Tom Connor heads the creative and production efforts at Weinrib & Connor in Mount Kisco. His columns on advertising and marketing will be regularly featured in the Business Journals.
Surely your favorite Super Bowl commercials have faded from your pre-frontal lobe, unless the advertisers used the game for the debut of a new campaign. We won”™t know that until we see that commercial again.
IMHO (in my humble opinion)? ICYMI (in case you missed it)? It”™s an indicting form of dyslexia in the digital age we’re in now to be illiterate with this alphabet soup. Looking them up via Google is no solution as many acronyms have multiple meanings, if not names of businesses. ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC were recently the subject of a CNBC roundtable article questioning the future of linear TV ”” the wired delivery so many decry. Some give the status quo another three years before the streamers truly dominate. Alas, the sky-high sports broadcasting rights seem to be the bugaboo, though most network folk were very bullish on their “high margin” business of advertising.
Recently, we enquired about a YouTube TV buy for a client in the region. Affordable commitment. Hulu, which used to be a $30,000+ minimum has come down a lot in price. We hear from many marketing-interested folk that cable is dying. Not in these parts with all of those Yankees and Mets fans! Of course, these interested folk have neither the budget nor the wherewithal to appreciate cable”™s reach. Never have, and never will. It”™s still part of many broadcast TV media plans, albeit the audiences skew male (sports) and older.
Older means more money to spend on consumer goods, durables, and services, too.
Second fiddle to cable and TV with ad efficacy is outdoor. It produces tremendous numbers for awareness, and it doesn”™t get mired down in digital clutter. It”™s known today as Out-of-Home. Billboards are very challenging creatively: they demand few words and simple visual. Can the message hold up for twenty days of viewership, even longer as commuters drive by day in and day out, without turning the audience off? Most agency creatives who work in the medium will attest to its supremacy as the most difficult medium. Alas, Westchester County is home to few billboards, and while Fairfield is helped by a longer span of I-95, it, too isn”™t quite as billboard-heavy as New Jersey. Speaking of billboards, in New Jersey, did you know there are more miles of highway in the Garden State than in Texas?
Our anti-traditional marketing favorite story of late is that of McIlhenny Company, manufacturer of Tabasco products. Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Lee Susen recently went on the record about their embrace of Instagram and TikTok. As Susen stated, “as a legacy brand, if you rest on your laurels, you drive the brand out of business.” With 90,000 followers on Instagram, it”™s mind-blowing to contemplate 500,000 followers on TikTok. The brand recently ran a promotion on Amazon, offering a free Chipotle voucher with purchase. Amazon/Whole Foods aside, is it worth shipping a bottle of Tabasco vs. going to the supermarket? We guess so. Susen wants to know, “what do the fans think?” In fact, a TikToker started posting about using Tabasco in salad dressings and the idea gained traction, enough so that a Tabasco line extension salad dressing is a new product offering, for a limited time, of course. Remember our quip, we want consumers who “love” products vs. merely “like.” If your marketing needs a little hot sauce, this is a pretty good prescription to follow.
As Washington is examining TikTok, I”™m reminded that our Framers in the late eighteenth century were obsessed with property rights, free speech and the sanctity of contracts. Sure, the high-flying Chinese intelligence machine can pirate data from our most avid TikTokers, but I question whether we need to worry — are these influencers/followers truly rewriting our cultural constitution? China has been pirating intellectual property of all kinds, for a while. Is the future of our American Civilization really at risk from TikTok? STEM curricula should get the same concerns in our legislative chambers. Not happening. More GenZ-ers now use TikTok in lieu of Google as their search engine. Where are the SEO champions, now?
Granted, most of you are not using TikTok to reach consumers, and buzzy media speak might be a lot of hogwash for you. If you are a “legacy” brand or business, the viewership age of your customer base will keep getting younger and these younger audiences are not as readily persuaded by traditional media and rarely go out on a limb about an organic social post; their digital swath encompasses a ton of screentime albeit with no more than a two-click attention span. Of course, if the creative kills, the medium is usually a moot point in the scheme of things. The data does not lie in this regard.
Back to the TikTok playbook. Their corporate team is opening public labs in Culver City, California, Washington, D.C., Dublin, Ireland, and Singapore so the powers-that-be (public and private sector) can see how they are sincere about not spying. This is so refreshing, the TikTok team, banking on their new lab oversight from Oracle, will do its best to show our federal officials they are not social media run amok or afoul of the law. And, if a TikToker were to hit “refresh” on their device, deleted would be all their favorite influencers and the algorithm will furnish them with new varied content that”™s different.
It”™s about that time in the fiscal year that a content calendar from March through June might be the solution to your social media ambitions. Plan the post topics for every other week, and get them going. Starting is the biggest hurdle. Come July and August, though half your audience will be on holiday one month or the other, post accordingly. Keep it light. August and September are back to school for many folks, so attention may not be paid. Late September until a week before Thanksgiving has much potential for posts, but we”™d suggest inviting fans to an event in this time period.
Why? Hands down, a great marketing event is THE strongest brand dynamic by far. They can be as expensive as a TV commercial shoot, or as cheap as rounds of drinks. How you make them special and coordinate the insane logistics of RSVPs are subjects for another time. Events generate their own media, pre-event, and post-event. They are in decline, but their yield can beat the daylights out of being fearful of them. Make yours — eventful!
