The daily pressure on CMOs to move their business forward is real, intense and not going away. The challenge to improve media effectiveness, develop a better strategy and grow the brand is a daunting one, but with the help of a partner like Mindstream Media Group, it can be overcome and even celebrated.
So how do we help our clients accelerate sales and grow?
In this episode of Fast-Forward the Conversation, Marie Zanderson, Director of Digital Media, discusses how our unique perspective framed a different strategy for shopper marketing techniques to elevate a CPG brand beyond the high tide of the COVID-19 cleanliness craze. View the case study here.
Catch the Highlights
- The client was working with another media partner placing broad, national digital advertising. This created an opportunity for us to showcase the true efficacy of the media and answer the question, “Is my media working?” We redirected the strategy by creating a contained, controlled environment that allowed us to measure what their media was driving and how it was being received by consumers. We selected several specific DMAs on which to focus media delivery, to be able to measure against unexposed markets and see what happened in those areas.
- This is one of our favorite case studies now in terms of measurable lift. We had an A market, a B market and a control market and tested different partnerships to find the ratchet that would increase sales. By the end of Q4, we had some really great momentum going into the first quarter. We were looking forward to spring cleaning, which is like their typical “holiday season” in terms of sales.
- The first step in the progression path from Q4 into Q1 2020 was to expand the number of test markets. In Q4, we were testing 25 DMAs, and in Q1 2020, that was expanded to 50. By the time we reached their peak season (spring cleaning) we had already grown their footprint into more markets. We were able to measure the impact of spring cleaning and the impact of expanding to more DMAs. We were stretching the budget a little thinner, but reaching more DMAs was still effective.
- COVID was like a high tide that raised all ships for cleaning products, but we used shopper marketing techniques with prime retailers including Target, Home Depot, Kroger and Wal-Mart as an accelerator. Typically, we work with retailers in a managed service capacity. The retailer develops and runs the campaign then provides reporting 6 weeks after it ends – kind of a black box. But in this instance, the retailer’s shopper team came to us for help distilling the performance. They now have portals that allow our media managers to run the campaigns. We manage the media on some direct shopper sites and allow the retailers to continue to manage others. This was a big win because it allowed us to use their product knowledge to increase bids, look at audience segments and extrapolate second party data into our display DSPs.
- Due to increased demand for the client’s product as a result of COVID, it was out of stock for a period of time. But by managing the campaign ourselves, we were able to time our efforts to correspond with when the product was back on the shelves. Not only did we see a slow uptick when COVID hit, but we saw a giant spike when the in-house shopper program was added.
- We’ve been able to sustain these efforts at a very positive return on ad spend (ROAS). It’s still trending/aggregating at 500 percent ROAS thanks to our team’s ability to manage the campaign and bump up when applicable and dial back as well when needed.
See the next episode, Utilizing Data to Gain Efficiencies and Uncover Opportunities.