Babs Rangaiah, Vice President of Global Communications Planning
for Unilever has called time on traditional marketing, urging Australian
marketers embrace new ways of marketing in a digital world.
In
his opening keynote to the Ad:Tech conference in Sydney this morning,
Rangaiah outlined how traditional marketing and social media need to
work together, and Australia's position as the social media capital of
the world means that marketers have no choice but to engage.
He
noted Australian research showing that Australians spend 38% of their
time online, however the digital space only accounts for 19% of
marketing spend. Rangaiah noted that this disconnect that needs to be
addressed.
Rangaiah shared Unilevers ten point strategy for
dealing with the new, radically changed environment.
Be
part of our world - use the devices and services that your consumers
are using. You can't understand your consumers from an ivory tower.
Whilst Australia might be high in broadband penetration, the mobile
telephone is taking over the world with increasing penetration in
emerging markets such as India.
Penetrate our culture -
rather than shoving traditional advertising techniques down the throat
of today's consumers, marketers should instead try to become part of the
new online culture by promoting truly integrated campaign.
Babs
gave a great example of a Romanian campaign for their Rexona deodorant
brand in a country that was notorious for its low deodorant use.
Unilever challenged top Romanian personality JoJo to go without
deodorant for a week, whilst
chronicling the experience
on a daily TV spot and blog which eventually gained over nine million
followers.
Give us a voice and a role - Rangaiah noted
that in the new environment its important to "make consumers advocates
for your brand" noting that getting people to create content for your
campaign is "not about replacing agencies, but about understanding how
important consumers now are in the process"
Be Authentic -
Brands need to be authentic in their communication. Pre packaged
messages no longer work if it is not reflected in the companies actions.
One of the earliest cases of a company getting Punk'd, as Rangaiah put
it, was the
Dell Hell debacle which forced Dell to
completely change its customer service strategy.
Listen to Us
- individual consumers can now be as powerful as an industry analyst or
Financial Times reporter. It's important to listen to your consumers
and understand how to have a dialogue with them.
Create more
value - if brands want consumers to page for something, we have to
give something of value in return. Its no longer acceptable to just
produce a product, you have to provide an experience.
Don't be
so corporate - whilst large companies have traditionally been
reluctant to waver from a carefully crafted message, but brands need to
loosen up and embrace the consumers who are creating value for them.
Keep
it simple - Rangaiah has a simple rule for marketing campaigns.
Explain it to your wife or partner and "if they don't 'get' the campaign in
10 seconds, it's probably not a good campaign". Amazon increased sales
by 30% by removing one step in the purchase process, make it easy for
consumers to interact in the digital space and you will reap the
rewards.
Telling friends - word of moth has long been the
most powerful marketing method available, but word of mouth can
"explode" on the internet with campaigns that go viral now the holy
grail of marketing.
Doing well by doing good - as Babs
explained, "In today's world, more than ever, people know exactly what
your company does, and where". Brands can no longer hide behind slick
marketing messages. Companies should get actively involved in 'doing
good'
