{"id":2106,"date":"2020-03-27T16:12:23","date_gmt":"2020-03-27T05:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bprworld.com\/?p=2106"},"modified":"2020-03-27T16:12:28","modified_gmt":"2020-03-27T05:12:28","slug":"dont-stop-the-spend-people-are-listening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/news\/dont-stop-the-spend-people-are-listening\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Stop the Spend &#8211; People are Listening!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Barry\nO&#8217;Brien,<\/em> <em>Founder &amp; Chairman of Atomic 212,\nthinks we&#8217;re currently living through the toughest times of this century, at\nleast. And there is no doubt many companies are either cancelling or getting\nready to cancel advertising campaigns. Here, O&#8217;Brien explains why brands need\nto maintain their level of ad spend to make it out the other side as unscathed\nas possible.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As more and more Australians work from\nhome, consumption of most media is increasing, including big jumps in the time\nspent with free-to-air TV and digital media. At the same time, marketers\u2019\nspending on media advertising is falling, with dire predictions it will crash\n40% over the next few weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No-one should be surprised that marketers\nare not capitalising on the surge in media audiences. COVID-19 has turned our\nlives upside down. Consumer and business confidence has been shattered. No one\nknows what the next week, month or year will bring. It has been a constant\nrefrain among marketers that an economic downturn is the best time to crank up\ntheir advertising. That\u2019s true. The problem is that no-one knows what this\ndownturn is actually going to look like, how long it will last, or what the\nworld will be like when it ends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What we do know is that people \u2013 in particular, housebound people \u2013 are increasingly turning to media for information and for entertainment. Several media sectors are seeing strong audience growth: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Free-to-air TV viewing is up more than 10%, including a lift of more than 15% during the day;<\/li><li>Traffic to News Corp Australia\u2019s websites has almost doubled over the past week;<\/li><li>Sales of newspapers are on the rise, although that won\u2019t last as more people self-isolate; <\/li><li>Radio audiences are growing: Southern Cross Austereo says 10% of its audience is listening to more radio than they were before the COVID-19 outbreak and 20% expect to listen to more over the next month;<\/li><li>Anecdotal evidence suggests viewing of Netflix, Stan and other streaming services is growing, although there is no independent research to prove that.<br><br><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>There is no doubt consumption of most\nmedia is growing and will continue to grow. There is also no doubt many\ncompanies are worried and are either cancelling or getting ready to cancel\nadvertising campaigns. Right now, there has never been a more important time\nfor agencies to step up and demonstrate the value we bring to our clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At times of great uncertainty, we all\nlook for strong leadership to unite and guide us. Our clients are trying to\noperate in a rapidly changing and incredibly uncertain environment. They need\ntimely, insightful and strategic guidance to protect their revenue and brands.\nThat is our expertise. That is where we can partner with our clients to ensure\nthat we minimise disruption, that we capitalise on changing consumer behaviour\nand media consumption patterns, and that we create innovative approaches in a\nchanging media landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are the very obvious\nopportunities, such as taking advantage of the heavily discounted ad rates most\nmedia companies are offering right now. Agencies with online retailers as\nclients should be encouraging them to crank up their marketing, as online\nshopping is strong at the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are other obvious opportunities\nthat require more thought and planning \u2013 for example, how to tap into a growing\nsense of isolation. People need and want to remain connected, and marketers can\nhelp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Telstra hasn\u2019t cut its ad spending,\nbut it has completely changed its messaging to focus on how it can help people.\nThe supermarket chains are still advertising, but many of their ads are now\nlike community service announcements \u2013 as they should be right now, given the\npanic buying we\u2019ve seen. Other companies need to be thinking about how they can\ngenuinely make people feel less isolated and more connected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marketers should be doing whatever\nthey can to help people, in tangible and intangible ways. It\u2019s the right thing\nto do for Australia and, yes, it\u2019s the right thing to do for their business and\ntheir brands. We, as marketing services companies, need to be doing whatever we\ncan to help and guide our clients. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Southern Cross Austereo\u2019s sales team\nrecently sent document to media agencies that talked about why it\u2019s important\nfor companies to keep advertising during a downturn. The document contains four\n\u201cgolden rules\u201d that, while they weren\u2019t written with COVID-19 in mind, offer\nsome great advice:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1. Know your\ncustomers: <\/strong>Invest in getting\nto really know your customer and their purchase journey. Their priorities may\nshift during hard times so make sure you know what\u2019s important to them now and\nwhen things change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2. Target your\nmost valuable customers: <\/strong>Keep in\ntouch with your customers, especially the valuable ones. As people re-evaluate\nevery purchase decision, brands that aren\u2019t communicating with them are exposed\nand vulnerable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>3. Empathise with\ntheir world: <\/strong>Recognise and\nreflect the realities of the new world as your customers see it. It\u2019s an\nopportunity to reinforce your strengths. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>4. The economy\nwill bounce back: <\/strong>A sound approach\nto marketing in tough times will place a brand on a springboard for success\nwhen that recovery comes. Clearly the fourth rule was written before COVID-19\nhit. We\u2019re not living in \u201ctough times\u201d. We are living in the toughest times the\nworld has seen this century at least. No one knows what the future holds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All we can know \u2013 and deal with \u2013 is\nwhat\u2019s in front of us now. Right now, it\u2019s critical for everyone in the\nmarketing business to work together to find opportunities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We all want a strong economy. It\u2019s up to us to do everything we can to achieve that.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Barry O\u2019Brien OAM, Founder &amp; Chairman at Atomic 212<\/em><br><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barry O&#8217;Brien, Founder &amp; Chairman of Atomic 212, thinks we&#8217;re currently living through the toughest [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bprworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/silver-and-gold-coins-128867-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2106"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2110,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106\/revisions\/2110"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}