Funny or Serious? A framework to decide Brand Ad campaign route
If you cannot convince your CMO or CEO about the campaign route, this framework is for you. Convince your manager to take the best creative route through an easy flowchart
As a junior marketing manager, I have faced the existential question of “which creative route" to take for launching my brand in ATL. Task was to improve our brand awareness. Same is the case with many new brands, where I see a lot of ill-fitting campaigns. Case in point: A random jewelry brand’s newspaper ad says “you are precious” instead of solving their customer’s problem of trust on a new jeweler for gold-purity.
The reason behind this dilemma is that when it comes to an advertisement, everyone in our organisation has an opinion. Everybody watch ads on TV, on mobile, so they try to help by telling ideas. Some would suggest a humorous ad to catch attention, others recommend a motivational ad to capture aspiration. While some believe telling only product features.
So, which route should you choose?
As is the case with any decision-making for business, instead of answering the first question, ask 10 more. Here is a list of questions that help me decide which creative route will suit my product’s GTM brand campaign:
Question Set 1:
Who is my customer?
What category does my product/service belong to?
What is the theme/platform/means of experiencing my product/service within this category?
Question Set 2:
For my target segment, is the category well-known?
For my target segment, is the theme inside this category well-known?
Is this a high or low involvement category for my target segment?
Once I have the answers to these questions, I can apply this decision tree to make an informed choice.
An Example:
I studied several “Launch campaigns” to see their approach and initial success. Narcos initiated their social media campaign prior to the TV series' release on popular OTT platforms. Their #Cokenomics campaign aimed to educate the audience about the cocaine industry.
Why din’t they take the route of showing nice sets, action, and introducing characters? Because the theme of narcotics was not widely known, even though the category of a new TV series is well known. Involvement in an unknown theme will be low, so the first thing their brand team did was to increase the awareness of the theme itself, rather than jumping on the benefits of this TV series as “very entertaining must watch”
Image courtesy: Social media of Narcos
Case study:
Problem Statement: A new brand called "Manzana" wants to promote itself on social media and out-of-home TV screens in apartment elevators. It is an online grocery brand selling organic products exclusively in Bangalore. The brand was launched one year ago and has received positive feedback and traction in local stores and online. Its Net Promoter Score (NPS) is above 30, and it experiences organic growth of 10% each month. While it regularly runs performance campaigns, attracting customers from Facebook, Google search, Amazon promotions, and referral links, it now wants to focus on low-hanging fruits for growth and brand-building on Social Media
If you were the brand head, how would you decide which route to take for the first brand campaign?
Solution:
Lets Apply the above framework.
Answer to Set 1:
Who is my customer?
For an organic and online grocery store serving only Bangalore, the target segment consists of women aged 25-50 years with high family income, an affinity for online shopping, and concerns about their family's health.
What is the category of my product/service?
The category is grocery. For example, the category of "Emily in Paris" is a TV series, and for PubG, it is e-Gaming.
What is the theme/platform/means of experiencing my product/service within this category?
Within the broad grocery category, the themes are "online" and "organic." While grocery is a well-established category, online grocery and organic grocery are relatively new themes within it.
Is this a high or low involvement category+theme?
While grocery is a low involvement category where people don't spend much time deciding which specific product to choose, the "organic" theme is a high involvement aspect due to its impact on health and premium pricing.
Answer to Set 2:
For my target segment, is this a known category?
Yes, grocery is a well-known category for women in the middle class who are decision-makers when it comes to brands and food choices.
For my target segment, is the theme inside this category known?
In Bangalore, with a tech-savvy population and high incomes, organic grocery is somewhat known but not widely understood. People are still trying to figure out methods to quantify the goodness and trustworthiness of organic products.
Is this a high or low involvement category for my target segment?
While grocery is a low involvement category overall, the combination of the grocery category and the organic theme results in high involvement for this specific target segment.
Putting this information through our Decision tree, the result is as below
For Manzana brand, an awareness campaign focused on the "Organic" theme is crucial. Utilizing social media, they can leverage pop-culture references to make the campaigns engaging, while educating customers about organic groceries. It's essential to note that other campaign routes, although popular in terms of likes and shares, may not effectively contribute to brand-building in this specific context. For example, a Bollywood parody featuring a humorous mother-son argument over grocery shopping may garner views, but it won't necessarily drive customers to purchase organic groceries. The target audience may not have enough knowledge about "organic" to make an informed decision based on entertainment alone.
Grid View
Here is one more view of the same framework, if you like Grids more than flowcharts
What to Avoid
If you see all the cells in this table, "purpose-led" marketing might pique your attention. I recommend watching Steve Jobs' famous video on marketing, where he discusses "Values” in the context of a new campaign “Think Different”. Many entrepreneurs are inspired by this approach, wanting their products to be marketed in the same manner.
However, it's important to note that in this context, the product is already successful in the market, but the brand is losing steam, and the company is in a bad state. The purpose-led campaign works for attracting new users who are not early adopters of the product.As was the case with Mac, a new technology, it was an unknown category and theme for these new users. Hence “values” was a way to connect with them.
Another campaign that makes brands envious is the "Push notification campaigns" by Dunzo in India. It embraces pop culture with Bollywood and cricket, utilizing creative wordplay on trending topics in Indian metros. Dunzo, a 5-year-old brand in India, has a well-known service in a low involvement category of local-couriers. Due to insane discounts in its early years, Dunzo has very high-adoption rate and has become a well-known brand. Hence, to maintain the top-of-mind, it need not tell the product-benefits again. Now, instead, they capture attention through popular-culture content.
I would be interested to know if this framework aligns with your experiences working with different brands in the past. Do you agree with this approach? How can I improve it? What did I miss?