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.
