Shades of Great Marketing

I have to admit to being fascinated of late by the 50 Shades trilogy that is dominating the airwaves and the book best-seller lists. No, I’m not referring to the many ‘good bits’ liberally interspersed throughout the otherwise apparently moderately written pages (I say apparently because I have to admit to not having read any of them either) but instead by its unprecedented levels of sales which is increasingly being attributed to good marketing. But not for the first time, it also shows us just how wrong we get it when we think we understand what marketing really is.  

First, let’s look first at the business context in which this book has become a runaway commercial success. The book industry has become immensely competitive. Barriers to entry are relatively low so the number of offerings in any genre has exploded in recent times. At the same time, prices are being forced down by online book sellers with lower costs and particularly by the entry of e-books into the mix. Margins and sales levels have been depressed accordingly. So into this intensely competitive environment comes the fastest selling book of all time just when we thought the likes of the carefully managed Harry Potter series would never be seen again.

In a bid to explain this, commentators generally talk about the book’s viral marketing. 50 Shades was first released as an e-book and print-on-demand paperback in May 2011 by The Writer’s Coffee Shop, a virtual publisher based in Australia. With a limited promotional budget, the publisher relied heavily on book blogs for early publicity. As word spread more stories appeared in the print, electronic and social media and by April 2012, the book had tipped into the mainstream and sales were going through the roof. But a big question remains – if all this is down to the good management of publicity then why doesn’t it happen much more frequently?

The reason is that there is a second and deeper level of marketing going on that is being completely missed. To understand this you need to separate the communications about something from the motivation to buy it. The important point is why have consumers gone out and purchased the book when they become aware of it. The core market segment for the 50 Shades trilogy is apparently middle-aged women. So while there have been many erotic books in the past, this one appears to be the first to really appeal to this group. Like many successful marketers before her, E.L. Lewis either had an intuitive good sense of what this market was looking for or she just got lucky. Either way, it demonstrates again that great marketing is much more about being able to read the marketplace than about being able to manipulate whatever fashionable communications techniques are available at any given point in time.

TV's Enduring Appeal

These days any self-respecting marketer needs to be able to talk comfortably about Google Adwords, QR Codes, Facebook Check-Ins and so on. But the inevitable appearances of new technologies and new ways of doing things always raise two important questions. First how good are the new technologies and what do they enable us to more effectively than what we have been doing already? And second, is it time to throw out the old ways or do they still have a role to play.

One medium that is now frequently dismissed is TV advertising, with critics pointing to the plethora of channels and ad skipping technologies that are available to consumers. But its power to influence viewers and change their behaviour patterns continues unabated, ably supported in some cases by social media. Take the example of last year’s most popular advertising campaign, Volkswagen Passat’s The Force.

The Passat has been very much a niche brand in the mid-sized car segment in the US, a long way behind the market leading Toyota Camry and Honda Accord. Television advertising became the centrepiece of its ambitious campaign to drive sales from circa. 10,000 units/year to 10,000/month. The new Passat was due out in September 2011, so the campaign included an advert to be aired during the Super Bowl in February to build awareness and re-run in September/October to coincide with the brand launch. The resulting marketing and financial numbers were impressive. The ad attained 32 million views on YouTube during the week after the Super Bowl and quickly moved into the Top 10 most popular viral videos of all time. Awareness of the brand grew by 17 per cent post campaign and the percentage of customers who would consider buying a Passat trebled. Finally, year-on-year sales for the September-December quarter jumped by 116 per cent with the result that a campaign which cost US$8.2million generated incremental sales revenue of US$213million or a return on investment of approx. 25:1. And that’s the kind of return that many other marketing communications techniques would do well to match!

The Force illustrates again the enduring power of visual media. The ad scored relatively high on dimensions like memorability, appeal and involvement. And it is this last variable that is key. The ad’s charm and warmth pushed the emotional buttons of its key audience which was adults with young families. TV has been shown to be a low-attention, high-involvement medium. You watch these emotionally powerful adverts, and without even necessarily being conscious of it, the brand moves into your consideration set and the next thing you are down at your local dealer taking a test drive!