WPP execs recently got together at the Marketing in a Downturn Emergency Meeting in Manhattan. The goal of the panel was to share some of their wisdom & experience in how marketers can understand, and thrive, in what will likely be very rough waters ahead.
As expected, some of the first advice: get your digital strategy right. Global Director of Consumer Marketing, Marylee Sachs, commented on the need to move beyond the efforts most companies put forth today:
“One thing she said she would like to see her clients do more of is cut back on simply experimenting in the online space and instead make the commitment and “put a truly significant spend behind their efforts.”
The internet offers the most effective & efficient way to deploy marketing dollars for serious brand-building organizations. The old Wanamaker adage of half your advertising being wasted is slowly being broken down by the relentless progress of targeting, optimization, and monitoring to ensure that the message is not only received but drives active engagement. When you’re facing pressure to ensure your increasingly limited resources are used well, being able to show as direct a path as possible to positive ROI is not a goal but a necessity.
Of course, effective targeting is predicated on the notion that you’ve carefully thought through who to target in the first place. A campaign designed to reach affluent individuals may work better than a generic mush of messaging, but it can barely reach the level of a context-sensitive effort. The challenge (and opportunity) for brand marketers is to carefully evaluate how they relate to their audience, and dive as deeply as possible into that world. By truly understanding their audience, they can ensure that their ad dollars have the effectiveness of a scalpel, rather than a rubber mallet.
You can read the full article on AdAge:
WPP Execs Offer Tips on Weathering the Recession (AdAge)
