What’s the real price of success?
“There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this person's lawful prey.“
Those are the words of the noteworthy Victorian philosopher – John Ruskin. And he said that around 150 years before some bright spark in accounts invented the ‘Cost-Benefit-Analysis’.
Now it’s fair to say that your average C-B-A, doesn’t always end up recommending the most frugal course of action for a business. But it’s also reasonable to point out that on some occasions, when it does, what John Ruskin knew all along will become apparent. Being ‘cheaper’, invariably just means being ‘worse’.
The same can be said of Marketing Budgets.
Now clearly over the last 18 months or so, every business has faced huge, and in some cases overwhelming challenges.
But in his recent Marketing Week article, Mark Ritson revealed that Proctor & Gamble doubled down on marketing when Covid hit, while Coca-Cola went dark. The former’s revenues surged, the latter’s dwindled. And now, new data from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute For Marketing Science, reveals conclusively that if you stop advertising, or at the very least – take a hiatus - you lose sales.
No shit, Sherlock!
And when it comes to investing in your Brand Audio Assets, the same rules apply.
The advertisers who have seen fit to downgrade their radio creative approach in particular, are easy to spot. Because their campaigns just sound a little cheaper (by sounding ‘a little worse’) than they did before, or by direct comparison to some of their competitors.
I know we’re not out of the Covid-woods yet by a long shot. But with the radio industry reporting record listening consistently since last March, there really is no better time to double down on your marketing efforts and invest wisely in your audio-brand.
Take a look at the Radiocentre “Re-Evaluating Media for Recovery” report to find out more.
Because let’s face it, none of us want to become ‘lawful prey’ – do we?
