Lisa Baird, SVP of Consumer Products and Marketing Integration at the NFL and Bob Baird, President and CEO of Philips Domestic Appliances and Personal Care came together on the final day of the ANA Annual Conference to debate the merits of traditional media vs. new media. Lisa will be discussing the value of traditional media, while Bob will talk about why he feels new/emerging media is more valuable today. With friendly quips going back and forth already, it will be the job of moderator, Bob Lauterborn, to keep this husband/wife debate a friendly discussion…
Lisa began by discussing that the NFL’s media mix proves that traditional media is still alive and well. The :30 second commercial and print is not dead. There is still a lot of power behind traditional media especially in NFL telecasts where their ratings are so strong. TV provides companies with a medium to tell a compelling story about your brand, as Ocean Spray just showed in their presentation with their new Straight from the Bog campaign.
When discussing the power of traditional media and the :30 second commercial Lisa talked about the NFL Take a Player to School sweepstakes, in which 6-13 year old kids can enter for a chance to take an NFL player to school with them. The NFL saw a significant amount of it’s website traffic to their kids website – www.NFLRUSH.com – and sign ups for the program immediately after each Take a Player to School spot ran on their broadcast partners.
Bob responded to by saying that in today’s changing media environment it is necessary to break out to find new and creative ways to engage your consumers. He discussed online user generated content that develops consumer relationships and enables them to become true consumer advocates.
With all the focus and discussion about new/emerging media over the past few days it appeared that the deck might be stacked against Lisa, but in the first audience poll 81% of the audience agreed with Lisa’s stance on traditional media.
After losing the initial audience poll, there was some pressure on Bob to come up with a good example of why he felt new media was so powerful. His secret weapon – the recently launched Philips “Body Grooming” viral campaign. He talked about how online campaigns enable to you to engage consumers while being very targeted and tracking instantaneous results. While there was some hesitation that the Body Grooming campaign could ruffle some feathers, they received very few complaints and saw a tremendous sales spike with a very low initial invest. He talked about how the potential ROI with these new/emerging media initiatives can be extremely high. Bob said that sometimes you need to bold and show courage to separate your brand in a cluttered market.
Behind the powerful story of the “Body Grooming” campaign Bob won the second audience poll 68% to 32%.
Lisa went on to talk about how the NFL still relies very heavily on traditional media, but has been trying to mix in new ways to engage fans through non-traditional media. Over 90 million Americans are NFL fans and they spend an average of 12 hours per week engaged with the NFL during the season. Avid fans of the NFL spend 30+ hours per week engaged with the NFL. Engaging with the NFL and managing their fantasy football teams has become a second job for some people. The NFL is working to harness all these media touch points that NFL fans use to engage with game. This year the NFL will launch a contest where fans can tell their NFL story and create an NFL ad that will run during the Super Bowl. The league will use of traditional and new media to promote this Super Bowl campaign. As we’ve heard all weekend, this an example of another brand give their more opportunities to engage and giving them a true voice.
In their final debate segment, Bob talked about recent transformations in marketing and said that new media provides brands with the ability to quickly respond to their customer’s needs with “instantaneous marketing.” In his final remarks he said “You’re gonna be a dinosaur if you stick strictly with traditional media.”
Despite some that final shot and some audience lobbying, Lisa won the overall audience poll, Lisa won by a 65% to 35%. Until next year, Lisa and the NFL will hold the family bragging rights.
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