Building Brands in A Different Media Landscape

Building Brands in A Different Media Landscape

Brands are not built around the 30-second commercial anymore: consumers’ alienation with cluttered media has become a factor. The “2005 Best Global Brands special report” at Business Week underlined the industry turnaround: “the best brand builders are also intensely creative in getting their message out. Many of the  biggest and most established brands, from Coke to Marlboro, achieved their global heft decades ago by helping to pioneer the 30-second TV commercial. But it is a different world now. The monolithic TV networks have splintered into scores of cable channels, and mass-market publications have given way to special-interest magazines aimed at smaller groups. Given that fragmentation, it’s not surprising that there’s a new generation of brands, including Amazon.com, eBay, and Starbucks that have amassed huge global value with little traditional advertising. They’ve discovered new ways to captivate and intrigue customers.  Now the more mature brands are going to school on the achievements of the upstarts and adapting the new techniques for themselves” (Business Week, August 1, 2005).

In this context there is an increasing premium for innovation. Writes Daniel Gross in Fortune magazine: “Thanks to the Internet, advertising is going through its first true paradigm shift since the advent of television half a century ago (…) The Internet is expected to attract close to $8 billion from national advertisers this year, still fairly modest but up 15% from 2004. So ‘offline’ media companies are redoubling their online efforts, and Madison Avenue is scrambling to cope”  (Fortune, July 25, 2005). Advertising remains a very powerful economic force and advertisers are spending more than ever. But much of the growth occurs in California, in the headquarters of companies like Google and Yahoo.

Integration is a major driving force: “That simple  solution to advertising doesn’t exist anymore. Television is not as dominant as it once was. A whole world of cable and satellite channels is now available to smart marketers. One must devote more time to media evaluation and selection, and it can produce more effective advertising. That is exactly what clients are looking for –more answers to their marketing problems. And aside from the proliferation of television, cable and satellite signals, there has been substantial growth in all other forms of marketing –sales promotion, direct marketing, ponsorship, not to mention the Internet”.

Advertisers are indeed exploring many new avenues.  Billboard advertising is being used in innovative ways: “Out-of-home advertising, long considered a backwater on Madison Ave., is getting tougher to ignore as it branches out beyond the old-fashioned  billboard. New technologies are transforming out-of-home ads, a sector which includes roadside billboards, ads on buses and trains and now even coasters in bars. As advertisers find it harder to reach consumers through television and radio, the increasing array of out-of-home ads  is looking more attractive (The Wall Street Journal, July 21, 2005). and radio, the increasing array of out-of-home ads  is looking more attractive (The Wall Street Journal, July 21, 2005).

Another growth area is “branded entertainment”, where advertisers and broadcasting executives thoroughly plan shows to achieve maximum brand impact. The stated goal is to avoid traditional advertising’s pitfalls: “to tightly weave a brand or product into content and to counter consumers growing habit of zapping, zipping or otherwise avoiding traditional commercial pitches” (The New York Times, July 21, 2005). 

Business Week echoed similar developments: “some marketers have worked to make their brand messages so enjoyable that consumers might see them as entertainment instead of an intrusion. When leading brands are seen on TV they’re apt to have their own co-starring roles rather than just lending support during the commercial breaks. All are trying to create a stronger bond with the consumer” (Business Week, August 1, 2005).

Besides, mass media advertising has long suffered from accountability problems: “Everyone complains about  the inability to determine the return on investment from advertising spending, but no one seems satisfied with what is being done about it. Senior marketers are increasingly intent on figuring out what they are doing right—and wrong—as the cost of peddling goods and services climbs each year, along with the difficulty of reaching potential customers” (The New York Times, July 20, 2005). 

The survey was conducted in April by the advertiser association and two partners, Marketing Management Analytics, part  of the Aegis Group, and Forrester Research. 61.5 percent of the  survey respondents said it was important to them to define, measure and take concrete steps in the area of advertising accountability. But only 19 percent said they were satisfied with their ability to take those steps. And 73 percent of respondents were not confident that they understood the effects that an advertising or marketing campaign could have on sales. When asked if they agreed with the statement, "I would be able to forecast the impact on sales" of a 10 percent cut in marketing spending, 63 percent said no (The New York Times, July 20, 2005). More than two  centuries of advertising in media has not brought a significant  improvement in that regard. Advertising’s impact on sales is uncertain and advertisers might have other means to look for consumers.

In the new context, “the era of building brands namely through mass media advertising is over. The predominant thinking of the world’s most successful brand builders these days is not so much the old game of reach (how many consumers see my ad) and frequency (how often do they see it), but rather finding ways to get consumers to invite brands into their lives. The mass media won’t disappear as a tool. But smart companies see the game today as making bold statements in design and wooing consumers by integrating messages so closely into entertainment that the two are all but indistinguishable” (Business Week, August 1, 2004).

Clutter and media fragmentation have long been serious hurdles for traditional media. There is a problem of over marketing that overwhelms publics and undermines commercial communication efforts.