In-housing, hybrid models, too many cooks: We're at risk of losing sight of the customer
Has the recent focus on in-housing and who executes what diminished the opportunity for a holistic strategy?
Over the last few years much of the focus of the marketing conversation has been around structure of who manages what capabilities through outsourced, in-housed and hybrid models. This has accelerated through both consumer privacy concerns and Covid with the World Federation of Advertisers reporting increased intent from marketers to in-house or form hybrid models.
The result is a new model made up of an increasingly complex group of stakeholders from within and outside the marketing organisation. With multiple parties executing campaigns, it is easy to lose sight of the customer.
Working with Nielsen and SMI, we reviewed the path to purchase of over 40 categories; ranging from complex, high involvement products like insurance to low involvement sectors like beverages and QSR’s.
Overall, there were four key insights:
- Path to purchase journeys are unique to a category
There is no catch all approach that works across a range of sectors. The one constant; every stage has influence. From the start of the journey, through decisioning to purchasing and then using or engaging with the product or service. The variable is the importance of each stage which differs between categories.
- Advertising spend is out of step with customer behaviour
Across a number of categories, the disconnect between advertising spend and customer behaviour was stark. In particular, the speed of migration from traditional channels to digital display. For example, in the health insurance category more money was spent in FY20 on digital display than the combination of radio, print (newspapers and magazines), OOH and cinema. When compared to the path to purchase the reverse was the case – traditional media (particularly radio and print) were more influential in the purchase of health insurance across each stage of the customer journey.
- Owned and earned channels have never been more important in the marketing mix
Without question, the role of owned and earned channels was a consistent theme. Navigating a company website should be a seamless part of the customer journey – including the search and social journeys that got them there.
- Pack marketing leads to similar spend patterns
The focus on 'share of voice' appears to have led to undifferentiated media approaches. 'Same-same' spend patterns in media channels was evident across a range of categories. It seems that the influence of what my competitor is doing carried more weight than actual customer behaviours.
Back in the day when one agency provided the total solution for clients, it was always clear that the agency was the custodian of the customer. The planning and insight teams drove the customer strategy and made sure all areas executing stayed true to the plan. But we’re in a different world now. With many different agencies and in-house teams now involved, who is the custodian of the customer and making sure that all teams executing are aligned to a common goal?
Building and owning a customer plan should be the north star that aligns all teams.
The more we know about our customers and prospects, the more we can create truly differentiated campaigns in channels that are relevant.
