This column previously appeared on fonkonline.com
One of the benefits of a crisis is that you are forced to look at things in a different way. To your work, to your private life, to the world. We should do this more often, but if this time corona stimulates the consciousness even more, that is of course a good thing. There are three good reasons to review your communication strategy right now:
1. The world has changed
2. Communication strategy has changed
3. Measurement methods have not changed
The world has changed
The corona year 2020 can be compared to nothing. The world almost came to a complete standstill. We started behaving differently en masse: retail and hospitality closed, E-commerce got a growth spurt, travel industry to zero, everyone working from home. Clear, you were there.
Strategy has changed
The communications world is in a transition from Kotler and Marketing Funnel thinking to the visions of Byron Sharp, Kahneman, Binet & Field. And that's good, much better in fact. Because this is what it's all about: the moment of communication. In short, we are actually moving from person to moment segmentation.
The measurement methods have not changed
Brand parameters such as brand awareness and preference paint roughly the same picture every year: a few percent up, a few percent down. And the crazy thing is: it's not (very much) different this year. In the year the world literally changed, you see more or less the same picture. How can that be and what does that say? Are we looking at the right data and indicators when we want to make a strong or effective use of media?
Many clients, and that included myself, work with outdated KPIs and methods. Because: 'that's how we always do it'. And: 'those are the same numbers the management knows'. Now that I am back on the agency side, able to dive into different markets, advise clients and have new-business conversations, I see how widespread the ingrained patterns still are. And that's a shame, because we can learn a lot more from the new ways of thinking that we do. It's more and more about brand salience: the moment of choice for your brand: are you in his mind at that moment?
Because it's less and less about a funnel icm the personal characteristics of a man or woman from Lelystad, wealth class AB1, 2.5 times modal income, average 2.3 children, who watches RTL4 above average on Saturday nights. And of course as a marketing or brand manager you have to keep optimizing and improving the campaigns, but what matters here is the strategy: where are we working towards?
If we want to develop better communications that are closer to the skin of consumers, that understand and reach them better than before, then you also need to embrace other research and measurement methods. For example, consider Category Entry Points research: When, with whom do you buy the product? To then extract additional insights from that that you use to improve brand and media engagement. Because in the end, that's what it's all about: building a strong brand with creative and effective communications.
The momentum is now
In other words: Corona is the ideal time! There is no more decent conclusion to be drawn with the figures of the years before. Initiate this change, try it, test it, push it: the momentum is now. Improve creation, media, business results. Look for CEPs that are growth related. Trend break. Plottwist. Now!