Wait Marketing: Communicate at the Right Time in the Right Place

WHY ADVERTISE WHILE CONSUMERS ARE WAITING?

– Advertising is welcome.

Advertising annoys consumers … except when they’re waiting. A Swiss survey confirms that traditional, expensive and saturated advertising is rejected by consumers. TV commercials annoy 3 out of 4 consumers. Mail and Internet advertisements annoy more than half of consumers, the same is true of radio, even if radio broadcasts 2 to 7 times more advertisements than television, for example. Advertisements in magazines and in the cinema only annoy 1 consumer in 4, and advertisements in newspapers and outdoors, which do not interrupt their activities, 1 consumer in 5. While advertising while consumers wait, such as for example in post offices, it is very well received by 9 consumers out of 10. In this context, advertising is considered entertainment.

– For greater impact

Studies published by independent advertising organizations, in Europe and the US, confirm that consumers are at least 2x more receptive while they wait. This is related to the fact that advertising is welcome in that particular context. A television commercial, for example, will be memorized by 17% of consumers if they see it on their television screen at home. The same ad will be remembered by 27% of consumers if they see it while in the doctor’s waiting room.

– For big budget savings

The main benefit of on-hold marketing is that by targeting consumers in the right place at the right time, companies can easily increase the impact of their message, while dramatically reducing their cost per contact and, as a consequence, their budget.

Standby marketing can maximize communication budget efficiency by turning consumer “wait time” into the perfect communication opportunity for brands.

A NEW APPROACH TO ADVERTISING

– Take advantage of advertising, promotion and direct marketing

Standby marketing campaigns can be carried out at points of sale and in places of life. Wherever a consumer is waiting: in stores, in traffic jams or while downloading a file from the Internet.

Wait marketing takes full advantage of advertising, point of sale promotion and direct marketing best practices, to enable all businesses to implement effective and efficient advertising campaigns.

– A win-win approach

Standby marketing is beneficial to both consumers and businesses, start-ups, and international groups.

Small businesses and startup executives, who dedicate their communication budget to sales promotion or direct marketing, can implement affordable advertising solutions. Advertisers, in large companies and agencies, who regularly invest in traditional media, are interested in this innovative and effective mode of communication.

As the ‘wait’ activity is universal, companies and agencies in the US, Japan, Africa and Europe can achieve substantial savings by using this consumer-friendly advertising approach in successful and affordable campaigns, in order to acquire new clients and establish clients. loyalty.

HOW TO IMPLEMENT A SUCCESSFUL WAITING MARKETING CAMPAIGN?

– 6 months of waiting marketing

Businesses and marketing agencies can easily design and implement a successful standby marketing campaign with the 6Ms method, which enriches the Kotler 5M (Mission-Means-Message-Media-Measurement) with the missing M, the Right Time. :

1. Mission: what is the objective of the campaign?

2. Media: what is the size of the budget?

3. Message: What message suits target consumers?

4. Timing: what is the perfect time to communicate with target consumers, when and where do they wait?

5. Means: What are the most effective means available while waiting?

6. Measurement: what is the return on investment of the campaign?

6M from wait marketing helps companies design a personalized campaign with a clear objective, a well-defined objective and an appropriate message, delivered in the right place and at the right time.

– Key success factors

In two years, TomTom has become the leader in GPS navigation in Europe, with a 60% market share, and is already second in the US Alexander Ribbink, TomTom COO and management guru brand, reveals the key success factors of standby marketing campaigns through the launch of the TomTom GO GPS navigation device:

1. Mission: launch the new TomTom GO portable GPS navigation device

2. Media: the budget was important but adapted to the launch of a product.

3. Message: Since the benefits of the product are obvious, the message is easy to remember.

4. Timing: when drivers wait while refueling their car at gas stations.

5. Media – The message was displayed on the filling boards. Other media were also used at the same time to increase brand awareness “Multimedia communication is the key success factor to reach all consumers”, highlights Alexander Ribbink.

6. Measurement – ROI was high because since GPS navigation penetration was low (at launch) but the need for navigation is fairly universal, all consumers were potentially on target.

TomTom’s campaign at the gas station is the perfect example of standby marketing: all consumers are on target (they are drivers) and are receptive to the ad (they are waiting while fueling their car).

HOW TO SELECT THE RIGHT MEDIA?

– Definition of the communication strategy

The following 4 questions must be answered by companies and agencies before starting a campaign:

Question 1: Extensive or intensive?

The goal of a broad campaign is to reach as many consumers as possible. The goal of an intensive campaign is for consumers to memorize it more, thanks to repetition.

Question 2: Continuous or one-shot?

A campaign can be permanent to encourage buybacks or unique to support a seasonal product or promotion.

In the case of consumer goods, advertising will be continuous.

Question 3: Multimedia or monomedia?

A campaign can be multimedia to reach all objectives or focused on a single medium if the objective is a niche (for specialized products for example).

Question 4: Launch or boost?

Is the objective to make consumers aware of a new product or to remind them of the existence of a product?

Waiting for marketing by communicating at the right time and in the right place increases consumer memorization, so that companies can focus on the number of consumers being reached.

– A medium adapted to the context

The 3 main criteria to take into account when selecting a medium are:

1. Congruence

Congruence between the media and the message: Heineken advertising on a bar table is the perfect example of the greater correspondence between the media (bar table) and the message (beer!)

2. Affinity

A good affinity between brand and consumer will strengthen the integration of the message

3. Context

The context in which consumers are at the time of communication is key: being in a good mood or waiting have revealed very positive about advertising effectiveness

Recently, Jaguar provided a perfect example of a tailored ad campaign, where congruence between the media and the message can dramatically improve the impact of communication. Thanks to an in-depth semiotic analysis of the luxury car category that was carried out, Euro RSCG New York noted that all players used the same codes and conventions. “When you are such a small player, you spend much less money than competitors, a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for success is to be a breakthrough and dare to break the conventions of the category,” says Francois Grouiller, the strategic planner. from the US In business. “And to connect with the high-level goal, we needed to be very ambitious and recreate the desire for the brand,” adds Andrew Benett, chief strategy officer for the New York agency. With that in mind, Fuel proposed to Jaguar a new and innovative positioning: “New Fashioned Luxury”. Jaguar’s idea is no longer to communicate as an automotive company, but as a modern and exciting luxury brand.

EXPECT COMMERCIALIZATION AND RETURN ON INVESTMENT

– Communications: Cost or Investment?

The effectiveness of a campaign can be measured in terms of impact on brand awareness and sales. But due to the lack of tailored measurement tools, companies often view communications as a cost center. Some tools allow companies to measure the impact of their communication strategy on all communication channels and thus optimize their budget allocation. Communications can then be viewed as a real investment.

– Return of advertising

In the same way that companies measure their return on equity, they can measure their return on advertising. The Market ContactAuditTM method, for example, proposed by Marketing & Communications Integration and already adopted by many top agencies such as Mediaedge: cia, TBWA or Starcom MediaVest Group, considers that each contact has a marginal contribution, which can be positive or negative, in the overall consumer experience with the brand. Companies can compare the return on investment of their communication campaigns with a multichannel tool, covering activities of media, promotion, direct marketing and public relations and optimize their contact portfolio in 2 easy steps:

Step 1: classification

It consists of ranking contact opportunities based on their contribution to the overall consumer brand experience.

Step 2: Focus

The Method invites to improve the contact portfolio against the competition and focusing on the most effective contacts.

That is exactly what Procter & Gamble did in Europe for one of its beauty and care products by analyzing its communications investments, comparing them with those of the competition and, as a result, focusing the communication budget on the most effective channel: the advertising in doctors’ waiting rooms.

Source: DERVAL Diana, Wait Marketing: Communicate at the Right Moment at the Right Place, DervalResearch, Amsterdam, 2007. Book available on Amazon.com and Chapter 5 for free on the official Wait Marketing website http: // www .wait-marketing .com

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