“Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time.” – Henry FordCONSISTENCY
Advertising, Agency, Creative, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Media, PR, Strategy, Video
During this time of COVID-19, many businesses/advertisers may have questions about how to approach their own advertising efforts, and whether or not to advertise at all. Here is some research from the VAB and Spectrum Cable regarding media consumption and advertising during this time:
1. TV is a Lifeline
TV has become the centerpiece of the household, with 8 out of 10 people saying they couldn’t imagine not having a television right now…
2. News, News & More News
Almost 50% of viewers have at least one TV always set to a news channel…
3. Advertising Impact
Brands should not worry about a negative perception with advertising in COVID-19 news coverage or programming…
1. Source: VAB, As Time Goes By: How Media Consumption Is Helping America Cope, Apr 2020 / Lucid ‘Media Usage In The Time of COVID-19 Survey,’ April 2020. Survey base: P18+ & household subscribes to cable, telco, internet TV or satellite TV (n=1,004). Q7: Thinking of your behavior since the start of COVID-19, please indicate below how much you agree or disagree with the following statements & Q9: Thinking of your behavior during the COVID-19 Pandemic, please indicate below how much you agree or disagree with the following statements.
2. Source: VAB, As Time Goes By: How Media Consumption Is Helping America Cope, Apr 2020 / Lucid ‘Media Usage In The Time of COVID-19 Survey,’ April 2020. Survey base: P18+ & household subscribes to cable, telco, internet TV or satellite TV (n=1,004). Q6: Thinking of your behavior during the COVID-19 Pandemic, please indicate below how much you agree or disagree with the following statements, top 2 box (agree completely or agree somewhat).
3. Source: VAB, As Time Goes By: How Media Consumption Is Helping America Cope, Apr 2020 / Lucid ‘Media Usage In The Time of COVID-19 Survey,’ April 2020. Survey base: P18+ & household subscribes to cable, telco, internet TV or satellite TV (n=1,004). Q16: In general, do you feel it’s appropriate for companies to advertise in COVID-19 related news programming? & Q17: Would you boycott a company because it advertised in COVID-19 related programming?. Graphs: Q14: Some companies have created specific COVID-19 related advertising messages (e.g. Guinness, Ford, Burger King, Verizon). How do these types of advertisements typically impact your perception of a brand? & Q15: Some companies are lending resources (e.g. Comcast donating free internet, Ford, 3M and GE Healthcare making healthcare equipment), or helping local communities during the crisis (Miller Lite starts ‘virtual tip jar’ to support out-of-work bartenders). How does this affect your likelihood to purchase a product or service from this company?
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Advertising, Agency, Creative, Digital Marketing, Graphics, Marketing, Media, PR, Strategy, Video
During this challenging time, many advertisers are seeking guidance for best practices around advertising and marketing. Here’s a great article you should check out on the Adobe Blog, written by Mary Sheehan. To summarize the article, here are the eight main points:1. DO be authentic
2. DO revisit your creative often
3. DO look closely at segmentation to inform new strategies and messaging
4. DO assess the media channels where your customers are spending their time
5. DO choose the premium options — which have more credibility with consumers
6. DON’T assume your audience is consuming content the same way they always have
7. DON’T blindly restrict your ad placements
8. DON’T share anything insensitive or that could induce panic
Be sure to click here and link to the full blog post: https://theblog.adobe.com/the-dos-and-donts-of-advertising-during-covid-19/
Advertising, Agency, Marketing, Media, PR, Strategy
Having worked with dealerships for over 20 years, Clark Marketing Solutions is always working to stay ahead of the curve, making sure that our clients have the best information possible to inform their marketing decisions.Regarding the advent of COVID-19, the current business climate feels a lot like being stranded in deep water and trying to stay afloat. In the short term, we are all scrambling to figure out how to get through this unprecedented global challenge. Auto dealers will be running on fumes for a while. But dealership owners are also thinking strategically about the future, how to emerge from this short-term crisis in the strongest long-term position possible, and that involves everything, including new processes and marketing of said new processes.
Take a look at the following article, titled “How Car Dealers Can Survive During the Coronavirus Outbreak”: https://www.thedrive.com/tech/32672/how-car-dealers-can-survive-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak
The article has a lot of great, relevant points regarding long-term planning in light of the new normal, including the following:
- The “new normal” may lead to a larger paradigm shift rather than just a short-term challenge.
- New car dealers who begin offering the same kind of home delivery and online transaction services (as used-car companies like Carvana and Vroom) in earnest will be able to take strategic advantage of a void in the market.
- Start building and implementing a true home delivery and online transaction process now.
This will be necessitated by: 1) lingering consumer wariness about being in public spaces for long periods of time, 2) consumers’ heavy reliance on online shopping/delivery services in the short-term leading to consumers rewarding online shopping/delivery services—across ALL sectors—in the long-term, 3) a shrinking base of consumers in the market for a car, requiring dealers work harder to get a share of that shrinking pie, 4) dealers who have worked to implement a true and robust home delivery and online transaction process NOW will have strategic advantages over those who have not.Dealerships that start to “paddle” now will be best situated to “ride the wave” to success. Those who don’t will be left behind, bobbing in the water and watching their competitors ride to shore.
In anticipation of these emerging realities, we recommend the following:
- Make sure that a true and robust home delivery and online transaction process is in place and fine-tuned as soon as reasonably possible.
- Creation of a special area on the dealership website that is dedicated to communicating AND facilitating this home delivery and online transaction process.
- When ready, push the message out to consumers who show in-market behaviors via digital messaging.
Advertising, Agency, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Media, Strategy
We have experienced an online explosion of personalized media. The old way of marketing tools like TV ads, newspaper and magazine ads have given way to marketing to vastly fragmented audiences. The changes are coming so fast and furious it is almost impossible to keep up. For example, the rise of sites like Pinterest and Instagram have dramatically changed the playing field.Effective online marketing requires tons of data along with some highly talented marketers who can customize relevant messages to highly targeted audiences. Online programmatic marketing is the way these challenges are being met.
One of the largest challenges today is reaching consumers through the array of various devices they use. For instance, giving a consumer a smooth and consistent experience on her laptop, then iPad, and then smartphone is a challenge.
On the other hand, all of this digital technology has also provided marketers with an amazing opportunity they never had before — to target very specific consumers. The old way of marketing often involved merely throwing your ads up against the wall and then checking to find out what stuck. Ads reached mass audiences on TV or in magazines without really knowing who was seeing or reading them.
Online Programmatic Marketing Allows The Targeting of Small Consumer Niches
The digital revolution, however, has provided marketers with new data — some complain too much data to handle. We are able to determine what pages folks visit, what they search for, what devices they are using, what social sites they belong to and visit. This has resulted in an opportunity to mold messages finely targeted to small consumer niches.
Online Programmatic Marketing: Getting Ads Delivered In Real-Time
Another important part of this new digital marketing technique is getting ads delivered in real-time. By bidding on real-time display ads the marketer can determine ahead of time what he or she is willing to pay to reach their targeted market immediately.
When this cycle is repeated over and over each day, it’s easy to understand how an ad investment will pay returns exponentially greater and greater.
The next question facing today’s online marketers is: is there a way to expand online programmatic marketing beyond online ads? Is there some way that content marketers can also benefit from this automated method of targeting an audience? Can they use similar techniques to direct consumers through this purchasing process with access to personal information?
Online Programmatic Email Marketing
Today more and more online marketers are quickly picking up on this ability to market to niche groups with razor-sharp accuracy. They understand that the same general newsletter sent out to all of their customers cannot accomplish what niche-specific communication can.
The marketers who are leading the pack today are using super-targeted emails to reach consumers. How can this be done? Imagine you have an online product page and you know one of your email subscribers just visited and looked at a specific product. The next logical step would be to send that customer an immediate email highlighting the benefits of the product.
Or let’s say you have a product review site and an individual on your list just visited one of the pages. This would be the perfect time to provide that person with additional information about the product.
One of the big challenges is customizing all these automated messages to fit the various channels consumers are using today. Imagine a customer walking down an aisle in a department store and being provided with a discount coupon for an item in that aisle! And it’s not just the marketers are becoming tech-savvy. Lots of smart shoppers use their smartphones to access discounts while they are shopping!
Its simple to understand that one size does not fit all. A discount coupon will not have the same effect on an individual working on their laptop at home as it will on a consumer in a department store standing in the exact aisle where the product is featured.
Designing these ads and reaching niche-specific consumers in real-time is what online programmatic marketing is all about. As technologies continue to develop, this ability will become easier and easier for even small online marketers to use.
“The most powerful element in advertising is the truth.” – Bill BernbachTruth
“Great content is the best sales tool in the world” – Marcus SheridanGreat Content
“Creative without strategy is called ‘art.’ Creative with strategy is called ‘advertising.” – Jef I. RichardsCreativity + Strategy
Advertising, Agency, Creative, Marketing, Media, Strategy
Advertising agency Clark Marketing Solutions earned two 2018 Communicator Awards of Distinction from the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts, for jingle production and original music production. The agency’s award entry was an original jingle and music bed produced for their client Lake Elsinore Ford.
This is the eighth Communicator Award that Clark Marketing Solutions has earned since 2011, including awards earned for audio production, jingle production, and video production/use of graphics. Previous wins included awards for jingles developed on behalf of Nelson Honda in El Monte, CA, and Diamond Valley Honda in Hemet, CA. With entries received from across the US and around the world, the Communicator Awards is the largest and most competitive awards program honoring creative excellence for communications professionals.
“It’s great to have our agency’s commitment to top-level creative recognized this way,” said Neal Clark, owner and operator of Clark Marketing Solutions. “We’re honored to have earned these awards, especially considering the distinguished and accomplished panel of judges reviewing all the entries.”
The Communicator Awards are judged and overseen by the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts (AIVA), a 600+ member organization of leading professionals from various disciplines. Current AIVA membership represents a “Who’s Who” of acclaimed media, advertising, and marketing firms including: PureMatter, Condè Nast, Disney, Republica, Sesame Workshop, MTV, Starbucks, Time Inc., Tribal DDB, Yahoo!, and many others.
Clark Marketing Solutions is an award-winning, full-service advertising agency based in San Diego County, CA. The agency offers the service and attention of a boutique shop combined with the experience, talent, and savvy of a large national firm. Clark Marketing Solutions is an A+ rated member of the Better Business Bureau (BBB).