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Building cost-effective, impactful integrated digital marketing campaigns

SeeSaw Networks' CEO discusses how to use place-based digital video advertising to improve message effectiveness.  

March 25, 2009 by

Given the current economic situation, it's more important than ever to cost-effectively deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time. Instead of focusing only on the traditional platforms of television, radio, newspapers and magazines, marketers are excited about the ability to use new digital media — via the Internet, digital screens and mobile phones — to reach people wherever they are during their busy day, and in the right context.

Coffee shops, gas stations, ballparks, gyms, subway stations and grocery stores — this medium is everywhere your audience is. Including "place-based" digital advertising in an integrated marketing campaign delivers a highly targeted value message to your consumer and builds overall cost-effectiveness into your campaign, all while providing precision targeting unthinkable just a few years ago.

Place-based digital video has emerged as an extremely effective branding tool. According to research by OTX, 44 percent of adults said they paid some or a lot of attention to place-based digital video advertising, placing it ahead of billboards, the Internet and mobile phones, and on par with magazines, radio and newspapers. And 63 percent of adults reported that place-based digital advertising "catches their attention" — more than any other media.

Historically, the lack of national reach across multiple locations made it very difficult for national brands to incorporate place-based digital video advertising into their marketing strategy. Some companies, however, have begun aggregating individual networks to create a truly national advertising platform — very similar to what's happened with Internet advertising. An aggregated network approach can deliver more than 50 million weekly gross impressions across nearly 30,000 locations around the country — all from one network.

Beyond massive scale, an aggregated network offers the ability to add sophisticated planning algorithms and Web-based planning applications across multiple networks to make it easy to plan, optimize, buy, manage and measure place-based digital video advertising campaigns. These technologies make it possible for national brands to evaluate the strategic benefits of the medium and quickly plan how to use it to complement integrated marketing programs.

So what does placed-based digital video advertising bring to integrated marketing campaigns? The ability to target timely messages to precisely defined, but elusive mobile consumer segments while they are out and about, working, shopping and socializing. Think of the impact your message will have on your customers in the context of their daily life patterns. Whether it's pumping gas in the morning, shopping for groceries in the afternoon, exercising after work, or socializing in bars and restaurants in the evening, you can intercept them at relevant touch points in their day.

Life Pattern Marketing allows advertisers to map routines and traits of a target audiences.

Life Pattern Marketing helps advertisers use behavioral targeting to more cost-effectively deliver relevant ads to a highly customized consumer segment. It isn't enough to know only demographic characteristics — it's more important to understand what consumers do and where they go.

Read also:DirecTV blimp elevates SeeSaw's ‘Life Patterns' for DOOH media

Studying the Life Patterns of various consumer segments reveals what they do during a busy day, enabling marketers to identify a customized Life Pattern for the audience they want to reach. Imagine the power of reaching "Alpha Moms" with a relevant message while they are out during their busy day, or "College Students" in a completely different set of locations — where they are most likely to gather on and around campus.

Geo-targeting

Another technology developed for place-based digital advertising, geo-targeting, allows marketers to customize a geographic area more aligned with strategic business needs and more cost-effective than broad-based media. This unprecedented precision gives marketers much greater flexibility, allowing them to go beyond specifying large geographic markets and instead communicate more effectively with the people most likely to be interested in their products.

Geo-targeting makes it possible for national brands to use placed-based digital video advertising to market goods and services only to consumers who can actually purchase them. For example, a telecommunications company can run a campaign targeting specific zip codes where its service is provided or around all its store locations to announce a new product or service. In the same way, a restaurant chain can target a Life Pattern in close proximity to its restaurants when the consumers are out and about and more likely to make a decision to eat out. Geo-targeting minimizes wasted impressions and lets marketers focus spend where it will have the most impact.

Geo-targeting and Life Pattern Marketing enable marketers to extend integrated marketing campaigns with highly focused and cost-effective place-based digital video advertising that can deliver specific messages in contextually relevant settings. What better time to tell Alpha Moms of a sale or special promotion than when she is out shopping? Can you think of a better time to reach College Students with an ad announcing a new computer or mobile phone than when they are on and around campus with friends?

Let's say an automobile company wants to drive young urban professionals who live or work within a certain radius (five miles, 10 miles, etc.) to its dealerships. Using Life Pattern Marketing and geo-targeting, the automaker can design an interactive campaign that runs in targeted local spots around the dealership to reach this audience. With SMS, the automobile company can use opt-in text messaging to provide the target consumers with the location of the nearest dealership.

When evaluating the cost of adding placed-based digital video advertising into the marketing mix, it's worth noting that most digital video ads can be easily produced using existing assets, so they don't require a significant investment in new creative. In fact, by incorporating existing text, flash-based graphics and existing video assets, placed-based digital video advertising becomes an integral part of fully integrated marketing campaigns, delivering the same brand messages directly to target audiences in places with greater contextual relevance and immediacy.

There's no substitute for reaching customers during those fleeting moments when they are open to receiving messages during their busy day. Since bombarding audiences with frequent, non-specific messages may actually result in more resentment than awareness, leveraging today's new place-based, micro-targeted approaches will pay off in spades. Place-based digital video advertising is a powerful, proven media, and with today's newest tools for planning, optimizing, buying, and managing campaigns, this media should find a home in most integrated marketing programs.

Peter Bowen is CEO and co-founder of SeeSaw Networks.

This article was originally published at the Promotion Marketing Association (PMA) Annual Integrated Marketing Conference on March 10, 2009, as part of series of thought leadership articles from marketing leaders to educate and marketers and media planners about integrated marketing planning and practices.