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Scoring big at the box office is as crucial to Madison Avenue today as it is to Hollywood. Consumer marketers need to know what new campaigns-and new products-have done for them lately.
Every Monday, Michael Mathews is greeted with stockpiles of information about how his products are faring. Like a network executive poring over nightly ratings, he combs through the data looking for positive signs. For Mathews, senior director of global strategic marketing for Bayer's analgesics and safety products, that would mean sales have shown a lift, especially around the time a new campaign or promotion was launched.
"Generally speaking, if we hit the nail on the head, we see a spike in sales after the first week it's on the air. And if it's not moving after a week, your boss is going to be in your office saying what's wrong with the advertising? And you say, 'It's just a week,'" said Mathews. "By week two or week three, if it's not moving, you're in development again."
Welcome to today's entertainment culture of marketing. Just as with movies and TV shows, new campaigns are under pressure to score big in the short-term-and as a result, age quickly.
"If you study marketing successes, most of them take a long time," said Jack Trout, a consultant based in Old Greenwich, Conn. "When you're getting those hourly numbers, you think: 'Uh oh, looks like a loser, gotta cut and run,' but you have to give things more time."
Thanks to technological advances, such data-whether from sources like Information Resources Inc., Nielsen Monitor Plus or from a company's own internal research-have multiplied over the last five years, giving marketers the ability to respond to trends much more quickly. As a result, the pace of marketing has greatly accelerated. Campaigns that used to be given months or years to succeed are now pulled or rejiggered after as little as a few weeks.
Consumers may not recall Domino's "Bad Andy" campaign of 2000, featuring a mischievous puppet mascot. Or those goofy spots from Coke that same year, where in one ad, a wheelchair-bound grandmother goes ballistic at a family reunion because there is no Coke. That's because both campaigns lasted less than 12 months. Ditto for Motorola's "Intelligence everywhere"...