By Hannah Campbell, Operations Director at The Work Perk
A statement made last month by the CEO of Coca-Cola, Muhter Kent, indicated that the company will be shifting focus to the quality of its marketing messages rather than the volume of campaigns it rolls out.
In the past, the drinks behemoth has typically disseminated a pretty persistent onslaught of marketing messages, but has now made the decision to change tack in order to “enhance customer relations, build stronger brands and improve the quality of the marketing we are carrying out.”
This raises the question: why is a global brand such as Coca-Cola looking to change its marketing strategy? The answer lies in what consumers have come to expect from marketing in recent years. With consumers now more digitally engaged than ever before, brands must consider their messaging and the channels they use to engage with consumers.
The rise of personalised and targeted marketing messages has evolved the landscape in which brands are operating. Consumers continue to be bombarded by thousands of marketing messages every day; however, many of these messages are now personalised to appeal specifically to individual people, meaning many brands have to adapt their approach to keep up – and fast.
For example, every time consumers log onto social networking sites such as Facebook and Instagram, they are hit with adverts that are relevant to them. Taking things one step further, last year, Burberry used Channel 4’s on-demand service, 4OD, as a platform to target women by serving personalised marketing content, with viewers’ initials being emblazoned on a perfume bottle. This is a simple, yet effective, example of how certain brands are setting the bar high, and demonstrating how marketers can connect with their consumers on a more sophisticated level.
So what are the steps required to execute personalised marketing activity? Any marketer worth their salt knows that if they are to succeed in resonating with their target consumer and generate sales, it’s essential they have a comprehensive and accurate understanding of their target audience(s). Armed with this knowledge and understanding, marketers are empowered to build relevant, timely and personalised communications that create real impact. However, the challenge often lies in how best to grasp a detailed understanding of the target consumer’s changing needs and adapt the marketing mix as appropriate. So what are the options available?
Product sampling is a powerful way of gaining valuable and honest feedback from consumers on how they feel about a specific product, from everything such as flavour and texture, to packaging and price point. However, here too the powers of quality over quantity come in to play. Mass sampling will do little to demonstrate a personalised approach that truly engages and resonates with consumers. This lazy activity may generate larger volumes of feedback but the value will be much lower, more generic and largely unrepresentative of the target market.
To obtain quality feedback, brands need to undertake quality market research. Providing only specific consumer segments with complimentary samples in return for their feedback is a slick and failsafe method of obtaining valuable, useable consumer insight. A highly targeted approach makes consumers feel special, appreciated and understood, which in turn helps to generate honest and accurate opinion. Investing wholeheartedly in the target consumer furnishes marketers with the high quality information they need to adjust their marketing mix to adapt products and campaigns as appropriate. This also lends itself to product personalisation, creating another opportunity for marketers.
In the future, as the world becomes more driven towards personalised marketing, brands will have to adapt and move away from mass marketing. No longer will highly targeted and personalised marketing be classed as ‘good to do’, it will be essential.
By Hannah Campbell, Operations Director at The Work Perk