ANA Marketing Maestros

Drawing Attention to Yourself by Going Local

By Adrienne Tallacksen

My daily commute takes me past a local gym. I always look forward to checking out the latest advertisement they have to get people in the door, which is posted on a chalkboard easel on the sidewalk. The handwritten ads sometimes feature quotes (always altered in some way to play up the fitness angle), sometimes verge on offensive (needling those who might not be physically fit), and sometimes they aren't ads at all (a simple "YAY!" was posted on November 5th after President Obama was elected). The messages are often targeted to the Jersey City, NJ audience with references to local restaurants and even our most recent political scandal. Above all, the ads are clever and witty and almost always get my attention.

The gym is part of a small New York/New Jersey chain, so it may be easier for it to target the local audience than it would be for a national advertiser. But new tools are making targeted ads possible on a larger scale. At a meeting of the ANA's Television Advertising Committee Meeting in March, committee members learned about how Canoe Ventures is using community addressable advertising to target television viewers in different markets.

When an ad is targeted at people who live in my community, I feel like I can relate to the advertiser, even if I might not be interested in its product. This can be a powerful connection for marketers to make with consumers.

Out of home, out of mind?

By Adrienne Tallacksen

A few weeks ago I was coming out of the subway station at Grand Central and noticed that the turnstiles looked different than usual.  On second glance, I saw that the turnstile bars were wrapped with ads for an unnamed airline.  As far as I could tell, there weren’t other ads for this airline in the subway station.  Granted, I didn’t go running around the subway station looking for more ads (who has time for that during her morning commute?), but it appeared that the advertising was limited to the turnstile bars.  I may not even have remembered the campaign, except that later in the week as I walked through a different part of Grand Central, I saw ads for the same airline on the walls.  Were these two campaigns related?  Maybe, but I’m not sure. 

Another more effective example of out of home advertising in New York’s subway stations comes from UPS. Senior VP and Creative Director Andy Azula discussed the campaign at this year’s TV & Everything Video Forum.  In this case, UPS wrapped underground subway pillars to look like whiteboard markers and used nearly-blank white wall ads that resembled whiteboards.  Consumers could see how the wall ads and the ads on the pillar were connected.  This was an engaging and interesting campaign.

I still wonder if the two ads for the airline were connected or not.  If the turnstile bar wrappers were only one piece of a campaign, where was the rest of the campaign that I missed?  Was the campaign really spread throughout Grand Central?  Or were the turnstile bar wrappers the entire campaign?  If so, it wasn’t entirely effective.  While the wrapped turnstile bars caught my attention, more than anything, I was puzzled by them and certainly wasn’t moved to do business with the company.  I think this was a lost opportunity for the airline to create an exciting out-of-home campaign.  Instead of being engaged, I was just confused. 

Links:
http://www.ana.net/conversation/miccontent/ss_azula_021209
http://www.ana.net/events/conferencemtg/TAF-FEB09

Shopper Marketing – What is This Anyway?

By Michael Palmer

There are a number of definitions, but in the end this is all about collaborating with retailers to advance the shopper’s in-store experience.  Procter & Gamble’s CEO A. G. Lafley coined the phrase, the “First Moment of Truth” – that moment when a shopper (not a consumer – we’ll get to the difference in a minute) is at the shelf deciding what brand or product to put in his or her basket. 

Why is this moment so important – two reasons.  First, shoppers take very little time to make their decisions.  On average they spend 2.5 seconds looking at each section, meaning they can at best only see half of what’s available on the self.  Secondly and most importantly, research tells us that 70% of shoppers decide what to purchase at retail.  If we believe that, and P&G surely does, marketing to shoppers is critical.  But marketing to shoppers today means making their shopping experience more valuable.  Better in some way – easier, less expensive, less time consuming, more problem solving.

Shoppers versus consumers.  What’s the difference?  A shopper is the person who is doing the buying – they can also be the consumer if they are buying for themselves, but they may be shopping for another person.  Mom’s act as both most of the time.  So you have to know who you are talking to.  Are you talking to the shopper, the consumer or both?  The message you deliver must be directed at the right audience at the right time.

Interestingly marketers are paying more attention and carving out significantly more dollars to their shopper marketing efforts.  But a number of questions remain.  Is this another trend or is this a real marketing strategy that can in fact generate a competitive advantage?  Safeway has since 2005 begun introducing “Lifestyle” stores – they now have more that 400 of these retail outlets.  These stores feature warmer lighting, more readable product labels, and they focus on engaging the shopper’s purchase interest by delivering a consistent brand message through very available communications channel.  Safeway is working hard to make the shopping experience more enjoyable.  This I suggest is a concept that is hear to stay.  Marketers – if you are not already on this train, you will have to run to catch it as it has already left the station.

In subsequent blogs we’ll begin to delve into what we know and don’t know now about this arena and how you can either catch this train and get on board, or find ways to upgrade your seat and gain that competitive advantage that will drive your brand sales.