Welcome to the first edition of the Xtreme Insight newsletter - a monthly synthesis of key insights from our bespoke ongoing marcoms research and analysis.

 

Much of our recent work has addressed a diversity of recession-related marcoms challenges. These have ranged from answering the direct question as to whether financial brands should consider apologizing for their role in the recession, to exploring how digital media can be used to cut the cost of communication in areas such as brochures, billing and C2C referral campaigns. Building on some of this research, May sees Xtreme Insight launch our ‘Credit Crunch Case Studies’ report: a showcase of 50 recessionary campaigns. Click here for further details

If you have a marketing challenge then we can help understand > inspire > direct – so don’t hesitate to contact us with a question or a brief at matthew.carlton@xtremeinsight.net
 

Rebuilding Trust - Financial Sector Downturn Marcoms 
 
  ‘Trust’ is the most common message in contemporary financial advertising as marketing evolves to tackle the crisis and win back consumer confidence. Most banks claim to have learned the lessons from the crash and are reinventing their marcoms norms by rebuilding around their consumers, but our research shows little evidence of this in their advertising. Today’s banking activity is dominated by a clutter of clichéd messages based on security, heritage, scale and long termism. These are typically communicated via an assuring/passive strategy (or occasionally by an aggressive/threatening one). Recently we’ve been offering recession-related strategic insights for several financial clients, exploring how they can rebuild trust by embracing internet age values of openness, sharing and consumer control to re-establish consumer confidence. One project focused on how banking brands might regain control of their advertising story and this included exploring the idea of ad apologies for their role in the financial crisis. A risky strategy certainly – but at least it might cut through the clutter.
 

March Marketing - G20 Protest Messaging
 
  One fascinating aspect of the G20 protests was how marchers used contemporary advertising approaches to communicate their disapproval of aspects of the capitalist system. We were at the marches exploring and recording the marcoms tactics being used. Our slideshow of banners and placards shows how protestors re-tooled marketing tactics, brand logos, ad taglines and famous campaigns themselves to criticise and condemn the very system those ad strategies were created to promote. The protestors deliberately used language that marketers understand (by employing discourse invented by ad men) in the hope that the advertising community
(as well as bankers, businessmen and politicians) listened to what they have to say.
 

Customer Referral – More Believable And More Economical
 
  The breakdown of trust in banks, companies and even capitalism are further driving the end of the top down, vertical advertising era dominated by strategies based on brand-biased ‘facts’. More and more advertisers are switching to more horizontal, consumer-focused approaches. As the landscape changes, with more consumer control, choice and cynicism, the importance of C2C initiatives grows. Whilst working on a customer referral strategy project this month, Insight discovered that consumers trust word of mouth from friends and family more than any other form of advertising. Research suggests that 76% of all global consumers cite word-of-mouth recommendations from peers as their primary source of information for purchasing decisions. As well as being more 
believable, campaigns spread virally by consumers cut media budgets too - something all marketers and CFOs are seeking in the downturn. However, quite how much consumers should trust peer-to-peer marketing is open to debate. After all, our research also discovered that 7 in 100 US mothers work for Vocal Point and 1 in 100 US teens work for Tremor (both are P&G word of mouth/customer advocacy schemes). One wonders how transparent these ambassadors are in the playground and the nursery.
 

E-Billing Benefits – Control, Convenience and Ecology
 
  Another digital method many marketers are adopting to cut costs is to switch from paper to electronic bills and statements. Despite the potential savings, recent Insight work for an E-Billing marcoms planning project reveals that only 2% of campaigns in 2008/9 promoted a compulsory switch to online and just 17% offered consumers some form of tangible incentive to switch. Surely, if the brand is going to benefit financially, then it should offer some form of consumer cost benefit too? Yet our analysis shows the primary consumer
benefit messages in E-Billing switchover campaigns splits equally into thirds between ‘control’, ‘convenience’ and ‘ecology’ – with little mention of financial benefits at all.
 

Auto Advertisers Accelerate Digital Revolution – Is It The End For The Print Brochure?
 
  The hard hit automotive sector is also accelerating the replacement of traditional media with digital alternatives – which was the subject of the recent Sophus 3 automotive conference at which Insight spoke about the rise of internet TV. Some car marques are even considering abandoning that bastion of auto communication that is the brochure. Print brochures have been at the heart of brand and dealer communication for decades and yet they are fixed, inflexible, impersonal and expensive to print and distribute. A recent Insight project into print brochure alternatives suggested the reasons for abandoning
the old ways are becoming more compelling year-by-year: print and distribution costs are rising, people are reading less print than ever, DM is damaging the environment, average number of dealership visits are falling and consumers are spending longer than ever researching car purchases online before going to dealerships. Most brands are experimenting with a range of cheaper, more flexible, greener and more customisable alternatives – such as widgets, podcasts, web keys and flash pdfs – but, as yet, few have taken the plunge and abandoned the old approach. Perhaps the financial necessities of the recession will hasten the end of the traditional car brochure.
 

Credit Crunch Case Studies – Stimulus, Thought Generation & Best Practice 
 
  Many of our clients have been asking us to analyse how global brands and advertisers in specific sectors and direct competitors are addressing the downturn in their advertising. Over recent months we have sourced and explored a wide range of campaigns tackling the recession directly and indirectly. We have analysed activity using numerous different tactics and strategies – from nostalgia, patriotism, home and community, consumer rallying cries, calls to action, and from financial guarantees, security and assurance promises, combined ecology and economy benefits, gloom-lifting
positivity and escapism. We have brought the best of these together in our new ‘Credit Crunch Case Studies’ report: an international showcase of over 50 campaigns from 11 industries featuring 75 executions including campaign details and analysis. An essential tool for stimulus, through generation, tactical inspiration and recession-related advertising insight.
 
 

 
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