Recession-Proof Your TV Campaign

Adam Armbruster

Are we in a Recession? Who knows? Even the experts don’t agree.

In fact, I seem to recall that during the last two recessions the experts did not agree even then.

It was only when we emerged from these down cycles that the economists finally identified each recession as it was swiftly fading away in the economic rear view mirror.

How does that saying go? Economists can be wrong every time and still collect a paycheck. Fact is we just don’t have a clear way to identify a recession. So for discussion purposes let’s assume that we are in one now.

In a recession, customers don’t stop buying; they just stop “over-buying”. In other words, they start second guessing that four dollar Starbucks latte and start talking about how great ninety-nine cent Dunkin Donuts coffee really is after all. Spending more conservatively on small items helps the American consumer rationalize larger purchases like cars, vacations, and clothes.

So what to do when your local market economics wither? You need to make sure that your television ad campaign generates an even higher Return on Investment to compensate for a smaller market opportunity.

How do you do it? Simple. You “Recession-Proof” your television campaign. Here are a few tips on how to do it:

Present a Superior Value: The consumer wants to see a commercial from you that can help her stretch her dollar. Auto dealers are moving toward advertising and selling more preowned cars instead of new cars. These used cars are a great value and the dealer makes money on these used car sales at a rate of five to one versus new. Department stores start gift with purchase events. Furniture stores are offering full room discount deals. Grocery stores start accepting competitor’s coupons. You get the picture. Think about what value statement you can create that makes your product or service a more attractive value than those of your competition.

Create a Renewed Sense of Urgency: In a slower economic cycle consumers shop longer and buy slower. However, we find that there is always a sector of “Now” buyers that will respond to short term sales promotions. Home builder clients of ours are proving this to be true in all kinds of regional economies. With so much negative press, even attractive home purchase opportunities are second guessed by shoppers. What can you do to create excitement and a short term sales promotion and communicate this excitement in your commercial? Examine the offers in your commercials. Are the motivating? Would You buy from You?

Offer Deferred Payment: Americans are not broke. It’s just that their cash is tied up in their homes. They overbought during the home sales run up and now since home sales have stalled they have to spend “real” after-tax money instead of home equity money. This has crimped the free cash in the market. On the upper end of American consumers these buyers have cash but don’t want to take their cash out of their investments especially in a down stock market. So what to do? Offer deferred payment. Most retailers can assign a small portion (3-4%) of their product cost to be able to offer a full year of free financing. Even if you never offered this before … now is the time. The consumer will be to rationalize buying from you since they will see the expense of buying as “free” financing. In other words, they would rather use “your” money to buy than “theirs”.

Create new Service Standards : Live web chat is being used by busy female home shoppers. They like the fact that they can hold a conversation with you while they are “at work”. (In reality, she is shopping while working…but don’t tell anybody!) As a result home builders are encouraged to include this function in their web site and to promote this capacity in their television commercials. Click to Call (www.clicktocall.com)is being used by auto web marketers to create an instant connection with a car buyer. Now you can load in your phone number and have the car dealer do all of the dialing. Consumers are using this function more everyday. It makes for quick contact and never underestimate the power of a passionate salesperson in a down economy.

Eliminate Wasted Ad Dollars: If you normally buy multiple television stations on your buy, perhaps it’s time to choose a few friends from the group of stations. Approach your television station partners and ask for creative support. Ask how these stations can stretch your dollar. If you approach in the right spirit, most station managers will join your cause and help. In a battle, chose your foxhole friends carefully. This is not the time to demand added value…this is the time to request creative support and new ideas.

Buy Smarter: Negotiate an annual plan instead a quarterly buy. Television stations can help you on cost if you help them by planning. Next, analyze your current cost per thousand. Has it slowly increased as you’ve added dayparts to your buys? You may find better results in reducing your daypart count and instead double spotting lower cost per thousand areas such as local news and syndicated programming. Moving prime dollars to access can increase your frequency in your buy and create better response. Adding more AM news to your buys can increase reach and add frequency as morning news programs in some markets rival local evening news reach numbers.

Look the Part: Market share can be bought “on the cheap” when your competition stops being aggressive and leaves the marketplace. If you see that a major player goes quiet, then get loud. Pick up their customers and try to keep them. Several of our clients had terrific years in 2007 because while their competition pulled their TV ads in favor of more “measurable” direct mail, we created a new pricing strategy and which enhanced their TV presence and in some cases doubled their market share! The smartest thing to do in a recession is to present your business as aggressive and in search of value shoppers. Some clients even open up discount themed
departments to represent this theme visually in their stores.

These are just a few ways to stretch your television advertising dollar in a slow market. Hey, nobody asks for a down economic cycle. So let’s stay smart and give the customer what she wants and show her the message she wants to see. Use your resources creatively. Recession proof your campaign right now and, while your competition struggles, you may not even miss a step.

Adam Armbruster is a partner in the retail and broadcasting consulting firm Eckstein, Summers, Armbruster & Company located in Red Bank, New Jersey. Adam can be reached at adam@esacompany.com.

Measuring Results from a Multimedia Marketing Plan

Adam Armbruster

Our clients report that all of the drastic changes in consumer media usage has caused them confusion about how to measure retail mutli-media electronic advertising campaigns.

If you are the advertiser, you may have even already discovered that the old standby measurement tool, the customer survey, is becoming irrelevant due to the fact that your consumer is spending more and more time “virtually shopping” before “actually buying”.

In other words, by the time she finally comes in to your store, she may forget what advertisement media brought her there!

Due to today’s longer Ad Exposure to Purchase cycles, consumers may not able to accurately recall what motivated them to shop your store. This phenomenon is reflected in increasingly higher error rates of retail customer surveys. Case in point. Nielsen, and more recently Arbitron, switched over to digital audience measurement because of massive human recall error in recalling even “Same Day” media use.

We all know that consumers already have a foggy idea of what media they think they are using versus what Nielsen and Arbitron report that they actually use. As such, consumer recall rates of your original television ad may be diminishing due to the dramatic changes in her shopping habits. Clearly, it’s time for a new measurement tool.

We already know that consumers begin all major purchases by viewing the seller’s Web site…but we also know that something motivated them to visit that Web site in the first place.

Make no mistake about it. Television is just as effective, or even more effective, than ever before. Consumers have shifted to using video and electronic media as their media of choice. But new standards of campaign measurement are now necessary since consumers are also “using” television advertising in new ways.

Remember in the 1980’s television ads generated immediate store visits, and then in the 1990’s television ads generated phone calls? Well now television ads generate Web site hits. Today the consumer is beginning her shopping pattern virtually, before physically.

Try it yourself. Tell a friend about a great new store you just found and mosty likley the first question she will ask is “What’s the Web site?”

We also know that once a television message is seen and heard by a consumer, she makes a decision immediately made to act, or not act. Assuming she acts on your television message and perhaps logs on to your Web site that very same day, but then visits your business over a week later, and then returns another week later to actually buy, she may not be able to accurately recall how she originally found you!

So if you are still asking current customers the question: “How did you hear of us?” expect confusion when you sit down to go over the final research data.

So how can you eliminate the human error and begin to accurately measure the impact of these new multiple media television / internet campaigns?

First off, you need to design new measurement metrics. Here are the best metrics for measurement as reported by a mixture of our automotive, furniture, home builder, home contractor, health care, and financial clients:

1. Organic (Non-Sourced or Non-Searched) Web site hits
2. Overall Website traffic volume during TV Ad Flights
3. Click-Thru Rates of linked television station Web site ads
4. Positive / Negative Relationships of Incoming Phone Calls to Television Ad Flights
5. Closing / Conversion Ratios of Television Leads generated
6. Gross Sales during Television Ad Flights
7. Net Profitability during Television Ad Flights
8. Increase / Decrease in the usage of printed media run during TV Ad Flights
   

Did you notice that none of these measurement tools involve talking to actual customers?

The fact is that today the consumer is deluged with so many ads each day that asking them what brought them to your business is like you trying to remember what you had for lunch yesterday. Also, the metrics above are easily measurable so you can now build a measurement graph using some, or all, of these campaign measurement metrics

Next, you need to design “measurability” into your television and internet message.

To generate measurement, your television message needs to be promotional in nature and not an image ad. Image ads are not easily measurable as they require a very long horizontal style campaign and most advertisers are not willing to invest this level of television spending without an immediate payback.

In your promotional television message you also should include a clear and bold web site mention both in the middle of the script and most importantly at the end of the commercial. Your Web site address should always be the last thing the consumer sees and hears. Why? Because we already know that interested consumers will go to their computer next! Don’t be passive and make consumers “Google” to find you since your competition will most likely show up on the first Google page as well.

Next, your television flight needs to be planned around the consumer lifestyle patterns so that she can act immediately after seeing your commercial. An example of this is to run high levels of Early Morning news to reach Working Women so that she can see your television “Web Driver” message and then log on to your website at work that same morning.

Lastly, you need to be congruent in the design of your commercial so that it matches the same style and tone of your Web site. Here generous use of video versus text is the answer. Consider airing a television commercial and also launch a Web site that is designed to welcome consumers with a video using the same style creative and the same on-camera talent. This will help build frequency of message along with higher ad recall levels.

In the end, campaign measurement is kind of a bad news / good news scenario. The bad news is that television campaigns have never been harder to measure with traditional methods, the good news is that better metrics have arrived that are much more accurate than customer surveys. Getting accurate feedback about your television campaign is crucial to a knowing what ad concepts and media plans are most effective. Today however, asking the consumer may be the worst place to start.

So in 2007 let’s change our measurement metrics to align with the way that today’s consumer really shops.

Adam Armbruster is a partner in the retail and broadcasting consulting firm Eckstein, Summers, Armbruster & Company located in Red Bank, New Jersey and can be reached at adam@esacompany.com.

Sources: Automotive News, Homebuilder Magazine, Ward’s Dealer Business - 2006