May 17, 2023

'I never read the economist' advertising campaign effect

During my research, I examined various sources, including articles from Shorty Awards, Forbes, WordStream, BCG, Holland & Knight, a Reddit discussion, and Harvard Business Review. These sources provided insights into the importance and effects of branding and advertising campaigns, as well as different opinions on the effectiveness of branded campaigns. There was a general consensus on the significance of branding for businesses, but opinions on specific advertising strategies varied. Given the variety of sources, I believe my research provides a relatively comprehensive understanding of the topic.

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The Economist's Advertising Campaign

The Economist's advertising campaign aimed to attract a new audience and change outdated perceptions of the publication being dryly intellectual and focused primarily on economics, politics, and business. The objectives of the campaign were to increase exposure, change perceptions, secure new long-term subscribers, and increase the prospect pool. To achieve these goals, they used creative collateral and thought-provoking content, as well as a combination of in-feed advertising and dynamic advertising.

Importance of Branding in Business

Branding is essential for businesses to create an identity, stand out in a crowded market, and build trust with customers. Strong branding helps businesses become more recognizable and establish credibility, which is crucial for customer loyalty. Effective branding also benefits employees, creating a sense of team unity and motivation. A successful branding strategy can give businesses an advantage over their competition and create loyal customers who feel a connection to the company.

Key Benefits and Steps in Branding

Branding provides several key benefits, including distinguishing a business from competitors, increasing recognizability, building customer loyalty, and attracting and retaining employees. To create a successful brand, businesses should identify their target audience, create a value proposition, determine their mission and core values, define their brand personality, create brand assets, integrate messaging across channels, and maintain consistency.

Effectiveness of Brand Marketing in B2B

Brand marketing can be just as effective in B2B industries as in consumer industries, if not more so. Strong brand marketing capabilities can reinforce performance marketing and lead to better overall engagement. Companies with strong brands show higher returns on their brand marketing investments and hold larger market shares than weaker brands.

Impact of COVID-19 on Advertising and Marketing Campaigns

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way businesses operate and sustain their brands. Advertising spending is expected to decrease for some businesses in 2020, and many have refocused their spending on purpose-driven, mission-based, and cause-related marketing to better meet consumers' needs while working from home.

Discussion on Branded Campaigns

Opinions on the effectiveness and importance of branded campaigns in PPC advertising vary, as seen in a Reddit discussion. Some commenters suggest that branded spend should be a small portion of the overall budget, while others argue for full brand coverage to help control the message of search results and keep competitors out. The optimal strategy may depend on the industry and specific business goals.

Managing Reputational Risk

Reputational risk arises when anything damages a company's reputation, and it is crucial to manage it effectively. To proactively manage reputational risk, businesses should identify and assess existing and potential threats, decide whether to accept a particular risk or take actions to avoid or mitigate it, and evaluate and control factors that contribute to reputational risks.

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Research

"https://hbr.org/2007/02/reputation-and-its-risks"

  • Most organizations overlook reputational risk, which arises when anything damages their reputation, and focus on crisis management instead of risk management.

  • Reputational risk is often difficult to assess and quantify, but it is especially important to manage because intangible assets such as brand equity, goodwill, and intellectual capital comprise 70% to 80% of market value.

  • Strong reputations help companies attract better talent and customers, charge premiums, and have higher price-earning multiples and market values with lower costs of capital.

  • The authors introduce a framework for actively managing reputational risk, which includes identifying and assessing existing and potential threats to the company’s reputation and deciding whether to accept a particular risk or take actions to avoid or mitigate it.

  • The framework involves three factors:

    • The reputation-reality gap: the extent to which stakeholders’ perceptions of the company’s reputation differs from the reality of the company’s behavior, performance, or operations.
    • Changing beliefs and expectations: the expectations and values of stakeholders that change over time and could potentially reduce the company’s reputation.
    • Weak internal coordination: the lack of coordination among different parts of the company regarding reputation management.
  • The authors suggest methods for sufficiently evaluating and controlling these factors to manage reputational risks:

    • Conducting stakeholder research to identify potential, existing, and unexpected risks and concerns
    • Developing and tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) related to reputation management
    • Integrating reputation risk into the company’s overall risk management process
    • Establishing a dedicated reputation risk management function or committee
    • Providing reputation management training for employees and executives
  • The authors argue that companies need to be proactive and manage reputational risk actively rather than reactively.

  • Companies that poorly manage their reputations or fail to take reputational risks seriously could face negative consequences such as reduced market value, decreased revenue, decreased sales, higher costs of capital, and more.

  • Potential threats to a company’s reputation include a negative advertising campaign, a security breach, an environmental catastrophe, a product safety scandal, and unethical behavior, among others.

  • The article concludes that managing reputational risk can help companies gain competitive advantage, increase customer loyalty, and attract better talent and thus achieve sustained growth and profitability.

"Is advertising bad?"

Not used in article

"https://www.bcg.com/publications/2021/why-brand-marketing-matters"

  • Companies in B2B industries often debate the value of brand marketing.
  • BCG and Google conducted surveyed 330 large B2B companies in seven industries worldwide to determine the value of brand marketing.
  • A recent survey by BCG and Google found that brand marketing in the B2B realm can be just as effective as in the consumer realm, if not more so.
  • Strong brand marketing capabilities reinforce performance marketing, leading to better engagement overall.
  • Most B2B companies tend to focus on performance attributes when marketing their products and services.
  • Nearly one-quarter of B2B companies devote less than 20% of their marketing budget to brand marketing.
  • The survey found that underinvesting in a brand can have serious ramifications, as each new product or service offering starts essentially from scratch.
  • BCG has identified four levels of digital marketing maturity: nascent, emerging, differentiating, and amplifying.
  • Companies that advance from the emerging level to the differentiating level see a corresponding increase of about 25 percentage points in terms of ROMI.
  • B2B companies that have reached the amplifying level of maturity perform far better, generating returns on their brand marketing investments that were 46 percentage points higher than those of companies at the nascent level.
  • Strong brand marketing can deepen customer relationships, improve the return on marketing investment, and augment the lifetime value of customers.
  • Companies with strong brands show a 74% higher return on their brand marketing investment and hold a 46% larger market share than weaker brands.
  • Amplifying companies are twice as likely as companies in the nascent category to view their brand value proposition as effective and powerful.
  • Amplifying companies are not only more proficient at measurement, but they measure a wider range of performance metrics.
  • They assess about 50% more KPIs than nascent organizations, and they’re significantly more likely to measure impact after a customer purchase with metrics such as customer advocacy and loyalty.
  • Marketers at amplifying companies invest in talent across a wider range of skills than less-mature companies.
  • Companies at the highest level of maturity consistently and effectively engage with customers across all touchpoints and throughout the entire customer journey from initial awareness through retention and loyalty.
  • Amplifying brands were more than twice as likely as nascent brands to have increased their expenditure on brand online videos by more than 10% over the past three years.
  • Companies that invest more than half of their brand dollars in digital generated returns that were about 25% higher, regardless of their

"https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2020/04/the-impact-of-covid19-on-your-advertising-and-marketing-campaigns"

  • The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in unprecedented economic and health concerns globally. As a result, how businesses operate and how they sustain and grow their brand and customer base has changed.
  • The Holland & Knight alert on the impact of COVID-19 on advertising, marketing, and promotional practices of businesses provides an overview on the practical best practice tips that businesses can use to understand their responsibilities and enhance their regulatory compliance programs. 
  • The International Monetary Fund projects that global growth will fall to minus-3 percent in 2020, leading to significant market alterations for all industry sectors.
  • Hospitality, aviation, and retail industries are suffering, along with downstream industries such as energy, textiles, transportation equipment, furniture, and appliances, machinery, and fabricated metal products. Hotel occupancy rates sit below 20 percent across the country and aviation travel is down close to 95 percent compared to the same period in 2019.
  • Brand sustainability, development of new products, competitive landscape considerations, and addressing consumer concerns about health, wellness, community, personal fulfillment, and meaning are several issues that the businesses are grappling with.
  • The FTC, CFPB, and state attorneys general are redoubling their efforts to protect vulnerable consumers, monitor aggressive campaigns, and terminate COVID-19 scams or aggressive campaigns.
  • Advertising spending is expected to decrease for some in 2020 as stores close and revenue decreases. Brands have refocused their spends to purpose-driven marketing, mission-based marketing, and cause-related marketing to better satiate consumers’ media consumption while working from home.
  • Brands must be tactful, employ mindful marketing, and be empathetic to consumers’ plight while acknowledging the crisis and reflecting positive values that will keep consumers coming back for more.
  • The FTC is taking a more active role in cracking down on deceptive paid endorsements in influencer marketing.
  • The sweepstakes and contest industry has been severely impacted as brands do not want to appear out-of-touch or tone-deaf to the effects of the pandemic. Sweepstakes, contests, and giveaways provide brands with an opportunity to engage consumers during an uncertain time.
  • Businesses have placed an emphasis on selling gift cards to consumers for current or future use to offset the loss of income. However, gift card issuers must comply with federal and state gift card laws that require specific disclosures, impose restrictions on expiration dates and fees and pose other regulatory requirements.
  • Cause-related marketing through commercial co-ventures is an increasingly popular way for brands to align their products and services with social impact initiatives to assist victims of the

"https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2021/09/23/how-brand-your-business"

  • Branding is essential for organizations of all sizes and industries to distinguish themselves from competitors based on their values, story, and brand promise.
  • The article provides 4 key benefits of branding: distinguishing a business from competitors, become more recognizable, build customer loyalty, and gain and retain employees.
  • To brand a business, there are 7 steps including identifying the target audience, creating the value proposition, determining the mission and core values, defining the brand personality, creating brand assets, integrating the messaging across channels, and being consistent.
  • The first step in branding a business is to understand the potential customers by analyzing the current customer base, conducting market research, and creating buyer personas.
  • A value proposition is the brand promise, which should describe how your solution can solve customers’ problems better than competitors.
  • A mission statement answers why a business exists and describes the purpose of the business, who the customers are, the products or services provided, and how they are delivered.
  • Core values are the principles that drive a business’s goals, mission, and vision and shape the company culture and perception.
  • Brand personality is a combination of the qualities that a business exhibits and should attract people to the company and shape their perception.
  • The article recommends choosing branding elements that identify a business such as color, font, packaging, slogan, and logo, that are distinctive and easily recognizable.
  • The branding elements should be distributed across all channels including messaging and visual assets.
  • Consistency in branding is essential for creating familiarity, trust, and loyalty and should be reinforced by brand guidelines.
  • Examples of businesses with strong brand identities include Drift, Zopa, and ASOS, which all align their values, messaging, and marketing efforts with their target audiences.

"https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2021/03/24/the-importance-of-branding-in-business/"

  • The article emphasizes that branding is essential to a business’s identity, beyond just logos and colors.
  • With the rise of social media and the abundance of options available to consumers, standing out in a crowded market is more difficult than ever.
  • Strong branding helps businesses get recognized more often and helps build trust, which is crucial for customer loyalty.
  • A business with cohesive branding, including a distinct logo and attractive visual elements, is more memorable than one without it.
  • Building trust with an audience and establishing credibility is easier with good branding.
  • Advertising and branding go hand in hand, with cohesive branding helping to create an effective advertising campaign.
  • Branding is not only beneficial to customers but also to employees, who can feel more like a team and be more motivated by the branding of their company.
  • A strong brand can create loyal customers who feel a connection to the company and have an emotional attachment to the brand.
  • Proper branding can also create a human side to a business, one that customers or clients can relate to as opposed to a strictly business-facing entity.
  • Branding, when successful, can give businesses an upper hand, allowing them to rise above their competition.
  • The Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative, and advertising agencies.

"https://shortyawards.com/8th/the-economist-raising-eyebrows-and-subscriptions-marketing-campaign"

  • The campaign by the Economist aimed to attract a new audience, change the outdated perceptions that the publication was dryly intellectual and mainly focused on economics, politics, and business.
  • The campaign’s objectives were to increase exposure, change perceptions, secure new long-term subscribers, and increase the prospect pool.
  • The campaign used creative collateral and thought-provoking content to attract potential readers. The approach was to put content front and center in a digital format with smart messaging where the audience grazes.
  • They used provocative display advertising to pull the audience towards the relevant article on the bespoke content hub where they could serve the content that would interest them the most.
  • A live Newsroom with a direct line to The Economist’s editorial meetings was built to focus on current debates and issues of the moment.
  • The campaign analyzed the web and app usage of its most active subscribers to determine what they prefer and matched cookie data to various other datasets to create seven robust segments on the sections of the Economist like finance, politics, economics, and others.
  • The campaign was split into two types of advertising:
    1. In Feed Advertising: The campaign places content into feeds based on different data points and context to not interrupt the flow, while Facebook and Twitter covered social media, ShareThrough and Outbrain delivered Economist content into a long-tail of quality brands like Wall Street Journal and CNN.
    2. Dynamic Advertising: The dynamic advertising consisted of display ads made up of Economist content that was building in real-time from the feed to match the context of the page and the viewer profile. An ad decision tree was built to deliver content in a sequence, which learned over time which topics, in which order, would generate the warmest prospect.
  • They performed an analysis of the campaign to determine the response. They hit 50% of their goal in just 9 days, twice the target at five weeks and generated over 3.61 million new people to the Economist’s website.
  • The immediate revenue for The Economist came from 1,500 new subscriptions (directly trackable via Adobe to people who clicked on their ads) and an incremental 8,000 new subscriptions delivered over and above the base subscriptions.
  • The campaign generated £12.7 million value in completed subscriptions and supplementary revenue, which was confidently attributed to their campaign.
  • The 9,500 new subscribers generated through the campaign will generate at least £11,970,000 in lifetime value (based on the average subscription length of seven years).
  • The sale of the advertising space on The

"Branded Campaigns - worth the budget spend?"

  • The Reddit webpage is discussing the effectiveness and importance of branded campaigns in a PPC advertising strategy.
  • The OP of the post claims that the PPC agency they are working with is spending the majority of their budget on branded search campaigns which have CTRs of 30% or higher.
  • They are concerned that not enough is going towards a new audience looking for the products, and that the agency won’t be able to promise the same results for non-branded campaigns.
  • Some commenters suggest that the proportion of branded spend should be only a tiny part of overall spend, around 1-2%, primarily to cover any potential competition on branded keywords or if the organic listing isn’t in the number 1 position.
  • Others suggest that the decision depends on the industry and that brand PPC spend is generally more like 10% of PPC budget if getting 95-98% brand PPC impression share.
  • There are various opinions and suggestions provided in the comments. Some recommend gradually reducing the amount spent on branded keywords to find the optimal target impression share that is the most cost-effective, while others recommend controlling the brand reach by cutting terms that aren’t doing well or have high CPA.
  • Some suggest negative-out exact match words of brand names to make sure the spend is flowing more towards important brand queries.
  • However, others advocate full brand coverage to help the algorithms get a better understanding of the converters, and to keep competitors out, and because they are cheap, helping to control the message of the search results, and taking advantage of extra space for call/location extensions.
  • There is an interesting suggestion made that turning off brand search ads could actually lower a company’s brand SEO performance as turning off the branded campaigns would mean they may not naturally capture all the same traffic back with their SEO listing and furthermore, they’ll very likely lose SEO traffic that also would’ve been captured, had their branded PPC ad been in place.
  • Commenters also recommend determining the impact of spending by calculating the current average impression share for branded campaigns, and calculating the average traffic and ROAS from that. Then gradually reduce it for a month to calculate how much traffic and ROAS is lost and determine the optimal target impression share that is the most cost-effective by seeing whether the percentage of ROAS lost is bigger than the impression share lost.
  • Other comments suggest that although brand campaigns should be included in the PPC strategy, and spending should hit 80-90% impression share, it should not be a very large portion of overall spend. They

"Is The Economist good?"

Not used in article

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The impact of the campaign on readership and subscriptions

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The relevance of controversy in ad campaigns

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The effect of 'I never read The Economist' campaign on The Economist's brand value