(opinion)
Speaking at last week’s Integrated Marketing Conference (IMC) in Cape Town, BBDO Group CEO Boniswa Pezisa said that brands should talk less and listen more. “Speaking at customers with a loud-hailer is not the way that consumers want to interact,” says Pezisa. “Engaging in meaningful dialogue and understanding simple human truths specific to your customers will underpin the communication campaigns that ultimately succeed.”
“Shrinking marketing budgets, a highly fragmented audience and increasingly busy lifestyles means that reaching the consumer and making an impact is harder now than ever before thus the need for deeper consumer insights and meaningful engagements. Unearthing and developing one big idea is imperative to break through clutter, build a connection with the consumer and ultimately get them to do something.”
Pezisa says that strong ideas can be executed across a multitude of channels. Limited and shrinking resources are a marketer’s dilemma of the 21st century, therefore discipline and channel planning is key to effective consumer engagements. She references the recent award-winning Libresse Vagina Varsity campaign in which BBDO used social channels and PR aimed at destigmatising Vaginas. The campaign surpassed all expectations achieving a jump in overall category placement for the brand and a 56x return on the PR investment.
Pezisa offers the following core principles when building big ideas:
1. Take time to properly understand the problem
2. Outline a clear set of objectives and understand your purpose
3. List your chosen eco-systems and leverage them
4. Take your consumer on a journey
5. Be disciplined and focused
6. Drive consumer experience and be intentional about engagement
7. Measure, Measure and Measure…
Presenting alongside respected industry experts at the IMC conference, Pezisa says that brands often forget to look further than their product. Taking time to assess the opportunities available in the category is what sets successful brands apart from their competitors. Pezisa references the ‘long-life’ technology developed in the fruit juice sector. If those innovators had peered up from their product for long enough, they would have seen the great opportunity in other long-life products including milk, dairy produce and other products.
In closing, Pezisa said that critical to any idea and ultimate campaign is measurement. “If you start a campaign without knowing how to measure it, don’t bother.
You might as well burn the money.”
