CheezeDMG Blog

Matt O’Brien, MD of Cheeze was quoted this week in Travolution talking about maintaining spend in the downturn. This year has already seen substantial growth in results vs this time last year, and this article looked at the differences we were seeing last Autumn when the recession was starting to bite,

If we compare Autumn 2007 with Autumn 2008, we’d expect to see a drop in sales, but our research shows that actually those travel brands spending on a par with last year are achieving on average a 30% increase in sales over this period last year.

And brands that have trimmed their digital marketing budgets are still seeing, on average, a 7% boost in like-for-like sales.

For many travel clients there are still huge opportunities to maximise returns from paid search as well as maintaining relevance and visibility in other accountable digital channels.

You can read the full Travolution article here.

The recession will have an impact on marketing, forcing brand owners to re-asses their marketing strategies and spend. Viral marketing, seen in some quarters as ‘frivolous’ still warrants attention and investment in 2009. Oli Christie, Creative Director of sister agency Inbox [a leader in viral games], has published a guest article at Net Imperative outlining why we should still consider viral marketing in 2009.

What better way to get consumers engaging and interacting with your brand than an absorbing, fun game? Quite simply, people like playing games – that’s why they buy an Xbox or Wii. So if you can give them simple, but crackingly addictive games for free, then it’s win-win.

The results are also important,

Recently for one client, through three advergames, we added over 250,000 new opt-ins to their e-mail database and increased sales by an impressive 15%. You can’t argue with that..Advergaming works

So marketers should take a good look at their digital budgets - with £50,000 or so they could be engaging and entertaining impressive numbers of current and potential customers and starting a rewarding customer relationship with them.

Inbox Viral Game

You can read the full article on Netimperative, or visit Inbox.co.uk for more.

As we head deeper into a financial recession, so the amount of articles increases about ‘retreating’ media spend to safe havens, ranging from paid search to ‘tried and tested’ television advertising. However, in these tough times it is too easy to forget the consumer. (During these times) brands may continue to spend money attracting the consumer through paid search or may increase the frequency of their CRM activity, but may forget to actually connect with their consumer in other social channels.

The myth social media is not accountable will have an impact on the brand thirst for social networks. The fact that social networks can be incredibly accountable is important but worth a separate posting.

When consumer spending is tight, brands will need to work that bit harder to convince the consumer to spend with them. Whilst pricing can be a method to encourage spending, it will not work for all brands in all sectors - not everyone can be the cheapest. Moreover, the consumer needs reassurance that their money is going to the right place, they need help to understand why they should spend money with one brand over another; and they could do with some love.

Search as a consumer marketing strategy is a strong one - it is accountable, it can deliver volume and profit but will fall slightly short of achieving a deeper connection with the consumer. A social strategy - as a structured and accountable investment - has the ability to achieve more connection with the consumer , understanding what the consumer is looking for [which in turn can help define search strategies] as well as becoming closer to the consumer, ensuring their brand is top of mind for purchasing decisions.

Brands that successfully harness social media as part of a wider marketing mix will have a strong opportunity succeed.