Advertisers can win in recessionary times with performance branding
In the current climate of economic uncertainty, with the threat of recession looming, many businesses are facing real financial pressures that are putting an intense scrutiny on all discretionary expenditure.
Within that discretionary mix of course, sits the marketing budget, and CMO’s are facing a tough challenge to hold onto previously committed spend levels. Anthony Fageot, director of growth at Bench Media, explains how advertisers can win in recessionary times with performance branding.
There is a body of work CMO’s can draw on to defend their promotional spend, most notably from people such as Peter Field who has presented a mountain of evidence that those that hold their nerve and maintain spend, or their share of voice, particularly their brand-centred communications will emerge from these dark times with both greater market share and greater profitability.
He sees recessionary times as presenting opportunities and encourages marketers to “Seize your marketing opportunity” citing such examples as T-Mobile, Heinz, Cadbury, Virgin Atlantic and Hovis who all maintained their commitment to brand advertising through the 2008 recession and emerged more strongly for it.
But in reality, CMO’s face enormous internal stakeholder pressure and trotting out Peter Field’s paper, despite all of its excellent empiricism, may not cut it, especially when the major caveat he presents is it’ll all be right “in the long term”. As one very famous economist wrote: “In the long term we are all dead!”
In such circumstances, coming up with more immediate evidence of a campaign’s performance becomes critical and this is where I believe as agencies we can really step up and help our clients especially in defending their commitment to brand building activities in a savvier way.
We need to encourage our clients to go beyond merely putting ads out on selected placements and passively waiting and hoping for success. Adopting a more strategic approach is crucial.
Fortunately, the measurement landscape has evolved significantly, offering more sophisticated methods to assess performance across various stages of the marketing funnel, including the sometimes elusive realm of branding activities.
Brand lift studies, for example, compare individuals exposed to ads with a control group that hasn’t been exposed, measuring metrics such as ad recall, brand recognition, and purchase intent. Observing a substantial lift in these indicators indicates that the campaign is on the right track, even if triggering purchases is not immediate. That backs up Field’s argument that it may be a long-term play.
But sometimes, of course, it can also be challenging to link advertising with the more immediate sales that result. It’s not uncommon for individuals to encounter online ads and subsequently make purchases at physical retail stores, creating attribution challenges. However, techniques like footfall attribution can help bridge this gap by identifying overlaps between individuals exposed to digital ads and those who make in-store purchases, providing a more accurate assessment of campaign impact and where to shift investments to maximise ROI.
Numerous other measurement techniques exist to develop a holistic understanding of marketing performance, such as Inferred Brand Intent or Marketing Mix Modelling. It is also encouraging to note that Australia is at the forefront of spearheading such techniques.
As an example, Bench recently formed a partnership with a challenge
A 2008 Heinz campaign, ran throughout the recession.
r car brand that made substantial investments in brand building. They also implemented robust attribution measurements to ensure their investments yielded positive results. Their primary objective was to drive people to book a test drive and visit a dealership to purchase a car. To achieve this, they executed a comprehensive multi-channel brand building campaign, utilising channels such as Audio, Online Video, Connected TV and Display.
Furthermore, footfall attribution analysis was conducted, which revealed that over 11,000 store visits could be attributed (at least partly) to their digital campaign. Additionally, a brand lift study demonstrated a 5% increase in brand recall and purchase intent, a remarkable achievement for a lesser-known brand.
Not stopping there, we regularly reviewed Inferred Brand Intent reports, tracking relevant searches within an hour of ad exposure. This data revealed that a significant portion of the audience immediately searched terms like “Australia SUV” after being exposed to the brand’s ads. These results provided strong reassurance that the brand-building efforts were indeed having the desired impact, successfully generating revenue for the business. Moreover, this valuable data was then used to fine-tune the campaign’s targeting thus maximising their media investments.
The common misconception that brand building activities don’t drive immediate results (or results at all!) is perpetuated by an over reliance on mainstream systems like Google Analytics to evaluate performance.
While Google Analytics is a fantastic tool providing many valuable insights, it has limitations in painting a holistic view of marketing performance. It’s important to acknowledge that Google Analytics is a Google product, and as Google’s primary revenue source is advertising, the tool may inherently favour Google as a performance driver. For instance, Google Analytics attributes conversions to post-click and last-click interactions, neglecting the role of prior exposure to ads in influencing consumer behaviour.
As we demonstrated, there are many other measurement approaches savvy marketers can use to overcome these limitations. Regardless of the economic climate, marketers should never fear investing in branding and should explore measurement methodologies aligned with their campaign goals. By doing so, they can confidently and objectively make informed decisions regarding the allocation of their marketing budget and maybe be the next success story in recessionary times.
