Category Leadership

It sounds obvious, but leaders should lead and never follow. Tesco had plenty to differentiate their “pile it high” discount competitors, i.e. quality, provenance and a relentless customer focus behind the renowned “Every little helps” campaign. Instead, it chose to dance to their competitors’ tune and, in so doing, allowed those brands to experience aggressive double-digit growth in market share. They subsequently posted a £6.4bn loss – one of the largest in UK corporate history.

In stark contrast, when Walkers found its position as the leading crisp brand under threat from competitors offering exciting new ingredients, its response was to innovate rather than imitate. Using the full range of tools at its disposal (distribution, awareness, social media, Gary Lineker), the ‘Do Us A Flavour’ campaign took on its rivals at their own game and outperformed category sales growth by 68%. Walkers also achieved its highest market share for 3 years and a deep level of consumer interaction with over 1m flavour suggestions. It showed how a marketing idea could affect every aspect of the business and 5 years later repeated the campaign with a £1m prize on offer.

So what are the ingredients of a brand leader?

·      The attitude of a leader and clarity on the challenge – what will it take to lead or even grow the market?

·      A robust strategy to drive consideration and even re-appraisal - you play to your strengths

·      Behave like a leader – think like a challenger, but act in a way that demonstrates leadership

·      A plan to sustain momentum – a programme for generating fresh ideas and evolving the narrative. Smarter use of research to generate insight into where the market’s going, so you can get there before the competition

Napolina behaved like a leader even before it reached the top. Central to the brand’s leadership behaviour is its consistent focus on being ‘at the heart of Italian cooking’ – which gives the brand both authenticity and the elasticity to stretch into numerous product categories. It behaved like the market leader and the market followed.

Some brands are able to effectively invent a new category (thanks to Activia we're all familiar with probiotic yogurt), but even in saturated markets the combination of sharp consumer insight and creative execution can propel a new brand to the top. Look at what’s happened in baby food, where Plum and Ella’s Kitchen left Heinz, for all its marketing muscle, far behind.

Numerous challenger brands have successfully changed the conversation in their markets by focusing on a core message and adapting to connect both emotionally and rationally. After all, why challenge when you can lead?

Keeping it real

Advertising spend is expected to exceed £20bn in the UK this year, as the economy & consumer confidence continue to recover and brands also seek to ramp up their digital activity.

This impressive stat follows an equally jaw-dropping one from late last year – 75% of marketing campaigns failed to achieve their targets.

According to The Fournaise Marketing Group (a marketing effectiveness consultancy), the most common mistake that contributed to this degree of failure is a weak or unattractive proposition – “they kept focusing on ‘Style’, ‘Look’, ‘Feel’, ‘Digital’ and ‘Social’ and did not pay the proper attention to answering the most relevant pains, needs, wants and expectations of their target audience”.

Agencies (and Planners in particular) have a duty to their Clients to ensure this doesn’t happen. Unfortunately, Adland tends to talk ‘consumers’ rather than ‘people’. The Planner’s core role is often summarised as “representing the consumer’s voice and interests”, which can sometimes be seen as synonymous with writing research proposals.

We (Planners) have to shake off this misconception and break out of our ivory towers. We need to regularly walk a mile in our customer’s shoes. Everyone involved in the development of campaign (especially those involved in signing them off) has to be mindful of how people actually live their lives.

With the advent of new devices, like to Apple Watch, it’s easy to be mindful of the constantly evolving media landscape. However, it’s much harder to remain mindful of related change when it comes to our customers’ behaviours, their motivations and their barriers to purchase.

The Planning role is a critical one when it comes to staying abreast of customer’s shifting relationships with brands and media channels. This means we Planners need to stay engaged throughout the campaign development cycle and evaluate the effectiveness of creative ideas and develop learnings for future campaigns.

The Planner’s role is increasingly a practical one and shouldn’t be viewed as academic. For that reason, we don’t put a grand name to our Planning process here at Clarity. We simply call it 'clear thinking'.

Colin Gray

Head of Strategy and Planning, Clarity

www.wecreateclarity.co.uk

Collaboration is the key to building a successful agency

Ever wondered why you’re disappointed with the follow-up album of “that band who were massive last year”. I can vividly remember Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ selling by the bucket load, but the follow-up ‘In Utero’ falling flat in comparison.

There’s a good chance, if you review the CD sleeve, that the album might have been ‘produced by the band’. This time around they decided that they didn’t need the additional creative contribution of the ‘hot shot producer’. Their success led to over-confidence.

Having worked for a variety of agencies – both large and small, I’ve found that far too few people are dedicating their time towards being either ‘strategic’ or ‘creative’ in larger agencies and far too many meetings get called to simply discuss other meetings. Briefs should come from anywhere within an agency to ensure that they’re full of people who contribute to the creative and strategic output.

In my experience, you can apply this issue to the ad industry and successful agencies can fall into this type of trap. Strategic ideas come from Planners while creative ideas come from Creatives. Each can sometimes get a little territorial if the other strays on to their turf. This risks producing half an idea or, at least, one that’s not yet fully formed.

Now, more than ever, ‘Strategy’ and ‘Creative’ need to be much less department names and much more activities. Here at Clarity, each carried are out by a small, but rapidly growing collaborative team of smart people who work together to understand clients’ businesses and customers irrespective of their job description.

Increasingly, agencies are tasked by clients with “sprinting the marathon” - being proactive to drive the longer-term innovation while remaining reactive on the day-to-day. As a result, Creative Directors need to get involved before the strategy is developed and the Head of Planning needs to stay involved long after concepts have been sold. After all, there could be an ongoing optimisation challenge or a potential award submission, which would benefit both parties.

It is important than agencies don’t let their teams bunch together in their individual departments. At my previous agency, we mitigated this issue by coming together ahead of a written brief at (what we call) an ‘Ignition’ session to immerse ourselves in our clients’ problems and ignite our creative thinking. I hope to carry this idea forward, as well as challenging ourselves to distil the core of a client’s challenge into really concise briefs - ideally no more than a single side of A4.

Colin Gray

Head of Strategy and Planning, Clarity

www.wecreateclarity.co.uk

The evolution of Loyalty schemes in the age of the connected consumer and implications for Automotive brands

SlideShare link to paper on the evolution of Loyalty Schemes

What can we learn from the winning Retailers this Christmas?

It’s a year since HMV, Blockbuster and Jessops entered administration. This January started with a high level departure at Debenhams and the news that sales are down at the biggest UK‘s food and clothing retailers (Tesco and Marks & Spencer) are struggling to stay in touch with the modern British shopper (Daily Telegraph 6th January 2014). If you’re also thinking that Christmas didn’t go as well as you’d hoped, then we’d like to help you on the way to a successful 2014.

If there’s one big theme, it’s that the Customer Journey is more important than ever

Mobile internet and the 'always on' consumer mean the way shoppers think about and act on their purchasing decisions has changed dramatically. Shopping is anywhere and everywhere. The Customer Journey is no longer linear. It’s now more like a game of snakes and ladders. Now we can buy in a shop, via an app or even a games console. The dynamics of the customer journey are increasingly multifaceted and translating a brand into a compelling consumer experience requires an increasingly diverse skill set. Getting the balance right between on and offline is critical. So here are six ideas to inspire you this New Year.

1.     Deliver a harmonious Clicks and Bricks experience

Shoppers no longer see physical, technological and geographical boundaries. Good online experiences are carried forward as expectations of seamless service from High Street retailers. John Lewis has responded to the challenge of closing the on/offline loop, benefiting from significant sales growth driven by their Click & Collect service. Their new 2-year guarantee on all electrical & home technology products closes the circle and allows them to leverage their offline logistical infrastructure to benefit their online sales.

2.     It’s time to embrace Mobile

Mobile is increasingly finding its role at point of sale and, as a result, has blurred the lines between on and offline. Amazon are wise to this and also the fact that the vast majority of sales still take place in a physical store, so their app now includes a barcode scanner for quick price comparison. However, Mobile needn’t be a threat and can be used to bring customers into store and enhance their shopping experience. Pizza Express, for example, allow customers to pay for their meal via PayPal, rather than have to wait for a busy waiter. French retailer Carrefour recently introduced a mobile app designed to enhance the in-store experience for the Chinese market. The app uses location sensing technology, a social shopping list and an ad system that enables retailers to engage with their customers. Customers can even use the app to navigate to the product they want while in store.

3.     The same customer is worth more offline

We all know how important impulse buying is in-store. The reality is that 40% of consumers report making impulse buys while shopping in-store compared with 25% online. One of our clients has found that customers will happily spend more on a higher spec electrical appliance if they can see a physical demonstration and fully understand the difference in features. Price credibility online drives customers to store offline. In addition, John Lewis have found that customers who combine online and in-store shopping spend 4x more than those who use only one channel. So monitor competitor pricing and partner with comparison sites, if appropriate, but also use promotions to drive customers into store. To this end, B&Q’s Club app offers exclusive in-store discounts on various products, rather than rewarding purchases with loyalty points.

4.     Consider the daily conversation, as well as the big campaign

The reliance of many retailers on Christmas has lead to an obsession with share of voice at the most cluttered and expensive times of the year. But many brands overlook the opportunity to tap into topical events to achieve a more cost-effective and memorable outcome for your audience. For example, Marmite’s tactical press campaign after the death of Margaret Thatcher and Nando’s 5 minutes extra ‘Fergie time’ following the announcement of Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement. Be topical, as well as seasonal. Consider messaging across Owned, Earned and Paid channels.

5.     Act in Real-time

“The internet requires every brand, business and individual to become a publisher” (Rachel Tipograph, Gap’s Director of Global Digital and Social Media). Today’s increasingly demanding consumer means that retailers need to be responsive in real-time and behave in a way that is relevant to customers at every point in their journey. This is easy in-store where you can see who requires assistance. Online it means serving the content customers need as they need it. Reacting to the weather enabled Bravissimo to increase swimwear sales by 600%. Create a sense of urgency in the face of limited stock with ‘only 3 left in your size’ type messaging and understand when and where ‘customer chat’ support might be needed.

6.     Future proof your loyalty programmes

We’ve become a nation of deal hunters. We expect them and know where to seek them out. So we’ll happily switch brand and stock up to take full advantage. As such, loyalty schemes are evolving away from a transactional focus through developments such as ‘social couponing’ and ‘co-creation’. However, some innovative retailers have realised people are loyal to communities around common interests and centred on common products. For example, target amateur photographers or baking enthusiasts and become part of their conversation.