Backchannelmedia

Revolution

By Harwood, Susie

A true cross-media campaign is one that is tailored to its target audience and the different channels on which it is placed, finds Susie Harwood

Cross-media has become a commonly used term in the media- planning industry as the number of media channels available to advertisers continues to rise. But, there appears to be some confusion about what it actually means. As with many industry buzzwords, the definition is open to interpretation.

Mark Milner, chief operating officer at Associated New Media (ANM), says: "I think cross-media is one of the most commonly misinterpreted terms that is currently being bandied about the industry."

In a broad sense, a cross-media campaign can be taken to mean one that spans a number of channels; say, for example, TV, outdoor, web and mobile. But Milner believes a "true" cross-media campaign is much more. "Simply sticking an ad in a newspaper and running a few banners across the site is not a cross-media campaign," he argues. "That's a multimedia campaign.

"I would describe a cross-media campaign as one where there is actually a dialogue between the different media involved, where you have different media working together to achieve a single goal for the advertiser. Cross-media planning has a different starting point."

Target audience

So, where is that starting point? The most obvious place to begin is with the target audience. As Nick Suckley, co-founder of digital agency Agenda21, points out: "Consumers do not draw the same boundaries that we do. They don't live in a crossmedia world, they just do what they do. And it's only because we have agencies like ours - where we only do digital while other agencies have separate online and offline people - that we draw these artificial boundaries and invent terms like cross-media."

He adds: "But if you start with the consumer and find out what they do, their patterns of behaviour, and how different forms of media touch them or engage them at different points during the day and week, then you can start to build up a picture of when and where people are going to be more receptive to being engaged by an advertiser."

JonGhazi, media strategy manager at BT, agrees that the consumer should always be the starting point for any campaign, rather than a particular media channel, such as TV or the web.

However, that said, Ghazi believes that digital can often be a good place to begin the thought process. "It's important to try and get as much useful information about your audience as possible. Obviously, the digital environment lends itself to that as you can get loads of data from historical campaigns, which can give an indication or help you to develop insights about audiences."

For example, many online media owners, ANM included, offer advertisers behavioural targeting technology. This can be used to build up a picture of a brand's target audience's movements around a particular web site, so that ads can be targeted according to their behaviour and interests. This information can be used to help plan future campaigns, not just online, but across other media.

Appropriate channel

With the target audience defined, advertisers need to consider where that audience is going to be during the day in order to choose which channels are most appropriate to reach them. They also need to consider what their audience's mindset is likely to be at each point.

"I think it's easy to say 'I've got this idea of their movements throughout the day', but you have to understand the context. Recognising mindsets at different moments throughout the day is as important as recognising those moments themselves," Ghazi explains.

A great example of a brand tapping into consumer mindsets is British Airways' 'Have you clicked yet?' campaign (see case study), which positioned media in locations where consumers would most likely be queuing, such as train stations. It aimed to promote the message that BA's new online check-in service can help people avoid queues.

Milner suggests: "see if you can start a chain that perhaps starts on breakfast radio, moves into a newspaper, and moves online as they get into work, and then maybe finishes on TV when they get home in the evening."

However, he adds: "That doesn't mean just placing an ad on each channel.Those four touch-points with the consumer have got to link together. From the cross-media stuff we've done, we know that it is immensely powerful if you can contact consumers in the right environment and communicate with them in the mindset they're in.

"So, for example, print will pick up a consumer at one point in their decision-making process, perform the role that is required in the print product, and then take them to the web site where those consumers who want more information can interact."

It is vital that cross-media campaigns share a common theme or message throughout, particularly if the audience is being targeted at various times of the day through different channels. One way to ensure consistency, according to Ghazi, is to use "visual identifiers" or similar creative.

However, it is open to debate whether the creative in a cross- media campaign should be identical across every channel. "I don't think agencies, or clients for that matter, should allow the media and creative running across different channels to look different, unless it is specifically part of the campaign."says Suckley.

But, argues Ghazi: "It's not written in stone that the site should always look exactly like our offline ads as no one size fits all and each channel has a different role to play."

However, both Suckley and Ghazi agree that there needs to be a degree of consistency across all media, which is not as easy as it sounds, particularly if a brand uses separate creative and media agencies for each channel. In that situation, it is important to make sure the agencies are working closely together throughout the entire process.

"That's not just briefing them together, and then having each agency take the brief and run off in a different direction and do their own thing, which is still the norm," says Suckley. "It's making sure they are communicating effectively. To a certain degree, I think clients have to take responsibility and get agencies to talk to each other so that they are empowered to do it."

Correct climate

That's not to say the agencies shouldn't push this agenda as well, but the ultimate responsibility sits with the client. "Within the client community there does appear to be an expectation that the onus is entirely on the agencies for this," says Ghazi. "But clients need to create the correct climate so the agencies can effectively integrate."

He adds that BT has a number of initiatives in place to foster a culture of integration. These include regular integration meetings to discuss strategy and campaign delivery, and thorough campaign analysis across all disciplines to find the overall effect of the communications together. "This provides an opportunity for everyone to see the contribution of the different parts and learn a little bit more," Ghazi explains.

One of the most important things to recognise, as far as he is concerned, is that having specialisms is not a bad thing. "We need specialist knowledge. I may work more generically across all channels, but I don't have the specialist knowledge required to deliver a big, integrated, cross-media campaign," Ghazi adds.

"I rely on working with other people, both in-house and at agencies, to bring the specialist expertise to the fore. It's my role, as the client, to make sure these specialisms integrate."

Although integration is key, it is important not to get so caught up in the 'cross-media' aspect of the campaign that the merits of each channel in their own right are forgotten or ignored.

"Clients should concentrate on making the most of each specific media channel because print, TV and the web are all powerful mediums, and they have tremendous value in their own right," comments Milner. "I think clients need to be really clear about what they expect to achieve through a crossmedia campaign."

The sheer range of channels that are now available to advertisers can be quite overwhelming. If you take digital on its own, there are so many different varieties to choose from: online display ads, search marketing, affiliate marketing, interactive TV, mobile and outdoor digital media, among others. "It is immensely difficult in this modern age to tap into the many dozens of media that are now available to you,"adds Milner.

Suckley agrees that the growth of digital has made media planning more complex. "That's probably one of the biggest problems for digital media. We have so over-complicated the whole process that it's just horrendous. It's a very bitty medium to work in, and we have almost ended up down this very technologically driven route, where everything is in a different silo, but it shouldn't be and it doesn't have to be that way," he adds.

Get real

Brands should try not to fall into the trap of wanting to have a presence everywhere and run a campaign across every single channel. This is immensely difficult to plan and execute effectively. "Get real about your media choice and don't be seduced by all the modern technologies. There will be a right time and a wrong time to use these different environments," says Milner.

He advises those cli\ents planning a cross-media campaign to start off small and use one, two or three mediums; say, print or TV and the internet. "Just make sure you are savvy enough to be able to track the response because it's all well and good doing cross- media, but you need to know what the impact was," says Milner. "You can then review your knowledge and build from that point."

Clients should think about asking questions such as 'What impact does TV have on my search activity?' or 'Does outdoor advertising cause a higher propensity of people to click on ads on MSN?'. This will enable them to develop real knowledge and understanding of how the different channels within their cross-media mix work together.

"A good example that we found with a financial client we used to work with is that TV has a profound impact on search," recalls Suckley. "We were able to feed this insight back into the communications planning process, so that when we were runningTV activity we were able to adjust our search strategy. That had a big impact on overall efficiency."

Despite the fact that digital is increasing in importance and forming a more significant part of crossmedia campaigns, it is still often viewed as the secondary medium.

So, for example, TV will often be the lead medium that aims to drive consumers online to the web site where they can find out more information. However, internet consumption has increased rapidly over the past couple of years and many consumers are now engaging with brands online in the first instance.

"I think that there are already examples of where you have got someone sitting in front of a PC and interacting with a particular brand on the internet well before they interact with that brand in a broadcast sense," Ghazi points out. "Online can be a directional medium."

However, few advertisers have started thinking that way at the planning stage. "I've got to be frank; we are not having any of those conversations that I'm aware of currently," admits Milner. It will be interesting to see how and when the internet starts to take the primary role in the cross-media relationship rather than the secondary role it performs today. But, "I think it will definitely happen", he adds.

Target ads

Milner says, for example, that a brand could capture someone on a site who is reading an article about home improvement.Then, using behavioural targeting technology, the brand could target an ad to that person with the message 'If you found this interesting you might like to watch the home improvement show at this time, on this day, sponsored by us'.

"That's cross-media because you are tapping into a consumer on the internet in an environment that's right for them, and you're driving that consumer to a different medium where you also have a brand association,"says Milner.

"The majority of cross-media is 'I have made my primary media choice, which is probably print or TV, and how does the internet support that?',"he adds. "The brave advertiser - the smart advertiser - is going to work out that you can turn it around. There is an opportunity to tap into the amount of time that consumers are spending online and take them from that medium to another."

Masterclass panel

Mark Milner is chief operating officer at Associated New Media, the digital arm of Associated Newspapers, where he has responsibility for all operational aspects of ANM sites, including The Daily Mail, Metro and Evening Standard. He joined in April 2001.

NiCkSuckley is co-founder of Agenda21. He started out in traditional media at McCann Ericsson and Express Newspapers before jointly setting up digital agency media21 in 1999. It merged with Grey-owned media.com. which Suckiey helped run for four years.

Jon Ghazi has been BT's media strategy manager for two and half years, helping to develop its through-the-line media strategy. He has experience on the agency side, including a five-year stint at OMD planning campaigns for brands like Vodafone and Budweiser.

BA keeps the message consistent in cross-media push

When British Airways wanted to develop a campaign to push its new web services, including online check-in, it aimed to communicate the benefits, such as saving people time, as well as the technology itself.

BA planned a cross-media campaign that featured a range of digital and offline media, including: ATMs; outdoor LCD transvision screens, incorporating bluecasting; digital escalator panels; online advertising; TV ads; and press.

Each ad was tailored to the media used, but they all carried the same 'Have you clicked yet?' tagline, giving consistency throughout.

However, the campaign went further than simply tailoring the ads to the media. BA's digital agency, Agency.com, came up with the idea of tapping into specific consumer mindsets or lifestyle situations where the core message would resonate stronger.

For example, aiming to tap into the frustration that people feel while queuing, Agency.com used transvision screens at railway stations to push the message that BA's online check-in service could cut out the queues.

The agency also targeted people in situations where they were already doing things that saved them time, such as using an ATM rather than going into a bank's branch, so it placed ads on cash machines.

Online ads were also shown on the log-out pages of banking sites and online shopping sites such as John Lewis; another situation where people were saving time. "The message was, 'Here's another way to save time by checking in online with BA'/'saysHeidi Noujeim. head of strategy and planningatAgency.com.

At the planning stage, it was decided that digital would be the key medium for the campaign as the target audience were early adopters who spend a lot of time online.

But. the work was closely integrated across all other channels. For example, the transvision screens allowed people to download further information to their mobiles via Bluetooth.andTVads signed off with BA.com to drive people to the web site, where they could try the new services or find out more.

Ba.com: went further than just tailoring each ad to suit the media type and target audience

Top tips on cross-media planning

1 True cross-media planning requires a core thought that runs through and shapes the campaign. Anything else is just media layering or multimedia optimisation. In reality, the latter makes up much of what still goes on under the banner of cross-media or integrated planning.

2 Media isn't just ads. Include all channels: sales promotion, PR, POS and events.

3If you're dealing with separate agencies, bring them together from the start. If you keep them separate, they behave separately - you must encourage and reward collaboration.

4 The same goes for your internal structures: make sure all teams are communicating.

5 With the core thought in place, identify the main strengths and contribution of each channel, but don't fall into the 'broadcast for brand, direct for digital trap.

6 Too often, we define a separate digital strategy. Though better than no strategy, there should be an overall one that includes digital.

7 Clarify your objectives and what you expect each channel to deliver, both singularly and in combination. Don't have too many aims.

8 Keep some budget for testing new ideas and be ready to fail. Opportunities emerge every day. Learn now to avoid big mistakes later.

9 Ensure your evaluation mechanics can deliver cross-media results. If your tracking only picks up TV awareness, that's all you'll end up doing.

10 Don't be fooled that everyone is doing this better. They aren't. There is a competitive advantage to be gained from true cross-media.

Thanks to Danny Donovan, director of Initiative Digital

Checklist

Questions that should be considered when planning a cross-media campaign

* Have you identified your core target audience?

* Which media channels are most appropriate to engage that audience group?

* Have you considered what mindset and time of day your audience is likely to be in when engaging with each medium?

* Is there a common theme and message across all channels in your campaign with which users will be able to immediately identify your brand?

* Are there other ways of linking the channels?

* If you're using separate agencies for each channel, have you taken steps to ensure they are working together and communicating effectively throughout the planning process?

* Are you being sensible with your choices? Don't try to use too many channels at the same time.

* Have you considered how you're going to track your cross-media campaign? You should look at how each channel affects the others.

Copyright Haymarket Business Publications Ltd. May 2006

(c) 2006 Revolution. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.