Promoting funeralcare services at a mediated sport event
Ever heard of the sport “Bowls”? We hadn’t before.
Basically speaking it’s a form of “pétanque” often played in the commonwealth nations. The goal of the game is to roll slightly asymmetric balls (bowls) so that they end up close to a smaller bowl, as demonstrated in the below video. But there’s something more to that video … something that has to deal with business ethics and marketing target groups…
The co-operative funeralcare as main sponsor
In the above video one could see multiple adverts at various locations of an enterprise called “The co-operative”. All ads promote their funeralcare services. The advertisements are everywhere: on the player’s shirts, on the left and right of the pitch, behind the players. The event visitors see it all the time – as well as people watching the game on their television.
Business ethics and customer targeting?
Is there a group that offers funeralcare services in a “retail way”? It might, The co-operative group strives to be a nation-wide funeralcare service provider with local branches all over the country.
Are visitors / viewers of the bowls sport a target group for funeralcare services? Yes, the place is full of elderly people. As the sport could be labeled rather boring, chances are big the television audience is equally old.
We live in a country that isn’t governed for a period of about 4 months now. Why is that so difficult? Just watch the below instructional video from Marcel Sel…
Flanders: strong right-wing
In the northern part of the country (Flanders, where they speak Dutch) inhabitants tend to vote for conservatives. But what’s even more striking, is the huge support for an extreme right political party – known as Vlaams Belang (=”Flemish importance”).
Why does this political organization receives so much support from that many inhabitants? Is it that all Dutch-speaking Belgians are a bit “fascist”? It cannot be, I cannot believe.
Next to loads of other aspects, we want to point out that this political party sets itself apart from the other parties not only by leaving the democratic spectrum behind but also by deploying a different media buying strategy. With their media strategy, they tend to be visible in the streets the entire year – not only in the run-up to elections such as the other political parties. Added to that, the party empowers that visibility in the streets by offering gadgets via a webshop (e.g.: branded sweaters, caps, cycling outfits, mouse pads, flags, etc.).
New campaign: the Republic of Flanders.
Belgium has struggled to form a government for about 4 months now – one political crisis follows the other. Main reason is the inability to make an agreement between the Dutch-speaking community and the French-speaking community.
Ended up at this point, Vlaams Belang decided to launch a campaign to demonstrate that the country is doomed (this has been their main argument for years). The solution, according to them, is to form the Republic of Flanders.
To convince people that the republic of Flanders is the means to the end of wealth, Vlaams Belang launched a campaign that consists of 500 20 sq.m. outdoor ads, window posters and a brochure of which more than 1 million copies are printed (to compare: the biggest newspaper in Flanders is printed on about 100 000 copies).
You might disagree on Vlaams Belang’s opinions, but you’ve got to give them at least one thing: it is the only political party that tries to establish a continuous conversation with the inhabitants of Flanders. By this I mean, they are active even without upcoming elections.
Is it strange then that they get a lot of votes at elections? We believe it’s not that strange.
Given the fact that most of the people don’t really care about ideology, they might vote for “a brand” that they are most familiar with. The brand they’re most familiar with might just be the brand that chooses to have a continuous advertising frequency strategy.
Extreme right political party in Belgium goes for continuity media buying approach in street advertising. Great idea in Belgium, a country where you have to vote every other day. Picture taken from my car while driving with my mobile device - my apologies for the bad photograph. However, all stories on this blog appear just because I ran up to something that triggered me into a reflection exercise... For this reason we believe it is allowed to put this fuzzy picture on the web ;-)
Frequency-based theory high percentage extreme right voters derived from “advertising science”
Political advertising and commercial advertising serve pretty much the same goal. To convince people to believe information provided via a communication channel.
Within the communication science, there seems to be a general consensus on how to reflect about the impact of frequency of media exposures. Here’s sort of how it works:
The media objectives of a media plan often call for some combination of reach and frequency. Media planners want the highest reach possible because that means more people will be exposed to the campaign, which should lead to more brand awareness, customer loyalty, sales, and so on. Media planners also seek high frequency if they feel that consumers will only take action (that is, buy the product) after multiple exposures to the campaign.
Media planners can choose among three methods of scheduling: continuity, flight, and pulse. Continuity scheduling spreads media spending evenly across months. The flight scheduling approach alternates advertising across months, with heavy advertising in certain months and no advertising at all in other months. Pulse scheduling combines the first two scheduling methods, so that the brand maintains a low-level of advertising across all months but spends more in selected months.
Reading the above theory on scheduling methods, we have to say we’re not quite sure which one the political party is using. However, others are using none – except when running into campaigns. In this manner the political brand appeals to people in the streets because they meet it all the time…
Think about it? Should other parties counter-feight this dominance by also buying media space more frequently?
When talking about advertising on radio, one needs to know a few things about the medium and its audience:
people mainly listen to the radio while driving a car
the other 50% of ‘hearing’ the radio is while they are working
teenagers do not drive a car
teenagers listen to their Ipod or play with their Iphone (social web apps) while taking the bus, the train or driving their bike.
Why do universities advertise on the radio?
The main goal in university ads is to convince teenagers to sign up for classes at their school. As stated above: teenagers do not listen that much to the radio. Why on earth would one buy expensive media space on national radio if the message doesn’t reach your target audience?
It might be that parents have a great influence on the university teenagers join. It might just be that those same parents do listen to the radio while driving their car or working. It might just be that radio spot rings those parents bell… I assume the target audience (teenager) have things like a Facebook fan page, a YouTube movie library of the university’s infrastructure and activities, a flashy banner on a certain website, an architectural booth at a trade fair, …
Keen on C 