Advertising has traditionally been a passive form of communication. This is because the media that traditional advertising messages support is by and large passive in nature. Print, broadcast, out-of-home; all passive. Or “Lean-Back” as recently termed. As a result of this passive state, the factors of engagement are slim and in more and more cases, none.
However, according to all those folks who supposedly know all, interactive media is supposedly “Lean-forward” or engaging of the audience. This is because the nature of interactive media use is driven by a ‘Need To Know” motive which makes it decidedly “active” by defination. Now here is where the whole thing starts to fall apart.
If the content in active media is what is driving engagement, how can the advertising be considered more “active”? It stands to reason that people who are compelled to visit a given website to find out if Alexander the Great was a “top” or a “bottom,” then wouldn’t the advertising on said website be considered even more passive?
In any case, our question begs a higher answer. If mere interactivity makes a difference between ‘Lean Back” and “Lean Forward’ audience engagement, then what can be expected of advertising that bases itself on the determination of what things are meaningful, relevant and engaging? Will that advertising be considered “Lean Farther Forward”?
The process, by which Lean Advertising is designed to provide increasingly relevant interactions, is called insight optimization . Insight optimization gives customers interactions, with the potential to deliver data, and then turn that data into applied customer insight.
According to one of the LEAN Advertising Network’s development partners, a recent internal survey determined that by using more relevant interactions, companies have increased customer response rates by 60 percent; increased customer satisfaction and retention rates at the 98 percent level; increased profit more than 28 percent in the first six-month period of use; and in the case of one organization, generated 570,000 sales leads, representing $4.4 billion in new business in one year.
In the case of the genesis of the LEAN Advertising Network platform, only one criterion is being observed: What would it take to make advertising once again meaningful, engaging and relevant to an audience that had become increasingly advertising immune?
In studies conducted by the Institute for Advanced Practices in Advertising, in tandem with the University of California, the entire issue of what was meaningful to the audience of today was put to the test.
In order for the LEAN Advertising Network to achieve such an ambitious objective, it will have to deliver information about what the audience cares about most in life. Obviously, this information is not based upon product claims, value propositions or perceived benefits. In the tests conducted, it was determined that 81% of our respondent audience cared most about four things:
- Their family’s well-being
- Their financial security
- Their own personal development
- Their ability to have fun.
If our messages lead with information on any one or any combination of these four prime spheres of influence, the audience will indeed categorize that message as meaningful, engaging and relevant.
Every channel provides an opportunity for understanding the customer.
After determining the content direction of the LEAN Advertising Network, the next step will be to determine the form factor the network would need to take to deliver on the promise of sustainable competitive advantage. Research from many different sources is confirming that multichannel marketing is consistently demonstrating increased customer relationship strength and the revenue that results from such strengths.
A late October 2007 study from Epsilon has indicated that 73% of all companies that are using multichannel marketing approaches to some degree have experienced such strengths. Of all the companies polled, 11% reported a sales lift since beginning their integration initiatives.
However, Epsilon found that 57% or more than half of its respondents still don’t have a “good understanding” of customer data available from their multichannel efforts. This lack of understanding obviously has the potential to lead to errors in judgment and misguided decision support at the least and marketing paralysis at the most.
And of the 57% of head scratchers in the Epsilon study only 31% said that they collect data at all available multichannel touch points. Managing and increasing these touch points and taking advantage of the data available to develop customer insight is a major factor in achieving the objectives set forth in the deployment of a LEAN Advertising Network.
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