What’s good for Jetstar isn’t necessarily the answer for other brands
While yesterday’s announcement from Jetstar is interesting, I’m not sure just yet how much of a canary in the coalmine it’s going to be for other brands shifting their spend to social media.
If ever there was a brand and marketing strategy designed for social media, it was Jetstar.
Its young, mobile customers are the sort of people most likely to consume social media.
And its price-driven campaigns – generally short term, bargain seat offers – are exactly the types of thing that work well on the likes of Twitter.
So it makes sense for Jetstar to go where its audience is. (And I loved the coincidental timing that it was announced on Twitter’s fourth anniversary).
But for advertisers who are primarily about longer-term branding rather than a direct call to action, social media cannot be the whole answer.
The other issue of course is that Jetstar is at the front of the pack on this. Once every brand is involved to that extent in social media, it gets as cluttered as any other channel.
Getting those messages out then becomes hard work. And a new cut-through will have to be found.
Right now though, it makes sense for Jetstar. And News Limited and Fairfax will be wincing.
But this isn’t, in my view, as significant for marketing as a whole as it may seem.
Tim Burrowes
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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You make some good points Tim. But I think there is another dimension to this shift.
Over the last 18 months or so most of Jetstars TV budget was directed to launch their overseas routes. The job was mass awareness of a new product and offer. Therefore TV was the correct media channel. For the moment the job appears to be tactical and retail and therefore digital and social media channels have a greater role to play. As and when Jetstar have another major new product message or they need to fight a new entrant in the discount flight segment with some brand support then I bet TV will be back. The big loser here is print – as I think someone said on the origional post yesterday.
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Good, calming piece on getting the mix right Tim.
I predict evolution, not revolution with social media and, as I’ve written previously, you’ll know the media has arrived when announcements like this aren’t news at all.
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Agree social and digital media isn’t the whole answer and branding is very important. But the fact is that media is becoming more fragmented and we as consumers are consuming media differently.
Its the job of the marketer to look at all options and evaluate the best communications mix for their brands. If that means more of the budget goes to digital and social media because it works – who can argue!
The problem with the current advertising and media industry is that their business models are not changing with the times and will suffer if more of the advertising dollar switches to online.
There is no right or wrong answers to the current changes in our media habits – there is just successful businesses and unsuccessful businesses.
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Shazam. I don’t think that could have been put any better. Nice.
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Tim.
Love your article. And your view.
Not really intending to be a canary in anyone’s coalmine. Just doing what’s right for us. Or at least attempting to.
As ever love the quality of the comment.. Missing in so much of what passes for trade media. Keep it up.
Dave M – JQ
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Nice one Gordon, a little common sense goes a long way.
Social media is just another tool, albeit a pretty critical one. It doesn’t provide a short cut to consumers hearts and it isn’t the magic cure all solution.
It’s a natural part of the mix now and no longer a question of should I or shouldn’t I be in this space…but it’s just one part of a complex story.
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Tim your comments are spot on. I think for Jetstar, as a tactical strategy, social media and especially Twitter works really well. As stated the challenge is to define the best marketing strategy for each particular business. As I see it Twitter is great for tactical in the travel sector but Facbook for example might lend itself more to brand.
Great comments all round.
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The critical point here is that people are massing online and the savvy marketers are working out ways to reach and influence them. Any shift in media spend will not only just include social media, but a broad range of online activity to reach different people in different online environments. Marketers who make a reasonable investment in online marketing now will reap the benefits against their competitors who don’t. Particularly in retail, many retailers have lagged in adopting online marketing and e-tail. Big retail brands like Jetstar, Kmart, and JB HiFi are being clever by staking claims across particular web properties and learning how they work now.
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Absolutely, social media as a large portion of the budget makes little sense for many brands.
However I absolutely disagree with you about this point:
“But for advertisers who are primarily about longer-term branding rather than a direct call to action, social media cannot be the whole answer.”
Social media can and shold be about long term branding strategies, not just calls to action, particularly for smaller brands where often their largest connection is through their social media network, where they slowly build a reputation with every tweet and blog post.
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Hi Emma,
I’m not sure we actually disagree, although you may have misunderstood my point slightly.
Absolutely social media can be used as part of branding and relationship building, but by “not the whole answer”, I mean that for most brands, you probably shouldn’t abandon longer established media, and put all of your eggs in the social media basket. It’s useful but it’s not the whole answer.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
The ROI of New Media Campaigns are extremely cost effective compared to Old Media and all measurable with accurate views.
:))
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