Search results for: Category: Blogs 2019

International advertising is dead, long live international advertising

Once upon a time, international advertising could fairly be accused of being unexciting, needing to appeal to a broad target market and so lacking the great ideas that local campaigns were able to implement given a better understanding of the humour or nuance of local audiences.  Some of us are old enough to remember those awful TV ads where you could instantly tell it was an international campaign by the bad dubbing and bland creative, and few truly global campaigns would be lauded at Cannes.  Digital, of course, has changed this – making it ever easier to think global but tweak for local, and enabling international advertisers to target audiences more precisely on an international scale.  The World Media Awards have been set up to recognise the growing creativity and innovation in international advertising, particularly those campaigns which engage with audiences with a content-led idea.  Given that our independent jury represents a broad range of expertise in international communications strategy, we’ve been asking them about the new “global / local” approaches and how you make them work.

 

What do we mean by “personalisation” in international advertising?

Our jurors are excited by the  notion of personalisation – of taking an idea and adapting it across different markets so that it is still recognisable as the same campaign despite the regional variations. Brodie Reid, Global Brand and Content Manager at Tourism New Zealand, says that their international campaigns “take a global view of the macro trends happening in the industry and then apply a local lens to tap into what’s relevant and specific for that market”. Annie Granatstein, Head of WP BrandStudio at Washington Post, supported this idea, explaining that a successful and profitable marketing campaign may involve the creation of multiple versions of the content, “not just translations, but accounting for differences in cultures and interest.”

 

Is there such a thing as an “international” audience?

Richard Stokes, Global Head of Content at Wavemaker questions the notion of an “international“ audience, before suggesting that “we should apply all that we know of an audience group and ensure we personalise content to the greatest extent possible”. Iain Jacob, Director, Advisor and Investor,concurred, explaining that “nobody is ‘international’ or ‘domestic’ in today’s world. This is about targeting a mindset – and it is context that delivers mindset.”

 

Is it all about the data?

Raquel Bubar, Director of T BrandStudio at The New York Times said that “the more we can tap into performance metrics, the more we can predict which types of content will work well with different audiences in different regions around the world.” However, whilst data is increasingly essential to the success of a campaign, including the local expertise is still a crucial component. Caroline Foster-Kenny, CEO of the EMEA region at IPG Mediabrands, stated that “trusting in the knowledge of local teams is key to the development of any successful campaign running across multiple territories” whilst Thibaut Portal, Global Media Hub Leader at Pernod Ricard, explained that “head office enables you to consolidate and bring coherency across many activated markets [whilst] local is fine-tuning and adapting strategies.”

 

Great international advertising needs a great idea

Gordana Buccisano, Head of Business Strategy and Commercial Planning at Publicis, said “at the core of a campaign, you need to have a killer insight that forms the basis for the killer idea on which the campaign is built upon. If both are in sync (insight and idea), then the job of balancing global with local becomes much easier to implement.”

 

An international content-driven marketing strategy must find the right balance between using metrics and local insight to personalise the campaign without losing sight of the human truth that the strategy taps into. It’s a fine line to walk, and the successful culmination of this tight-rope act is a feat worth of celebration.   We have a library of some of the most successful international content-led campaigns at [link to hall fo fame]

 

Enter now!

We would love to see how you are tackling these challenges – enter the World Media Awards atwww.world-media-group.com/awards by 7 February 2019.  There’s not cost to enter – we’re simply looking for the best campaigns that have strategically targeted at least 3 countries.

Your new year challenge: how to target corporate influencers

It’s the start of a brand-new year and I’m sure that like me, people are already asking you if you have any resolutions for the coming year. Though I struggle to stick with my own resolutions (oops!), the new year is a perfect time to pause and evaluate how you communicate your public image, for individuals and companies alike. The World Media Awards’ Corporate Influencer category has led our team and our jurors to identify the particular challenges that corporate and B2B brands have when building and communicating their image for an international audience of government and business leaders, investors and influencers.

One of our esteemed jurors, Johanna Krantz, Commercial Director for the EMEA region at Reuters, has said that she’s looking forward to reading through this year’s entries for the Corporate Influencer category as “they’ll be different to the larger, perhaps more money rich, B2C campaigns we regularly see”. Alison Tyrell, Head of Content (Marketing and Media) at Spark Foundry, explained that “there is very little data and insight on this

audience which makes partnering with the right publishers key.” Alison also admitted that “utilities and banking are not sexy and generally not trusted – this is another major

challenge to overcome in a heavily red-taped industry.” Beyond targeting the correct audience in the most productive manner, Raquel Bubar, Director of T Brand Studio at the NY Times, suggested that even identifying the most effective ROI can be challenging in the corporate sector. As the campaigns are often designed to raise awareness, it can be difficult “when measuring the success of a campaign, as it can’t be linked directly to product sales.”

However, the increased challenges often make for the best and most innovative solutions. We’ve had some great winners in this category in previous years [which you can read in our Hall of Fame] which have demonstrated creative solutions on a tight budget, a deep understanding of the targeted audience, and clear success measures. Do you have a campaign from 2018 that can make some of these claims, or more? Perhaps it was a campaign that promotes an organisational focus on sustainability. Or perhaps the campaign was intended to draw in investors to support a new initiative. Maybe it was designed to build the corporate brand behind the products in an entirely different sector. Or perhaps it was a campaign marketing a business product or service. Whatever it is, we want to see the creative solutions to the challenges that are inherent within B2B and influencer marketing as entries for the World Media Awards 2019.

Both Raquel and Alison have suggestions as to what a truly great corporate influencer campaign should include. On the one hand, Raquel says that corporate brands should focus on “raising awareness of their profile, increasing positive sentiment, telling a unique brand story and taking on a thought leadership position – all of which will make the brand truly stand out from the competition.” She also suggests that she would be interested in seeing “entries that tackle challenging but relevant topics in today’s world.” Alison believes that a winning entry would demonstrate “intelligent data-led solutions to find the audience and deliver value-led marketing.”

We look forward to hearing how your own advertising and communication strategies have overcome the challenges and obstacles in front of them to create campaigns of award-winning potential!

 

Enter the World Media Awards at www.world-media-group.com/awards by 7 February 2019.

What makes great content-led advertising?

What makes for great content-led advertising? And what makes for great international content-led advertising?

As we begin to look forwards to the challenges and opportunities of the new year, I think it’s also important to take a moment to stop and reflect on the year that has gone by. Twelve months of effort and determination is no small thing, and we all deserve a chance to congratulate ourselves for the work that we’ve done!

The World Media Awards were created to celebrate the ingenuity and strategic planning involved in implementing international, content-driven advertising strategy and, as we move into 2019, we are looking for the best work from the past year. Caroline Foster-Kenny, CEO EMEA at IPG Mediabrands and one of our three co-chairs on the World Media Awards Jury believes that “Creating a multi-market campaign that really resonates is lightning in a bottle. It takes big thinking, painstaking research and close collaboration between local teams.” It is for all these reasons that the World Media Awards seeks out the best and brightest international content-led marketing campaigns from across 2018 in order to celebrate the hard-work, creativity and dedication of the team behind each one.

Having convened an independent jury of senior and experienced marketers, we have the perfect opportunity to find out what they believe are the hallmarks of great content-led advertising. Our judges have numerous suggestions of what might indicate an exceptional campaign, but there were several ideas that recurred throughout their responses: originality, human truth, and tangible results.

There’s a world of content out there and it is more important than ever for a campaign to have that spark of genius that helps it stand out: as Tanya Robinson, Global Brand Director at the National Geographic, puts it “entries that make you sit back and think – that give you an “AHA!” moment since they’re unique and well-researched.”

Alison Tyrell, Head of Content (Marketing & Media) at Sparkfoundry also agreed that she was looking for “Out-of-the-box thinking… Something that demonstrates they found an alternative and different route to solving their challenge – as quite often solutions (whilst possibly effective) can be lazy and lazy doesn’t shift the standard we set.”

Original and creative work has the potential to have a genuine impact on the target audience, above and beyond meeting the KPIs. And often the key to this is another of the judges’ suggestion of what makes a great advertising strategy – engaging the consumer on an emotional level.

Alex Wood, Europe Editor at Forbes suggested a combination of originality and tapping into that human truth – he is hoping to see campaigns that “touch consumers emotionally through strong storytelling, as well as innovative uses of new technology.” However, designing an advertising campaign that connects with the target audience emotionally comes with added difficulties when thinking about a cross-border marketing strategy. Brodie Reid, Global Manager, Brand & Content, at Tourism New Zealand explained that “the very tricky challenge is finding a truth or insight that is relevant globally… Those truths are very hard to find on an international level.”

The best way to demonstrate that a content-led advertising campaign has successfully engaged with these global truths and connected emotionally with the target audience is by measuring the results of the campaigns against the objectives laid out during the initial planning stage. Richard Stokes, Global Head of Content at Wavemaker, said that he would be looking for  “meaningful content which consumers actively seek out [and] clear business outcomes of this effort and investment” whilst Thibaut Portal, Global Media Hub Leader at Pernod Ricard, suggested that winning campaigns would demonstrate “ideas or strategies that directly impact in a tangible way the business of a company by opening new business streams.”

Content-driven marketing campaigns have great potential to drive both brand awareness and engagement. As Jim Piercy, Creative Director of the Custom Studios EMEA/Asia at The Wall Street Journal and one of our co-chairs, said “When done right, content is a great way to drive a deeper engagement with an idea, a product and, by extension, a brand.”

 

We look forward to seeing how you have overcome your own challenges and created strategically clever, award-worthy campaigns.  And of course to celebrating your success!

 

Enter the World Media Awards at www.world-media-group.com/awards by 7 February 2019.