Over the last several weeks, I have gotten to experience first hand just how goofed up the ad agency community has evolved.
One of my clients who I admire a bunch isn’t into wearing the suits and flaunting his degrees and past brand experience.
He actually is a CEO, but he is a ton smarter than many of the clients I meet that flaunt their Advertising Director, EVP and CMO titles.
Right now he is challenging a lot of conventional thinking by exploring some alternative media strategies and asking for evidence that the advertising media investment is actually paying off.
I like asking questions like that too!
In this week’s Business Week (11/16/2009) there is an article titled “Ask Your Doctor If This Ad Is Right For You.”
It talks about how the drug industry is spending billions of dollars ($4.7 billion to be exact in 2008) on TV ads and high styled agency media plans.
If any of you watch the 6pm news, I am sure that you have seen at least several of these ads.
Problem is… those ads aren’t working…
“New research based on recordings of conversations in physicians’ offices suggests most patents aren’t asking for drugs by name.”
How few are few?
Market researcher Verilogue who conducted the study found out that only 23 individuals out of 12,500 recorded requested for a specific drug.
In another recent study conducted by Verilouge, the most expensive campaigns in terms of media weight and spending – most on the network news shows – did not prompt the greatest number of inquiries.
“Eli Lilly spent $179 million on ads promoting its depression drug Cymbalta in 2008, but the greatest number of inquiries was generated by the Boniva campaign featuring Sally Field and it cost half as much as the Cymbalta blitz”
Is the advertising based on those high agency spending models generating any response at all?
Partly yes… but the drug clients are not happy campers about it.
“The study reports that what consumers are asking about are the scary side effects, which the drug-makers have to include in the ads, often in stomach-turning detail.”
My client is challenging some conventional thinking by finding a way to reduce the media buy by about half and moving the monies to more local store, in-person and social media exchange.
In my past, I have worked with Time-Warner Networks, Discovery Networks, PHD Media and taught media at the university level.
I’ve had the pleasure of averting ROSs and converting TRPs, GRPs and CPMs into viable ROIs.
Three key things I have gleaned out of all of it…
(1) The medium is the message and the message is the medium.
(2) Its not about counting how many people you reach, its about reaching the right people that counts
(3) Age and gender are only the tips of the iceberg of who represents customers and it is unfortunate that in the year 2010 agencies are addicted to ratings that only use those two demographic variables
A client who challenges their agency is the type of client I like… just like an agency that is brave enough to challenge its peers and the dying models of the past!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment