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Are you getting your recommended daily intake of ?

by Dave Goodfellow - No comments

Serving sizes are changing, and I’m not talking about protein, potassium or potato chips. I’m talking about Marketing.

It used to be that marketing campaigns were a multi-month menagerie of planning, production, tactical execution and measurement with the tactical execution phase often dominating the campaign timeline. Lately though, I’ve noticed an increase in much shorter “single serving” marketing tactics which I believe represent a significant shift in both consumer and agency behavior.

So, what is a “single serving tactic?” It’s a marketing initiative with a very short shelf life or execution phase and is usually focused on obtaining a specific short-term result. They are often broadly targeted initiatives, executed in a specific context, designed to create high levels of consumer awareness and action in a short timeframe. Single serve marketing usually occurs in an environment where a short, sharp blast of exposure to a brand, product, or service is enough to deliver measurable results. There are many historical examples of single serving strategies and tactics, such as product launch events, but the evolution of new media has enhanced the single serving landscape and the potential of single serving tactics. One recent example of note in this category is the Chevy Game Time 2012 Superbowl Campaign.

The Game Time campaign had two main components: A game day mobile application that followed the game and gave consumers a chance to win “one of 20 Chevy’s and thousands of other prizes” and an onslaught of commercials promoting different parts of the Chevy portfolio. Below are two videos produced by Chevy for Superbowl 2012; the first introducing and explaining the “Chevy Game Day app”, the second a commercialized music video produced by OkGo and Chevy that was partially aired on Superbowl Sunday.

A couple of short commercials and a mobile application may both appear to have short “single serving” shelf lives, but it’s really only the latter that does. Commercials, like OkGo’s needing/getting above, enjoy a prolonged (perpetual) shelf life on YouTube, where as a single serving mobile application, like Chevy Game Time, ceases its marketing and material functions immediately after the game.

Q: So, is a single serving tactic a good thing? Should I be investing in something with such a short shelf life? And do they get results?

A: Yes, yes and yes. BUT, it’s all about intake and context.

Healthy, long (traditional) length, marketing campaigns can generally give consumers a small, pseudo-regular intake of brand, product, service or concept over a period of weeks or months in a way similar to how we can each generally stay healthy by consuming our recommended regular daily intake vitamins and minerals. However, as with our daily dietary capacity, our daily marketing capacity changes from person to person based on context.

Just as an athlete is likely to want a more concentrated intake of vitamins and minerals for a relevant major athletic event, consumers are likely to be open to a much higher concentration of marketing, promotion and media if it is contextually relevant to them. When executed in the right context, with content relevant to the right communities and conversations, a concentrated single serving can certainly be a good thing, worthy of investment that can deliver outstanding results. It’s what we at Bite also call, Point of View marketing – original, relevant, insightful, objective, simple content aimed at engaging communities at the right time, for best effect.

While single serving tactics can be highly effective, I don’t personally believe they are the be-all and end-all of the marketer’s tool kit and I find that people are often too quick to pronounce the death of one way of thinking in light of another. In the same way that a light snack is not the death of the roast dinner, I think rather than single serving strategies and tactics being killers of long length marketing initiatives they are an effective way to complement and further enforce the success of other ongoing initiatives.

What do you think – Are single servings killing long-life? Are recommended marketing intakes changing?
Have your say in the comment box below…

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