Leveraging Insights and Scenario Planning to Manage Constant Change

Marketing right now is – to say the least – difficult. The last couple of years have constantly thrown new challenges at consumers and brands, and it seems like it won’t stop any time soon. There’s been an increasing number of complex factors which are impacting the way that brands are marketing their products. Like the cost-of-living crisis, many of these factors have been external and outside of their control.

In our latest MMA webinar, we spoke with the Consumer Experience Director Northern Europe at Colgate-Palmolive about how they are tackling these challenges, and how they are planning their media for success in an uncertain future. Our guest shared insights into the UK oral care crisis, the importance of balancing brand and performance marketing, as well as leveraging scenario planning as a key tool.

Four messages stood out as key takeaways for other brands to minimize the upheaval of constant change with data and analytics.

1. Be customer-centric and focus on business-level KPIs

Audience viewing habits, for example on linear TV, and consumption habits strongly driven by a cost-of-living crisis, are changing. Brands must find a way to continue to make each decision with the consumer in mind and diversify the channel mix to account for the new consumer behaviors the market is experiencing right now. Looking at where the audience is consuming the media, how they want to be addressed and what channels are working best is a basic, but very crucial exercise to do.

The cost for a certain channel like TV might go up, but if the campaign reaches the right audience and reaches the right objective on this channel, it may still be a smart choice and it may still deliver the desired ROI within a broader channel mix. In the end, it all has to align with the overall business goals and KPIs.

2. Build a culture of collaboration

To succeed and build successful campaigns with meaningful results, marketers must build the same level of trust within their own organization as they do with their consumers. Data-driven decisions are only valuable if there is common understanding of the insights. Marketers must establish clear communication channels and language between stakeholders, internally and externally, to ensure that everyone’s expectations are met regardless of project complexity or scope. Creating that culture of collaboration will help solve complex problems and turn data into commercial intelligence for the whole business.

3. Think of media planning as a marathon, not a sprint

Many brands have focused on Performance Marketing and short-term gains lately to deliver results more instantly. In return, many of them have also disregarded the impact that brand marketing has on their brand – and sales. Our research shows that brand marketing outperforms performance marketing 80% of the time in terms of sales and ROI. So, when planning for an uncertain future, marketers should not lose sight of the long-term results and build a lasting brand experience for their consumers.

4. Put data and analytics at the core of your decision-making

To be able to optimize towards changing consumer and media trends quickly, brands and marketers should view their activities through a more holistic lens, take all marketing and non-marketing factors into consideration and simulate possible future outcomes.

Deeper insight into consumer behavior can be obtained by using the right data sources, as well as measure engagement and optimize ROI. Analytics can help inform decisions around product development and pricing, and explained how a holistic approach like Commercial Analytics is essential to ensure that data is being used effectively.

This can be quite difficult to do, but the advantages of using analytics technology are to increase accuracy and decrease costs are massive. It can provide more reliable results and better inform every brand’s decision-making. Data and analytics allow brands to make the smartest, most informed decisions.