GOOD AGENCIES WORK FOR THEIR CLIENTS.
GREAT AGENCIES WORK FOR THEIR CLIENTS' CUSTOMERS.
Most agencies are under the false impression that the only client they need to impress is you. The problem with that is, when it comes to creating advertising that works, you’re not the client that matters – your customer is.
According to the CMO Council Report, More Pain Less Gain, 65% of clients are unhappy with their agencies. Here’s why. When asked what marketers want from their agencies, four capabilities consistently show up. And many agencies are simply incapable of doing one, much less all four. What’s more, all four capabilities listed are directly related to developing and delivering work that help clients understand, attract and connect with customers.
THE FOUR ABILITIES THAT SEPARATE GREAT AGENCIES FROM MERELY GOOD ONES
Immortology’s Strategy & Consumer Insight Director, John Kelly moderating a focus group.
1.THE ABILITY TO GENERATE AND IDENTIFY ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS
While many agencies are good at tracking and reporting data like KPIs, most don’t have a clue how to generate and identify real and impactful consumer insights. In fact, most wouldn’t recognize an actionable insight if it bit them on their bottom line. Great agencies, on the other hand are really good at sifting through existing data and generating valuable new data through qualitative and quantitative research to identify big business building opportunities others can’t.
For example, Burkely Student Communities hired us to conduct some student research. They asked us to find out what one amenity they could add to all their properties that would attract more residents. We told them this was the wrong question for two reasons. From third-party research, competitive analysis and their own student surveys we knew there is no one amenity the majority of students want more than others. And the most popular amenities are ones most communities already have. Second, even if we found an amenity every student wanted that no other community had would only result in a short-term gain because other properties would quickly add it. To attract more student residents, Burkely needed to offer something the majority of students want that they could actually deliver in a way their rivals couldn’t.
The Latin phrase translates to “If you can read this, you are one of us.”
To find the answer, we conducted qualitative and quantitative research with three student groups - those who resided at Burkely, those who resided at competing communities and those who specifically considered Burkely but ultimately chose a competing community. At the core of our research were two questions that elicited the answers we sought. What is your biggest fear? What is the one thing that will prevent this fear from coming true?
Over 75% said having to live with their parents again after graduation because they couldn’t find a job was their biggest fear. And over 80% said the best way to prevent that from happening was to do well in school and graduate with a high GPA. And there was our answer. Instead of an amenity, we helped Burkely center their operations, physical buildings and marketing around a single mission – to help students achieve academic success. In less than five years, Burkely went from the smallest provider of student housing in Greensboro, NC to the largest. Today, they own 80% of the market there, have successfully expanded into Boone and Clemson and all of their properties are 100% occupied with a waiting list.
SEE THE BURKELY CASE STUDY AND WORK HERE.
2. THE ABILITY TO TRANSLATE INSIGHTS INTO A UNIFYING STATEGIC IDEA
Ok, let’s say you or your agency are really good at generating and IDing actionable insights. The question is can you take that knowledge to the next level and turn it into a central strategy that guides everything you do. Knowing what your customers want and need and why is only part of the equation. You must also understand how customer’s wants and needs can align most profitably with your business and how to fulfill their wants and needs in ways you competitors can’t. The matrix you need to solve for goes something like this.
What is the one thing your business can:
• Deliver passionately and profitably
• That your customers really want and need
• Which your competitors can’t or won’t?
Solving the above and articulating it in a clear, memorable way is one of the important things you’ll ever do for your company. Some call it a Mission Statement, others a Brand Promise but we use the term Higher Business Purpose. When done right, it’s like a mini business plan that will drive and guide everything you do moving forward in ways that resonate with your customers, are profitable and highly differentiated from your rivals. In essence it synthesizes all the learning about your business, your competitors and your customers into a powerful statement that acts like a brand promise and value proposition on steroids. Going back to Burkely Student Communities, the Higher Business Purpose statement we created for them is this:
“Burkely Student Communities are success incubators cleverly disguised as student housing.”
A billboard we created for Sebastian Villages, one of many student housing communities in Burkely’s portfolio.
It’s memorable. It’s executable. And it inspires everyone on the Burkely team to do whatever it takes to motivate and help their residents achieve academic success. To see a few other Higher Business Purpose statements we’ve written click here.
Wanna outperform your rivals? Make sure you shoot for fame with all your communications.
3. THE ABILITY TO CREATE FAMOUS BRAND EXPERIENCES THAT ACTUALLY CONNECT WITH CONSUMERS
Having a rock-solid Higher Business Purpose will only get your so far. To be effective you must be able to translate it into brand experiences that grab the attention of and connect with potential buyers in surprising and memorable ways. 84% of advertising is ignored so just creating brand experiences that get noticed is a huge advantage. That’s why the number one priority of advertising should be to get noticed. Instead of being afraid your ad won’t be liked, be afraid it won’t be noticed. A million impressions are 100% meaningless if it generates 0% attention. Every single piece of communication you put out there from your business card to your social media ads to your TV spots should aim for maximum attention. Data from The Long & Short Of It by Les Binet & Peter Field shows that aiming for fame – making more people notice, remember and share your ads – can massively enhance the performance of an ad campaign. Here’s a simple goal we aim for with all our communications. Make your ad the most interesting, entertaining or informative thing on the media channel in which it will appear or start over.
In generating sales, advertising creativity is by far the most important factor.
While getting noticed is critical, getting remembered and becoming famous in your category is crucial. If every single person in your market notices your advertising but only a few remember your brand, your advertising is a failure. To maximize effectiveness your advertising must clearly differentiate your brand from competitors in a meaningfully distinct and emotional way. The more distinct and surprising your execution, the more memorable your ad will be. The more memorable your ad, the less you have to spend on media frequency and the more likely people will choose your brand over a forgettable one when it’s time to buy.
READ MORE: THE RULES OF ATTRACTION
Campaigns that are unified by a consistent and highly creative message are 57% more effective.
4. THE ABILITY TO DEVELOP A CREATIVE CAMPAIGN THAT INTEGRATES BRAND EXPERIENCES ACROSS ALL CHANNELS IN THE SHORT AND LONG-TERM
The more your message is consistently integrated into everything you do and across all media, the more powerful it will be. Perhaps the biggest mistakes we see companies making is an over-reliance on direct, short-term, marketing tactics. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not against direct marketing at all. However, for most businesses, it should never be more than 40% of your advertising. Problem is, most companies are investing 50 -100% of their efforts into direct. In an effort to squeeze every sale possible out of a short period of time, direct marketers tend to generate lots of mini campaigns and one-off promotions with inconsistent messaging. This inconsistency in messaging inherently leads to brand confusion and can destroy any positive impact. A recent study by the ARF called How Advertising Works Today found “campaigns with varied creative strategies can actually cancel each other out and become less memorable”.
On the other hand, having a consistent brand message, delivered through a core campaign idea (like Dos Equis’ The Most Interesting Man In The World or Snickers’ You’re Not You When You’re Hungry) are way more effective. On average, cross-media campaigns with a unified look, feel and message are 57% more effective than those that are not. A Kantar Millward Brown study found campaigns unified by a strong central creative idea perform 64% better across all brand KPIs.
Offline (traditional) advertising is best at generating demand. Online (digital) is best at fulfilling it. You need both to maximize growth. This is as close as we’ve ever gotten to a Unified Theory of Advertising.
In Effectiveness In Context, Les Binet and Peter Field present evidence that all brands need brand building and sales activation to maximize growth. Most companies should invest a minimum of 60% of their ad budgets into long-term, mass market, brand building campaigns and no more than 40% into direct, short-term sales activation tactics. However, the average business puts 72% of its advertising in online media – almost the direct opposite of what they should be doing. For companies that sell directly to customers/consumers through their own or third-party e-commerce sites, the above ratios should be even more skewed towards offline, mass media like TV, radio, outdoor, print, etc.
Still skeptical? Consider this. With all the targeting capability and data you can imagine, Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple are all increasing their already heavy investments in long-term brand advertising. They know better than anyone over-investing in short-term, online hyper targeted marketing will lead to diminishing returns and sales declines.
In summary, without consumer insights and the ability to translate them into a long-term strategy and integrated campaign centered around a core creative idea, companies are not able to maximize marketing return. Instead they get lots of small ideas delivered to lots of small audiences via lots of small tactics that add up to small returns – if any. We politely call this ginormous waste of time, money and effort Multimediocrity. Short-term, short-lived, one hit wonders aren’t enough anymore. Big ideas must also be long ones. Creative ideas must be a wellspring of long and short-term executions working together that keep the main brand message perpetually surprising, fresh and interesting for decades. One big idea consistently delivered to a big audience through a big integrated campaign of long and short-term tactics produces the biggest return.
READ THE BIG CAMPAIGN: THE GREATEST COMEBACK IN ADVERTISING HISTORY
Truth is, most agencies don’t have the strategic, creative and production chops to deliver on more than one of the four capabilities explained above - much less all four. The good news is, you’re one click away from one that does.
Design Rush featured Immortology as one of their top-ranked Video Marketing Agencies.
