Professional Documents
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REIMAGINE
(ALMOST)
EVERYTHING
From TV-Led to Digitally Led
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INTRODUCTION:
Bryan Wiener, Chairman
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ORGANIZATION:
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BRAND STRATEGY:
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CONTENT:
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SOCIAL:
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BRAND REPUTATION:
MEASUREMENT:
Dear Marketers,
In the past year, weve seen cord-cutting and web-based TV services on the rise, the physical world getting
smarter and more digitally connected through the Internet of Things, and dramatic changes in media and
commerce as mobile gives rise to new ways of doing business faster and more seamlessly.
Its time to reimagine (almost) everything.
Our industry is moving through an accelerated transition from TV-led to digitally led marketing. The confluence
of pressures that have been building for over a decade are reaching a boiling point that portends dramatic
change over the next 24 months. In fact, Forrester predicts digital spending will surpass TV in 2016, becoming
the number one media category for the first time.
Yet our industry is operating at its core much the same as it was in the pre-digital era. Despite shifting their
budgets, many organizations have held onto outdated ways of working during the decades-long shift to digital,
even as changes in technology and consumer behavior fundamentally disrupted, and continue to disrupt, the
model.
Together, marketers, agencies and the industry as a whole can overhaul the legacy infrastructure that has been
holding us back, and pave the way for more progressive, digitally led approaches to marketing and media that
are designed to break through and accelerate revenue growth.
So why are we publishing this playbook for marketing leaders? While many marketers want change, knowing how
to change is less obvious. One study by the Association of National Advertisers and McKinsey found that while
81% of marketers believe they need formal content and distribution processes to navigate marketplace disruption,
84% have no such processes.
Through our experience (and good fortune of) working with leading marketers around the world, we have
compiled this guide, to help marketers reimagine organization, brand strategy, content, media, reputation
management and measurement in this new era. We dont claim to have everything figured out, but our aim is to
help move the industry forward by advancing the conversation on how best to evolve so marketing will continue
to be an effective engine for driving company and economic growth.
The world has changed, communication has changed, and consumers have changednow marketers stand to
benefit by overhauling what worked in the old era and adapting new approaches for the future. There is far more
risk in standing still than there is in advancing with an active test-and-learn approach. Its not easy. But were all
in this together.
We hope you find this to be a helpful manual for navigating the change ahead and welcome your comments and
debate. Most of all, we look forward to partnering with you on the journey to reimagine the future of marketing.
Happy reading,
SETTING THE
FOUNDATION
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
START BY ASKING:
ORGANIZATION
This year digital spending is on track to surpass broadcast, and by 2018 is projected to
climb to more than $55 billion. This requires marketers to do two things:
(1) Recognize digital as a strategic driver of a brands marketing strategies and
(2) Change organizational patterns built around digital as a channel by treating digital
as a mechanism for consumers to create, consume and share information.
Chief Digital Officer. Center of Excellence. Digital
by design. Large companies with entrenched
organizational dynamics are struggling to figure
out how digital plays into their business models.
Its been more than 20 years since the first banner
ad, but only recently have seasoned marketers
internalized the inherent importance of digital
how its driving communications, inspiring product
development and influencing consumer behavior
in significant waysand recognized the opportunity
to change the way their businesses and marketing
teams are organized.
We often see three barriers to digital success:
1. Objectives
2. Talent
Finding the right talent who can embrace
change and incorporate newer mechanisms of
communication is essential (even if this really
isnt new). This has nothing to do with age or
experience levelits all about mindset. Marketers
should demand interaction and knowledge sharing
between brand managers and analysts, tech gurus
and platform experts, to get to smarter solutions.
Its important to recruit the right people and
encourage them to collaborate with different subject
matter experts to inspire them in their everyday
jobs. Facebook and Google do this by hiring for
aptitudes, such as drive and the ability to think
creatively, rather than just discrete skills. This leads
them to bring in talent who are hungry to make an
impact and natural cultural fits, and ultimately gives
them the ability to identify better ways of doing
business.
3. Advocates
Ensuring success requires multiple members of
the C-suite to champion organizational change
by inspiring others, demonstrating curiosity and
openly showing theyre learning and adapting. If an
organization doesnt have this leadership already,
it should cultivate it. Its a necessary ingredient for
the fabric of a companys culture. When leadership
makes digital and integration a priority, so does
everyone else. For example, GE encourages
development by having its executives generate
Imagination Breakthroughs during its twice-a-year
meetings of senior executives. This spurs ideas for
growth and creates a process to encourage talented
people to participate.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
START BY ASKING:
4. Capabilities
Look at the strengths and weaknesses of the
organizations culture and capabilities, and reevaluate which functions would be better incubated
What is Nestls Digital Acceleration Team, and what has been its impact
to date?
The Digital Acceleration Team (DAT) was created to bring speed, agility
and digitally powered brand building to Nestl. The program is made up of
managers from around the world with high affinity and competence in digital and e-commerce brand
building. Eighteen DAT members are rotated every eight months through a state-of-the-art consumer
engagement center in Nestls global headquarters in Switzerland where they participate in an intensive
training program, lead digital for key businesses and manage senior-level projects focused on digital
and e-commerce. These people then return to their respective markets where, as newly trained digital
leaders, they can train and inspire others. The DAT teams have informed new approaches to Nutrition,
Health and Wellness (NHW), event listening, digital advertising, social CRM, and digital training and
testing, and they are now opening up critical new ground in e-commerce. The program has expanded to
16 markets including China, India, Italy, the Middle East, Portugal, Romania, Spain and the U.S.
How do you position the organization for change without compromising the core
fundamentals of marketing?
Digital and social media are increasingly central to Nestls brand-building process, and the good
news is that the companys long-standing convictions about delighting consumers, enhancing lives
and building brands share a symbiotic relationship with digital and e-commerce principles. One of the
things that attracted me to Nestl was brand building the Nestl way (BBNW)where we define how
the organization approaches the fundamental requirements of creating engaging brand experiences,
winning with shoppers and knowing consumers deeply. If one peels back the layers of digital
vernacular, the fundamentals are already making a compelling case for digital acceleration.
BRAND
STRATEGY
At one time, brand strategy was evaluated once or twice a year, leading marketers
to reliable, consistent outcomes. With todays marketplace in a constant state of
change, brand strategy has shifted to become much more nimble, using a flexible set
of questions and approaches that lead to marketing plans that are right for right now.
By breaking away from a reliance on solely what worked in the past, brands can take
advantage of opportunities to connect with consumers in the right moments and with
the right messages, resulting in more effective and breakthrough marketing.
For decades, marketing success meant taking
what worked last year and doing it slightly better.
A reliance on what worked before became the
law of the land, establishing a marketing paradigm
that was relatively stable, certain and clear. As
a result, brand strategy has traditionally been
focused on how to best refine consumer insight
based on the prior years data and on iterating
prior work using copy and message testing to give
brands confidence in the perceived guarantee of
success. For the most part, it worked. Results were
dependable, regressions were performed and CFOs
were convinced the investment was worthwhile
compared to the year before. However, what got us
here wont get us to where we need to go next.
Today brands operate in systems that are complex
and in a marketplace that is far more ambiguous
and fast-moving than the decades-old TV-led
model. Decisions can now be driven by real-world
data, behaviors and cues, allowing marketers the
flexibility to optimize performance in days where it
once took years, and to create campaigns that are
right for right now. By treating strategy as a constant
set of decisions and a learning system, marketers
have incredible opportunities to build brand
audiences and meaningful connections.
need to go next.
For example, for 360i client HBO, social listening
uncovered that conversation among Game of
Thrones fans remained high throughout the year. To
keep fans engaged between seasons, HBO tapped
into fan dialogue, like the widespread hatred of King
Joffrey Baratheon in season four and the popular
character Drogon going missing in season five, to
launch innovative efforts that drove billions of
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KEY TAKEAWAYS:
START BY ASKING:
Modernize your brand strategy by tapping into realworld data to get a better picture of things as they
are, not as they were.
Go beyond reasons to believe and ensure your
brand can deliver a feeling to believe.
Always leave room for a second act. The worst
thing you can do is launch successfully and not be
prepared for a follow-up.
Challenge: Taking advantage of the worst winter in decades, 360i client Red Roof used technology and
an innovative approach to mobile search marketing to outsmart deep-pocketed rivals by automatically
turning thousands of flight cancellations into thousands of opportunities to win the battle of the click.
After achieving huge gains in conversion and online bookings and becoming the most awarded search
campaign of all time, the brand set out to find its next opportunity to reach more travelers seeking lastminute accommodations and serve them relevant, real-time offers.
Insight: With hundreds of properties located on the nations busiest roadways, Red Roof is in a prime
position to aid travelers in their misfortunes and outflank competitors by giving traffic-jammed travelers
a place to stop and rest.
Strategy: For Red Roof, 360i built the next generation
of our award-winning custom marketing automation
technology to monitor interstate traffic conditions across
the country. The technology surveys thousands of miles
of road conditions for traffic congestion and, based on
time of day, updates Red Roofs paid search campaigns
in real time, serving copy that speaks directly to the
traveler and communicates the exact distance to the
nearest Red Roof (and a good nights rest).
Results: Since launch, the campaign is already
outperforming previous mobile benchmarks, reaching
a projected 1.6 million travelers annually and leading to
a 225% increase in bookings. Furthermore, Red Roof
continues to lead the way in marketing automation and
mobile search innovation.
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To get here, 360i and Oscar Mayer first focused on the business challenge and need to make the brands
bacon relevant, ultimately creating enthusiasm around Oscar Mayer bacon that resulted in exciting and
unexpected solutions that have moved the business forward.
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CONTENT
Consumers are more empowered than ever to avoid traditional ads. The difference
between ads and content has nothing to do with format, length or media. Its all
about what comes first: grabbing consumers or communicating a brand message.
With consumers increasingly able to avoid overt sales messages, content provides an
alternate way for brands to reach them.
Very few words in the advertising lexicon create
more passion and confusion than content. The
phrase content is returns about 17 times more
Google results than the phrase advertising is,
suggesting that people think content needs a lot
more explanation than advertising, despite being
around for a significantly shorter time.
The difference between advertising and content
comes not from its media type, the channel where
it was deployed or anything else about the work
itselfit comes from the intent behind making it in
the first place. Ads, no matter how compelling or
entertaining they are, are primarily intended to be
placed in interruptive paid media placements to try
to catch consumer attention at a moment when it
has no competition, whether thats a commercial
break, a pre-roll or an interstitial. Content, on the
other hand, is created with the intention that it must
compete for consumer attention in an environment
with other unbranded content, like a social feed, a
content site or even regular TV programming.
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KEY TAKEAWAYS:
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SOCIAL
For years brands have been in hot pursuit of the always-on social strategy. But the
ongoing rise of content on these platforms has also made share of screen harder
to come by organically. The bar has risen exponentially to compete for consumer
attention and participation, and to meet it, brands should consider a social strategy
that combines more concentrated campaign-driven creative ideas with specialization
in the data and media needed to ensure theyre seen and engaged with.
Social networks have evolved to become powerful
media platforms, offering brands the potential for
scale, reach and more sophisticated targeting to put
the right content in front of the right audiences at
the right times. Yet many marketers havent evolved
their approach to social media strategy, content,
media and measurement to keep pace with new
opportunities, putting them at risk of wasting money
and resources. Heres how marketers can adopt
new social strategies to drive business results in
todays communications environment:
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KEY TAKEAWAYS:
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MEDIA
The media model has grown more complex and continues to fragment at an
accelerating rate. Marketers should capitalize on new opportunities by reimagining
their media strategies to create competitive advantages that win in the last 10 yards.
For the last 50 years, negotiation and scaled rates
have been the main consideration for how brands
select agency partners, and the number of media
options was relatively easy to navigate. With the
rise of digital, programmatic, paid social and realtime data, the media model has grown increasingly
complex and fragmented. Brands recognize a
need for changethey want more integration and
transparency, they need more innovation, and they
struggle with tech-stack selection. However, few
recognize the core issues that underpin much of the
current upheaval in media.
While brands could once win by having the biggest
spend and deepest pockets, today competitive
advantage comes from having the most rigorous
execution and smartest approaches to winning
in the last 10 yardsreaching the right people,
in the right places, at the right times, with the
right messages. Our client Spotify, for example, is
combining excellence in social, search and other
digital media to generate awareness, educate
potential users and drive mobile app downloads.
To win means bridging media once divided along
the lines of brand marketing and direct marketing,
and requires marketers, agencies and technology
partners to rethink how they plan, budget and
organize along the consumer journeywhere media
drives impact. Marketers can find large gains in the
last 10 yards to conversion. For instance, a landing
page change can drive 20 percent increases in
search performance, and understanding how to
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KEY TAKEAWAYS:
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Objective: Jameson is the original, go-to drink of the neighborhood bar in Ireland. To make
Jameson the shot of choice for St. Patricks Day in the U.S. and keep its Irish whiskey pouring at
local bars, Jameson needed to authentically communicate its message at the neighborhood level,
while also achieving national scale and driving increased sales during a critical time period.
Strategy: Through social listening, 360i mapped the consumer journey to St. Patricks Day and
designed a tiered messaging and targeting approach to engage consumers around the holiday.
We strategically designed a cross-channel targeting strategy to engage both consumers and
bartenders, and tapped the latest developments in geo-targeting to make the brands national
message authentic at a neighborhood level in key markets before and on St. Patricks Day.
Execution: With the targeting and scale of paid social, the campaign built anticipation and spread
the Jameson message neighborhood-by-neighborhood and device-by-device. Jameson grabbed
attention using the worlds first-ever 3D social ads to serve up virtual shots directly in consumers
newsfeeds and enlisted the support of bartenders nationwide. It also drove discovery with
paid search ads that helped consumers find new ways to drink whiskey, and used Yelp to align
Jameson with nationwide searches for Irish bars and pubs to keep Jameson top-of-mind. Jameson
called on bar patrons to share their #ShotsEyeView from their own local watering holes and used
geo-fencing mobile location data to intercept bar-goers as they were walking by neighborhood
bars, all which kept the shots pouring.
Results: The campaign shattered all benchmarks from day one, driving record social engagement
for Jameson. The brand saw e-commerce sales increase by 720%, making Jameson the bestselling alcohol brand of the holiday and contributing to more than 20% revenue growth three
months in a row.
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BRAND
REPUTATION
Even the most highly regarded brands can come under fire. The climate for brand
reputation has changedfrom the six oclock news to up-to-the-minute Tweets and
from professional journalists and eyewitness reports to instant live coverage shot and
shared by the smartphone-equipped public. Today, crises can be spawned and brand
reputations put in jeopardy in just moments, escalating to national and international
attention in hours or even minutes.
Technology has made reputation management
a 24/7 job for brands, and the explosion of
smartphones means every brand action, good
or bad, has the opportunity to be recorded and
disseminated. As quickly as positive news can build
up a brand, a threat or mistake can bring it down.
For brands, its imperative to build the right offense,
ensuring theyre prepared to quickly respond,
react and rebuild, no matter the level of threat or
scenario. Heres how:
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5. Be Transparent
No matter the threat, having a reputation plan
in place will help brands be more authentic and
transparent when the need arises. Consumers want
and expect brands to take accountability and action,
and the first step is to admit wrongdoing or correct a
mistake or misperception. The quicker organizations
acknowledge and take action, the faster the crisis
will run its course, and perhaps even generate good
will.
Its essential for every brand to have an offense
strategy focused on continually building and
managing their reputation. Its an ongoing process
requiring them to work across channels to maintain
and amplify core values that mirror consumer
values.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
START BY ASKING:
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CRISIS-PREP CHECKLIST
Hashtag or tagline? Dont become a brand faux pas.
Google it. Search it on Twitter. Check it out on reddit.
There may be other meanings that dont align with your brand.
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MEASUREMENT
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KEY TAKEAWAYS:
START BY ASKING:
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Copyright 2015