Traditional Marketing Still Works in the Mix

In this rapidly changing marketing climate, it may be tempting to declare traditional advertising dead. However, as Merlot Marketing CEO Debi Hammond will argue, it’s very much alive and all it needs is the right integrated media mix. Below, in her latest article featured in the Sacramento Business Journal, Debi shares one of her favorite examples of a successful integrated marketing campaign:

TRADITIONAL MARKETING STILL WORKS IN THE MIX

Is traditional advertising dead? Is print media dead? Should I allocate any of my marketing budget to those areas?

These three questions most often are asked by clients who want to know how to spend their company’s marketing dollars.

The answers are easy, but the execution takes some strategic work.

Traditional advertising is not dead. However, how you use it and integrate it is changing rapidly. You can’t just run TV spots and assume that everyone will see them. The media market is too fragmented and provides consumers with too many choices. Likewise with print.

Today, not unlike the “Mad Men” era, your media mix must be integrated. Back then, that would include TV, print, radio, and maybe billboard. Today, the key to successful “traditional” advertising is the channels.

A great example of successful integration was Oreo’s timely use of social media during last year’s Super Bowl. It ran a traditional TV spot, but integrated a “Choose your side on Instagram @Oreo” tag at the end of its commercial. By introducing one of its social media profiles at the end of the television spot, it raised awareness and interest in its social media presence.

Therefore, when the power outage hit the Superdome during the game, Oreo leveraged the heightened interest in its social presence by tweeting an ad that read, “Power Out? No problem” and included an ad featuring a solitary Oreo cookie in low lighting with the headline, “You can still dunk in the dark.”

Once you’ve used traditional marketing to get the message “out,” your next opportunity is to use social and digital media to get your message “in” — as “into” the hearts and minds of your target audience.

For the full article go to the Sacramento Business Journal: http://ow.ly/tSsMR