strategy through to consumer exposure.

 The end result was what everyone worked towards! Everyone contributed and everyone had a combined input – no idea was bad and it didn’t matter where the idea came from.

 Then digital happened, and because at the time it was a ‘niched’ environment, it stood alone. Everyone thought that it would be wise to break away from one another so that clients could have experts within each field – enter the field experts and the birth of the lead agency.

 Can I be bold enough to say, that it’s potentially not the best idea – even though I say this within the walls of a standalone media agency?

 

Let me justify why I say this – and to start off it isn’t the same for every client because everyone’s requirements are different. But I have sat around enough boardroom tables where clients have requested integration across at least seven agencies – each with their own strengths with a lead agency to pull everything together.

 By default since we all work from an idea birthed from one of the seven starting points – reviews start off with a bit of tension – sometimes you have to bring along your own metaphorical knife! Take into account that potentially none of the other experts have been asked to participate in a brainstorm or review or anything really until the big idea is revealed a day or so before the client presentation. And we wonder why a specific party is being asked to buy into something that has been developed without everyone’s participation.

 Now I might be looking at this through a different set of glasses – but to me this is not integrated – there should be no lead agency – client should take the lead and everyone else should be working towards a common goal – and it shouldn’t matter where the idea comes from.

 But that’s in an ideal world right?

 Well – I can proudly say that I do work with such a team – an integrated one – across a few more than seven “individual” agencies. We work towards a common goal where everyone is consulted and their opinion is valued and at the end the results and relationships reflect this.

 We understand that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I so wish this for every team so that they avoid the knife cutting experience and rather focus on what is important. Ultimately, it is not about an individual agency being recognised but rather about working together to reach a common goal and obtain the best result for our clients.

 To integrate or not to integrate shouldn’t really be the question – which team is ultimately the more important question?

 

The new consumer currency is here, says Katharine Liese, Business Unit Manager at The MediaShop

Consumer behaviour is changing – and fast! Gone are the days of consumers spending hours and weeks researching options. Decisions are being made in moments – micro-moments in fact.

These micro-moments are intent-driven moments of decision making that shape preferences. They occur throughout the entire consumer journey and are impacting the way in which we as marketers need to speak to the consumer.

As mobile phones become a totally immersive part of everyday life, we as an agency are seeing a fundamental shift in the way that people consume their media and process information they use for purchase decision making.

In the past, media consumption was actually quite predictable. There was a peak in radio listenership in the early mornings and late afternoons with drive time audiences captive in their cars. There was a distinctive push to Sunday night TV where the 8pm movie was not only hallowed ground, but sold out and over-subscribed. We knew that we could reach the world through a 30 second ad in Generations. Newspapers were jam-packed with pages of advertising at month end, because that was when people bought stuff right? Everyone went to the movies on the opening weekend and a billboard on a highway was a sure winner in driving noting.

Those were the simple days, but those days are gone. Now we have a consumer that is so time poor and thinly spread that they capitalise on any moment to make a consideration or decision regarding a purchase. These moments occur in a micro second when there is time – usually around a couple of need states that surface and need to be satisfied immediately:

• ‘I want to know’ moment
• ‘I want to go’ moment
• ‘I want to do’ moment
• ‘I want to buy’ moment

Micro-moments occur when people instinctively turn to a device for an answer. How often are you sitting in a conversation and someone asks a question you don’t know the answer to and your automatic response is to pick up your smartphone and announce that you will “Google it”? That’s a micro-moment right there.

These moments are considered intent rich – you want to know something right now, buy something right now, learn something right now, discover something right now, and answer something right now – and they are the moments in which the consumer is most susceptible to influence – because they are already committed to finding out the answer to their query. And this is the environment where brands must operate – you have to be seen here, to be considered, to be explored, to be acted on.

So how do brands ensure that they are present in these micro-moments?

Understanding behavioural and contextual targeting of a digital marketing definitely assists in getting the brand in front of the consumer when they are in the moment of influence. This is key to enabling a person to capitalise on a micro-moment of engagement. A brand’s digital display, programmatic, social and search strategy need to work hand in hand to ensure that no matter which gateway a consumer comes through – search, display or social – brands should be front and centre with a compelling message.

It’s in that moment that targeted and focused creative messaging, that is engaging, should be the hook to start the consumer journey in the preferred direction and to capitalise on the immediate need to know consumers are exhibiting millions of times a day.

A recent study in the UK shows that the average person checks their phone 110 times a day and up to once every 6 seconds in the evening. I don’t think that our stats are much different here in SA. It’s time we truly begin to understand the power of the small 6 inch device in the hand of 89% of adults in South Africa and how we can capitalise on their need states every time they engage on their mobile – to ensure our brand is first in line for consideration.

There’s one thing that keeps consumers coming back to your brand and that’s whether they have a good experience and interaction with the service or product in question. For repeat business, talkability and real brand salience, marketers need to be focused one thing – the consumer experience.

After just completing the 2016 Sani2c I’ve had a bit of time to reflect on this year’s ride, ignoring all the aches and pains of three days in the saddle. I look in awe at what the organisers have put together over the last 12 years which includes unwavering dedication and focus that brands, marketers, sales teams and media people should identify with and relate back to their own areas of expertise.

Across all the various divisions that came together to create the end product of the Sani2c, all are totally focused on one shared vision; to give participants the ride of their life.

This manifests itself into a number of areas from race registration to the accommodation, food preparation and much more. The event comes together through collaboration and the cohesion between the community of landowners, farmers, local villagers, family and friends to ensure an experience seldom seen or experience these days. They are all too aware that the better the experience for the riders, the more likely that the event will be spoken about for months after. The riders themselves become the real advocates for the race, not the race itself. This holds true in any business as it stands to reason that the better the experience by your customers the better your business will do.

Also, the ride would be nothing without the unwavering support of the existing riders as well as all the new riders that have managed to get into the race. Although the event takes place in May, entries for the following year open in June and all the riders that have done the event before are given first option to renew. For most of us it’s not even a discussion about renewal, it’s about where we’re going to find the money to participate. In August the entries are opened to the public and there is a mad dash to secure a place. I stand to be corrected but these additional entries are filled up within the day. Bringing it back to marketing terms, your existing customers need to remain a core focus for your business and others will jump at the opportunity to work with you.

Although in plain terms this is just another MTB Race, it means so much more to the community the race applies to. For me it’s summed up best in its Mission Statement:

1. To responsibly organise a multi-day, paired mountain bike event that attracts the interest of both local and international competitors. We aim to bring the challenge of this multi-disciplined event within reasonable reach of all levels of athlete.
2. Through associated sponsorship and media interest, we aim to promote employment through tourism and conservation of this area for the benefit of its people and the event. By co-involvement of the local communities, we strive towards creating jobs where local worthy organisations are paid by the event to provide services to the event and thereby raise funds for the organisation. The event will strive to educate upskill and develop innovative ways to create opportunities for previously unemployed local residents along the route.
3. I know I have gone the long way around to explain some simple facts but the three key take outs that I want you to remember are:
4. This speaks volumes to the organisation as a whole and what they are trying to achieve. To put it into context, in 2005 when the race first started R325K was paid out to the various beneficiaries. In 2015 R8.3M was paid out to the relevant parties excluding additional money spent around tourism, accommodation and job creation. So although the race in its purest form is simply a MTB event it’s a whole lot more. Often as a business we lose sight of what is important and how people around us can benefit from a simple gesture and focus.

1. Ensure your consumers/customers have the best possible experience they can with your brand. This takes continuous work and refinement.
2. Look after your existing customer base but never become complacent.
3. There is a bigger picture than just your profit margin, look after your staff, benefit others and the growth you set your selves will come.
4. Just some additional facts around the race…

1. 11 000km are travelled by the organisers setting up the route each year.
2. 225 000 litres of hot water is provided for the riders over the event.
3. 20 schools and 8 other organisations are beneficiaries of the race.
4. 6000 man days are spent preparing the route each year.
5. The riders consume 1000 loaves of banana bread, 2.4 tons of potatoes, 400kg of rice, 1 200 dozen eggs, 20 000 cups of tea, 160kg of rusks, 2000 litres of milk.
6. Happy riding……

Avtaar Mohanlall, Digital Media Strategist at The MediaShop says that there will always be a place for brands and people to innovate. At the moment it’s all about the App! Big ones, small ones, clever ones and some that don’t seem to have a point. While some companies tweak existing apps, others innovate and build applications based on new requirements.

By now we’ve all interacted with a lot of different apps. Whether it’s related to sport, photography or weather there are many different apps within the same category that offer only a slightly different experience, if at all! For example, the recent launches of Instagram Stories is, let’s face it, pretty much SnapChat in its infancy, and Google has just launched a new video chat app called Duo which is meant to rival Apple’s FaceTime. I’m beginning to wonder if we don’t have any more imagination or creative ideas? Have we got nothing else to do other than copy another person’s idea?

Well, after reading a few articles I can safely say we are nowhere near running out of stuff to invent or re-invent. If you take a look at innovations like SnapChat, Uber and Airbnb they’ve just found a way to re-use what has always been available, the difference is they’ve streamlined the process between consumer and product in a really clever way.

A product like Slack is an innovative app that’s quickly revolutionising how businesses operate, by being the modern equivalent of an internet chat room for teams. Log in to communicate with your colleagues in public channels or private groups, share files, or work off the same document. The app is geared toward businesses large and small that need a way for their employees to communicate internally. While this may not replace email completely it is changing the way we currently communicate within an organisation.

It’s not just apps or services that are innovating, consumers themselves are reinventing the way they research, browse and shop. Websites have had to evolve from being purely desktop driven, to incorporating Mobi Sites, to being fully responsive by allowing consumers to access their content from any device.

It’s only a matter of time before TV commerce becomes a reality and consumers start shopping from their Smart TV’s which again, will force brands to reinvent themselves for that device experience! Of course the topic that any techie will talk to you for hours about is Virtual Reality (VR) – and globally e-commerce giants eBay are leading the retail innovation by creating the world’s first virtual reality department store.

The process started roughly 12 months ago and has been consistently tweaking the system in order to meet consumer needs. The concept is surprisingly simple with users requiring a VR headset, an iOS or Android device and the ‘eBay Virtual Reality Department Store’ app. The user chooses the departments they would like to shop in and browses around, resulting in a custom made virtual store based on the user’s shopping history and departments selected.

It sounds amazing, but they’ve basically taken the Spotify or Apple Music model where playlists are suggested based on your song choices and plugged it into a different device and format.

In closing we have nothing to worry about when it comes to brands, products, apps, devices or anything for that matter, innovating itself to meet consumer needs. As long as the world keeps spinning we’re not going to run out of anything new anytime soon because our needs and requirements are constantly changing, or do consumers change their needs based on how the world is innovating? I’ll let that sink in