Many marketers, agencies - and everyone in between - get caught up on bubble references and data points. They’ll use Facebook best practice as the only best practice for Facebook executions and only consider metrics and responses of the one channel they’re expected to deliver on.
I ask the question: If we’re truly looking to connect brands with their target audiences, why are those nuggets of information only useful for one platform?
There’s no reason why information about what your customers are seeking, uncovered through optimising your paid search strategy, can’t be used to feed into a video for social or a radio ad. For example, if I’m KFC and I get lots of complaints about my chips on Twitter, isn’t that the right type of customer query I should be able to respond to through TV, out-of-home and especially on an operations level?
Oh …you mean KFC did do that? Bravo KFC, I forgive you for every time you gave me just gravy instead of potato and gravy.
Same premise, different tools: Using paid search results from Google Ads or Bing to inform what your SEO strategy looks like. Marketers and agency folk see the two as different channels but to a layman, a search engine is a search engine and the results from paid and/or organic should be able to inform each other.
Beyond that, what humans are searching for from the privacy of their own homes or sneakily via their phones while at work should be an observation into human behaviour. Just because it’s an action through Google, the response to it can be executed on any channel. The flipside is the data can tell you what has happened before and the expected output as well.
An example I always like to use is when Adele goes on tour. Obvious searches such as where to get Adele tickets as well as when do tickets go on sale will obviously increase, but broader searches related to the singer will also rise such as:
All that engagement with Adele content can then be used to create articles, blog posts, Instagram polls and/or Spotify playlists. All this information is readily available but creative usage of this information is what sets brands and agencies apart.
Another fast-food example (I’m writing this at lunchtime by the way) is a recent campaign executed by our client, McDonald’s, in Australia named the McPickle.
McDonald’s tapped into the ever-divisive nature of pickles and went over the top by introducing a burger featuring nothing but the polarising ingredient on the perfect day (April Fool’s). You go into a McDonald’s for a while and listen to people ordering and it’s more likely than not that you’ll observe someone ordering a burger minus pickles. It’s a great social execution based off a real-world behaviour experienced by the business, and they utilised the opportunity perfectly in their McPickle execution.
I have no doubt there are thousands of brands who approach individual channels well but according to best practice, there are very few making the best use of the information they have at their fingertips. Brands that see insights garnered from a channel as true insights into human behaviour can use the information to unlock creative opportunities across any channel. It’s a powerful yet simple marketing tool.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to continue going through years of search data to see what I can do on Twitter moving forward.
As our customers exhibit growing desire to be recognised for their preferences and passion points, ...
In the third and final episode of our 3-part CMO50 video series exploring modern marketing and why it’s become a matter of trust, we’re delighted to be joined by Telstra’s former CMO and now digital services and sales executive, Jeremy Nicholas, and Adobe VP Marketing Asia-Pacific and Japan, Duncan Egan.
Flash back to the classic film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Television-obsessed Mike insists on becoming the first person to be ‘sent by Wonkavision’, dematerialising on one end, pixel by pixel, and materialising in another space. His cinematic dreams are realised thanks to rash decisions as he is shrunken down to fit the digital universe, followed by a trip to the taffy puller to return to normal size.
Why is it there is no shortage of leadership development materials, yet outstanding leadership is so rare? Despite having access to so many leadership principles, tools, systems and processes, why is it so hard to develop and improve as a leader?
As a nation united by sport, brands are beginning to learn money alone won’t talk without aligned values and action. If recent events with major leagues and their players have shown us anything, it’s the next generation of athletes are standing by what they believe in – and they won’t let their values be superseded by money.
