Marketers and agencies often tire of their advertising campaign before the consumer does and change it just for the sake of changing. This can have very adverse consequences for building powerful brands. Successful brands such as Nike or Met Life are consistent in look, attitude and message, and run anchored campaigns for years.
And, not only are many successful brands consistent with their advertising, they are consistent with every aspect of marketing and how they connect with their customers – from logo usage, to package design, to web site and brand extensions. If you watch these brands long enough you might see updates as new communications platform are introduced, but these are simply ways to keep the brand "fresh" in the minds of the consumers and to keep up with the times.
In a market of constant change, innovations, and overall advertising clutter, it can be tempting to alter your advertising message in an attempt to “be different” and “stand out.” Sometimes change is necessary. But many times it can actually be detrimental to your brand.
We all know how it works: A new CMO is hired, he or she picks a new agency, and suddenly they feel a need for a new campaign. Often the rationale is, “Consumers are tired of the advertising.” Sometimes the change is warranted, but it very often means abandoning valuable equity that the company has invested in for years or, in other words, is a recipe for failure. The result of those itchy trigger fingers is disjointed campaigns and fragmented brands, standing for nothing in consumers’ minds.
Consistency in itself is actually a brand promise. It’s part of the brand’s identity, and it nurtures confidence among its customers. People want what is familiar. The consistency in brand messaging also enables consumers to form a solid opinion of a brand’s reputation, reliability, and dependability.
Nobody’s knows this better than
Remarkably, it has maintained its consistent essence through the reigns of four different CMOs. The current global CMO of MasterCard is Raja Rajamannar, with whom I spoke recently.
While maintaining the spirit of the “Priceless” campaign, Rajamannar pointed out that long-running campaigns confront marketers with a challenge – how to make sure they don’t get stale. “When I joined MasterCard,” he says, “I thought it’s time to transform 'Priceless' from an advertising platform to a more comprehensive marketing platform, focusing on experiences, and not just celebrating moments in people’s lives.”
For MasterCard, this meant evolving it toward "Priceless Surprises" platform, a push launched at the last Grammy Awards that promises lucky customers one-of-a-kind surprises, like a visit from Justin Timberlake and eventually surprise experiences with chefs, sports figures and others.
Rajamannar believes that “the key for a long running campaign is a simple, universal truth, adaptability and a healthy dose of intuition.” You have to create a cultural phenomenon, he says, and then constantly nurture it to keep it fresh.
Avi Dan is founder of Avidan Strategies, a leading agency-search and compensation consultancy.
