PACKAGING: It’s the ultimate first conversation with the consumer. The package must call attention to itself, set the product apart from the category and other products in its own line. I don’t understand why packaging is so often regarded as separate from the selling process, a stepchild of sorts in the marketing family. Thinking of packaging and point-of-purchase as brand assets to be invested in, and deployed like other managed assets, helps to focus on how important they are to the final sale. A family of packages can reassure consumers by projecting a persuasive brand personality and value-added consistency. At their most effective, packages can jump off the shelf, provide assurance of quality (or sexiness, or intelligence, or popularity, or etc., etc.)… and close the sale.
On your scorecard, give your brand from 0 to 10 points for packaging and point-of-purchase strengths. If you’ve got a strong retail presence compared to your competitors, but one that can’t be compared with the best of the best, don’t give yourself more than 5.
REACH AND FREQUENCY: When most people think of advertising effectiveness, they tend to think in terms of an ad budget. So, a few people are fooled into thinking “If we spend twice as much on our advertising, we will get twice the results.” It has never been true, and it’s getting even less true every day. In an age where niche markets are proliferating and mass markets are mostly myth, it is very helpful to think of reach, frequency, and ad content as related, but separate, assets in your portfolio.
Reach has become even more important than frequency with so many new marketing tools to target “rifle-shot” segments. These tools have created efficient new ways to get to specific consumer affinity groups and psychographic slices of the almost-extinct mass audience. (Remember, general-interest magazines? Reader’s Digest and Time are practically gone.) Frequency is still basically deploying money against markets, boxcar numbers flexing budgetary muscle. Market segmentation strategies can, however, deliver more leveraged results with equal frequency but, relatively, smaller budgets. So, give yourself 0 to 10 points for smart segmenting… plus 1 to 3 points for Share of Voice: media spending below (1), at (2), or above (3) the spending level of competitors.
Tune in tomorrow for “Ad Content” and “Promotion.”
