APG Romania: 35 Tricky Questions for Effie Case Studies 2009

35 Tricky Questions for 2009 Effie case studies

May 2009

“The perfect Effie brief does not exist, although some cases won the Grand Effie.

We believe that each Effie brief should aim for perfection, for maximum transparency

and convincingness.”

(Account Planning Group Romania)

About APG Romania

The APG exists to champion excellence in creative thinking.

The APG is the foremost and longest-established organisation representing the interests of account planners worldwide. It is a non-profit-making members' organisation, with around 700 members, open to account planners, communications strategists and anyone with an interest in these areas. It is run by a committee of volunteers voted by committee and ratified by members. Its activities include training, meetings, seminars, social events, or publications.

UAPR and IAA Romania are our partners.

More info on www.apgromania.ro.

Role of this white paper

Any Effie case study should rely on a smart strategy, impressive creativity and excellent results, not on tricky copywriting or incomplete, misleading facts & figures

This paper was prepared by the Account Planning Group Romania in order to reveal the most common Effie paper tricks

It is a shared educational paper, useful especially for Effie judges, but also for Effie case writers

It is meant to complete the “Tips for a good case” that are found on www.effie.ro/effie_tips.html

More info on this white paper

It was generated by Romania’s senior strategists working within advertising agencies or research companies, all APG members

All contributors are experienced Romanian or Euro Effie submitters, judges or both

The next 35 questions, POSITIVE EXAMPLES & details are referring to the Brief of Effectiveness only *

The paper benefits of UAPR’s and IAA’s official support

* Sustained Success will be taken into consideration next year

“Tricky Questions for Effie case studies 2009” includes:

.PPT/.PDF presentation

One training session for judges prior to judging days held by APG Romania leaders

A separated version will be submitted to Effie entrants.

The Kit

The tricky Qs are split on Effie Brief template chapters:

1. Marketing Challenge 2. Campaign Objectives 3. Target Audience 4. Creative Strategy 5. Media Strategy 6. Other supporting Communication Programs &

Marketing Components 7. Evidence of Results

Content

1. Marketing Challenge

Is there really a market situation described or merely a brand status?

MARKET SITUATION

Market dynamics

Main competitors

Challenges


BRAND STATUS

SWOT

Marketing Mix

Brand challenges

Are there any historical facts about the brand to be considered? Brand with long history have residual familiarity that can be

boosted with a campaign after long hiatus


“Our brand was launched with the ambition to claim market leadership, in line with the vision that broadband was the future of telecom. But research showed that “Price of the service” and “Connection speed” were the most important buying criteria – and on both of these measures, our brand was inferior.

It was also carrying the negative associations of being owned by a large company, who was struggling at that time with an high churn rate.

In marketing-speak, we needed to turn an uncompetitive product into a highly desired brand.”

POSITIVE EXAMPLE

Is the brand victimising too much in this chapter (emphasizing weaknesses) or omitting its current strengths?

Brand should present both goods and bads (perceived quality, brand equity, distribution, price gaps etc)

Do they compare vs. direct competitors?


Write Goods & Bads

vs. Itself

vs. Others

What are market shares and total market’s dynamics? How did brands’ sales developed? (absolute, relative figures)


“The BRAND was the newest player on a highly dynamic market: by 2007, the total consumer internet connections increased with 70% vs. PY.

[…] So while the technology used by the brand was a legitimate alternative, the brand had managed to achieve only 5.2% of total fixed broadband connections by Jan’07. (Source: …)”

POSITIVE EXAMPLE

How mature is the category? Marketers know that it is easy for a brand with high marketing

power to dominate a low developed market


“When the brand was launched (Jan’07), the Internet market had already been built by cable companies and neighborhood networks. And until 2007, two big cable companies – ABC and DEF – controlled the market.

Not only they enjoyed tremendous structural advantages thanks to their cable TV penetration, but they were also owners or wholesalers for smaller Internet providers.

Our brand was the newest player on a highly dynamic market: by 2007, the total consumer broadband connections increased with 70% vs. PY.”

POSITIVE EXAMPLE

If you're dealing with a line extension among others SKUs, there should be shared data about previous line extensions to see a benchmark


2. Campaign Objectives

Is there a correlation between the Marketing Challenge and Campaign Objectives? e.g. Market is growing at slow pace and objective is to exceed last

year's sales – this is not a correlation


“Marketing Challenge - Reverse the 3-year declining sales trend and bring

refreshment to a brand that is perceived as one “for older people”

Objectives - Increase volume share vs. the same period last year (by at

least 1,5 pp) - Strengthen brand perception by making young consumers

see it as cool again”

POSITIVE EXAMPLE

Are they marketing objectives, communication ones or both? Brand equity levels are the first to change after communication Case studies showing only sales objectives are most often

incomplete Communication objectives should come first


AIDA

MOST EFFIE ECASES FOLLOW CLASSIC COMMUNICATION MODELS

Hierarchy of effects

Lavidge and Steiner

Are image indicators tailored on brand's strategy? Advertising Awareness alone is not a convincing

indicator


“Our salami brand targeted parents, promising them to help in the rollercoaster adventure of parenting.

The image objectives included increase on the “Helps me take better care of my children” indicator even though this indicator was not traditionally tracked in the category. “

POSITIVE EXAMPLE

Aren't the objectives too low vs. market’s dynamics? e.g. Maintain market share on a growing market


Diapers market growth (vs. PY): +50%

Huggies sales objective (Jul-Sep vs. P3M): +3%

Unexplained objectives vs. own brand are dubious. Growing objectives vs. competitors are way much stronger


+X% vs.

3. Target Audience

Quality of marketing research: Are there any bright new consumer insights? Communication strategy should be based on strong, deep consumer

insights Briefs that show innovative consumer research results should get more

points vs. the ones that claim obvious, cliché facts

3. Target Audience

“For our young audience, the Internet conveys information and facilitates experiences that help them evolve. By accumulating information they are able to move to the “next level” of their identity, modeling it by experiencing new life situations (some more bizarre than others).

But the key insight is happening after each online experience: every time you get back to the computer, you start this “experiencing” cycle all over again. In this sense the Internet is truly nonstop.”

POSITIVE EXAMPLE

How does the Consumer Insights / Creative Strategy relate to Communication Objectives?

“In order to regain relevance in the category and boost stagnant sales, our soft small cake brand needed to expand its traditional consumer base made of housewives by recruiting volume-driving mainstream young women. Therefore, it needed to develop a communication that both targeted young women, and added hype to the brand.

The creative strategy started from the RTB of the product – a combination of “a lot” from each ingredient preferred by women in cakes – and looked for the insight that made sense in the current lifestyle of young women to best deliver the promise of the cake. The result was the cake for the picky women who only go for a lot of everything.

POSITIVE EXAMPLES

3. Target Audience

“The key-insight is happening after each online experience: every time you get back to the computer, you start an “experiencing cycle” all over again. In this sense the Internet is truly nonstop.”

4. Creative Strategy

How does the Creative Strategy relate to Communication Objectives?


“In order to regain relevance in the category and boost stagnant sales, our soft small cake brand needed to expand its traditional consumer base made of housewives by recruiting volume-driving mainstream young women. Therefore, it needed to develop a communication that both targeted young women, and added hype to the brand.

The creative strategy started from the RTB of the product – a combination of “a lot” from each ingredient preferred by women in cakes – and looked for the insight that made sense in the current lifestyle of young women to best deliver the promise of the cake. The result was the cake for the picky women who only go for a lot of everything.

POSITIVE EXAMPLE

Is there a rationale for the key-message and explanation why this would work?


POSITIVE EXAMPLE “Our beauty brand was promising to help women revive their long term relationships. The rationale behind that was built around a research finding showing that the secret reason for which the targeted 30 and smtg. married women wanted to look good was precisely to bring back the romantic passion in their a bit too established couple. “

5. Media Strategy

Are there any major changes in brand’s media mix? Some brands introduce for big campaigns important

new media channels (e.g. print or TV)

5. Media Strategy

Doing TV for the first time is likely to generate a big splash

Our chocolate confectionary product had never advertised on TV although it practically owned the category.

In the face of increased competition from multinational players replicating the product and advertising it on all media, this product introduced its first ever TV campaign.

Results should be evaluated in view of the fact that first-time national TV campaigns have a higher reach potential than any other media. How does the investment compare to that of the competitors? Is TV the main medium?

ARGUMENT

Are competitors’ media strategies unclear? Briefs should compare brand’s media power with

competitors’ (media weights, media mix, quantitative variations)

5. Media Strategy

“What did main competitors do during our campaign?

Media agency estimated that during the same period, we were outspent by both detergent leading brands. Market leader spent 3.5 times more budget than us on main media (TV, OOH, Print, Radio – around 250.000 EUR), while no.2 player spend 2.1 times more.”

POSITIVE EXAMPLE

Is the brand having exclusive media channels? What if the ‘hero brand’ is using more media

channels?

5. Media Strategy

What if the brand is its own medium?

The TV channel was looking to regain likeability for its star system and also to create cohesion among staff internally. To support the proposed positioning the agency suggested to use the Visual ID pack of the TV station to promote the message. Thus the advertising message was inserted every time the station ran its station promo packs. Is this negatively reflecting on the competition who did not have access to this medium?

ARGUMENT

Are Media Budget & Campaign Objectives correlated?

5. Media Strategy

Am I paying for TV when my objective is loyalty?

“The telecom operator was seeing problems with retention and customer service appreciation. The media strategy however, included a heavy presence on national TV.

Since retention and loyalty are mostly developed using direct marketing tools, one should consider the level on investment on non-core media like TV.”

ARGUMENT

Is the media budget linked with the strategy?

5. Media Strategy

Am I spending a fortune on a drive test call?

“Our premium car brand is looking for approximately 1000 users for a drive test. Should it be spending that much? Should it be investing in TV? “

POSITIVE EXAMPLE

Pay extra attention to the reference period

5. Media Strategy

“Our candy brand developed a promotion between August and October. The media campaign started in August.

Is the growth strongly noticeable and directly correlated with the promotion period ? “

POSITIVE EXAMPLE

6. Other Comm. Programs & Marketing Components

Is there a campaign that did not have “other marketing activities”? In most cases there should be some distribution changes, promo-packs,

promo packaging, special prices, trade promo


ARGUMENTS In some product categories, communication cannot solely explain radical changes on the market. Sometimes an increased number of outlets or a retailer’s push can explain why a brand has an unexpected volume growth. As Effie case writers sometimes try to minimize the effect of the other marketing components it is important to double check how important was - in fact - a promotional mechanism that was only briefly mentioned.

e.g. For three months (Sep 08-Nov 08) Brand X benefited from a retailer’s promotion that had limited effect on sales.

Example of questions you may want to ask: - Was the promotional mechanism implemented at national level or it was only local? - What percent of the total sales are usually attributed to that specific retailer? - Did the promotional mechanism include media exposure? To what extent?

If the case fails to provide relevant information it should raise suspicions.

Be sure the campaign isn't a promotion in disguise (especially for long campaigns)


ARGUMENTS If you you are aware that a category is highly promotional (e.g. beer, mobile communications, automotive) and the case tries to demonstrate the efficiency of an image campaign on more than 3 months you should ask yourself some question marks and you should find the hidden promotion which is written somewhere in case study.

The creative materials can also betray a hidden promotion, even if the promotional offer is presented for a short time in the packshot.

What was these components impact?


When on top of the submitted campaign the brand also run an in store promotion for examples, the impact on sales should be ideally isolated: “The promotions accounted for X% of the sales volumes”. If such an analysis is not available, is should be at least replaced by comparing the investment behind that promotion to the overall campaign budget.

ARGUMENTS

When did these activities interfered with the campaign?


Jan Feb Apr Mar May

Campaign In-store promotion

Sales (volumes)

Are the any details given or correlations made in order to eliminate the doubt of their possible influence? There should be some logical arguments (with figures

or not)


Correlations between series of data like price index, distribution, GRPs, and can be made for 3 months campaigns if the data is available with weekly precision.

ARGUMENTS

7. Evidence of Results

You know graphs can enhance poor results. Are those graphs having truncated scales? Hero brand vs. competition or before/after graphs are most

common


Before campaign

Post campaign

75%

85%

87% Market share

Is Advertising Recall measured? Is there any advertising indicator that moved in the same way with Brand Awareness? Uncompleted data doesn't show who influenced who


Campaign goal: Rebranding

“We measured not only the new brand awareness reached during the two months campaign but also the evolution of the indicators where the main competitor scored best innovative brand ( 52 % higher than competitor), it’s a brand for everyone ( 28% higher), compared to period before of the rebranding campaign.

The most impressive proof of campaign efficiency is given by the fact that the new brand became the most preferred brand in highly competitive category. ( Consumer Regard, Synovate May 07)”

POSITIVE EXAMPLE

Cases that show an EVOLUTION of results rather than punctual ones should get more points


vs.

Relative sales results (%) alone are dubious without knowing the absolute base. Are there any absolute figures?

Market share

Share of consumers

Sales increase (volumes/value)


Orders (for services)

Where it’s a head to head fight for leadership, is there a statistical error included? (for tracking, retail data)


vs.

Let’s say the brand increased with x%. How much was it vs. total market growth or vs. its main competitor?


Goal: As Client anticipated a market growth of 30% in 2007, our objective was to have a 50% sales increase in volume in July-September - 2007 vs. 2006 same period for our BRAND.

Evidence of results: Our brand had a sustained growth in the period considered (overall 2007 market growth was 47%) - (AC Nielsen data)

We managed to have a 3.6 times growth versus the 50% growth initially set as target.

• In JJ 2007 vs. 2006 same period volume sales target was exceeded by 392% • In AS 2007 vs. 2006 same period volume sales target was exceeded by 326% • In Aug-Sep 07, main competitor decreased in volume sales with 17%

POSITIVE EXAMPLE

Wouldn’t be fair to see both before vs. after campaign results, but the same period vs. previous year as well? vs. Off-air (before on-air): Shows clearly a short-term evolution vs. 2007: Diminishes seasonality’s influence (for Volumetric Sales)

OR shows that 2008 results were superior (for Market Shares)


vs.

vs.

Is there any cannibalisation? The “hero” variant/SKU increased brand’s sales, but what

happened with the other SKUs in portfolio?


“Overall, the brand cannibalization in the first 3 months after launch was only 18.6%, showing that the new variant managed consistent and stable growth for the brand.”

POSITIVE EXAMPLE

What if there is few syndicated data available? (retail audit, share of consumers, market shares)

It is important to know that even in 2009 some big markets lack in valuable, reliable sales data – for example: FINANCE (Banks, insurance) TELECOM (internet/TV subscriptions/)

The low investments in market research overall market can be caused by Sales data are highly confidential (e.g. Financial markets) Complicated measurement (e.g. Telecom)


Stefan Stroe, Grey Bucharest (project leader) ‏ Elena Ionita, Leo Burnett Diana Ceausu, McCann Erickson Razvan Matasel, Arsenoaiei & Matasel Bogdana Butnar, MRM Partners Stefan Chiritescu, Graffiti/BBDO Costin Radu, IQads/Smark

Special thanks to: IAA Romania board UAPR board Effie 2009 Organizing Committee

APG Romania project team

Looking forward for 2010 brochure.

Thank you.

Business

APG Romania: 35 Tricky Questions for Effie Case Studies 2009