The Brief
Your client is a big vehicle insurance company. It is a launching the biggest call centre in southern Africa and will offer its services in all 11 South African languages, as well as in the Portuguese for Mozambique and Angola, and German for Namibia. The company has left the advertising for the new service to the last minute and is launching the call centre in two months’ time. It needs to be marketed to its client base within the next 30 days over a period of three months and with a budget of R10-million.
The Competitive Environment
To move our brand forward, we need to understand the competitive environment in which we are playing—that of the short term insurance market. The total spend, according to Nielsen’s Ad Dynamics for 2006, was R271-million within this category. There were only six advertisers that invested more than R10-million in 2006, and their combined spend was R236-million. If we only look at the top six advertisers that spend R10-million and more, then we are looking at an average spend threshold of R39.4-million per annum. Due to the fact that we are looking at a three-month period, the competitive advertising spend threshold is therefore R9.8-million for South Africa. Thus, the R10-million that we have allocated over three months is on par with the minimum competitive threshold spending levels in South Africa. However, part of the budget needs to be allocated to communicate to neighbouring countries. If we look at which channels attract most of the investment: Print (mostly press) accounts for 37 percent share of spend, followed by TV with 28 percent and radio with 20 percent. The challenge is thus to find channels where competitive clutter is minimal or ways to dominate current channels.
The Target Market
We already have an established client base (we would assume that we therefore have a robust database of who they are). To grow our consumer base, we therefore need to also look outside of our pool. Broadly, the market would be all South Africans that own a vehicle or who are in the market to buy a new or used vehicle. We will also have to look at vehicle owners or potential vehicle owners in the neighbouring countries. According to AMPS 2005/2006, the number of households in South Africa with one or more vehicles in the households is 8.9 million and they have an average household income of R10,795. Our target market will include the current consumer base, as well as new potentials.
The Media Objectives
Let’s assume that the product offering or company is well-known to the market and the only message that we need to communicate is the call centre number and the fact that the call centre will communicate to the customers and potential customers in their language of preference. So the main objective of this campaign would be to communicate the call centre number as well as the advantage that the operator will speak to you in your mother tongue. Financial service is also considered to be a grudge purchase and is sometimes difficult to understand. The advantage of a multi-lingual call centre is that people will be more open to call the call centre where they can speak in a language that they feel comfortable to communicate in. We therefore need a high frequency campaign (as we only have three months to communicate our message which is relatively simple). We also need to have top of mind awareness at all times to ensure that we are always part of the consideration set when looking for car insurance. We will also need to speak to our current consumer base as well as new potential consumer base, to inform them about our improved service offering. The prioritised media objectives that we need to plan against are therefore reach and frequency.
The Channels
As we have a broad market, we will have to select media channels that have high penetration levels in our market. We will focus on touch points that would reach motor vehicle owners and people who are in the market to purchase a new or used vehicle.
Due to the short lead time we will have to deploy the communication channels in phases. Radio, press and online with short material deadline and short production time will be used to launch with, followed by outdoor to communicate the call centre number. We will support the traditional channels with other unique touch points.
Radio is the frequency medium and has the advantage of having very short lead times. We are also able to communicate to the market in their home language and ensure high reach by using a combination of national and regional stations. With radio we will also make use of horisontal planning strategy thus creating dominance in a time channel. Morning drive would be the most appropriate channel as you can catch people commuting to work. We will also make use of the radio stations in the neighbouring countries so that we can communicate with the market in their native language. We would allocate 35 percent of the budget to radio.
Press, although is cluttered with competitive activity, it offers immediacy as well as a sense of newsworthiness. By using smaller sizes in press we can be creative with our placement and be in environments where our market is thinking about motor insurance i.e. we will be strategic with the placement of the adverts by placing them in the motoring supplement as this is where people would look for the information on cars. The classifieds section in newspapers is also an important touch point where customers would look for information on used vehicles (which is what the majority of our market purchase). Press in also an important channel to communicate our message in the neighbouring countries. We would allocate 25 percent of the budget to press.
Outdoor, although big impactful sites are difficult to find with such a short lead time, outdoor does take on many different forms other than 98 sheeters. Outdoor is very much ”in situ”, car insurance messaging whilst driving! And this channel offers us no competitive clutter, so we can stand out. We would therefore look at using mobile billboards, which could be placed in and around high traffic areas. We would also look at short term contracts i.e. 48 sheeters in and around major townships & taxi ranks, as well as street pole ads on major traffic routes. Outdoor messaging will have focussed messaging telling people about the call centre number and will be customised in terms language depending on region. We would also select key sites in the neighbouring countries. We would allocate 20 percent of the budget to outdoor.
Due to the existing clutter, we need to look at the communication from a 360 degree point of view, where we would look at interactive advertising, which requires a response from consumers as well as informs them of our new service. The following touch points will all have a response mechanism attached i.e. win free car insurance for the first three months, to ensure that we can monitor the communication and ensure consumer engagement.
Online is an important touch point for people that are in the market for buying new or used vehicles, especially the top-end of the market. The internet is used for researching information so that consumers can make more informed decisions about the choice of vehicle they want to purchase, and is thus an cost effective and low wastage touch point.
CRM is a channel that can be used to reach current clients. We have the ability to tap into the database of current consumers. Direct channels that we can use are direct mail, email and sms.
Car dealerships (new and used) this is a touch point where we can try arrange immediate conversion, where we can offer a special offer if a client signs up with us over the three-month period.
Twenty percent of the budget will be allocated to these alternative channels.
By using these channels in synergy over the three months, it will allow us to build reach and frequency which will assist in creating recall, recognition, and response to the message. By adding in channels that can facilitate measurement, we can also monitor which alternative channels worked for us, which can be implemented again in the future.
Howard West is a senior media strategist at FCB Cape Town.