As I discussed in my blog last week, marketing messages are everywhere. So...as marketers how do we break through the clutter?
In order to truly create meaningful and memorable messages, we need to understand our target customer base. Why not start with doing the research to reap the reward?
Since I’m a marketing professional, I guess I’ve got a heightened awareness to ads and marketing in general. But, I must admit, I’m also a fairly oblivious person – there is no point in denying it. That being said, a marketing message has to be pretty darn good to leave a lasting impression on me. For these reasons, I’ve always said that I’m a fantastic test for any marketing campaign.
So, if there are so many messages and so little time, how do we know how to leave a lasting impression? It’s as simple as 1, 2, 3...research, test and repeat!
There are many examples of successful campaigns based on clever pieces of research – the re-branding of Norwich Union to Aviva just this past year, the Your Point of View campaign by HSBC and Pepsi’s Taste Challenge just to name three that come to mind.
What all of these campaigns did, was get closer to the customer. They not only did the research to gain insight into the customer, they also used this insight as part in the actual campaign execution.
One of my favourite examples of a smart and daring campaign is the Pepsi Taste Challenge launched in the ’80s.
Smart because it acted as a fully integrated marketing campaign at a time when this wasn’t even the norm. Pepsi was able to gain real-time results of customer preferences as well as inspire customers to realise which brand they preferred. The proof was in the pudding and Pepsi ended up coming out on top in sales over their cola rival.
This campaign was also daring – in my opinion - because it could have easily gone the other way. Since it was a blind taste test, the tasters could have chosen the primary competitor, Coca Cola. The gutsiness of Pepsi showed that they believed in their brand in a big way. That act spoke louder than any billboard advertisement they could have posted on the motorway.
The moral of this story is that Pepsi broke the mould in reaching out to the masses, interacting with their customers and learning a thing or two in the process.
From the blogs I’ve written and the focus of my freelancing outfit, you can tell how passionate I am about customer research in driving strategy. I can’t overemphasise its importance for mass marketing campaigns. Many may think that it’s too challenging to get insightful findings when you are targeting a large group of individuals. It is true that this does make the research parameters harder to determine BUT it can make the reward much more significant.
Bottom line: it’s worth it!
By investing the budget and time into understanding what drives customers for your various target segments, we can influence behaviour to get a customer to buy any product or adopt any service we have to offer.
Trust me - understand their needs and increase the impact your campaign has on those customers.
In this weeks blog, I’ve mentioned three examples of strong mass marketing campaigns based on customer insight – Can you think of more??
My challenge for you all this week is to share your insights with me and my readers. Be as creative as you can be!
Have a great marketing week and I hope 2010 is treating you well so far,
Miriam Berger
AppleCrisp Marketing Solutions
In order to truly create meaningful and memorable messages, we need to understand our target customer base. Why not start with doing the research to reap the reward?
Since I’m a marketing professional, I guess I’ve got a heightened awareness to ads and marketing in general. But, I must admit, I’m also a fairly oblivious person – there is no point in denying it. That being said, a marketing message has to be pretty darn good to leave a lasting impression on me. For these reasons, I’ve always said that I’m a fantastic test for any marketing campaign.
So, if there are so many messages and so little time, how do we know how to leave a lasting impression? It’s as simple as 1, 2, 3...research, test and repeat!
There are many examples of successful campaigns based on clever pieces of research – the re-branding of Norwich Union to Aviva just this past year, the Your Point of View campaign by HSBC and Pepsi’s Taste Challenge just to name three that come to mind.
What all of these campaigns did, was get closer to the customer. They not only did the research to gain insight into the customer, they also used this insight as part in the actual campaign execution.
One of my favourite examples of a smart and daring campaign is the Pepsi Taste Challenge launched in the ’80s.
Smart because it acted as a fully integrated marketing campaign at a time when this wasn’t even the norm. Pepsi was able to gain real-time results of customer preferences as well as inspire customers to realise which brand they preferred. The proof was in the pudding and Pepsi ended up coming out on top in sales over their cola rival.
This campaign was also daring – in my opinion - because it could have easily gone the other way. Since it was a blind taste test, the tasters could have chosen the primary competitor, Coca Cola. The gutsiness of Pepsi showed that they believed in their brand in a big way. That act spoke louder than any billboard advertisement they could have posted on the motorway.
The moral of this story is that Pepsi broke the mould in reaching out to the masses, interacting with their customers and learning a thing or two in the process.
From the blogs I’ve written and the focus of my freelancing outfit, you can tell how passionate I am about customer research in driving strategy. I can’t overemphasise its importance for mass marketing campaigns. Many may think that it’s too challenging to get insightful findings when you are targeting a large group of individuals. It is true that this does make the research parameters harder to determine BUT it can make the reward much more significant.
Bottom line: it’s worth it!
By investing the budget and time into understanding what drives customers for your various target segments, we can influence behaviour to get a customer to buy any product or adopt any service we have to offer.
Trust me - understand their needs and increase the impact your campaign has on those customers.
In this weeks blog, I’ve mentioned three examples of strong mass marketing campaigns based on customer insight – Can you think of more??
My challenge for you all this week is to share your insights with me and my readers. Be as creative as you can be!
Have a great marketing week and I hope 2010 is treating you well so far,
Miriam Berger
AppleCrisp Marketing Solutions
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