From top to bottomShould your entire campaign hinge on one ‘big idea’?

Nick Barthram Principal Digital Planner

Dan Watt Performance Marketing Director

Top-down planning, or integrating around the ‘big idea’, has been considered best practice in marketing for decades. But in this fractured digital age, where waiting just an extra second for a page to load can cause customers to shop elsewhere, is it still right?

In their New Models of Marketing Effectiveness, the IPA found that campaigns with no central idea, or which hadn’t been planned ‘top-down’, performed almost as well as some integrated campaigns and better than others (see below).

Is it still just about the big idea?

“We challenge the assertion that integration is always best; campaigns that are not integrated, but for which each channel is planned and executed separately, can be extremely effective, and since they may take much less marketing resource to manage, should be considered a useful route to pursue.”

So, on average, there is a marginal increase in performance from integrating your marketing with your brand (e.g. Apple, Nike), but not from integrating it with an advertising idea (e.g. the CompareTheMarket meerkat). So if we’re slightly freed from the shackles of the big idea – how can we turn planning from the bottom-up to our advantage?100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%No

integrationAdvertising-led

integrated

Source: IPA, New models of Marketing Effectiveness

Brand idea-led integrated

Participation-led integrated

Effectiveness success rate

0.74 0.720.79

0.38

First, some lessons from the uber-bottom-up channel – performance marketing.

A performance marketing campaign is only as strong as its weakest link. Always ensure that you’re clear on what you want to achieve and check that your tracking set-up is optimal. And then check again. Campaign decisions from inaccurate data will always undermine.

Segmentation is key Never, ever, run campaigns without a segmentation strategy in place: no segments means no option to optimise.

Star performers Analyse campaign data to establish your star performers, both within and across channel. Ensure that these elements are always on and, wherever possible, at saturation point in volume terms.

Embrace failure Even the best planned strategies will have areas of poor performance. As long as you learn from them, mistakes can be invaluable.

Context is king Consumers use numerous devices and expect brands to deliver seamless experiences across all screen sizes. Always ensure that creative tone and calls to action are mindful of the device on which the communication is consumed. Timing is crucial – consider how a user might receive and act on your invitation at different times of the day, or days of the week. Augment your approach accordingly.

Learning from performance marketing

Cookies are the new keywords Take advantage of how personalisation can be delivered across all performance marketing channels. Consider what determines the segment in which a given user resides, and allow them to customise the ads they see by the characteristics they’ve displayed.

Adopt early Adopt relevant new campaign features as early as possible. Early adopters learn the fastest, and do so most efficiently. More competition equals increasing costs.

Act natural Performance marketing offers data in plentiful supply. But don’t let data dictate everything – leave room for an overarching campaign idea. Don’t look for correlations in data that don’t exist, and always force yourself to question conclusions. Reassuringly, we’re not robots, and neither are our audience. The data doesn’t always win, but interpreting it effectively alongside your brand strategy will massively increase your chances of success.

Learning from performance marketing

How to blend top-down and bottom-up approaches

Define a clear strategic and creative lead

In an ideal world, multiple departments or agencies could work in a perfectly democratic way on a single campaign, In reality, it’s usually a fight for the most budget. If you can’t have democracy, aim for a (benevolent) dictator; give one group strategic and creative leadership and the power to enforce it.

Define a clear brand idea and behaviour

Remember that the IPA survey suggested the best integration is aligned to the brand - not a campaign idea. A lot of brands fail here by having very weak brand purposes and expressions. Tighten and focus your brand and then integrate around it.

…but promote and measure collaboration

A global study run by Admap in 2013 found that brands which directly measured collaboration between their agencies and departments saw up to a 20% increase in performance on both agency and client side.

…but let the experts do their thing

Once the brand idea is tightly defined, hand this over (rather than strict creative guidelines) to your experts, and allow them the freedom to optimise for their channels. The brand idea should be a platform rather than a ball and chain.

How to blend top-down and bottom-up approachesHow to blend top-down and bottom-up approaches

Pre-testing doesn’t work

It’s always tempting, but don’t pre-test your big idea. It’s been shown in The Dangers of Common Sense that, on average, campaigns without pre-testing outperform those with it.

Devise a holistic channel plan

Although the average customer decision journey has got shorter and more complex, there will still be several touchpoints in the decision making process. Make sure your strategic leads have mapped out the decision ecosystem and specified the objectives of each. Research says the most effective number of different channels is seven.

…but test-and-learn drives performance

By focusing on testing the various applications of the idea, rather than the idea itself, your channel experts will be able to greatly improve the performance of your campaigns.

…but keep the message simple

The IPA found an inverse relationship between the complexity of a marketing message and its likelihood to change behaviour. A large decision ecosystem creates the temptation to create a progressive narrative across your touchpoints, but it’s unlikely that your prospects will see all these points. Keep each channel optimised to its objective, but include the whole story – simply.

In summary, big ideas are most effective when they are manifestations of the brand idea itself. Pass them to your channel experts and allow them to optimise their campaigns from the bottom-up, inspired rather than constrained by the original thinking.

Optimise from the bottom-up

If you have a business challenge, or just fancy

a chat about rowing or gardening, then give

Alan a call:

Alan Thorpe

Digital and Data Director

Email: athorpe@brayleino.co.uk

Twitter: @brayleinoyucca

Phone: +44 (0)7710 404 382

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