In an era of technology we live in, the average person may see or hear thousands of advertising messages per day. It is a challenge for companies to break through this information wall and get the attention of a customer. What type of media can be used to create successful campaigns? The answer to this question can be surprising – all of them.

Cross media marketing is the ability to reach consumers across all media channels with consistent messages that are relevant to the individual recipient in terms of content, presentation, timeliness and channel. (Jacob, Aizikowitz (2006): Revolutionizing Marketing. The New Power of Cross‐Media Communications, Whitepaper) It is also one of the best methods maintain a highly‐personalized dialogue with the individuals of the target audience. Thanks to the combination of different forms of promotion, online and offline marketing, the target group is reached and a strong connection with consumers is established.

Unfortunately, achieving this is not as simple as it seems, it isn’t enough just to be everywhere. There has to be a contentual integration because a campaign just with a product will not get through to the costumer. The most important thing is to combine an idea with an interesting history, content and an adventure and placing the customer in the center of the campaign to achieve interaction. Companies have to give something special to their customers by reason that nowadays it isn’t enough “just” to have a good product.

A felicitous example of a cross media campaign is Captain Morgan, spiced rum. Captain Morgan is looking for crews for a treasure hunt where candidates could win a trip to the Caribbean Captain’s Island and contest for 10.000 Euros. Captain Morgan was present on almost every media channel: print (posters and print on products), television (spots on commercial broadcasters), out of home, online (social media, especially on facebook) and event (trying the rum with Coca Cola and taking pictures  with the Captain). The radio channel had no relevance in this special campaign, because it doesn’t permit any interaction with the listener. Furthermore the visual execution of the Captain wasn’t possible. It is imaginable to broaden the campaign by using QR Codes on posters or print products.

Besides the contentual integration the company uses also the strategic and formal integration. The strategic integration means the integration of B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Customer). The retailers and gastronomy were involved in the communication project of the Captain Morgan campaign from the beginning. Thereby a both-sided win-win-situation ensued: the gastronomes arranged high-frequency parties and large turn-out and contrariwise the brand and the product Captain Morgan became established. This cooperation network of retailers and gastronomy was elaborated, coordinated and arranged before the campaign started in the several media channels. By the use of the Captain as a person at the events, with whom the guests could take pictures, the brand recognition, identification and engagement was assured. The campaign’s purposes were enhanced corporate communication with retailers and gastronomes, advertising the brand and the product, raising market share and market penetration.

The formal integration deals with questions like: Which channels fit best? How can coverage be measured and which channels achieve the highest range? To estimate cross media campaigns it is important that they are measured cross medial and exactly this is not that easy. One possible way is importing a point system. Evaluation criteria would be the media channels (1 point), reputation of the brand (2 points), commerce (bench – 3 points) and recommendation (4 points). A possible validation of the Captain Morgan campaign:

  1. Media channels: All relevant media channels were developed, broaden the campaign by using QR codes is thinkable -> 1 point
  2. Reputation: On the basis of the fan page on facebook the reputation can be arranged as very good. The page issues marginal to none advertising and the Captain who is present on every event writes comments and posts pictures. -> 2 points
  3. Commerce: Rising sales figures; in Austria the sales figures raised about 27% in retailing and gastronomy -> 3 points
  4. Recommendation: Recommendation is hardly measurable but regarding to the positive feedback at the facebook fan page and the fact that Captain Morgan’s rum is the mostly disposed rum in Germany, recommendation can be classified as quite good -> 3 points

At the end we come to a holistic measurement which considers all important factors of a cross media campaign. This is one possible way to measure a cross media campaign. But the problems still exist: there is a vague description of single media channels (is an e paper magazine print or is it online?), until now there is no existing overarching measurement and there are no joint tools.

But even if the measurement of cross media campaigns isn’t that easy – cross media marketing which involves the customer is the key to success.

Authors:
Victoria Adler, Lena Grosshans, Stephanie Schlayer, Jessica Stiglmeier, Heiko Weiß

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