Media strategy, but make it fashion: 3 lessons from corduroy
Opinion
Some media trends, just like fashion crazes, could be rad today and cheugy tomorrow. Corduroy offers us some learnings about staying in style when it comes to strategy.
Corduroy is back in fashion. In Uniqlo this weekend, I found myself perilously close to buying a pair of “cords”. I’ve been here before with corduroy; it starts with the trousers — next thing you know, you’re in a geography teacher suit.
Like corduroy, advertising thinking drifts in and out of fashion. You may think it builds slowly, incrementally getting richer and deeper as we work towards an advertising “theory of everything”, but it doesn’t.
There are trends and thinking that might be totally rad today could be cheugy tomorrow. As Nick Manning says, autumn is a great time for some new media thinking. But what should we buy up while still in stock? And what should we leave on the rack? What lessons does corduroy offer us on media strategy?
The future of advertising: reasons to be cheerful… but realistic
Lesson 1: There’s fashion, and there’s fashion victims
What’s in fashion today? Byron Sharp. Mark Ritson. Les Binet and Peter Field. But are they timeless pieces transcending fashion — or a corduroy suit?
Sharp’s How Brands Grow contains what many thought to be the last word on how marketing works. Well, hold on to your corduroy bucket hats (we’ve all had one) — here comes a new fashion guru: associate professor Felipe Thomaz of the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School.
Thomaz has had a long, hard look in the Ehrenberg-Bass closet. He’s analysed 1m customer journeys over 1,000 campaigns and concluded that Sharp’s suit simply doesn’t fit.
Sharpian rules help big brands stay big; they don’t help brands grow. And that’s because optimising to reach doesn’t work, fundamentally. And that’s because not all reach is created equal.
Different channels work in different ways in different categories. Planning that goes beyond simple reach optimisation to encompass these differences sees significantly better results. For Thomaz, brands have over-focused on optimising reach, settling for mediocre results. If we’re following Sharp, maybe we’re just fashion victims!
Lesson 2: The emperor’s new clothes may leave you exposed
We’ll have to wait until Thomaz’s paper is peer-reviewed and published to debate his analysis, but two things ring true.
First, the Profit Ability 2 work from Ebiquity et al shows that while advertising pays back across all channels, different channels pay back at different speeds in different categories.
Secondly, it’s undoubtedly true that not all impressions leave the same impression. The sterling work by Richard Kirk and others looking at media signalling shows us that Marshall McLuhan was right: the medium is the message.
Many advertisers were seduced by the very fashionable programmatic mantra “right person, right message, right time”. But, in media, you are the company you keep. The signalling work demonstrates that planners should be wary not to overlook or underinvest in TV, outdoor or print in favour of more fashionable social platforms.
That’s not to shy away from innovation. There is a role for influencers, especially in certain categories. But reach still matters.
You can’t grow without bringing new customers into the brand; few or none of those new people will become brand loyalists. More than one brand has “optimised” itself out of business through over-targeting a handful of perfect prospects.
Sharpians may not be entirely correct to obsess over reach; but they’re definitely not entirely wrong. Beware of mantras, beware of trends, remember the tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes and make sure your brand is dressed for success — whatever the fashion.
Brands could be spending three times too much on social. You read that right
Lesson 3: The best style is your own style
It’s been a decade since The Long and the Short of It, but what a decade it’s been! Aim for fame, they said, and they were right.
But, arguably, fame operates on a different scale today in our age of media and audience fragmentation. You can dominate an audience’s “bubble” and be perceptively famous to just the people who matter; those who might buy you. Segmentation and targeting make sense as long as your segmentation is actionable, differentiating and leaves enough volume to drive business growth.
Likewise, the 60/40 split of brand and promotion may not be right for you, but it’s probably not wildly off. Remember, it’s a guiding principle, not a cast-iron rule. If in doubt, start there — but work quickly towards your own best mix.
Peter Field: ‘Any sensible marketer would be crazy to walk away from TV’
How best to always be in style?
Read this year’s IPA Effectiveness Award papers.
The advertisers that see real business-changing effects are those that are taking theory and best practice and tailoring that to their specific circumstances. They invest in testing to find what works for them.
They look at effectiveness not just through the lens of econometrics, but through a quotidian commitment to effectiveness that manifests in well-structured A/B testing and experimental design, and in real-world calibration of media mix modelling and predictive models.
These are the media leaders who’ll always be in style. They take a long, hard look in the mirror of empirical evidence. “I know it’s in fashion,” you can hear them saying to themselves, “but does it work for me? Does it fit? And will it last?”
They’re finding their own style. And, yes, there will always be room for corduroy.
Steve Taylor is UK head of strategy at Mediahub