The Stackpile

January 22nd, 2009

Marketing in Tough Times

In a difficult economy, it’s tough to know whether you’re spending your marketing dollars wisely. Should you scale back your budget, or should you fight for an increase? Should you pursue new guerilla marketing techniques, or fall back on the old standbys like direct mail?

This month I’d like to offer some insight that will help you sort out these questions and come out on top.

1. Try to preserve your budget
Research shows that companies that maintain their advertising budgets through economic downturns perform better over the long run. A McGraw-Hill study of 600 companies found that businesses that maintained or increased their advertising during the 1982 recession had sales 256% higher than those that stopped advertising. Clearly, not everyone can increase their marketing budget—but if you can maintain your marketing spend through the downturn, you’ll be way ahead of the game.

2. Maintain traditional advertising
Maintaining your presence in traditional broad-reach media like print and TV shows confidence and intent—both highly desirable traits in uncertain times. As competitive advertising spending thins out, you’ll stand out. You’ll also be in a position to negotiate highly favorable media rates and aggressive packages. Sustaining general brand awareness, which can take years to establish, is critical. If you diminish your share of voice in a down market, the cost to regain awareness will be much more expensive than maintaining what you currently have.

3. Increase your online presence
In a downturn, it’s even more important that every advertising dollar work its hardest. It’s hard to find a medium that works harder than the Internet. Why? For one thing, the results are often quantifiable, so you can quickly determine what’s working and what isn’t. And since the costs are so controllable, it’s easy to calculate your return on investment. Finally, the Internet is often the first point of contact by anyone researching your product or service. By having a strategy that includes search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO), you can ensure that you’re high on the list for any new prospects.

4. Be smart about high-cost, high-touch campaigns
Used sparingly, high-touch campaigns like direct mail can be effective in reaching decision makers and landing new business. But most successful campaigns come at a significant cost. For that reason, you should make sure the campaign goals are clearly established at the outset. Furthermore, before considering such a campaign, you should make sure you have something unique to offer. What is the call to action? Is it compelling? If it’s not a showstopper, you may want to consider a less-costly course of action.

5. Beef up your strategy
Stay busy through any downtime by refining your marketing strategy and brainstorming new approaches. Take advantage of free research (the Stackpole Report on Banking is a great place to start), and preempt questions by having the facts close at hand.

Posted by Peter on January 22nd, 2009
Filed under Advertising, Marketing | No Comments »

November 24th, 2008

Customized Bank Cards

Card customization is nothing new – outside of the United States. Simply searching on Google returned an article about the KBC bank in Belgium who were already providing this service to their customers back in 2006. Customers were invited to submit an image of their choice and after a few days new card was available for pick-up at the bank.This trend has now found its way slowly into the US via Capitol One’s Card Lab. I propose this be a venture undertaken by credit card companies such as American Express Business. Their new plum card simply does not say who you, the company are!

Picture of American Express Plum Biz Card

A simple addition of your company’s logo onto the card would not only enhance the company’s image and recognition, but there would be no confusion about who was paying when an employee was taking a client out to lunch. No, they are not using their personal bank card, but the company card – reinforced by the simple logo addition.Now it would be amazing to be able to make completely customized cards for your company but I’m sure this will not be available anytime soon. Regardless, I have created the Stackpole & Partners future credit card below:

Stackpole Credit Card Design

For those of you who are artistic and enjoy a craft project like myself, make sure to check out this other hit I received from my search on Google regarding different techniques one person has used to personalize their card.

Posted by Marissa on November 24th, 2008
Filed under Advertising, Banking, Branding, Design, Fun, Miscellaneous | No Comments »

March 28th, 2008

Scratch n Sniff

In my never-ending quest for new and innovative advertising, I stumbled upon an extremely creative and unique print ad. As I was perusing a magazine at the doctor’s office, I saw an ad for instant lattes, the kind that you just mix with water at home or work. I glanced at it briefly and turned the page, when all of a sudden I caught a whiff of a latte. I looked around the waiting room, no one had a coffee or drink in their hand. So I turned back a few pages to the ad for the instant lattes, I thought to myself, no ad can be so powerful it actually makes you crave the product can it?

Then I did something a little odd, a looked around the waiting room, no one was looking in my direction, and I did it. I smelled the ad! I actually smelled the ad where they were displaying the latte mix in the coffee cup. And low and behold….the ad smelled like the product. I was shocked!!

Now I have seen many ads saying scratch and sniff here and try this here, all advertising beauty products with new fragrances. But this ad was different, they didn’t even tell you to scratch or peel or anything. I always knew our senses were very powerful, but to have a craving for a product after unknowingly smelling an ad is pretty amazing.

What will they come up with next? TV ads that hypnotize you into buying an entire new wardrobe from Calvin Klein?

Posted by Kristin on March 28th, 2008
Filed under Advertising | No Comments »

February 26th, 2008

Cadillac CTS

Has anyone seen this new Cadillac ad with Kate Walsh from Grey’s Anatomy? I must say, it makes me want a Cadillac, they did a brilliant job of making the car look sexy and sporty. I always thought of older men driving a Cadillac, but with Kate Walsh driving the car in her heels, it makes me picture myself behind the wheel. And I am usually the girl you see flying down the street in a VW Cabrio or Jetta. But what grabbed my attention the most was the opening line, ” When you turn your car on, does it return the favor?” What is more sexy and attention getting than that?

Posted by Kristin on February 26th, 2008
Filed under Advertising, Branding, Design | No Comments »

December 11th, 2007

HBS Marketing Conference

I attended the Harvard Business School marketing conference on Dec. 2, 2007, at which I met with and listened to people from all different product companies that make decisions on marketing and advertising avenues and strategies for their business. There was nothing new that I really learned, however listening to the perspectives and being on the agency side, was interesting. Speakers included the president of Unilever Americas, vice president of global brand marketing for Yahoo!, Inc., and the general manager for Hasbro. In addition to the speakers, there are panels surrounding revitalizing brands, globalizing brands, and alternative marketing which included people from some of these same companies, but also from companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Dunkin Brands, Proctor & Gamble, and Nike.

The main point of interest to me that was touched upon was this idea of reinventing the brand and gaining a new target audience. Dove is a great example of this since they provoke discussion with their advertising. As a brand, they are really trying to get to their audience through another avenue. They are targeting “normal” people by using “normal” people instead of models/actors. Unilever has done a great job in evolving the brand and using different media outlets to get their message out there. Their ads and spots are so controversial that they get to the next level of marketing by causing controversy, which were discussed on “Good Morning America”, “The Today Show” and “The View”. If you want to spark interest to reinvent the brand, look to Dove.

In case you haven’t seen these provoking ads (to my surprise most of the HBS students had not):
Evolution

Onslaught

This second commercial was only aired some 4 times because of how graphic it was. Go figure that America can’t deal with the realities of natural beauty…

Posted by Nirali on December 11th, 2007
Filed under Advertising, Marketing | No Comments »

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Marketing in Tough Times

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