Price promotions often lead to lower margins and potential losses in advertising campaigns.
Emotional storytelling in advertising, as demonstrated by John Lewis's Christmas campaigns, can have a significant impact on brand perception and sales.
Recognizing customer indifference and focusing on entertaining and providing value to customers is crucial in marketing.
Deep dives
The downside of price promotions
Price promotions may provide an initial surge in volume, but often this volume is not incremental and the lower price leads to lower margins, resulting in potential losses. Years of econometric modeling and academic research backs up the argument against price promotions, highlighting that their profitability is often questionable, especially in a rising cost and low-margin environment.
The power of emotion in advertising
The success of John Lewis's Christmas campaigns, such as 'The Long Wait' and 'Monty the Penguin', showcased the effectiveness of emotional storytelling in advertising. These campaigns taught the industry about the power of emotion and the impact it can have on brand perception and sales. By focusing on memorable characters, narratives, music, and evoking nostalgia and other emotions, John Lewis created ads that resonated with viewers and demonstrated that emotion sells.
The importance of understanding customer indifference
A common misconception in marketing is failing to acknowledge customer indifference towards products and brands. Understanding that customers don't naturally care about what marketers have to offer is key. By recognizing this, marketers can focus on entertaining, engaging, and providing value to customers, instead of assuming interest and relying solely on rationality. Recognizing indifference allows marketers to start from a realistic standpoint and create strategies that genuinely resonate with customers.
The Importance of Consistency in Marketing
Consistency in marketing is crucial for long-term success. Many marketers tend to prioritize change, leading to wasted efforts and inconsistent messaging. However, research has shown that wear-out, the belief that ads become less effective over time, is a myth. In fact, continuity and maintaining distinctive assets are essential for building brand recognition and fluency. By keeping familiar elements while refreshing and evolving campaigns, marketers can create effective and memorable advertising that resonates with consumers.
The Power of Saying Something Differently
In marketing, it is often more effective to say something differently rather than trying to find a small, inconsequential point of difference from competitors. Brands that take a category-generic message and deliver it in a distinctive way can stand out and drive preference. By focusing on distinctiveness and emotional impact, marketers can create lasting impressions that lead to better brand recall and consideration. Communicating in a way that resonates with consumers is often more important than the specific content of the message, and getting the emotional temperature right can be key to changing minds and building relationships.
Les Binet and Sarah Carter are planning royalty. Starting out at the iconic BMP, the agency which evolved over time to become adam&eve today, they are the planners behind many famous campaigns. Not least John Lewis which lasted an impressive 14 years. A few years ago their popular myth busting column turned into the well known book ‘How Not to Plan’ taking conventional wisdom and turning it on its head. I catch up with the dynamic duo to pick their considerable brains on the topics they think marketers least understand.
Talking points from this episode:
The real godfather of effectiveness
How John Lewis changed Christmas
Les & Sarah pick a favourite ad
Why vignette ads are a cop out
What the John Lewis econometrics reveals about the campaign
Why you should make people feel something not show them feeling
Jon discovers the Long & the Short of it
The best way to really upset Les
That famous key visual
Can you ever achieve both long & short at the same time
Why consumers don’t give a s**t
How myth busting inspired the book
Being turned down by Marketing Week
Why there are more P’s than Promotion
How to involve planners early
The BMP Philosophy of planning
How not to get caught Short
Why 60% of campaign results are long term
How not to be consistent
Knowing what to change and when to change it
What advertisers can learn from designers
A little plug for Orlando’s fluent device work
It’s only advertising and no-one died
The case for animals and music
How not to make sense
How not to change your pricing
Why EPOS data switched spend from communication to price promotion
Digital attribution is the new price promotion
The more detailed the measurement the worse the marketing has got
Jon shares his only Effie case study
How not to be different
Why how you say something matters more than what you say
Les takes down the idea of loyalty
The one topic which wasn’t covered in the book
Finding things to get angry about
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