You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Marcom’ tag.
Mergers and acquisitions-not to mention reorganizations and consolidations—are often good news for lawyers, CEOs, bankers, and investors. But for marketing communicators, often not so good.
Here’s the problem (or because we all believe that problems are really opportunities in disguise, let’s say opportunity): blending the marketing of two (or more) companies is full of vexing and seemingly endless… uh… opportunities.
Want proof? One source says half of all brand consolidations—i.e., attempts to combine two or more brands without losing market share-end up in the tank.*
However, the same source says there’s a way out. “Skills and experience together with a well-structured approach appear to increase the rate of success.”
At Harding Marketing, we worked with HP when it merged with Compaq, with Google after it acquired YouTube, and with HP when it purchased 3Com. So you might say we have the “skills and experience.”
Here is an extremely abbreviated history of the case study:
Prehistoric peoples in the Fertile Crescent told interesting stories about the achievements of their ancestors. Then, sometime during the Bronze Age, they started passing down these elaborate tales in written form for the purposes of educating and inspiring their descendants.
Ok, so you probably won’t find the above in any legitimate historical tome. But case studies, at least in their more familiar guise as “success stories,” are as old as human history itself.
The term “case study” means something different to the scientific and business communities. In broad language—and as it applies to both fields—the case study is an in-depth investigation of or research report on one individual, group, event, or community, real or imagined.
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.
Imagine trying to build a house without a blueprint, scale Everest without a Sherpa, or create boeuf bourguignon without a cookbook. Yes, it’s true that certain people can do these things unassisted, either by rote or by instinct. And some could probably do all three… at once. (I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Julia Child was a secret carpenter and mountaineer.)
Most of us, though, need guidelines to help us build, climb, or cook. It’s the same with blogging. Technically, you can create, write, and edit a blog without guidelines, but it’s probably not prudent.
Having guidelines is especially helpful if you’re creating a B2B blog like this one. We’re learning this here at Harding Marketing, as we go through the process of creating the very blog that you’re reading right now. We’ve written some guidelines, but we’ll need to expand them as we learn new things along the way.
Nobody likes rules—except maybe school teachers, the Marquess of Queensberry, and some guy named Robert. Plus every mom on earth.
So it’s not surprising that graphic designers—those free-spirited folks who make your brochures and websites look so spiffy—are offended by typographical rules. Therefore let’s not call these rules. Instead, let’s call them guidelines. Or helpful advice. Or typographical tips to enhance legibility and make your marketing communications more effective. In short, let’s call them the type of thing that can be helpful.
Get it? Type of thing?
In honor of today’s subject, this should probably start with a joke. Maybe something like: Did you hear the one about the man who laughed his ads off?
Okay, maybe not.
Maybe those of us in marcom should just forget about using humor because our responsibilities are, like, way serious.
But at Harding Marketing, we think that begs the question: serious to whom? Marcom copy is pretty darn serious to those of us who manufacture it, but who are we kidding? You and we can come up with brilliant strategies. We can focus on benefits. We can include bullets and callouts and subheads and a powerful call to action. But if we don’t write copy that readers enjoy reading (or listening to), our chance of success is reduced by a whole lot. Maybe even more.
If you’ve been tasked with either assigning someone to write a mission statement, or actually writing one yourself, you may be wondering: What is a mission statement, anyway?
You’re not alone. A large contingent of the population, especially outside the corporate world, doesn’t really know what a mission statement is. And probably a good portion of that group actually includes marketing professionals.
But writing a mission statement isn’t as Marketing 101-ey as you’d think.
For most of you, this is obvious. But it’s also important, so here goes: All TV sets have a volume control. That’s called “a feature.” The power to turn up the volume REALLY LOUD so you can hear CSI Miami from the kitchen is called “a benefit.” Although the neighbors might disagree.
In marcom copy, the distinction between features and benefits is vital because most people don’t actually care about a volume control. What they care about is volume.
This demonstrates one of marketing’s greatest truths: Most customers think benefits are more important than features. It seems simple, yet there is confusion, although not among marcom professionals such as you and we. But others less highly evolved have been known to blur the lines—which is a nice way of saying they sometimes get it all wrong.
Most of us remember exactly how long it takes to write a term paper. It takes all night the night before it’s due.
But what about a piece of effective marketing communications? How long does it take to create a really good brochure? A data sheet? Or a case study?
When you think of everything that can mess with your schedule, it’s amazing that any marcom gets produced at all—let alone on time. On the other hand, people who manage marcom projects need some reasonable understanding of the time they’ll need to get jobs out the door.
Perhaps we can help. At Harding Marketing, we’ve developed a few guidelines for timelines. They’re not carved in stone, but they do help us answer the troubling question: How long is all this going to take?
We start by breaking the problem into its component parts.
Controlling marcom costs: why stretching your budget isn’t a stretch
07/07/2010 in Budgets, MarComments | Tags: Marcom, Marketing, Multimedia | by Harding Marketing | Leave a comment
How much less are you willing to pay for higher-quality marcom?
And no, that’s not a typo—we’re talking about more for less. It’s not just the goal of marcom executives everywhere; for some of them, it’s a practical reality.
For example, HP, Google, and Symantec all have very big marcom budgets—maybe much bigger than yours. But they might be spending less per execution than you are—while still getting enviable creative and production quality. And there’s no magic, funny accounting, or alternative reality involved.
It doesn’t seem fair, does it?
At Harding Marketing we work with all three of those companies—and many others equally adept at controlling costs. So we know what it takes to achieve more for less. It takes a rigorous, systematic approach to marcom creative and production, that’s what. But that sounds awfully stuffy, so let’s call it:
Read the rest of this entry »