Hello Clarice…. Wait wrong type of cannibalism. Well, now that we have your attention let’s talk about the cannibalization effect in marketing. What is it? How does it work? Cannibalization is a loss in sales that is caused by an intro of a new product that in turn, displaces older ones. This can be done by one’s own company or a competitor. There are a few types of cannibalization: planned, through discounts, and through e-commerce.
Native Advertising
How do you know a native ad when you see one? There are a couple of tell-tale signs, such as a small icon in the top right corner, it’s marked as “suggested post,” or recommended for you. Native ads are paid advertisements that fit “natively” on the web page you’re on. They don’t look like traditional ads and typically don’t disrupt the user’s interaction on the page. They can also be in feed, search and promoted listing as well as content recommendations. There are some good benefits to using native ads instead of traditional.
Pros:
· Resonates without being intrusive
· Optimize targeting capabilities
· Captures audience’s attention
· They perform better: 5-10x higher CTR (Outbrain & CMI)
· High credibility
Native advertising can help build trust and drive more traffic to your website while fighting ad fatigue. Native ads increase purchase intent by 18%, according to Outbrain. However, that all being said, there are some cons to native ads. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows.
Cons:
· Hard to measure metrics
· Carries and element of deception if done improperly
· It’s labor intensive and time consuming
Digital spaces are a great place to find new audiences and reach the ones you may already have. Native advertising works great because they fit with the content that users are already interested in. This means that it is highly likely that they will be interested in reading about your product/service when they see the ad on the page. It’s a more organic interaction that takes place where they won’t feel like they’re being sold something. They’ll be more apt to engage if it doesn’t feel like a sale.
The Halo Effect
Immigrant Heritage Month
America is built on the backs of our forefathers, most of which immigrated from other countries in search of a better way of living. Here at Locomotive, we are no different either. Our grandparents were from Italy and Ireland. This month is a time to celebrate Immigrant Heritage. Here is a quote from the White House this month on the subject.
Earned Media
Who doesn’t love free publicity? That’s exactly what earned media is. Coverage for your brand through organic means. It can be though reviews, media coverage, mentions, social shares, etc. As nice as it is to get that free shout out, it is also the most difficult to achieve. Let’s think about a consumer review. We all use them. What’s the first thing that most people do after they read a review somewhere? The answer is that they visit the website of that business and on average they will read roughly 10 before they go the site, according to Local Consumer Review Survey, 2020. We can’t stress the importance of getting positive earned media, whether it be through a Google review, an Instagram share, or media coverage. Here are a few tips to ensure that you will get a rave recommendation through earned reviews no matter where it comes from.
Marketing Mix Modeling
The purpose of marketing mix modeling is to understand how various marketing inputs are driving the business metrics of a product or service. A simple way to put this is what is working and what’s not? Otherwise known as MMM, it will determine how each marketing input is contributing to a sale. In turn, you will determine how much to spend on each aspect. There are incremental drivers and base drivers that promote marketing techniques.
Incremental: generated by marketing activities like TV, print ads, digital spends, discounts, social, etc.
ATL (above the line) marketing: non-targeted with a wide reach
BTL (below the line) marketing: specific, direct ads on targeted audience
TTL (through the line) marketing: mix of both
Competition
Halo effect
Cannibalization effect
**more on these last two in future articles**
Base drivers: reached without any ads. Equity over years being the driving factor
Price
Distribution
Seasonality
Macro-econ variables
There are a few reasons to implement MMM, some of which we mentioned already,
Efficient spending
Efficient execution of campaigns
Scenario tests
You can really go down the mix marketing rabbit hole online. There is a vast amount of knowledge out there on the topic that includes words like regression analysis and mathematical equations. We only wanted to touch the surface of the MMM waters in order to hopefully inform someone who didn’t know about it. Now it’s your turn to dive in.
Attention Economy
Did you know that, according to Forbes, we are exposed to an average of 6-10 thousand pieces of advertising per day? That is a lot of information and actually our brains only have a scarce number of things that it can take in with attention. This means that as advertisers, we must stand out from a sea of others in order to reach our audiences. Attention economy was coined in the late 60’s by a guy named Herbert Simon. It’s defined as, “a state in which cognitive resources are focused on certain aspects of the environment rather than on others,” according to the American Psychological Association.
AI Bias
“100% of organizations will be using AI by 2025,” Forrester estimates. One of the benefits of AI is that it can hopefully contain less bias than humans and none at all if programmed correctly. However, it will depend on who programs the machine learning. Humans are the ones who choose what data that the algorithms use and how the results are applied. It will require many tests from many different individuals in order to avoid unconscious biases. But what are some proper steps that programmers can take to avoid these biases? First, educate all staff on responsible AI. Second, let your audience know what you’re doing and be transparent with how your AI algorithms work to make predictions. Lastly, have a team on deck to do damage control if your audience feels that they have been unjustly treated due to AI bias
Gun Violence Awareness Month 2023
Here are some shocking statistics to get you thinking (NY State Division of Criminal Justice):
· Every day more than 100 Americans are shot and killed in the U.S.
· Access to a gun in a domestic violence situation makes it 5x more likely that the woman be killed
· Access to a gun triples the risk of death by suicide
AI Ethics
Artificial intelligence has been a hot button topic for a while now. We’ve written a few articles on it and where we think it’s going. We can tell you that our inboxes are flooded with blogs and news on the topic every day to the point it’s getting a little annoying. That being said, we don’t think AI is going anywhere. In fact, it’s probably just getting started. While we hope it doesn’t take jobs and is used as an added tool in the arsenal for employees, we can’t say for sure how it will pan out. One area of interest when discussing AI is the ethics.
How AI Will Affect SEO
AI seems a bit scary but it will come with some benefits and trust us when we say it will come. People are already utilizing artificial intelligence in advertising and marketing. It’s pretty much inevitable that it will become part of our daily lives in the not so distant future. So, with that, how will it affect SEO? This is what we found.
Paternity Leave at Ad Agencies
“Fathers who get longer paternity leave have been shown to have an even closer relationship with child for a lifetime,” according to an study done by Petts, Knoester and Waldfogel. When we’re talking about equality for all, it’s important to consider the fact that some fathers want to spend these first few months with their newborn. Yes, mothers need the time to recover from birth, etc. but is it not fair to offer men some leave in order to bond with their family in those formidable moments?
Successful Business Partnerships
A business partnership is like a relationship. Success depends on communication, negotiation/compromise, collaboration and mutual investment. Turns out, “65% of businesses fail due to conflict and relationship breakdown between partners,” according to Harvard Business School. Both relationships and business partnerships are complicated so it’s important to follow some guidelines in order to be successful.
Alzheimer’s & Brain Awareness Month
June is Alzheimer’s & Brain Awareness Month. This is a little off topic from advertising but we thought it an interesting one since our founder’s wife, Natalie, has been a professional fighter for over 7 years in combat sports. Natalie has been part of a study with other combat athletes as well as football players called, Fighting for Brain Health, conducted by the Cleveland Clinic. She travels there every few years for a series of tests consisting of an MRI, a series of memory tests and a series of balance tests. It is to help identify changes to the brain from repeated trauma. Organizations, such as the UFC are donating millions to this cause in order to better understand the effects of fighting long term. This month wearing the color purple on June 21st is one way to support of this cause. Other ways would be to visit loved ones who may be fighting this disease, donate to organizations and/or educate others.
Co-Branding
We’ve all heard of branding so what is co-branding? It’s just as it sounds really. It’s a marketing strategy in which two (or more) parties work together in order to increase visibility and profits while reducing costs. It has mutual benefits to both parties and typically between two brands that have interests that align. There is one difference here that makes it co-branding and not co-marketing and that is that the partnership is created in order to promote a new product or service. Co-marketing is a partnership between two parties where they promote existing services/products or a one off. So, why use co-branding? The benefits include those listed above as well as increasing customer base, perceived value, loyalty and creation of higher quality products/services. There are some distinct co-branding strategies.
Persuasion Tactics: The Rhetorical Triangle
At the heart of all persuasion tactics are the age-old Ethos, Lagos and Pathos. But, when we think of these tactics, we don’t necessarily think of The Rhetorical Triangle. Around 2,000 years ago, Aristotle taught these in order to improve a speaker’s ability to persuade an audience. But, in advertising, they invoke action taken by the viewer. The three of these are called the “three pillars of persuasion” in the ad world.
Decision Making in Business
We’ve all had to make tough decisions in life at one time or another. Whether it be in our professional or personal lives, the process is always the same. It always involves identifying the goal, collecting all the relevant information and finally, weighing out the options to make the best choice. The benefit to making sound decisions is that they will stand the test of time, they weigh out all possible outcomes, they can eliminate conflicts of interest, it creates less second-guessing and provides somewhat of a roadmap. There are so many types of decision-making models out there. Ethical, formal, 5/6/7/8 step processes, analytical hierarchy process, rational, managerial, etc. The list goes on and on. Your goal can help determine your process. Let’s just look at the 8-step decision making process as an example.
Digital Privacy
Digital privacy has been a hot button topic for a while now since third party cookies were removed from Google. Digital privacy is not only important for individuals, it’s important for brands as well. Every action that we take is tracked. We all leave a digital footprint that can identify us. It’s for this reason that it can be easily stolen. That being said, one of the most important reasons that brands must protect their data is because they collect multitudes of data on every customer they have.
What’s the Difference Between UGC and Stock Footage?
At this point we should all know what user-generated content is but for those of you that may not… UGC is any content created by consumers and brand advocates in a natural and organic way that typically has nothing to do with the brand in particular. It can be video, photos, music, art, and even blogs. The benefits of using UGC in advertising is paramount and extremely effective in creating emotional connections with brand audiences. It creates trust through transparency.
Digital Brand Protection
We’ve written articles on brand reputation in the past and how important it is to success. That being said, the digital space can ruin it in mere seconds. So, how do brands go about protecting their name on the internet? Well, there are so many variables to be considered, such as reviews, cyberattack, etc. but the short answer is digital brand protection. It is simply defined as the efforts of a brand to protect its intellectual properties, such as name, logo and any content related to the brand online, although it is much more complicated than it sounds. Here are some things that a brand will have to look out for when protecting their IP’s online:
