The second day at the Advertising Research Foundation conference was introduced by Bob Barocci, President and CEO of the ARF, stating that “history could be made this morning, if this thing called engagement catches on”. He suggested that engagement was “a little scary to a lot of people, becuase it could change a lot of things.” Sorry, Bob, but it’s going to take a lot more than this morning’s session to turn the ad industry supertanker around. From a promising start and a great case study we rapidly headed back toward business as usual.
Joe Plummer, Chief Research Office of the ARF and leader of the Joint ANA, AAAA, and ARF Taskforce on Engagement, took the podium to introduce the session focusing on engagement. He reviewed the changes taking place in our industry as follows:
- From brand awareness to brand demand
- From outbound communication to dialogue
- From mass media to any touch point
- From media-centric to consumer-centric
- From interrupt to engagement
All well and good - these are conceptual and tangible shifts to which we should all relate.
Joe then introduced Thomas Grabner, CEO of Kastner & Partners in America, the agency behind the brand Red Bull. (The Red Bull story, an example of true brand engagement, will be the subject of another post.) In the course of his presentation, Thomas made one key point which served to contrast the Red Bull branding philosophy with that of most marketers:
“Red Bull seeks to help and support its target group, not sell cans”.
Thomas’ proposition was that Red Bull has been successful because it has engaged in an “intense conversation” with its target group. He explained that the brand shuns traditional sponsorship in favor of working in partnership with leaders in different activities to help them fulfill their dreams - and in the process create some awesome stunts and action that supports the tagline “Red Bull gives you wings”. He stated that Red Bull would “never, ever” pay for the sort of celebrity endorsement that we see from other CSD brands, and that rather than sponsor events, Red Bull seeks to create them: from the Red Bull air race to the Last Man Standing 48 hour motorcross, from Word Clash street poems to Art of the Can. (The last two are particularly interesting, because they speak to invigorating the mind, not just the body.) Finally, he reviewed the Red Bull Flugtag (fly day). Hundreds of people work for 3 or 4 months to create Heath Robinson contraptions which they seek to fly off a ramp and out over a lake or river, in front of thousands of enthused spectators. For hours of effort, the participants get a few seconds of glory and a plunge into cold water. Now that’s brand engagement!
Let’s contrast Red Bull’s idea of engagement with the working definition of engagement produced by the Taskforce:
“Engagement is turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context.”
Or, as Joe Plummer put it, “to turn Opportunities to See into Opportunities to Sell”.
Now wait a minute. Wasn’t the key point of the Red Bull case study to put the consumer first, not the sale? So when I heard this definition of engagement, I was reminded of the emperor’s new clothes, particularly when some of the taskforce presenters fixated on “losing control of the brand”, finding the best way to get “our message across” and touted ten-year-old research methodologies.
But maybe that’s OK. After all, Thomas Grabner suggested that Red Bull’s success was the result of applying traditional marketing rules in a different way - but I can’t help thinking that many people still want to market by the pound, rather than building brands by real engagement.
If I sound disappointed, it’s because I am. Judging from what I heard today, I think the Engagement Initiative has a long, long way to go. And I don’t seem to be the only one who feels this way. Madeline Hamill, Managing Director of Market Evaluer, ended her presentation by stating that a metric alone will not change the advertising industry. She highlighted that this initiative is on a long journey, and that if it is to be successful, it will need to overcome siloed client business structures and the growing division between creative agencies and media agencies.
I could not agree more. As one of my colleagues likes to say, stucture should follow strategy. We may have the right strategy, but we definitely still have the wrong structure.
(36 votes, average: 3.42 out of 5)
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March 22nd, 2006 at 12:08 pm
Isn’t this just a new form of the old sales versus marketing debate, but in a slightly different forum?
If you take the view that marketing should really be aiming to build long term brand value, then engagement becomes more obviously part of the strategy.
The good thing for researchers is that building engagement means understanding more about consumer’s, their needs, priorities and motivations. So it needs research. And measuring long term brand value means looking at something other than simple sales data as well. This needs research and consultancy as well.
So I hope the engagement proponents win for 3 reasons:
1. Because it should mean there’s still work for me to do.
2. Because I am philosophically on-side.
3. But mainly because I should be better served as a consumer.
March 22nd, 2006 at 3:51 pm
It seems as if brands that have successfully embraced the consumer — fully engaged them — have eschewed mass advertising. Pabst BR, Starbucks, and for the earliest period before they went with outdoor so well – Mini Cars. This suggests to me that marketers need to equivilant of “boot camp” where their old ideas are totally broken down and new ideas are infused. Can marketers make the transition and step entirely away — if only for a while — from the tried and true, long enough to embrace brand engagement? We could call it “naked marketing”.
March 24th, 2006 at 3:57 am
i’m with Maddie on this. there seems to be a view that a metric will solve everything. it won’t - what’s needed is a change in mindset, an understanding of consumer needs from marketers. meanwhile it would be a good start if the US media industry caught up with the rest of the world and provided ratings by commercial rather than by programmes. if you have minute-by-minute exposure data you can hypothesise (as the current ad age interview does) that a lack of channel switching implies attention and engagement. of course it could also imply that the viewer is asleep, or so drunk that they’re trying to change the channel by pressing the dog, but then that’s a whole other story!
March 24th, 2006 at 8:07 am
It seems that this post struck a chord, thanks for the comments everyone.
To Trevor’s point, about engagement being part of a strategy to build long-term brand value, I am reminded of a conversation with an executive at a major packaged goods client recently. She said, “everything we do is designed to drive short-term sales”, and yet her company has some of the most valuable brands out there. Her point that marketing activities should work in the short-term as well as the long-term is valid. We cannot make an artificial judgement of what is meant to work when.
If a marketing activity is to be effective it should evoke a positive response from people ready to buy now. The distinction is then becomes how the activity effects people not ready to buy the category. If the activity is a price cut its impact will be transitory. If the activity is an engaging event that creates a positive disposition toward the brand then it is likely to have a long-term impact as well.