Challenge: How do sectors that are primarily price lead (insurance, telecoms, travel etc) embrace price comparison sites to their advantage? Companies find themselves being compared directly on price, customer service and other factors against their competitors.  With consumers using comparison websites as a key element within their purchase cycle how can price lead markets use them to their advantage.

Proposal: Companies can integrate these comparison sites directly into their own shop fronts i.e. retail and website. As consumers are already with the companies retail properties it would be easier to explain the companies USP and objection handle while they are being compared against their competitors.

The advantages to a company:

• The brand perception would improve for the consumer and they would feel more empowered a good deal has been achieved for their personal needs.
• It is easier to convert consumers while they are within their properties.
• A deal can be negotiated with the chosen price comparison site on exclusivity.

Historical: The traditional DR model uses performance metrics that determine the effectiveness of a campaign or publisher (cost per call, cost per action, cost per sale etc) which is based on:

• A customer responds using a unique telephone that is allocated to a media channel, publishers, format and execution.
• A customer click on a search or display advert that is tracked through to the performance metric usually a request, order or sale within a determine session.

Today: Consumers have multiple routes to respond to an advertisement or show an interest in a company. These routes include; telesales, online reviews, comparison sites, social media websites, a brands own website and retail outlets. Consumers having greater control and access routes to a brand result tracking the influence of a specific publisher or campaign problematic.

An answer:

Combine three solutions (that need to work together):

Solution 1:  Use response metrics as an indicator that the publisher has the right audience (this could be an index rather than a cost per response) and plan holistically across total sales. Keep learnings based on a major changes  to determine any potential performance gains on the bottom line. 

Solution 2:  The audience that is responding from the above can be targeted based on their profile, media consumption and the brands own response data as the indicator for the most responsive time of day, day of week  and day of month.

Solution 3:   To truly understand media and publisher performance is Econometrics. The potential to base media planning on econometrics will ensure decisions are based on historical confident factors however there is a strong requirement for learning’s to be  timely and as real time as possible. An Econometrics system that feeds automatically off the brands response, sales data and success metrics that correlate the confident factors without human contact could ensure that any commercial gains are identified quickly. The learnings from this type of system would require an experienced planner/marketer to understand the true gains.

Utilising these solutions will ensure historical learnings, audience opportunities and the marketer/planners commercial insight can offer the best possible optimisation and ROI for brands.

Challenge: 
The optimum media mix for cross media DR campaigns have multiple factors that must be considered such as;  response rates,  potential volume,  conversion rate from visitors to customers and consumer journey.  Online display campaigns typically utilise post impression as a performance metric for DR campaigns without the true understand if the creative (banner, skyscraper etc.) actually influenced the consumer to buy a product. The true problem lies when analysing cross media because channels such as  TV,  Outdoor, Press, Search etc.. are not typically valued with the  same  metric i.e. if some sees a TV advert and then 15 days later walks into a retail store to buy a product the sale is not attributed back but would be with online display.

Solution:
If a response of a consumer can be transparently attributed back to a media channels then this should be the performance metric i.e. response rate, click through rate, etc... This metric can provide an indication of how close the media placement is towards the point of purchase. 

To get a true understand of the full media plan influence upon awareness and consideration then econometrics and path to purchase attribution models can be used.

An important note is that if awareness/consideration is an important element to the campaign then a brand campaign or a brand response campaign can be considered and these campaigns should have their own performance metrics i.e. consumer engagement, brand trackers etc...

Brief:
Customers of a leading car insurer become significantly more profitable once in their 2nd year of cover without claiming due to the original acquisition costs. This became increasing more important to the insurer over the last couple of years as the churn rate significantly increased year of year.

Potential solution:
Analysis of customers could prove that the high churn customers were acquired from online channels especially price comparison sites. However, online price comparison sites tend to be the most efficient channel for acquisition for  insurers. An interim solution would be to add a premium onto the policy when customers came through a certain channel, this helps offset the high churn rate and maintain volume from these channels however it is not a long term solution.

A longer term solution would be to devise a performance index that factored the acquisition costs and other desirable qualities the insurer required for a profitable book. These factored could include customers which were less likely to churn, default or claim on their insurance. The result was optimisation by media channel and publisher by a life time value index rather than purely acquisition.

How could this be possible:

• Allocate customers unique identifiers which detail the media channel and publisher that acquire the sale (unique refer tags online and unique telephone numbers offline)
• Customer data for interrogation

Interim solution:

• A premium added to the customers car insurance quotation should be a factor of the churn rate of the channel. The target premium would bring the channel back in line with the average 2nd year acquisition cost

2nd part of the solution

• Allocate customers back to the original media channel, publisher and investment
• The factors (cost per acquisition, churn rate etc) could be allocated a priority to determine the life time value index and ultimately maximised the profitability of the media mix.
• The business should migrate towards these desirable/profitable customers the media should be optimised on a regular basis

OBJECTIVES:  Achieve a sales target of 147,000.  Lead the second-tier insurance players by end of 2009

CAMPAIGN SUMMARY: TV was the principle channel,  a sustained online presence  was required across display, affiliates, aggregators and search whilst radio extended the reach to commuters to maximise coverage in rapid time.

RESULTS:  In launch month, calls and website visits doubled, with record sales (114% of plan) and Gross Written Premiums (112% of plan). Clicks are rising 235% and sales 400% month on month, with sales for July 198% ahead of plan.

Further information: WWW.DMAAWARDS.ORG.UK

PROFILE: A highly experienced marketer working for the world’s largest media group. I have extensive experience in leading effective marketing campaigns for category leading brands across highly competitive sectors. Currently as a planning director for the UK’s leading telecommunications brand I am at the forefront of strategic planning that is grounded in commercial return on investment.

The strong leadership I offer helps develop and coach team members to offer high levels of productivity.  With the influential skills to engage multi stakeholders across departments to align companies to deliver a potential commercial advantage.

I have a proven track record at maximising multi-million pound direct and brand campaigns to gain category leading market share. With significant experience of delivering campaigns across multi platform and multi channel ensures I deliver effective and economical communication for today’s complex consumer.

CORE COMPETENCIES:

• Devising consumer centric marketing strategies
• Strong project and team management skills
• Highly skilled across all media disciplines
• Multi million pound budgetary management
• Product portfolio management
• Leading multi media and multi platform marketing skills

WORK EXPERIENCE: 01/07/07 – Current employment

ZenithOptimedia: 2nd Largest advertising agency in the world

Position: Planning Director

Strategy and planning across the following brands:

Responsibilities:

• Strategic media planning across all media
• Management and development of 14 direct reports
• Multi million pound budgetary management
• Project management of key stakeholders and media departments

Media channel disciplines:

TV (Peak and DRTV) :: Search :: Outdoor :: Social :: Radio :: Door Drops :: Display Advertising :: Affiliate marketing :: Email Marketing :: SMS Marketing :: Press :: Inserts :: Mobile

01/09/06 - 30/06/07 - Creditplus Ltd: Finance specialists

Role: Marketing Manager

Responsibilities:

• Development and implementation of the advertising strategy
• Development and management of in house affiliate network
• Improve natural/organic listings (SEO) on search engines
• Management of marketing team, including a team of freelance journalists

Primary media skills:
Pay Per Click :: Search Engine Optimisation :: Display Advertising :: Affiliate marketing :: Email Marketing :: Press :: Inserts :: Doordrops

31/09/04 – 31/08/06  - Artavia/Conrad Advertising: A leading full service advertising agency

Responsibilities:

• Designing, implementing and reviewing campaigns across media
• Achieving annual and monthly budget targets
• Managing creative from inception through to execution

Primary media skills:
Search (PPC, SEO) :: Press (National and Regional) :: Out of Home :: Affiliate Marketing :: Display Advertiing :: Design and Print (D&P)

EDUCATION: 2000 – 2004 BSC (HONS) Upper 2:1 Business Communication Systems Bournemouth University.

Principle Subjects:

1998 – 2000 Higher National Certificate in Media Studies at Stratford Upon Avon College. Graded: Merit

1996 – 1998 A levels at Chipping Camden School, Gloucestershire; IT, Drama & Music

1994 – 1996 7x GCSEs graded between A and C at Chipping Camden School, Gloucestershire. Including; English, Science and Maths

PERSONAL COMPUTER SKILLS: Photoshop, Cubase SX, Fireworks, Content Management Systems ( CMS, Joomla), Word Press, HTML, PHP, Database development