Marketing
We’ve Entered the Out of Home (OOH) Advertising Renaissance
I’m finally starting to emerge from my COVID cocoon. Half-vaccinated and having completed every season of every television show ever,...
Stop advertising and marketing! Stop business development and sales! It’s okay, nobody had a thorough plan for what’s happening right now. If you’re like most of the agency and media ad sales execs that I’ve spoken to over the past two weeks, it’s like we’re all racing down the open highway with the wind in our hair and someone smashed the brake pedal right through the firewall.
Some teams were more prepared or well-positioned for this than others. But it’s too late to look back now and wish you’d done something different. Time to deal with it:
- What have you done already, and what’s your plan for tomorrow?
- Will your clients also stop all marketing and advertising? How are you advising them?
- Will you stop all of your business development and sales efforts? Then what?
Remember, don’t stop advertising and marketing. Don’t stop business development and sales.
It’s clear that this new market reality will reshape the business and connected marketing and advertising landscape. And it’s inevitable that some companies will fold, but the decisions made by you and the clients that you advise have real and immediate consequences.
Perhaps this will be a one or two-quarter recession, maybe longer? If so, it would be the first since the “great recession” that ended more than a decade ago. There were winners and losers then, just like there will be now. Fear was the culprit then, and its fear driving the market again. The market can handle bad news. What it can’t handle is uncertainty. Uncertainty is driving fear on four wheels today, manifesting in marketing and ad spend ‘pauses’ or ‘cuts’ and stop work on business development and sales for many. Should it?
Studies going back nearly a century point out the advantages of maintaining or even increasing marketing sales efforts during a weaker economy. Advertisers and agencies that maintained or grew their marketing investments increased sales volume and market share during the recession, and in many cases had explosive growth afterward. As a wise old Aussie bloke once said, “When times are good you should advertise. When times are bad you must advertise.” The same can be said for new business development and sales efforts.
Why?
Noise Level
In almost all product and service categories the noise level has already dropped as your competitors cut back on their outreach and sales activities. We’ve seen this in almost all brand-side measured media channels since March 9th, from social spend to digital display and broadcast activity. Business development outreach almost entirely ceased that week, and then increased the week of March 16th as teams figured out the logistics of remote work realities and got on with the task at hand. Were you one of them now back on the highway or are you still floundering?
Sensitivity marketing, value adds, and acts of goodwill over hard-ball sales and marketing tactics is certainly called for in today’s climate. If you haven’t pivoted your outreach to this type of ‘here to serve’ messaging. Start now. You’re already a week behind your direct competitors. How much share-of-voice (SOV) have you lost already or will lose by your hesitation to act? Be brave, be bold and get after it.
Positioning
You can use this opportunity (that might be a necessity), to reposition a brand, your firm, or introduce a new product or service. Working exclusively in the travel and hospitality market or for an experiential agency or live events group? Adaptability and investment in repositioning and new offerings are in many cases going to be a make or break.
I was on a call last week with an experiential agency that works for hotels and airlines – they’re not feeling beaten down and sorry. These guys knew what was important and what they could control, and they went for it. They’re on fire! They’ve increased marketing and business development efforts, being proactive and taking innovative digital solutions to their clients, shopping those ideas to others in the same category (and completely new verticals) as of Monday last week. Some incredible ideas for major hotel groups and airlines that already secured new projects and new business meetings with the gaming and toy industry. Incredibly motivating stuff!
The concept is relatively easy to grasp; even when times are tight, people don’t completely stop hearing your message or spending. They simply look for better deals. When companies slow or stop their marketing and ad spending, they vanish from the buyer’s mind. And even if they don’t disappear completely, subconsciously, buyers begin to entertain doubts about them; they perceive the brands as weak or fading, and will often gravitate to the competitor who is maintaining or increasing their ad spending. It’s simple really, if two people are talking to you and one stops and leaves the room, you’re only going to listen to and be influenced by the one who stays and continues talking.
Don’t stop advertising and marketing. Don’t stop business development and sales.
It will need to be different. Climb back in that car, set a new plan, start it up, and hit the gas! They’ll be a few bumps I’m sure. But better those than a carcass of a once beautiful car rusting away on the side of the road as others speed by with a smile.
If you need help riffing on a new plan, new companies, or categories to target, my team and I are here to serve. Got a story to share? We’d love to listen, too.