Advertising agencies are under immense pressure to keep clients happy, and especially more so now that they have developed both higher expectations for results and lower appetite for spending. At the beginning of Q2 2021, nearly one-third of advertisers were reportedly considering switching agencies in the next six months!
The volatility of consumer behaviour and disruptions to the supply chain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have accelerated trends, particularly in the push for digital transformation. Advertisers have become more performance-oriented, demanding ideas and strategies that bring in results.
This means agencies are expected to produce more evidence-backed approaches, using the freshest possible data. Advertisers are also expecting the agency to be alert and agile enough to spot changes in consumer trends and adjust their strategy accordingly. If reality doesn’t match expectations, the client is prepared to switch to another agency. This puts agencies and strategic planners in survival mode. Make a killer pitch, or be “killed.”
To put it another way: the client is a passenger, and as their agency, you need to get them to their desired destination. The clients look to you as a seasoned driver or pilot to choose the best route possible and quickly reroute if conditions change.
Clients will feel comforted if you are able to justify your recommendations with evidence. In other words, they need to be assured that the map you are using to navigate your way is populated with fresh insights and reveals the most up-to-date consumer landscape, including new opportunities and potential risks.
To illustrate, let’s say a sportswear brand is trying to appeal to the female consumer market in Thailand. What can be discovered by looking at this segment from multiple perspectives?
Using a platform like Voyager, you can quickly profile the landscape of sportswear consumers and break them down either by gender or by their behaviour archetype.
By looking at different perspectives, it becomes easier to spot pockets of opportunities that otherwise may be elusive to the client.
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By first exploring the segment that is into fitness and have purchased sportswear recently, you are able to see the distribution across demographic attributes as well as how their lifestyle and consumption patterns compare against the entire consumer population. You can quickly assess that the female segment of “FITNESS ME” consumers who purchased sportswear recently make up approximately 8.8% of the entire consumer market.
You can then drill down further to analyse your specific market, whether from the perspective of product usage, or behavioural attributes or archetypes.
A quick comparison between the two perspectives shows that the market percentage of women who purchased sportswear extend beyond those who fall into the “FITNESS ME” archetype. Half of the segment prefer the comfort of their home, citing the need to relaxing as the most common reason, suggesting that sportswear may not just be for physical activities, but also for leisure and comfort.
A third perspective reveals that 12% of women in the “FITNESS ME” archetype did not make any sportswear purchase in recent times, which is a potential segment if the brand wishes to focus on performance wear. The shopping behaviour of this segment can be quickly summarised and compared to the previous segmentation.
To tie these perspectives together, you can inspect the values and recommended messaging for this segment. One value trait cuts across all the three perspectives: GLOBAL CITIZEN, which suggests that these consumers are open to different points of view and consider themselves as more cosmopolitan than most. Taking a cue from this, the agency can propose an overarching campaign based on this value, with more specific themes and messages crafted to resonate with different sub-segments.