Gaining an overview of competitor marketing behaviour
What we do
It is well known that, when marketing a service or product, the environment within which all messages are delivered is a key component of success. Perhaps what is less often recognised is that a competitor’s creative output, and the methods by which they deliver their message, can also influence the effectiveness of your own communication. For example, in a competitive market where there might be four or five major players, there is probably only room for one to gain attention by adopting an unconventional ‘ambush’ approach.
Whilst any marketing director worth his salt is likely to have a very good idea of what their competitors are up to on a campaign by campaign, product by product basis, very few have the time or resources to take a holistic look at how competitors are behaving across the wide range of communication channels that now exist.
At Town & Town, we not only gather this information into a manageable format, but present it in a succinct and relevant way to highlight different approaches among major competitors.
Here’s a situation you may find familiar…
Daniel sat in his office looking through the creative work that had been produced in the last couple of years. It was sleek, it was confident, and it embodied the firm’s core values of sound wealth management and the preservation of wealth for the next generation. Daniel felt confident that he knew his target audience – someone distinguished, sober – just like his father. But something his CEO had said earlier in the day about the activities of their main competitor was bothering him. Were they gaining the advantage?
Finding a solution
The only way to find out for sure was to commission a report on their marketing activity, and it proved to be full of surprises. They had been attacking more sectors of the market than Daniel realised, and whilst their marketing spend in Europe had declined slightly, this was more than offset by the huge increase in their Far East spend. And the biggest surprise of all was that they had been targeting a much younger sector that Daniel had always thought fell outside their own wealth criteria. Time for some new thinking.
Resulting benefits
Armed with an insider’s view of the competition, Daniel was well-placed to brief the agency on a new approach to their marketing activity, and in no time at all they were seeing the benefit of moving into previously uncharted territory, with big boosts to both morale and the bottom line.