FMCG & Media: Time for partnerships…

A question from P&G’s marketing manager, Western Europe ecommerce, Gareth Barker, sparked a discussion about mobile partnerships at MediaTel’s FMCG & Media event earlier this week.

Barker wondered where the budget should come from to increase awareness of mobile technology and services to consumers.

Dan Hagen, head of planning at Carat, said it was a difficult question to answer but urged all parties to be open with each other – to invest time to drive awareness together.

Claire Valoti, managing director of O2 Media (pictured), said from her point of view it is important to have “open and honest conversations with brands” to create two-way partnerships – adding that O2’s Priority Moments is a “great example of how it can work”.

Priority Moments allows O2 customers to sign up for “front of the queue” tickets to events and gigs – accessing tickets up to 48 hours before general release. O2 uses data from the registration to target customers so they “don’t miss out on gigs and events [they] might like”.

Chris Alliott, senior telecom analyst at RBS, suggested that the current marketplace may require a more holistic view on how advertising and marketing budgets are deployed. He believes it should be a joint investment of operators and clients to increase awareness of what is on offer.

Alliott asked Barker whether P&G’s marketing department is re-structuring to take advantage of the current market. He responded with a yes but said that marketing budgets are under pressure – explaining that it is hard to invest in ‘media driving’ campaigns.

P&G are measured on getting the advertising message across – if they also need to spend money on promoting how customers might access that communications message through something like augmented reality, it is a hard sell internally. Although he said both media and marketing divisions are in a better place to approach the new landscape now.