Seeding a multiscreen strategy: Expert advice on marketing to consumers across screens
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This article presents best practice and case study examples of approaches to multiscreen marketing. It addresses the difficulty of fragmentation and recommends that in order to establish an identity, companies have to build and maintain a consistent brand that can travel and resonate across channels. To maintain this, the user experience should be top of mind at all times when developing marketing for different screens. More can be gained from TV media by engaging viewers and encouraging interaction. So that return can be measured, marketers should capture as much data as possible from all the different touch points along the purchase funnel to maintain awareness of where they are getting the most value. The article includes examples of practice from MasterCard, the financial brand, ConAgra, the packaged food company, and Bloomin' Brands, the owner of several casual dining restaurant chains.
Chuck Kapelke
The college football players competing in the 2013 Outback Bowl didn't know it, but in the eyes of many viewers, they had been temporarily re-assigned to new teams; one side was playing for Team Bloomin' Onion, the other for Team Coconut Shrimp. That's because a promotional campaign by Bloomin' Brands, owner of Outback Steakhouse, harnessed the power of television, social media, and other channels to engage viewers in a side bet: If the SEC's South Carolina Gamecocks won the game, Outback would give away Bloomin' Onions the next day, but if the Big 10's Michigan Wolverines won, diners would get free coconut shrimp.
"By the end of the game, people were posting things on Twitter like, 'That ref must be on Team Bloomin' Onion for making that call,'" recalls Karen Soots, vice president of media services for Tampa-based Bloomin' Brands. "It was just unreal."
Soots and her team promoted the battle-of-the-appetizers through traditional channels — including commercials on ESPN and coasters in Outback restaurants — and also made sure the promotion got a boost on Facebook and Twitter by bringing social users to the game to serve as "team captains" and keep the chatter flowing. "We took a multimedia, multiscreen approach," Soots says. "It built on people's passion, and it was a competition that people watching the game could embrace. It was the most successful one-day promotion in Outback history. We estimated that traffic to our restaurants would be up 15 percent; it was up 50 percent. We very affectionately call that day 'Bloomageddon.'"
Outback's success is an example of the kind of creative approach required to succeed in the era of "multiscreening," when a growing percentage of consumers are moving between devices (referred to as "sequential screening") or using multiple devices at the same time ("simultaneous screening"). "From the moment we wake up and to the moment we go to bed, we are spending time connected," says Bren-don Kraham, director of global mobile sales and strategy at Google. "Our commissioned research has found that 90 percent of people are using screens sequentially; consumers are peeking their head in, consuming content at different points during the day. And 77 percent of all viewers use another device while watching TV. That's pretty powerful. If I'm watching TV and a commercial comes on and I'm not paying attention, what are the implications of that?"
That, of course, is the trillion-dollar question that marketers are grappling with as they consider where to place their chips in an advertising landscape that is more fragmented than ever — and in which the connectivity of smart devices creates the potential to tap into people's lives in seemingly infinite ways.
"There's never been as big of a challenge in connecting with consumers, but there's never been as much opportunity," says Fernando Arriola, vice president of media and integration for ConAgra Foods Inc. "Although there is certainly risk in not pursuing it, there's more risk in going whole hog, not knowing exactly how the deliveries build up, and not knowing which companies will be in business long-term," he says. Arriola points out that there are resource issues, training issues, cultural issues, and management support issues, "and there are disagreements about the right way to go. It's complex."
How can a brand keep its identity across devices and stay connected with customers who are jumping from screen to screen? How do you adapt your creative messages, and how can you track which device ultimately leads to a conversion? What does it take for a business and its partners to execute an effective multiscreen campaign?
Consumer reactions to multiscreen advertising
Consumers are most open to advertising on the TV, computer, and tablet
We reached out to marketing leaders at ANA member companies and other experts for their advice on tackling these and other challenges facing marketers in the multiscreen age.
Fragmented brand identity: Finding a common thread
To establish an identity in the distracted consumer's mind, companies have to build and maintain a consistent brand, regardless of the device the user has on hand. Just ask Benjamin Jankowski, group head of global media at MasterCard, whose job is to use both small and large screens to his advantage to ensure that people turn to his card (and not the competition) when it comes time to make a purchase.
"Credit cards are a pretty commoditized industry," Jankowski says. "Back when we used to be an awareness-driven brand, it was easier to have a static, one-dimensional message, and we blasted a lot of money into TV. Now, the more data we have, the more we're forced to be diversified. We're not deciding between awareness and engagement or activation or registration or people using their cards more; I want to do all those things. The question is, how do you want to orchestrate all these things so you don't look like you're all over the place?"
The secret to success, Jankowski says, lies in developing a unifying theme that runs throughout a campaign. In MasterCard's case, that theme is "priceless," tied to the idea that MasterCard can be used to pay for unique and memorable life experiences. While this campaign has long had a home on TV, the company has recently brought the concept to other devices through its "Priceless Cities" program, which cardholders can use to access exclusive, Groupon-like deals on vacations, restaurants, or tickets to events and experiences in New York, Los Angeles, and other cities.
MasterCard promotes Priceless Cities through traditional channels like out-of-home, radio, print, newspaper, and television advertisements to build awareness in local regions. "TV is not dead," Jankowski explains. "People tweet about things they see on TV." The company leverages email and online channels to boost registration, sending deals to consumers based on their passions (such as sports, cuisine, and so on). And to showcase the concept of "priceless" in the mobile context, MasterCard uses location-based technology. For example, the company sends texts to cardholders inside JFK Airport that encourage them to visit an exclusive Wi-Fi– enabled lounge where they can peruse Priceless Cities deals.
"We get into a trap of trying to pigeonhole — radio's job is this, TV's job is that, social's job is this," Jankowski says. "Really, where you get the incremental value is to blend it all together and find that consistent idea that can go across the purchase funnel, all the way from a TV commercial down to the communications our banks are sending out. We're focused on trying to figure out what that thread is, where everything can coexist."
Delivering a single brand message across screens does not require a lot of digital bells and whistles, as long as the core message is the same. For example, Lightlife, a ConAgra brand of vegetarian food, created a video version of "Old McDonald Had a Farm," with all the animals made out of vegetables. It has received more than 2.2 million hits on YouTube, where it can be seen and shared. ConAgra's Slim Jim jerky brand, meanwhile, has zeroed in on a target audience of gamers (arguably the most avid screen users); the brand's product packaging includes codes that let users unlock content in video games, and GameStop, a video-game retailer, shows Slim Jim ads on its in-store television network. "That's been highly effective, and we're taking that learning and asking, 'How can we redeploy them for some of our other brands?'" ConAgra's Arriola says.
Key takeaway
Keeping a brand message together is not about having a "social strategy" or a "tablet strategy"; it's about having a clear message that can travel and resonate across channels.
The modes of multiscreening
"The more consumers see different expressions of the same general brand message, the richer the communication is, the more effective it tends to be," Arriola says. "If I say that Hunt's Tomatoes are 'all natural,' and I have a traditional TV ad that talks about key differentiators with the competition, and I put up an online video of how the tomatoes are harvested, and I make sure bloggers are talking about it, consumers will be getting those same messages from three or four different angles."
Understanding the consumer: Delivering utility to serve a contextual need
Not all multiscreen users are the same. A recent research report by Microsoft Advertising, "Cross-Screen Engagement," surveyed more than three thousand device owners in five countries and identified four primary pathways among those who jump devices. Most common is "content grazing," when people use two devices simultaneously for different purposes, such as checking their email during a TV commercial break. "Investigative spider-webbing" is when people use multiple devices at the same time for a related purpose, such as using their tablets to look up player stats while watching a basketball game. "Social spider-webbing" describes the art of sharing through social media while engaging with media from other sources, such as tweeting about a TV show. About 46 percent of multiscreeners are "quantum" users, who use whichever device is most convenient at the time to complete a task.
During a recent ANA webinar, "Top Ways Marketers Can Leverage Cross-Platform Engagement," Natasha Hritzuk, global director of research and insights at Microsoft Advertising, explained that these differences have important implications for marketers. "When you think about all these journeys, what consumers are fundamentally trying to do is accomplish something or address a core need," she said. "For the marketer, it's about asking, 'What is it we're trying to do for consumers?' You have to think about how each device helps consumers get things done."
Experts we spoke with agree: The best ads and applications in the multiscreen world are those that provide value that goes beyond mere content, and that are custom-tailored to fulfill a clear consumer need in a context-appropriate way. "The most important thing for advertisers who are used to thinking in terms of channels and messaging and promotion is to take any data you can, whether for campaign-performance or other market research, and understand the reason customers turn to your brand," says Melissa Parrish, principal analyst and research director for Forrester Research. "Advertisers need to really understand the kind of value they can provide to their customers to help them learn something, accomplish something, achieve some kind of need. Consumers expect to find services and value from brands and companies they care about, regardless of what digital means they have at hand."
Consider Johnson Bedtime, an app developed by Johnson & Johnson that helps new parents log their baby's sleep patterns, send questions to a sleep expert, and play soothing lullabies. "[J&J] realized through all their research that the important thing their products offer is the ability for parents to get their baby to sleep," Parrish explains. "Of course their products all support the idea of getting a baby to sleep. But that's what they deliver on with the application. It's the sleep, not the product."
One of the keys to providing the right information at the right time lies in digital technologies' ability to "sniff" for a user's context, such as what device type they're using, their location, or of time of day. Marketers at Marriott International, for instance, have developed a mobile website with features that are aimed at the on-the go user. "We think about the user situation and what is the most relevant content we can deliver," says Susan Thronson,
senior vice president for global marketing at Marriott. "If someone is sitting in the back of a taxi looking up our website on their smartphone, they're likely not dreaming of a vacation for next summer. It's most likely about, 'How do I get to the closest Marriott hotel?'"
Creating a screen-specific campaign has become easier for marketers, as ad networks have improved their abilities to serve up customized content. As of this year, Google offers "Enhanced Campaigns," through which companies can deliver messages based on factors such as a person's location or an anticipated action. If a person is using a mobile phone, the interface serves up a "click to call" version of an ad that would not appear on the PC version. Such adaptation helps "encourage the behavior that you as the marketer want to accomplish," Google's Kraham explains. "If I am a mile from a Best Buy, searching for a digital camera, the value proposition I get should be different than when I'm sitting on my couch."
Another tool for matching content with context is "responsive design," which lets companies create a single base of code for a website that automatically adjusts itself depending on whether the user is on a smartphone, tablet, or PC.
"When you have three websites, you have to triple your efforts; responsive design lets you build one website that goes across three web platforms," says Steen Andersson, cofounder and vice president of sales and marketing at 5th Finger, a San Francisco–based agency that specializes in responsive design. "If the audience is out and about, you might want to put a store locator module on top of the screen and make it more prominent on the navigation, but for the tablet, which is often used when people are in exploration mode, you might want a nice interface where people can discover your products."
Andersson suggests that companies develop multiple use cases based on consumer research to walk through an ideal user experience for each screen. "Think about the different things your customers will be doing when they're on their phone, in the store, or on their couch, and figure out how you will help them," Andersson says. "How do you provide utility for their shopping experience? It's good to focus on those scenarios to solve and provide value to customers. That's always a way to provide a great starting point for any multichannel strategy."
As you are developing your different contextual messages, keep in mind that campaign testing can be used to find out which messages will resonate in which context. When launching a campaign for its Residence Inn hotel chain, for example, Marriott's researchers used A/B testing to find an optimal set of creative messages within and across devices. "The results helped us select not only which creative executions were likely to have the greatest in-market impact for us, but also which mix of channels," explains Cathy Hartman, senior director of portfolio strategy and research for Marriott International. "Even though our campaign aired in an increasingly cluttered media environment [due to campaign timing], our multichannel and optimized creative drove an increase in branded recognition of media efforts for the brand."
Key takeaway
The user experience should be top of mind at all times when developing marketing for different screens. "It is the context we're in that dictates the device we reach for," says Google's Kraham.
"For a marketer, you need to understand those contexts — and understand the value proposition. What is it that people want to be doing on their mobile devices or tablets that is unique and different?"
Consumer screen jumping: Building engagement
"Dual-screening" describes the art of watching television with a PC, tablet, or mobile device close at hand. While the assumption is that such multitasking makes it less likely that viewers will watch the commercials during a show, marketers can use dual-screening to their advantage, particularly by being on both screens at once.
Old Navy is one of many brands that are investing in applications that let people sync their mobile devices with their television viewing. "We know our demographic," explains Michele Schuh, director of media at Old Navy. "She's 25 to 34, she's watching television, and she's on some other device while she's watching it, likely engaging on Facebook, Twitter. We know there's an opportunity to get her on both screens."
The clothing retailer has partnered with It's a Brad, Brad World, a Bravo show that uses a proprietary Play Live platform, through which users can use their PCs, tablets, or mobile phones to participate in polls as the show is playing, answering questions like, "How many stars would you give Coco Rocha's dress?" The Play Live interface is branded by Old Navy, and the company's on-air commercials have their own polls to engage viewers. "As you're watching our Old Navy commercial about hoodies, you'll see a question [on your device] like, 'Where are you most likely to wear hoodies: at the gym, at the park, or for a night out?'" Schuh says. "People like seeing their questions and how they rate against other people playing it, and we can see how people are engaging with questions during the show and during our commercial."
Along a similar vein, NBC has partnered with Zeebox, a "social TV" application where viewers can gather to talk about live TV shows, while other shows are turning to sync-to-broadcast services from Watchwith and Dijit. " [Dualscreening] can drive up engagement and make TV spots work harder for advertisers," says Scott Schiller, executive vice president of digital media sales for NBCUniversal. "You can watch a commercial, and it will push out additional advertiser messages. It will sync, and that is nirvana for an advertiser because that drives engagement."
Getting TV viewers who are in "leanback" mode to engage with their second screens is not automatic, of course, and some apps go a step further to entice consumers to participate. New York City– based Viggle, for example, uses a loyalty model to reward viewers with points for checking in while watching television shows. Using a one-second sample of audio from the user's device matched to a database of shows, Viggle awards points to viewers for every minute they watch a show. Additional points are given for actions like watching sponsored content or sharing content on social media. Viggle already has nearly 2.5 million registered users who use the app more than 73 minutes per session on average, and boasts clients like McDonald's, Unilever, and AT&T, which pay on a cost-per-engagement model, in addition to sponsorship and impression-based models.
"Marketers are using Viggle for enhancement of content they're already sponsoring, making sure that when someone is looking down at their device, they're still able to capture them," explains Greg Consiglio, chief operating officer and president of Viggle. "As people continue to open up apps as they watch TV, our goal is to make Viggle the fallback that they open up. We built our platform with open API, so brands and networks can build experiences all tied to the live TV experience."
Companies that are not yet ready to make a complete investment in a dualscreen app would at least do well to maintain a presence on Twitter, which remains one of the most powerful dual-screen channels, as it is a widely used hub of chatter about television. Research by Brandwatch, a U.K.-based socialmedia- analysis firm, has found that running a hashtag term during a show prompts a 63 percent increase in tweets compared to those that don't, and that "voting shows" like The Voice generate a higher-than-average amount of activity on Twitter because their users are already engaging with technology as part of their watching experience. Indeed, Twitter can be used as a real-time testing tool for what people are saying about your brand — a powerful complement to ratings systems. "Our technology can track one advert against another, and almost in real time, you can see the sentiment analysis, you can see how many people are positively responding," says Joel Windels, an analyst at Brandwatch. "You could never do that before with traditional research methods."
Marketers can also piggyback on the social television viewing that is taking place on Facebook. Hulu has a feature that enables people to automatically post to Facebook what shows they are watching, and Netflix recently rolled out a feature that lets members select from movies that are popular among their Facebook friends. Meanwhile, Facebook now has buttons for people to indicate whether they have "watched" or "want to watch" a TV show. "Everyone is trying to create that loop between these channels," says Brittany Darwell, lead writer for Inside Facebook, a blog that covers the social network. "Facebook is putting the infrastructure behind it so … the advertiser can pay to sponsor the fact that someone said they are watching this TV show or want to watch this movie coming up."
Key takeaway
With the rise of dual-screen applications, the long-sought era of "interactive television" has arrived, but instead of people interacting with their remote controls, they are using smartphones and tablets. Get more out of your TV media spend by finding ways to engage viewers. "For the vast majority of marketers, TV is still the reach channel," says Forrester's Parrish. "Commercials are still very powerful from an information-dissemination point of view and a brand point of view."
Results Measurement: Measuring ROI and Attribution
One of the most confounding challenges for multiscreen marketers is tracking users as they switch from one device to another, which is vital for measuring ROI and determining attribution. For example, if a consumer sees a television ad, researches the product on a tablet or smartphone, and ultimately makes a purchase on a PC, there is no way to connect the dots.
Or is there? In the age of big data, companies are emerging that can help marketers pull in data from across devices and sites to determine when and where a path-to-purchase happened. Santa Monica, Calif.–based Convertro, for example, uses proprietary technologies to track users as they move from screen to screen. "If you're just looking at one device, you're not getting the whole picture," says Tony Lanni, director of corporate marketing for Convertro. "We are capable of capturing that full funnel of activity, and tracking purchases and conversions, and crediting them back to different touch points. All of it is fully anonymous and compliant with even the strictest privacy regulations."
Convertro creates a unique ID for each device, based on details such as browser configuration and display settings, which is then matched with a database of users, based on anonymous data from diverse sources. "We have 97 percent confidence in getting a match [between devices] correct," Lanni says. "We have a database of about 300 million devices mapped to users today, and we are adding about 24 million devices per month."
Another company that helps brands track their ROI across screens is Irvine, Calif.–based BlueCava, Inc., which aggregates data from myriad sources related to consumer actions — such as click-tracking for banner ads, emails, and mobile apps — to create a complete picture of a campaign. "We help brands, agencies, publishers, and other players understand how users are interacting with their media campaigns, to help them have information they can put into their campaign design system or their analysis system," explains Michael Darviche, the CEO of BlueCava. "We help them think out those campaigns as holistic and unified by helping them pull that information back."
Key takeaway
The "return" of a multiscreen marketing campaign can be measured by everything from number of retweets to long-term shifts in brand perception. Marketers should capture as much data as possible from all the different touch points along the purchase funnel to maintain awareness of where they are getting the most bang for their buck.
Execution: Breaking down the silos
The proliferation of screens has added a new layer of complexity to the execution of marketing campaigns. Companies have to integrate many disciplines among various departments, including marketing and public relations, that each have their own agencies, Marriott's Thronson notes. "Getting them all to work together and have a common metric is what CMOs talk about most," she says. "It sounds good in theory, but it's hard to execute. No one has the silver bullet. We're all still figuring it out."
"Far too often, we meet with marketers who are not giving enough of a focus on multiscreen behavior and what it means for their business," Google's Kraham says. "The companies that are doing it well have top-down pressure to succeed in cross-screen. It has to be a shift in the way the company thinks about it."
One of the steps companies can make to break down the silos is to define and articulate an idea that gets everyone excited and inspired to work together. Schuh recalls that a recent successful Old Navy campaign for so-called skinny jeans — in which women in New York City were invited to walk a runway in Bryant Park and post photos to social media — was successful largely because of her team's passion and commitment. "We championed this campaign internally and forced our agency partners and business partners to collaborate more, and it all came together very quickly," Schuh says. "You have to think more holistically about the program. You can't just think of the TV piece and the digital piece separately. They really need to work together."
Thinking about digital at the outset is also crucial for avoiding a multiscreen strategy that feels like a hodgepodge. "Have digital and new technologies be part of the conversation from the beginning," NBC's Schiller advises. "Gone are the days of just looking at individual line items on a media plan; today you are looking at the context. Total communications planning will lead you to the best results."
It is also crucial that all stakeholders understand their common goals. "It's that combination of having a dedicated resource within the client, a content team that really understands what to look for and how to get this stuff done, and a buying team that is supportive in unleashing these opportunities," says Meredith Brace, global media director for Microsoft. "It's that trifecta, where we have shared goals and understanding of what we want to accomplish, and a model for how to financially calculate a positive ROI."
Key takeaway
The best multiscreen marketing comes from a holistic approach, which in turn results from a single, clear-minded leader who has well-defined objectives and a willingness to let each channel play its own role.
Transitioning your company toward multiscreen thinking today will have long-term benefits, as the number of screens in the world is only going to grow — and the challenge for marketers is only going to become more complex. Tomorrow's advertisers may have opportunities to reach consumers through channels ranging from wearable screens (like Google's glasses), to home appliances with interactive screens, to billboards that deliver personalized messages. Companies that begin to build bridges across the screens today will reap benefits for years to come.
Best practices
Experts weigh in on what works for multiscreen marketing
Deliver a great experience Put yourself in the consumer's shoes when conceiving a campaign, or suffer the consequences. Forrester research analyst Melissa Parrish describes a failed attempt by a major toilet paper brand to generate momentum with its recent app called "SitOrSquat," which lets people rate public restrooms (a clean restroom gets a "sit," a dirty one a "squat"). The problem, Parrish points out, is that people have to use their Facebook account to log in to the app, so many assume the tool will automatically post their ratings to their Facebook timeline — something they're not eager to have happen. "People don't read the fine print to realize that [it doesn't]," Parrish says, "so the app has gotten a poor rating because of that rather clumsy implementation."
Create utility Parrish offers an example of how apps can be used as tools for customer service: Krispy Kreme Doughnuts created a mobile app that lets people find out when a nearby store has its "hot light" on (the light that signals when doughnuts are freshly made). "Yes, it is a promotion, and it was developed by an agency in conjunction with the CMO," Parrish says. "Is it an ad? No, it absolutely isn't. We're talking about marketing that functions as products and vice versa. These are digital products for companies that are not inherently digital, and that is a major shift."
Match the medium A common mistake many companies make is to misalign the medium with the channel, such as running a text-heavy mobile website for a mobile device. Parrish cites a television ad that invited mobile users to access a sports team's schedule. "You had to walk up to the television with your phone and snap a picture of the QR code, and then it just sent you to the company's website, which was not mobile optimized in any way," she says.
Get consumers talking about the product, not the ad Many companies try too hard to create messages that will become viral — and then end up failing to make the sale. "Are people talking about how good the advert was, or are they talking about how good your product is? There's quite a big difference," says Joel Windels, an analyst at Brandwatch. "Lots of commercials tend to be abstract to get that viral success, but [marketers] have to look at whether that success is really about the brand and product they're trying to sell."
Span the funnel For marketers, all screens have the potential to serve as nodes in the purchase funnel, and all parts of this funnel represent opportunities to make a pitch. As an example, MasterCard has partnered with publications, such as Golf Digest and Wired magazines, to promote its cards within tablet formats. How does the credit card company do this? When a reader of the tablet version of Wired, for example, clicks on a gadget
featured in the magazine's "technology guide," he is brought to the e-commerce outlet Amazon, where he can see a MasterCard ad on the screen at the final point in the purchase funnel. "We deliver brand messages," says Benjamin Jankowski, group head of global media at MasterCard, "as well as offers like free shipping if you use the card."
Assess your risk tolerance "Determine, either on your own or with digital partners, whether you are a company that is culturally in favor of experimenting with new technologies," Forrester's Parrish advises. "The vast majority of companies are not, and that's fine. But that means that, rather than going to the digital team and saying, 'I want to pair my brand campaign with a tablet strategy,' you should be saying, 'I think there's something in this multiscreen strategy, and what do we know about how our customers use devices in order to help us craft what that strategy should be?' Do not lead with the technology unless you are a company that likes to experiment for its own sake." — C.K.
Key insights
Keeping your brand message consistent requires establishing a clear message that can travel and resonate across channels.
The user experience must always be top of mind when developing marketing for different screens.
If you see TV as the reach channel, get more out of your TV spend by creating ways viewers can engage with your brand while watching the TV.
Capture data from all touch points along the purchase funnel, and be cognizant of where you are getting the most bang for the buck.
The best multiscreen marketing comes from a holistic approach, which results from a clear-minded leader with well-defined objectives and a willingness to let each channel play its own role.
Companies that begin to build bridges across screens today will reap benefits for years to come.
Q&A With Mercedes-Benz's Eric Jillard
A stalwart sponsor of television, Mercedes-Benz has been expanding its presence on other screens in recent years — even the company's cars now come equipped with screens that let drivers and passengers access Google, Yelp, and other websites. There's also a feature that provides directions to Facebook friends located
nearby. We spoke with Eric Jillard, department manager of digital marketing and CRM at Mercedes-Benz USA, to find out how the company thinks about multiscreen marketing.
- How would you summarize Mercedes- Benz USA's digital strategy at a high level?
- We see digital as a way to engage customers and bring them into the brand, with display and consideration marketing. And we think digital plays an incredibly strong role in the loyalty world. We look at digital as a primary channel for CRM, and we think that it is the consideration channel now. Shopping and decision-making are largely happening in digital, and we try to optimize that experience.
- What are some examples of how Mercedes-Benz is marketing across multiple screens?
- Our platform provides a strong consideration experience. Once someone's interested in the vehicle or brand, whether they're shopping casually or seriously, we've got an experience on the website and other devices that works well. There's a challenge in ensuring you have the same consistency of messaging for your awareness and high-level consideration campaign happening in an effective way across desktop, tablet, and mobile.
We also have 42-inch touch screens in our stores to help dealers communicate and demonstrate our cars' complex technologies. We've given our sales associates iPads to deliver that content in a more portable way.
- Do you use responsive design?
- We are moving toward a responsive design site this year. It's a big task to take on, but we're convinced it's the right move. We're able to use a single code base to support all three of those platforms and do it in a way that makes it the most optimal experience on each of them. The tablet format will be better engineered for finger navigation, as opposed to mouse-based navigation.
- What do you see as the roles of the different screens?
- We find there is a lot of mobile traffic on the weekends, which we believe correlates to people actively shopping, potentially standing on a dealer's lot, looking at specifications, colors, or even dealer inventory. Mobile serves that in-the-moment need in a way that other channels don't. We see tablets as more of a content-consumption device, more of that "lean-back" environment, where people watch video, which plays a strong role in our consideration process. We create a lot of video now, with the primary use case being that video is searched for in Google or YouTube and consumed on a digital device. A significant percentage of engagement with our brand is happening with web video, which is consumed across all channels.
[In addition to online video,] we have 1.5 million fans on Facebook, and that's a great way for us to put content in front of people who are passionate about the brand. We lack the methodology today to track sales success to that content consumption, and a lot of marketers are struggling with that. But we believe it's effective, and when someone comments or shares a video, it's a strong positive reinforcement and has influence on people's brand and product perception.
- Is the in-car screen a potential channel for advertising?
The digital landscape inside the car is getting bigger and more important. But it's not that great a marketing channel. We think that, for communications with our customers, the mobile phone is going to be the primary conduit. If I send you a text message and slot in a time, that's actionable as a customer. It's easy to conceive of location-based opportunities, though, and I don't doubt that companies will start looking at those as the technology evolves and matures. The Department of Transportation is also looking into what kind of digital communications to allow inside cars.
2. What other tips or advice do you have for marketers?
You really want to do your homework about how your users are using those screens. Be goal-driven in understanding what you want them to achieve, and do your best to tailor the experience in a way that's going to be the most rewarding and engaging experience across channels. To try to do that with a single code base is a challenge. You don't want your responsive design to get to the point where you have a non-differentiated experience on different channels. — C.K.
Case study
Microsoft finds success chasing The Walking Dead
Bill Gates and a zombie apocalypse might seem like unlikely bedfellows, but Microsoft has found success in multichannel marketing through its long-standing sponsorship of the hit AMC show The Walking Dead. Here's how the tech giant did it.
The challenge
Microsoft wanted to get and keep the attention of a target audience of young, tech-savvy users who are inclined to consume media across channels. To maintain a brand presence across platforms, the company needed a way to follow its consumers as they move from screen to screen, and provide enough value to hold a seat in their social conversations.
The solution
Microsoft's approach to marketing is to zero in on an already popular media source whose audience is closely aligned with the company's own audience. "We [gather] a ton of data about who our target is and who we're going after, we work with the media agency to identify programming that really indexes high against the target, and we start there," says Meredith Brace, global media director of custom media and strategic partnerships at Microsoft. "We think about what those content areas are that our consumers love, and how do we attach to [them]."
Microsoft has found what it was looking for with today's popular AMC show The Walking Dead, which has a fan base of millions and is widely talked about on social media. As one fan-blogger writes, "I always know when a new episode of Walking Dead is on because [the show's] devoted ... fans pretty much take over Twitter… There's something about the spectacular twists and turns of the show that just make you want to tweet your zombie-fan heart out."
"It's a hot show, and we know that a ton of people in our audience for Windows watch that show, and it's delivering incredible ratings," Brace says. "People don't care how they're grabbing content — whether on an Xbox, on TV, or through the web. They just know that they love that piece of content. We do whatever we can to capture that excitement across screens."
Microsoft leverages the capabilities of mobile technology to provide added value to Walking Dead fans. This spring, Microsoft expanded its use of the "dual-screen" by using Story Sync, an app that enabled viewers to participate in trivia and polls during the show. During the mid-season finale and hiatus of season 3 of The
Walking Dead, Microsoft sponsored an e-card that people could use to put a zombie twist on their holiday greetings; the company also started and ended the season with custom spots for Windows 8 featuring a zombie-themed storyline about a dating couple. "We looked at the online chatter, and the conversation centered around, 'What happened on the date?'" Brace says. "We crowdsourced the idea for how to follow it up and created a content piece that ran during the finale that showed the payoff. It's an interesting way to think about how you use media in cooperation with your advertising to drive strong, engaged messages."
Boasting a rabid fan base of tech-savvy users, AMC's The Walking Dead proved an ideal multichannel partnership opportunity for Microsoft.
The results
Brace says her company's multiscreen approach to sponsoring The Walking Dead has paid off in many ways. "We do this because we know it works," she says. "We've developed a positive ROI model. Without getting into specifics that disclose our IP, we measure utilizing a series of diagnostics — two of which are Nielsen IAG and Bluefin. Both showed clear positive results against our campaign KPIs."
Brace adds: "We get incremental impact by layering in this deeper storytelling in a way that is relevant across screens… It's a way to amplify your advertising dollars and make them work harder, with an additional layer of storytelling that pays off for your brand to an audience that's really engaged in that show." Microsoft realizes some cases will take more resources to do this, Brace notes, "but the impact is worth it… We know that the layering approach works in aggregate, and you want to be in all those places. It's not a forced pushout. It's purposeful in making sure you're there where people are, at the right time, and in the right place." — C.K.
