As this school year comes to a close, it’s crazy to think I have yet to write about my most personal experience with advertising: the business department at The Scout, Bradley’s student newspaper.
The print portion of the advertising industry poses plenty of challenges, and that fact certainly holds true when looking at ad sales for The Scout. Considering physical newspaper readership is down across the board and even more so with college students, many businesses are straying away from advertising in such publications. We saw this at The Scout, especially as our only consistent advertisers remaining at the end of 2013 were two of the most popular rental companies for off-campus college housing. When I became Managing Editor at the paper, my responsibilities expanded to include overseeing the paper’s finances. This included balancing our expenses such as payroll and printing costs with our revenues, which are primarily through ad sales. As I started to review the current state of The Scout, I couldn’t believe how unbalanced our budget was and how no efforts to correct it had been made. To start the process of keeping our expenses more in line with our revenues, we began to brainstorm new ideas for advertising options. Together, our Advertising Manager and I more than doubled the ways that businesses can advertise with us, adding options such as front-page banner advertisements, newsstand advertisements, and sponsorships of specific sections. Beyond this, we developed ways to present the paper as a more viable opportunity for advertisers. We researched actual readership of the paper, learned more about our readers such as how much they spend on groceries each month, and analyzed our online traffic for social media and our website. Using this knowledge, we were able to present businesses with facts about how advertising with The Scout could benefit their organization. Based on these efforts and great work by our ad representatives, we will end the year in the green for the first time in several years, overcoming a deficit of nearly $15,000 from the previous year. Although print advertising is still definitely on the decline, it was refreshing to see The Scout be able to turn around its business side.
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A Target commercial could run for 15 seconds, never say the brand’s name, show it’s logo, or contain the color red, and I would be able to identify it as a commercial for the retail store. And no, I’m not highlighting my ability to recognize brands’ advertisements. I’m highlighting the ability of Target to create strong brand recognition and develop cohesive campaigns. As my “About Me” description says, my heart beats with first-crush intensity whenever I see a Target commercial. The retailer has developed an incredibly strong brand that is translated from television commercials to social media, in-store displays to employees. Somehow, it’s found a distinct yet expandable segment of graphics, music, and copywriting that works well across multiple platforms and over many years. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what the consistent themes are across Target promotions, yet ads are easily identified long before any revelation of the logo or brand name. Perhaps it’s bright white backgrounds with lightly colored simple foregrounds, or maybe it’s the upbeat music that just makes you feel happy. It could be the tendency to show a wide variety of products in a seemingly random order, or it could be something else entirely. Most likely, it’s all of these things that contribute to Target’s truly integrated marketing approach. These extend far beyond just its television commercials. Often, elements seen in the commercials are supersized and made 3D then suspended from ceilings in Target Stores. The modern style shown in print ads is reflected in the styling of Target-brand products. Even more impressive, the company has gotten its employees on board with the brand’s appearance by aligning its goals and missions with those of its workers. It can be difficult to create such a cohesive marketing strategy. Most brands are unable to do it because of a lack of commitment, weak vision, or some other reason. But for those like Target that are able to do it, it’s impressive. It sure makes ad nerds like me squeal in excitement. Few industries are going to provide their employees with stability and reassurance of a continuous flow of work. The advertising industry is no different, much to the dismay of those students like me that are preparing to begin a career in advertising.
If we choose to work at an agency, there is no guarantee we will have work to do. We will have to compete for accounts, and, although unlikely, it’s possible we won’t get a single client. It could lead to some rough times. But to overcome these challenges, we have to add some excitement. This excitement comes in the form of innovation and learning, evaluating and developing. As advertising professionals, we have to stay current with the industry trends. To really go above and beyond, we have to be the leaders of those trends. Few campaigns today could survive on newspaper ads alone. As technology changes, more opportunities for advertising arise. Now, we can connect with customers through social networks, send geo-pings to mobile devices, and more. In ten years, the media landscape is likely to have changed significantly, necessitating more innovation. As new media develop, we have to learn how to adapt and meet those needs that are currently not satisfied. We have to be creative with older media while working to understand new media. Some of my favorite examples of this creative thinking involve non-traditional media. Escalators have existed for decades, but it wasn’t until many years into their existence that advertisers thought to place promotions along their sides. A-B Inbev has always had workers deliver cases to liquor stores, but it was just recently that they started having those workers occasionally gives customers in line free cases. These are just a few instances where advertisers have come up with ways to tailor existing practices to create better relationships with customers and find new ways to communicate with their target audiences. Industry professionals must balance this with keeping up to date on the latest technologies, reading and experimenting to see how they can use new developments for promotional purposes. When the external environment is always changing and there are few guarantees, it’s important to stay at the top of the industry by updating yourself on trends and creatively thinking about older practices. Although scary, this can also be exhilarating. With all advertising campaigns, it’s important to evaluate the effectiveness of elements. Whether it’s the creative director doing copy testing or the media planner determining the achieved reach and frequency, the best way to gauge the success of a campaign is to evaluate and analyze throughout the process.
Previously, this kind of evaluation was often quite costly. But now, Facebook Insights are delivering fairly descriptive analytics at no extra cost. When you’re an administrator, editor, analyst, or have any other back-end role for a Facebook page, you can view a wide range of statistics for the performance of your posts. You can go beyond just seeing how many people follow your page. You can see how many have engaged with it, where they’re from, and when they’re most active on Facebook. You can track other pages and assess your performance against them, and you can see what kind of post is the most popular. For bigger campaigns, you will most likely use a more sophisticated program to review these statistics, whether you start with Hootsuite and Google Analytics or you go big and use a custom evaluation system. But when you’re working with a limited budget and just trying to get something going, Facebook Insights can be a great tool. As an administrator for several Facebook pages of campus organizations, I’ve been able to adjust my promotions to make them more successful based on facts I’ve learned from Facebook Insights. I know a post for The Scout will achieve twice the reach when it includes a link to an article rather than just an announcement, I know the most popular posts for Service on Saturday are photo albums, and I can compare SONOR social media campaigns be reviewing how many followers we gained throughout the duration of each campaign. These analytics are fascinating and can be leveraged for future success. The beauty of social media provides real-time feedback that can help make immediate adjustments to a campaign. |
Kristin KreherMy happiness comes from meaningful interactions, the outdoors, thrift shops, and saying "thank you." Archives
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