A majority of companies (95%, according to Sapio Research’s Global Business Barometer) are worried about a potential recession. Historically, companies have tended to cut their marketing budgets to get through hard times. But rather than simply “turning off the tap,” Christian Quenneville, president of creative production agency M&H, invites brands to think about how to “manage” their marketing dollars. Interview.
Having lived through three recessions in the past, M&H’s president has no illusions about how companies will react to the one on the horizon: their reflex will be to want to cut the marketing envelope, in a global and unilateral way.
And this, even if several researches show that this is not the best thing to do, warns Christian Quenneville. At M&H, we believe that a reflection should rather take place on the management of advertising expenses. This reflection can lead to significant gains in efficiency, which is not to be overlooked, in a context where companies are looking to save money!
M&H’s president cites a McKinsey study, announcing that better marketing spend management can “free up as much as 20% of the budget.”
Trio of “brand + ad agency + production agency”
To make such gains, brands must learn to leverage the strengths and expertise of each stakeholder in the marketing supply chain, says Christian Quenneville.
Advertisers, advertising agencies and production agencies have different expertise. If we take an example like social media management,” he illustrates, “it’s probably relevant to manage it in-house, since it’s something that requires real-time reactions and proximity to the client.”
Conversely, deploying a marketing strategy requires more insight into the brand. The advertising agency is then well positioned to act. The creative production agency specializes in the deployment of campaigns. And therefore, it has a great mastery of the “process”.
We’re particularly adept at taking content and rolling it out across multiple mediums,” says the president. Video content pieces are usually thought out for a 30-second TV ad format. Well, we can edit that same video into 38 different pieces of content, ranging from 3 seconds to longer pieces.
In Christian Quenneville’s vision, brands will want to move away from an “all in” or “all out” model and instead leverage the strengths of their marketing partners, including agencies and production houses. This will allow companies to maximize the marketing investments they are willing to make in the coming year.
Technology integration
In marketing, a major expense today is technology. And yet, marketing tools are largely “under-exploited”, believes Christian Quenneville. That’s what he sees when he sits down with an advertiser and an ad agency and looks at their production processes.
We have clients who have the full Adobe suite, including an e-commerce store, a DAM (digital asset manager), a campaign manager, and a project management tool…but still communicate with their agency through email and platforms like SLACK.”
M&H’s president argues that a project manager like Adobe Workfront allows pieces of content to be edited and submitted for approval in real time, all in one interface.
By better integrating the technology already acquired, advertisers can make significant gains in speed of execution. If we produce more pieces, with the same number of people, in the same amount of time, everyone wins.”
Measuring the effectiveness of content
Finally, the president of M&H brings up a third line of thought on the value of the content produced.
In the last 25 years, we have seen a proliferation of channels. Today, we have to produce content in real time, taking into account the context of our clients. This brings an exponential volume of content.”
Companies need to think about the “effectiveness” of the content produced, he insists. By measuring the return on investment of their marketing content, some companies will realize that they are not investing enough in production compared to their media investments. Or vice versa.
Right now, very few Canadian advertisers have control over the cost of their content. I’m not the only one saying this. Many industry players believe that this will be the major issue in the coming years. We will see a race to measure the effectiveness of content. It’s a conversation that will become more and more common.”
These are promising avenues of thought for the future of the marketing industry… recession or not!
