Ready for the 2024 campaign? Avoid the false start!

Imagine, you are a Marketeer and your annual plan is ready. The KPIs are set. Nice goal to achieve double-digit growth within 2 years! It’s tough, but the numbers say it can be done. And then… Then it all goes horribly wrong. How! The plan was calculated from penetration potential and sales to media effectiveness.

You see them before you; campaigns that are full of ambition, with an extra budget to tell ‘the new story’ of the brand. The story that is supposed to give an extra boost to market share, penetration and sales. Original and impactful. The whole of the Netherlands has to talk about it.

But then the first figures come in, and it isn’t very pleasant. You try to see the bright spots in the flatline, discover seasonality influences, external circumstances … But if you’re honest … The result is not what you expected, and certainly not what you wanted. How could this happen? What did we overlook?

The answer is more straightforward than you think. In one sentence: before you start, look back. Where are you coming from? And I’m not talking about baseline, market share, or other numbers, but brand heritage.
By now we do know that marketing communications and consumer decisions are based primarily on emotion, and only to a limited extent on reason or numbers. So the image people have of you, the image, determines not only what people think of you, but also how credible your new message is. And that outdated image can still throw a spanner in the works.

Advertising is the pretty dress in the window. A nice, fancy or “flashy” eye-catching coat you put on. Or a coat that makes a statement. A coat that tells your new story, repositioning the brand. But that coat has to suit you. And fit you. If it doesn’t, it’s the emperor’s new clothes. And nowadays there is not one small child who dares to say that softly, but you notice this in everyone who shouts this on social and in the (digital) shopping street. ‘The consumer’ sees through it, and doesn’t believe you. They don’t buy your story. And then they don’t buy your product at all. Poor tailor.

The strongest brand has a big overlap between its current image and its identity. You can change both, and this is a job that may not be easily accomplished within those two years of your marketing plan. Precisely because a brand is an ingrained emotion.

In addition: image and identity are always related. That means that if you are going to develop a successful image campaign, you have to look at both elements.
Because a new image in relation to the identity is like a rubber band; you can stretch it until it snaps! Knowing where this tension is is the trick.

And that’s exactly that holistic view that Total Design has been applying for 60 years (speaking of heritage). In Brand Design and Tech, but for some time now also in Campaigns, for brands that value themselves. From ING to the Public Library. From Radboud University to pension administrator APG.
Campaigns from an integrated perspective, with respect for past, present, and future.
Just give tailor Milo van der Meij a call: +31 (0)6-11306959.