Let's put sales promotion at the heart of the agency

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re: Let's put sales promotion at the heart of the agency

ajai jhala — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 23:27:22 GMT

Most advertising never does change attitude directly. You give agencies and advertising too much credit! At best they are weak force. The theory of attitude leading behaviour has been debunked ages ago. Advertising at best reinforces behaviour post purchase and consistent behaviour may change attitude over time.

re: Let's put sales promotion at the heart of the agency

PHILLIP HARVEY — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 17:19:21 GMT

Fortunately, working for a smaller agency, we rarely get the brief of 'go out and build my brand for me old chap', but more often get the 'we need to sell lots of this cat food to lots of those people, and while you're about it, make sure that the ad/mailer/point of sale/website contributes to their perception of our brand'. It doesn't stop us spending most of our time navel gazing about the punctuation in the proposition but the metrics still normally cover both aspects.

re: Let's put sales promotion at the heart of the agency

PHILLIP HARVEY — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 17:19:07 GMT

re: Let's put sales promotion at the heart of the agency

Mats Rönne — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:23:07 GMT

Idea #2 is already implemented in my local supermarket.... On a different note, I would suggest that the best approach is "let's try and do something that is good and relevant for the consumer - and if you do it well you build both a great business and a great brand". To me, there is an inherent danger that "building a great business" sounds (for some) almost like focus on short-term results rather than long-term satisfaction, which in my book builds neither a great business nor great brands.

re: Let's put sales promotion at the heart of the agency

David Tiltman — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:43:01 GMT

Juts how much work does it take before you can say 'hang on, why don't we add a FIFTH blade to this razor'?

re: Let's put sales promotion at the heart of the agency

Tom Gilbert — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:05:26 GMT

I think Gillette are the masters of this. Theyoutspend their rivals in the research department by a country mile. As a result their razors are significantly better. Thier ads are frankly pants but because they are always several steps ahead of Wilkinson Sword in terms of innovation.

re: Let's put sales promotion at the heart of the agency

James Cooper — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:49:38 GMT

There was an article in the Harvard Business Review that someone told me about where the core thesis was that companies that have a long term strategy are just as likely to fail or succeed as companies that make it up as they go along. I think this could be the same for brands - sometimes you just have to have punt and see what happens rather than have everything part of a complex long term building exercise.

re: Let's put sales promotion at the heart of the agency

Bill Britt — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:14:18 GMT

All it would take is a moderate recession for ad agencies to rediscover ‘behaviour changing’ techniques (sales promotion) and to temporarily stop pushing their ‘attitude shifting’ prowess and brand building abilities to clients. Products gathering dust on shelves have a remarkable ability to focus the mind. We’ve all seen this with cars. When things are swimmingly along nicely, car marketers task agencies with developing the emotional values of their badge, with lots of umbrella campaigns. But once the metal stops shifting off the dealers’ forecourts, everyone quickly rushes out campaigns for specific product models centred on price discounts. The marketing department then spend the next four years running branding campaigns to counter the fire-sale ads that they ran during the recession.