Promo - May 2008 - (Page 17)

Commentary The Dove campaign was localized in Tokyo by having hundreds of Japanese women wear the same blonde wigs. Then suddenly they all fling the wigs into the air, symbolizing each individual’s beauty. le. Our retail and trade customer has more control today, and we can count on him holding more of the cards over time. The brand he cares about most is his own. This is happening everywhere. Brand marketers must find new ways to connect, to interrupt and to engage. Few things can replace a physical connection, and this is fundamentally why activation and experiential programs are becoming so much more critical in brand marketing today. ways that made big impressions, had great local relevance and drove business further. In Tokyo, hundreds of Japanese women gathered near a rail station, all wearing blond wigs. Then, all at once, they tossed their wigs into the air to celebrate their own unique beauty. That’s a magnified idea that made a big impression. That’s an activation concept that can travel. MAGNIFY THE BIG IDEA Not long ago, marketing folks celebrated “integration” as the ultimate goal. If we could take a TV idea and replicate it out-of-home or in-store, that was a home run. Not anymore. Replication is redundancy. Consumers need and deserve more if we expect to hold their attention. And this thinking applies around the world. It rarely makes sense to send the same exact program to every market and expect it to work. It’s not enough simply to ship translated adaptations. Instead, we should look for ways to magnify the idea so it’s particularly relevant at a local level. When we do this right, we get the consumer to engage and the trade to advocate for our brand. Here is an example that demonstrates the power of magnifying a big idea. We are all familiar with Dove’s award-winning Real Beauty Campaign and how it captivated millions with a simple brilliant film taken digitally around the world. It empowers women everywhere to appreciate who they are and their natural beauty. The Dove campaign was supported with television, outdoor, print, etc. But certain markets magnified the idea locally in PROVE IT’S WORKING When that global work is activated locally, do we have a handle on how it’s performing? Are we learning what works and what doesn’t? Or are we waiting for the quarterly numbers and once again crossing our fingers? Advanced tools like OgilvyAction’s Last Mile Analytics exist today to provide a real-time line of sight to what’s truly happening at the point of sale. We can deliver data to a desk-top dashboard to help us instantly see issues and make adjustments on the run. And we can do this by country, by market and even at the individual store level. We can now measure POS effectiveness, shopper behavior and ROI like never before. Brands typically still use a hodge-podge of local promotion agencies to handle retail activation. Many global brand marketers are saying it’s time to change. And many local marketers are ready to embrace what’s coming. But there’s a catch. It has to drive local business. The work has to be smart, the idea has to be magnified and the cash register has to ring. l P Rick Roth is global CEO of OgilvyAction. He can be reached at rick.roth@ogilvy.com. Promo / WWW.PROMOMAGAZINE.COM / May 2008 17 http://WWW.PROMOMAGAZINE.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Promo - May 2008

Promo - May 2008 Contents Editor's Note Eyeballs All the Same... NBC Makes 'Law & Order' a Mobile Game Recession Rewards Comfort Virally Toaster on Wheels Commentary Ay Caramba! The 2008 Interactive Marketing Awards Winners How Bulletproof? Q&A: What a Ride Resource Center The Agency Center Blogging 101 Index of Advertisers

Promo - May 2008

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