Tsunamis and Marketing
It all starts with a simple view out on the horizon. Dark clouds, high winds, a huge swell forming a wave. No, you think. It can’t be, you say. But I have revenue targets to make, dividends to pay, analysts to please, clients to keep happy, impressions that need to be made. Maybe it’s not a wave, you pray. How many of you have had this conversation over the course of your career? It’s human nature, after all. Dealing with dark clouds, wind and water is not for the meek. And the meek don’t take market share, and they don’t become market leader. Eventually, they rust and die.
Run for Higher Ground
With strong pressure on marketing ROI, consumer confidence fading, and sales of cars dropping, it can’t be long until budgets, people, and agencies shrink and disappear. Aren’t these the first things to get cut in a down turn? In the past, as both a profession and an industry, we learned—incorrectly—to pitch these times when your competition is down and out as an opportunity to be above it all and advertise more. Running to high ground isn’t really good enough given the confluence and things about to challenge marketers everywhere.
Put A Toe in the Water
With all these new methods to refine marketing perhaps we should contemplate trying a little something new. We could take just a small portion of our budgets and try to better target, refine our audiences, double verify our cookie pool and placement. Maybe this will show us a better chance at meeting our goals, both marketing and sales. Yet how could a small change in direction save us from a marketing tsunami? It can’t move the needle, and won’t impress the boss, the clients, or the financial community. And while we were putzing around with a little side project with our toe in the water, the wave hit the beach and pummeled us into the sand.
DUCK
Some of us don’t look out on the horizon, believe in changing seas or winds as a force often just chose to believe that signs are just signs and tomorrow will unfold just like today. Do I have some direct mail programs to sell to you! Ok, a little rain, some water, floating debris…how bad can it be? Let’s just do what we always do and perhaps the storm will miss us. Just look at lists of industries, companies, products, beaches, and species that have failed to heed the sirens and the urging of markets to do anything other than stay in the path of a storm of biblical proportions. They are all gone! At least with this option none of the participants will be around to deal with the consequences.
RIDE
Gee, behind that wave it sure is sunny and bright and the view from the top seems so beautiful. From up there we can see what will be demolished and what will be spared. All the options on this side of the wave seem, well, kind of wet and sandy. Up there we can see markets, see where our messages need to land and can always fall back and hope for a more manageable second wave, one where we are armed with the knowledge of the ride. Underneath us is all the junk broken up by an industry ducking, dipping, and depending on old tactics. Our jobs are to build the smallest executable audiences for our clients that drive the maximum results. To actually spend less, sell more and know why. Riding the wave is the only option.
OLD JOKE
A media buyer runs into a friend that happens to have a fire sale on digital programmatic advertising. He tells him it’s only 10 cents CPM. Astounded at this rate the young buyer remembers he has a friend at a brand agency that did business with a big retailer who needs exactly this type of media. The media buyer picks up the phone and calls his friend and the media changes hands twice, once at $1.00 CPM and then to the retailer at $5.00 CPM. The media buyer and the agency celebrate their profitable transactions, then the client’s numbers came in. The media didn’t drive anyone to the store or the web. The agency was questioned by the client and the media buyer by the agency. “What gives?” they asked. “Oh, that media was for buying and selling, not using.”
“Better to burn out than fade away…”