The missed opportunity for brands around Fairfax's compact launch and News Limited's counter-punch billboard campaign suggests advertisers and agencies fail to fully grasp real-time marketing. Despite the the hype of real-time marketing, is the fixation with digital blinding marketers to other very easy wins?
That's the question posed recently by Trinity P3's Pam O'Connor. It received some interesting responses.
O'Connor, an industry stalwart and one-time director of Universal McCann, noted that only three big brands, BMW, CommBank and Challenger, had created specific campaigns for the launch. That was despite massive media attention and a lead time meandering back to last June.
“The buzzword for the last month in marketing has been “real time marketing” (thankyou, Oreos), yet marketers and agencies didn't take advantage of one of the most straightforward opportunities to be timely and relevant for the tabloid (sorry, "compact") launches,” stated fellow TrinityP3 consultant, Andrew Pascoe.
Others, such as Loaded Technologies' Arun Mistry offered up some easy wins for automotive advertisers (compact SUVs), healthcare (weightloss products), and energy drinks (“small can, big output”).
“Maybe the planners were focused on the "death of print media headlines". Whilst it's heading that way, it's no excuse to miss the tactical opportunity,” he wrote.
CommBank CMO Andy Lark told AdNews that marketers could be “so focused on the big work that we miss the smaller creative opportunities in front of us”.
“We have a huge passion for digital but also believe there are brilliant opportunities in print. Some are opportunistic and fun, others strategic. Either way I'm grateful we work with creative teams that come forward with ideas like they did.”
Ultimately, he said, “we all need to stay nimble whether in digital or print”.
O'Connor told AdNews that she could not see the "disproportionate focus" on digital changing any time soon.
"Even if something is solid and delivering a good return [for marketers] it becomes 'where's the next big thing'. They don't want to miss the boat. It was the same when TV came along, it was the same when radio came along. But there is a fascination with the here and now at the expense of all else. You have to put it into perspective."
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