What interests me from a marketing perspective, is the way drink driving campaigns have continually failed to deter significant numbers of people from continuing this dangerous behaviour. The Facebook group has over 25,000 members, and more than 50,000 Australians are caught driving over the legal limit each year.

Public Service campaigns, like ones promoting anti-Drink Driving, use a specialised from of Marketing. Social Marketing uses commercial marketing techniques to influence long-term behavioural change to improve personal welfare and that of the community. Key differences between traditional company-focused marketing and social marketing include:

• Long-term behavioural change opposed to influencing purchase decisions and increasing brand recognition;
• A recognition of competition in the form of the competing/current behaviour;
• Determination and definition of what improves personal welfare and societal welfare.

The aim of Social Marketing can be to encourage certain ‘protective behaviours’, such as applying sunscreen or stop practicing ‘harmful behaviours’ like smoking, or in this case, drink driving.

So why have traditional fear-based anti-drink driving campaigns failed?

Many drink driving campaigns in Australia have focused on injury or death, resultant from driving under the influence. While still a significant number, the annual number of drink driving related deaths is less than 1% of all people caught. This means many of the people who don’t directly see the potentially devastating consequences of their actions may not relate to the violent ads.

As Social Marketing campaigns focus on increasing the benefits of and reducing the barriers of performing the desired behaviour, the likelihood of a campaign being successful and creating long-term behavioural change is dependent on a person’s willingness to behave in the particular way.

Without generating significant relevance to the people performing the behaviour, the ads will always fail. One way Ogilvy Brasil managed to become more relevant was to convert the gruesome outcomes of drink driving into an itemised cash amount. They then targeted these people at the ‘decision making time’ – when preparing to leave a club after a night of drinking.

The competition to drink driving is, for a number of different reasons, that ‘impaired driving is acceptable’. Many people don’t experiencing road accidents, and thus don’t see the consequences of their actions first hand. Instead of the recurring negative focus on harm and physical injuries drink driving can cause, advertisers should move towards more realistic ads, with less of the gruesome ‘shock and awe’.

A video produced by Sherry Matthews Advocacy Marketing for the Texas Department of Transportation also highlights some of the consequences that don’t end up in hospital, but rather take the form of financial costs and impaired social function. This makes it more accessible and relevant to the ‘average Joe’ – which will in turn deliver a greater cut-through to the general population.

Due to the nature of the medical industry, it makes sense that many specialist clinics focus their marketing on increasing the number of referring GP’s to their practice.  Due to the cost and time involved with visiting individual GP practices, print newsletters are usually used in conjunction with GP visits.  However, sending print newsletters can be a costly exercise, after design, printing, and postage are taken into account.

The cost-effectiveness and ability to precisely measure the results of on-going email marketing has lead many businesses to supplement or even replace their print newsletters with electronic newsletters.

In this case, we are supplying more content about a wider range of topics, which we were previously unable to do due to the limitations and cost of print media.  We can also see exactly what content is most popular with the recipients, allowing us to tailor future newsletters to the interests of our target market.

Our objective was to increase the number of visitors to the TSGQ website.  The results of using effective email marketing are clear:  Direct website views were up almost 300% from email marketing over print newsletters.

Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective methods for on-going brand building and marketing.  With email use approaching near-saturation in Australia, the versatility and effectiveness of email marketing are why it should form an essential part of your organisation’s marketing strategy.

Devices such as the iPhone offer retailers new avenues for point-of-sale.

The simple mobile phone has come a long way in the past few years.

In the past, devices promised ‘mobile internet’, but in reality delivered a significant cut down, text based WAP portal, with limited support for services and content.  These ‘grandfathers of mobile internet’, included phones such as the Nokia 3510i and Communicator series, and were the first to bring true GPRS internet services to the masses.

The biggest problem with these phones was the lack of mobile-optimised content. Standard GPRS in 2G network is generally about 4 times slower than 3G transfer rates.

In recent years, almost all phone manufacturers produce handsets with mobile internet capabilities. In fact, smartphone and internet enabled devices are the fastest growing mobile phone segment in the Western world.

The prevalence of mobile internet access offers significant marketing and transactional opportunities.  Mobile phones are also one of the few personal belongings to be carried on a person at all times.  The potential for ‘in the moment’ transactions and information search is a key benefit of mobile internet applications.

So what are companies doing to hook up with these consumers?

According to many, the obvious answer is the use of Social Marketing sites like Facebook and Twitter. With an estimated 75% of Australian Facebook users accessing Facebook Mobile, it seems like logical reasoning to market where the people are.

Until you dig a little deeper.

Most people don’t go on Facebook to connect with companies. They use it to post status updates, see what their friends are doing and check out the pictures from last night’s party. The exception is when they are deriving value from being a fan of a company. This is usually in the form of original, informative or humourous content. But unless you have fresh, riveting content, delivered on an almost daily basis, you’ll find most users switch off.

The real power of mobile marketing is one of the key benefits of ‘desktop’ internet: a device which saves time or money, or one which provides consumers access to items or information which would usually be restricted due to geographical constraints. In particular – turning all those handsets into digital shopfronts.

Online shopping has become more commonplace over the past decade. As first world Internet access approached 90%, consumers have become more trusting of online shopping, to the point where during 2006, $146.4 billion was spent online in the US alone.

The real strength of online shopping is in products that are easily relevant to many people, across many demographic, geographic and personal attributes.  Items such as books, CDs/DVDs, and electronic goods are ideal as they are standardised, a wide range of people purchase them, and unlike clothing items, do not require sizing.

So we’ve established the power of Internet shopping to companies. But that’s old news.

Imagine now that all these online shopfronts were available to consumers not just when they are in front of a computer, but rather available anytime, anywhere, in their pocket.  Imagine a device consumers already carry everywhere, permanently connected to your online store.

Companies in America have identified the benefits of having such an online store permanently in consumers’ pockets. Amazon has integrated their mobile internet offering successfully into their business model. Recently the retail giant announced sales on mobile devices totalled $US1 billion in the previous year for the first time in the company’s history.

Even the device manufacturers have realised the potential for continual revenue streams form the linking of device to online store. The first major player to do this effectively was Apple, linking the iPod with the Apple iTunes Store. The nature of the iTunes store – which was embedded into the only application which could update an iPod – meant revenue through the iTunes store is estimated to be well over $1 billion annually. This growth has predominately been borne through a combination of convenience and price.

Amazon has also had great success with their Kindle electronic book reader, by linking it exclusively to their online store.  In the last three months, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon sold, they also sold 143 kindle e-books. In June alone, they sold 180 kindle e-books for every 100 hardcovers.  However unlike the iTunes store, which is only available through Apple products and applications, the Amazon mobile store is available on almost all popular devices – including the iPad, iPhone and most Blackberrys. This represents the majority of devices in use today.

Again, the simplicity and ease of purchasing is what makes these online stores successful.  By offering it on a range of devices and platforms you open your store up to many more potential customers, 24 hours a day.

Brisbane Writers Festival 2010 Character collateral

The Brisbane Writers Festival begins this week throughout the State Library of Queensland precinct.  Featuring writers and authors from all over the world, this year will surely be even bigger than previous years!

Brisbane Writers Festival has been celebrating reading, writing and ideas with the people of Queensland and showcasing Queensland writers to the world for nearly fifty years.

BWF 2010 will continue to reach beyond the traditional genres by incorporating the broader arts, food writing, music and lyric composition, art analysis and other non-fiction topics.

Just a few of the guests presenting at this years festival include David Suzuki, Jessica Watson, Steve Cannane and Former PM Bob Hawke.

Next Step Marketing will be at the festival the entire week -  filming and recording sessions, interviewing the presenters and capturing the energy and buzz that this event generates.  If you see Michael walking around with the recording equipment, make sure you come and say hello! You might even see yourself in one of the official videos posted on the Brisbane Writers Festival website!

Advertising Shapes Society

Advertising creates brand equity and generates sales, both of which lead to increased wealth. The power and money possessed by today’s corporations is staggering. Data from the World Bank (2005) and Fortune Magazine (2005) show that of the world’s largest 150 economic entities, 95 are corporations and only 55 are countries.   These companies and organisations can spend millions or even billions of dollars on advertising to achieve behavioural change, usually to increase their market share or purchase a product. Alternatively, advertising can be used to increase the number of people using their products or services.  This gives companies and organisations the potential to significantly alter the market, and in some situations alter social norms and perceptions.

These masses of wealth are presided over by self-serving companies which can cause an ethical and potentially legal dilemma. According to Bocking, there are many cases where “industry buys science” (2009).  His research states that the companies who use science to conceal hazards include car manufactures, lead refiners, asbestos miners, nuclear processors, chemical producers and drug manufacturers, amongst others.  Not only that, some of the companies most involved in fighting cancer caused by tobacco have profited greatly from producing anti-cancer drugs. This has lead to a heavy focus on healing and assisting those who are diagnosed with cancer – instead of dealing with the intrinsic issues and working from a preventative level to discourage the widespread use of tobacco.

Advertising products such as tobacco has now been banned in most western countries – but that does not necessarily mean tobacco advertising does not exist. Cigarette companies funnel a huge percentage of their advertising budget into ‘subliminal brand exposure’. Philip Morris, which manufactures Marlboro cigarettes, offers bar owners financial incentives to fill their venues with colour schemes, specially designed furniture, ashtrays, suggestive tiles designed in captivating shapes similar to parts of the Marlboro logo, and other subtle symbols that, when combined, convey the very essence of Marlboro – without even mention of the brand name or the sight of an actual logo. This has resulted in studies showing up to 96% of participants who, when shown these images, thought of the tobacco brand or of smoking cigarettes, but the majority could not identify why (Lindstrom, 2008).

In 2002, the European Union passed a law stating that no advertisements may show a tobacco company logo or any cigarette product. However, Marlboro has had a long association with Ferrari and Formula 1 and up until this year, had displayed a ‘barcode’ logo down the body of the Formula 1 car. It is claimed that the barcode represented a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, due to the colours, shapes and sizes of the image. Neuro-marketing studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have shown the areas in the brain which respond to reward, craving and addiction to have the exact same pronounced response to both actual cigarette packs and the red Ferrari (Gillis & Clegg, 2010).  The health issues associated with smoking are well documented.  It is estimated tobacco kills one third to half of all people who use it – and tobacco use causes one in ten deaths amongst adults worldwide (World Health Organization, 2008).  It is clear that companies such as Marlboro are promoting cigarette use, and whether ethical or not, it is in their own interest to promote their products to maximise their profit.  In this case, advertising is shaping society in a specific way: increased cases of smoking related illness, increased demand on the health system to care for the ill, increased waste from cigarette butts, and also increased taxes from consumers purchasing the products.

As mentioned above, the end result of advertising is to raise awareness of a product, service, brand or issue, and in many cases for some kind of self-benefit. It is up to consumers to make up their minds whether they want to perform the behaviour, whether it is making a purchase or supporting a cause.  But is it possible to persuade people and make it more likely they will perform a desired behaviour?

Humans exist in an extraordinarily complicated stimulus environment, easily the most complex and rapidly moving society that has ever existed on this planet. It is not possible for any human to experience every situation that could ever occur – so humans have developed a shortcut: using stereotypes and trigger features (Cialdini, 2007). Some examples of different stereotypes and trigger features used in advertising include “expensive = good”, the use of contrast, and social proof.  The theory of social proof provides us with the shortcut of “if others think the product is good, then it must be good”.  This allows advertisers to “make claims such as ‘fastest growing’ or ‘best-selling’, without actually making any claims that the product is good” (Cialdini, 2007, p. 117).  Again, this gives advertisers the opportunity to encourage people to participate in a desired behaviour.

The theory of social proof is integrated into many other fields in a way that would shape society. One example is the promotion of cigarettes in movies. Throughout the 1950s, 60s and 70s, tobacco companies would regularly pay producers to have celebrities smoke a certain brand of cigarette throughout the movie. This is significant as it has been reported that amongst female adolescents who previously hadn’t smoked, those who had seen a favourite celebrity movie star smoke on-screen were 80% more likely to try than those who had not (Distefan, Pierce, & Gilpin, 2004).  Even more recently in 2002, the total amount of smoking in youth movies (rated G, PG, and M) was greater than in Adult (rated R) films. This lead to an increase in the initiation of smoking by adolescents (Charlesworth & Glantz, 2005).

Another example of this is Red Bull, which targets young, active people.  Red Bull sponsors many ‘extreme’ events, including the X-games, Red Bull Air Race, and Formula One. This has helped to position Red Bull as a vibrant, exciting, energetic brand – perfect for the type of product they sell.  They also send promotional staff to nightclubs and music festivals – locations where people will be seen being ‘active’ and social, doing activities with groups of friends – while at the same time handing out free cans of Red Bull and taking photos so that other people will see young, energetic people having a good time with Red Bull.  The same as celebrities seen smoking, this creates a desire to be part of this ‘in crowd’ with the target market which can shape that demographic into participating in the desired behaviours which further enhance Red Bull’s brand.

Advertising Mirrors Society

Alternatively, it can be argued that advertising adapts and mirrors societal trends. For example, the increase in technologies such as the Internet, social networking and digital devices over the past decade has lead to entirely new methods of advertising.  According to research undertaken by ZenithOptimedia (2009), digital advertising spend is projected to increase by 11.6% to $US60 billion globally in 2010. This equates to almost 14% of the entire yearly global advertising spend.

The popularity of Facebook has encouraged organisations to develop profiles to engage with clients, fans, and the general population.  This is a prime example of advertising following shifts in society.  Of the 1.8 billion people worldwide who have access to the Internet, over 400 million have an active Facebook account, with over 50% using it on a daily basis (Facebook Inc., 2010; Miniwatts Marketing Group, 2010; ).  People around the world have made Facebook a part of their daily lives, and so the advertising market found a new way to connect with people.

This adaptation is not a new concept – when television was starting to become a popular medium, companies began to realise they could disseminate their messages to the masses. Two decades earlier, the first radio advertisement was run. Radio broadcasting was originally developed as a means to sell radios.  Again, it was only after commercial entities realised that society was spending significant time listening to broadcasts that they began to explore the medium as a way to transmit their message to the masses (Chabotte, 2007).

Google launched their marketing service, ‘AdWords’ in the year 2000. In 2008, revenues from this service reached $US21 billion. Similar to Google Adwords, Facebook uses information about the user and what they are looking at to provide more relevant advertisements, in the hope that consumers will be more likely engage in an ad which is relevant to them. This has meant ads can be sold to specific audiences, much like traditional media purchases.

With the significant and continual increase of technology in our lives, digital tools such as the personal computer and the Internet have become necessities in both our personal and professional lives, with these tools being used daily for commerce, communication and education (Russell & Huang, 2009). This societal shift has meant that in order to remain relevant to the consumer, advertisers have had to adapt and mirror society.
Another significant shift in societal trends has been the so-called Global Financial Crisis. With consumers cutting spending, people were spending less in restaurants and on takeaway meals, and more in supermarkets like Coles and Woolworths. This societal shift to home cooked meals lead to the success of programs such as Masterchef, and other similar cooking media including print (Delicious. and more recently, a Masterchef branded magazine) and cook books. Coles has combined the shift to increased home cooked meals and the Global Financial Crisis in their advertising, with their “Feed your family for under $10” campaigns. This has lead to an increase in sales of 6% (not including increased sales from new store openings) in comparison to Woolworths increase of 4.8% in the first half of the current financial year. This reaction to the shift in market trends has lead to Coles growing their sales more than Woolworths for the first time in years.

Advertising can be said to be another source of information, one that joins and builds with the other many existing information sources – such as previous experiences with a product.  A rational person will consider the information given by an advertisement – but in the end, if the product does not meet expectations, repeat purchases will sharply decline, and no amount of advertising will be able to persuade them otherwise (Gifford, 2005).

Advertising and promotion provide a way for companies to achieve a business objective – usually to sell goods or services.  It provides a medium to transmit information to a prospective consumer, in a way that should maximise the effectiveness of the message.  Once the advertising message has been delivered to the consumer, it is up to the individual to decode and analyse the message, based upon previous experiences and pre-existing beliefs.  These experiences and beliefs change vastly between cultures, and therefore advertising must integrate and adapt to individual cultures and societies. Consequently it is advertising that mirrors society, as opposed to shaping it.