A familiar face on this panel: Lisa Charters from Random House is joined by representatives from Canadian Tire, Wildfire Marketing and Torch Partnership to discuss effective experience marketing in ‘fragmented digital age’.
Q: Where do gimmicks fit into a marketing plan?
- Transparency is more important than gimmicks (Canadian Tire). Respect the time and intelligence of your consumers: relevancy and frequency.
- Gimmicks only a short term fix…you don’t need gimmicks to add value when you use a customer-centric medium like the web. (Wildfire)
- Gimmick can be effective to hook attention of consumer—all marketing is gimmicky. e.g. Dominos Pizza now has a pizza tracker to track your order in real time (30 minutes or less). (Torch Partnership)
- Too expensive when you have as many products as Random House…but anything that helps to connect with readers goes beyond gimmick: i.e. PDF downloads of ARC with video clips of how a cover is chosen compared to just voting on three potential covers…
Q: How do you connect with emotional needs of consumers instead of just function?
- Resonance comes from using the truth. Being savvy means connecting truth with effective distribution method i.e. Dove’s real beauty campaign
- The Simpsonizer: fits with emotion of The Simpsons movie…fun and entertaining
- Gimmicks not always marketing—sometimes they are PR. Do a campaign that might not connect with readers but satisfies needs of other stakeholders (eg authors)
- Online panel for RHC helps validate assumptions and determine what gimmicks to use
Q: What doesn’t work?
- Anything that can backfire e.g. Bridezilla campaign from Herbal Essences. YouTube video that was supposed to be real but wasn’t generated a lot of bad buzz.
- Corporate blogging/Twitter streams can be dangerous but can show commitment to something even if it doesn’t work at first.
- Bad idea to jump on a bandwagon—new is innovative but copying someone else’s innovation will not pay off for brand
Q: Can gimmicks change behaviour?
- If gimmicks don’t increase transparency, then no.
- Yes, if the customer is glad that you interrupted them—or to design marketing that does not interrupt.
