Woolworth's lost its way by losing relevance over a number of years and of course you keep relevant by marketing...isn't that right? Well we can't turn this post into another 'keep your nerve, brands that spend through come out stronger' story - we need another post like that like an Icelandic bank account.
But maybe the world that marketers operate in actually hasn't changed that much as a result of a global meltdown in financial markets? I would suggest that the only thing that has changed is the perception of risk and uncertainty that was always there. So all thats changed is that marketers these days are much less likely to take risks than they were previously.
The point is that marketers are less likely to take on a high-risk high-reward scenario these days. What I am advocating here is that we need to take risk into account when we give our clients advice. Low-risk High reward scenarios are like gold dust...So what should we tell them? Well, how about something like this?:
Let's focus on the top 20% of customers; strengthen the value of our relationship with them and improve their lifetime value. Guess what? they aren't sitting around at home discussing our brand so, if we are going for low-risk low-reward scenarios (at least until the equity markets turn) we need to be right there when they decide to spend THEIR valuable dollars
That leads us to search. Yes, search, that's some potential right there...the ultimate low-risk high reward marketing opportunity. All the brand has to do is turn up. Just turn up and be the number 1 on the list with a message that echoes a human being having their problem solved by our brand. Because if we aren't there...right when they are looking for us they might just think we've gone out of business. It happened to Sharper Image and Woolworth's and no doubt others in the coming months. It's that uncertain a world.
1 comment:
Sharper image is gone too!!! booo
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