Why campaigns fail

Extract from Antony Young 29 Mar 2007

According to a study by Copernicus Marketing Consulting, 84 per cent of marketing campaigns fail to drive value. Why?:

1. Failure to match the budget to the goals. Lofty goals and a low budget or simply having too many objectives, generally leads to poorly allocated spending across too many marketing programmes, communication channels or brand messages. We found that spending is inefficient if there is too little frequency, repetition and consistency.

2. Not setting out clear outcomes and metrics at the start of a campaign. Too many marketing campaigns lack clear objectives as a result frustrate their Boards and lead to weak communications. A survey by Wirthlin and Atlantic revealed that where no ROI goals or processes were established at the outset, 56 per cent of senior stakeholders judged marketing’s performance as unsatisfactory.

3. Unwillingness to be consistent with messaging. One of the prevailing trends we see from many companies is inconsistent messaging. For instance, with few exceptions retail banks generate multiple advertising and direct mail offers simultaneously originating from the separate product marketing units within their organizations. This often lacks cohesion creating competing messages and confusion rather than synergy of marketing effort.

4. Over-reliance on acquisition rather than retention strategies. Companies so often measure success in terms on acquiring new customers and growing market share. However, businesses lose half their customer base every five years. Bain & Co estimates increasing retention by 5 per cent can increase corporate profitability by 25 per cent.

5. Sameness of the communication. The few campaigns that stand-out are harsh reminders of the many you don’t remember. Brave marketers that step outside the expected in their category seem to be rewarded. Think Dove, Honda and Stella Artois … different and successful. With day after recall of advertising falling from 40 per cent in the Sixties to today just 6 per cent, where’s the real risk in being different?