Platform 5 Digital and TMARC were recently joined by client service heavy-weight and strategist extraordinaire, Monique Claassen, who is the current Client Service Director of Media and Digital at Kantar Millward Brown. She spent the afternoon with us to unpack the concept of marrying integration, idea, creative, placement and customisation to deliver on a fully integrated campaign that hits the mark for the client.
With over 15 years of experience under her belt, Monique’s knowledge of integrated multi-media campaigns has led to an in-depth understanding of the best ways to ensure success when dealing with client and making their campaign dreams come true.
Here are five key principles to consider when building a fully-integrated, multi-channel campaign:
1. Integration
Think back to the last time you – whether on client side or as part of an agency – worked on a strategy. Chances are that if there was a brand TVC in existence already, this was at the heart of your campaign. One of the biggest mistakes being made by brands is trying to build out an entire campaign around their TVC, instead of looking at the bigger picture and going from there.
Trying to force creative out around an existing element is almost always an error as it leaves all of the other channels as an after-thought. Take a step back and consider what the point of the campaign is and if your answer is “to get more eyes on our TVC”, you’re doing it wrong!
2. Idea
The process of ideation needs to be relooked, by both agency and brand. Most ideas these days are born out of brands trying to make pretty creative and agencies trying to win awards. While these things are important, they cannot be the be-all and end-all of your creative big idea. Instead of having a creative idea being forced to work for a brand, rather take the approach that a brand insight will give way to a creative idea.
Consider what challenges are being faced by brand and take it from there. For example, a brand might want to send more products on their app but no matter how great the content strategy is, sales will not occur if the app is broken. Focus on the issue and build the plan out from there.
3. Creative
Kantar Millward Brown recently asked individuals what they think of creative execution in the campaigns they see. 5 out of 12 integrated campaigns that were tested scored below average in terms of their overall campaign impact, with the key message and theme not tying into the creative execution. Gone are the days of creating one piece of creative and throwing it up on every channel out there – welcome to the age of curated content. Brands need to craft content specifically per channel in order to ensure they’re able to speak to the right audiences in the right places.
4. Placement
While TV has been thought to be a dying channel for years now, the channel is still holding on tight! In South Africa, for example, TV and in-store still very comfortably generate most reach, while OOH and radio tend to deliver higher frequency for campaigns. Brands and agencies need to plot out their platform rollout very carefully to ensure they’re making the most of the assets they have and the platforms they have access to. Something else to consider is where people like to consume this media, and if it happens to be TV, this shouldn’t be an issue for brands.
5. Customisation
Scarily, in 2018 we still see TVCs cut down and thrown up on social media and YouTube, instead of brands crafting content for specific channels. One shoe does not fit all and brands should be rolling customised content out on various channels, with audience needs and engagement preferences in mind.