The IPA’s latest publication from Les Binet and Peter Field, Effectiveness in Context, provides advertisers with a self-help manual for brand building according to a brand’s market category, business model, life-stage and size. The pioneering work includes three tables of values to help advertisers calculate their: optimum brand building to sales activation ratio, budget setting, and target ROMI. It was published part of the cross-industry Eff Week conference, spearheaded by the IPA.
The publication is designed to help guide advertisers’ strategies depending on the context that their brand operates in. It reveals that while there are some universal lessons that advertisers can apply to all brands, there are a number that are context-specific. As such, there is no-one size fits all approach to effectiveness; brands must adapt the rules and established 60:40 brand building to sales activation ratio accordingly.
According to Binet and Field’s research, there are some universal rules for all brands in all contexts:
In addition, this latest research reveals that there are six contextual factors that brands must also consider and offset accordingly:
Flexing the formulas to your brand
Taking both these universal and contextual considerations into play, and with each variable carrying a different value to offset, Binet and Field provide three tables of values to help marketers calculate – according to their brand - : (1) the optimum brand building to sales activation ratio required; (2) how much budget to set and (3) their target ROMI.
Theory into practice: an FMCG example
To exemplify this, Binet and Field detail how to calculate the optimum brand building to sales activation ratio of a new, non-food FMCG brand:
Says Janet Hull OBE, Director of Marketing Strategy, IPA: “In an increasingly competitive and complex eco-system, understanding context gives competitive advantage to investment strategies, media and creative briefs, and implementation. This new publication provides a veritable manual for brand building, relating theory to practice, and crucially sets the context for how people choose and buy brands. It also provides some surprising modifications to established best practice and observes that whilst marketing has been improving its effectiveness in some contexts, it has been destroying it in others – so the opportunities for brands to steal a march on their competitors are highly context-specific.”
Says Matt Hill, Research and Planning Director, Thinkbox: “Binet and Field never disappoint. There is an enormous amount here for marketers to get their teeth into, with findings that can be tailored to their individual businesses. For anyone after expertise on effective marketing strategies, it should be read cover to cover. Equally it will work well for those looking for a reference guide on how Binet and Field’s rules differ for specific brands in a specific life stage.”
Says Jonny Protheroe, Head of UK Market Insights. Google: “When presented with new research on effectiveness, marketers can be left wondering, “How does this apply to me? What are the implications for my brand and category?” After all, such learning must be applied with context in mind. This latest report by Les & Peter helps to answer those questions. The findings illustrate that effectiveness is nuanced, and gives direction to marketers as they seek to evaluate their own activity. This is important because even though advertising budgets continue to grow, businesses are requiring more accountability from their marketing teams, and measuring effectiveness is becoming increasingly challenging.”
Ten killer charts from Les & Peter's presentation at EffWeek 2018 can be downloaded from the Effworks website.
Effectiveness in Context forms part of the IPA’s Marketing Effectiveness in the Digital Era series, and is available to purchase from the IPA website (£25 for IPA members, £50 for non-members) and Amazon (£50).
You can also join the conversation on Twitter #EffWeek @EffWorks and find out more at effworks.co.uk