Marketing Week’s ‘man on the inside’ questions why the ideas from local-level marketing, which are “often better conceived than national campaigns” and which tend “to show better understanding of the customer” aren’t applied in a “co-ordinated fashion on a national basis”.
The mystery man tries to answer his own question arguing that those who have tried to do so have given it up due to the complexity and costs of using agency partners. Yet, he continues, “retrenching to a national, one-size-fits-all compromise” may be easier but a “false economy”.
As a company that has always championed the advantages of understanding each local market and targeting it appropriately, we believe that applying local knowledge to national campaigns can be done simply. We don’t rely on other agencies; instead we tend to go the extra mile – checking out local media in relation to our clients’ retail/leisure outlets, their competition, and the individuals they want to reach. Of course this can be time consuming, but the success of campaigns often involve such detail rather than a reliance on buying a package of media sites, which inevitably include wastage.
I encountered an example of such wastage last night. On a residential street dense with council houses, there was an ad on a telephone kiosk for the type of credit card that has strict (high) income criteria. Furthermore, it took me a while just to work out what the ad was for as you’d need a magnifying glass to read all the copy.
For the full opinion from Marketing Week’s ‘man on the inside’ see: