Stretching marketing budgets in a tight economy

Whatever became of advertising slogans? A lot of us remember when Wheaties was the breakfast of champions, 99 & 44/100% was pure advertising genius, and Avis tried harder. But marketing mind-stickers today? Not so many.

And you’re right: “Got Milk?” is as deft as any of those. But it’s hard to think of many more.

Normal people might shout Hallelujah! at the decline of sloganeering. But at Harding Marketing, we are not normal people; we are marketing communications people. And that caused us to do what marcom people do best: We worried. We worried because building a slogan is a lot like building a brand, a product, or a corporate identity. And judging by the slogan drought, it looks as if building them all is getting tougher.

To put it another way, it’s getting tougher to get full value for your marketing budget—especially if you depend on traditional advertising media like broadcast and magazines. With money tighter than Scrooge and old man Potter put together, that really is something to worry about.

Since it’s our job to help you maximize your marketing budget, we’d like to offer some suggestions, starting with an overview of the problems. We think there are three that stand out.

Media segmentation
Product lifecycles
Customer attention span

It’s clearly wonderful to have about a trillion channels our parents never watched. And who doesn’t rejoice at having one magazine for trout fishermen and another for bass fans? For that matter, who isn’t thrilled that blogs, YouTube, Google, Twitter, and Facebook give us all something to do at 3:00 AM?

But building awareness takes constant repetition among a large group of people.

And that’s no snap these days. Media segmentation gives your target audience an almost infinite number of choices. So whichever you pick, your target is probably looking at something else. The result: It takes a budget the size of all outdoors, including nearby parsecs, to get the reach and frequency you need. And never mind that you’re also paying for a whole bunch of viewers, readers, and listeners you don’t really want. They tag along because… well, because.

As to shorter product lifecycles, consider this: Ivory Soap was invented way back in 1879. That means P&G had 130 years to gently slide its slogan into our brains. As a comparison, the technology industry is built on having something new every few minutes. How much time did 8-track players have to create a brand? Or floppy disks? The answer: Slightly less than it takes to lose at Pac-Man.

Even worse, your prospects now have less time to spend on ads. If they’re not Tweeting their innermost thoughts or making videos for YouTube, they’re off to cooking class, book group, soccer practice, and Mensa meetings. Or spending crazy-long hours commuting.

Want proof? At its peak in the 1980s, The Bill Cosby Show drew 50 million viewers a show. American Idol averages 40% less. Newspapers and magazines are dying all over the place. And instead of listening to the radio, your target market is updating its playlist.

At Harding, we think the answer to these three problems lies in the ultimate marketing machine: collateral. By shifting more of your budget to marcom collateral, you give yourself the flexibility to turn the problems into positives.

First, collateral can pinpoint your market—with almost no waste circulation. You can target email and DM to actual prospects, by name if you like. People pick up your brochures because they’re interested in what you have to say. Same goes for people who hit your website, download your white paper, read your blog, or watch your Flash presentation.

Second, collateral lets you change your message as your message changes. Online copy can be revised in a virtual instant. And today’s printing technology is so sophisticated, you can update your marcom materials faster than you can update your product.

Third, when people examine your collateral, they’re focused on you. They’re not idly thumbing through a magazine or passively watching TV, they’re involved in a personal search for hard information about your company and your products.

But most important is that tight money thing. Collateral production costs tend to be far less than making commercials or print ads. And the media costs—for time or space—are roughly zero. So net-net, bottom line, at the end of the day, collateral turns out to be an enormously cost-effective way to put your marketing budget to work.

Which leads us to a key part of any marcom piece—the call to action. If you’d like to talk about ways to give your marketing budget a little more snap, crackle, and pop, so would we. Just let your fingers do the walking and email michelle_contreras@hardingmarketing.com. Or to reach our office in Grenoble, France, try stephane_labartino@hardingmarketing.com.