An objective (and perhaps provocative!) review of the proliferation of digital media, media stacking, and the implications for people running and marketing businesses in 2010.

1. MUSINGS ON MEDIA STACKING
By Simon Thorp
Simon Thorp Consulting
Sales and Marketing solutions made simple…
www.simonthorp.co.uk
28th January 2010
What is Media Stacking?
If you’re looking for jargon, then the Marketing and Media profession is the
place to be!
CPA, CPR, RR, ROI and CPT are just a few of the many acronyms designed to
confuse, seduce and persuade the customer that marketers are MENSA brains
to whom good money should be paid to burn budgets!
Here’s one of the latest… “Media Stacking”! Can media now be found on the
shelves at Tesco and bought like beans? No! Well, in a way, yes.
Let’s take it from the top. According to OFCOM/Times Online research,
almost 9 in 10 people aged 25-34 say they’ve dabbled with some other form of
media whilst watching TV or using the internet. Over 1 in 3 of all ages have
surfed the net while watching TV. Nearly 5 in 10 have listened to the radio or
watched TV whilst online.
Well knock us down with a feather! So people other than chimps can now
multi-task!
Seriously, though, please try to stay awake, and read on…
Why is Media Stacking important?
First of all, please, if you will, separate in your mind the words “important”
and “profitable”. Most of us need to make money, therefore if we have a
product/service to promote, if we have any sense we choose marketing and
media solutions which generate the best impact on the bottom line.
In other words, try to sell services at the highest price the customer will pay at
the lowest marketing cost per sale. This adds up to the biggest possible profit
margin. There’s no need to get into any more detail about the 4 Ps of
marketing, media planning and buying, or other such waffle (at this stage).
In the “good old days”, products and services were marketed to us by people
shouting from one castle turret to another; not so long ago, we had a straight
choice of Newspapers, Billboards, brochures/leaflets through the letter box,
and ITV (BBC doesn’t count as they don’t allow advertising). A few extra
“terrestrial” TV channels were added, but we won’t mention them as few
people watched them.
Copyright 2010. Simon Thorp Consulting.

2. Then something fairly big happened and this is what gave rise to excitement in
some quarters and defined as “Media Stacking”. Basically, the invention of
the World Wide Web and the explosion of Digital/Satellite TV channels, as
pioneered by BSkyB.
We now have a choice of hundreds of TV channels and thousands of pages of
content on the internet. Let’s not worry for now that lots of these channels
are not viewed by anyone, but you can see why a frenzy started when the
choice used to be (roughly) The Sun, ITV and a billboard on Clapham
Common Station. Suddenly you have hundreds of shop windows instead of 3
or 4.
How can Media Stacking be applied (or avoided), in Plain English?
We are born, we consume stuff, and our habits change as we get older. There
is a basic unpredictability in that, as we are all individual human beings.
Those of us lucky enough in the old days to have been able to buy a Sunday
paper, have a TV and a radio, may occasionally have been found checking the
football classifieds, watching Family Fortunes, and listening to the Top 40.
All at once. They all had adverts, but were our ears tuned in to any of them?
I for one haven’t the foggiest what the I saw or heard (least of all adverts)
when I did such multi tasking. Discuss.
Historically, it takes time whenever a new advertising medium comes along
for there to be much useful data to suggest people are really loyal to it or not.
Take internet advertising, for example. The World Wide Web is much
younger than TV, but content and adverts are so tightly controlled by Google
that many people are flocking back to “old fashioned” things like TV and
Radio.
The rules of engagement are therefore the same now as in the days of shouting
from the top of castles.
What is the product? What is its price? Which place can it be sold in? And how
can it be promoted?
Let’s break that down a bit and apply it to “media stacking”. Start by thinking
about the maximum you can afford to spend to win or keep a customer.
£1,000? £100? £1? 1p?.... This is what you really need to know, and if you
don’t you may (if not already) go bust. This number expressed in pounds and
pence is your cost per acquisition. You will then be in the happy position of
working out how to “stack your media”.
There is some evidence amongst media academics that if we watch TV adverts
(x) and use the internet (y) at the same time, then (x) + (y) can equal more
than (x) + (y) in terms of the number of people who phone you to buy
something or look at your website. But not always.
Copyright 2010. Simon Thorp Consulting.

3. Put bluntly, it costs a lot to advertise on TV, but a lot of satellite channels are
watched by no-one. But TV is generally good at building awareness of a
brand because it is intimate (ie. in front of your eyeballs whilst you sip your
cocoa), and with a cunning plan you can reach lots of people (coverage), lots of
times (frequency).
Radio is also very cosy (who doesn’t love Tony Blackburn on a Sunday
morning?), and you can target your customers even more tightly than on TV.
But it still invariably costs.
Billboards, tube trains and other “outdoor” ads are good at grabbing the
attention for quite a whilst (when we are delayed, stuck in tunnels etc). But it
can be tricky getting the customer to tell you where they heard about you, and
therefore working out how much budget to spend on the blasted posters next
year.
Newspapers and magazines are a dwindling medium because so many of us
now check the news and other information on the web. So what looks a cheap
classified ad in the Daily Bugle doesn’t feel quite so appealing when no-one
reads it. Or is unable to see it, because their cod and chips get in the way.
Advertising on the Web is great for tracking, as you don’t have to ask
customers for advert codes etc, but is best suited to big brands who do lots of
online sales.
And finally you have Social Networks (on the Web) and Guerrilla Marketing.
Such is the nature of social networks, when we are chatting to friends in these
communities, we don’t like to have adverts rammed down our throats. The
ethos of these communities is marketing by recommendation. If you say you
like Coke, then your friend who likes Pepsi might have a sip. But they won’t if
they get an animated Holidays Are Coming banner popping up in the middle
of their message to you! So Social Networks are marked Handle With Care.
Slightly different with Guerrilla Marketing, the art of telling people about your
product without paying an agency to produce an ad for you. It’s fairly new,
and the argument against is that you might hang glide from Parliament
(Guerrilla Marketing), but unless Sky TV are watching at the time, you are
unlikely to sell your product to anyone but an MP (on whom you might land
during their lunch break).
And remember always, if your website is rubbish, or your staff are hopeless at
converting sales on the phone, or your brand sucks, media stacking will not fix
this. It will make the problem bigger.
In summary…
So there, hopefully, you have it. We don’t mean to pooh pooh Media
Stacking, but if you already do Marketing, you ought already to be comparing
one medium with another to see which one costs least and generates most
return = bottom line profit.
If you don’t, now’s the time to start!
Copyright 2010. Simon Thorp Consulting.

4. Oh, and another thing… never, ever, just spend all your marketing budget on,
say, a TV ad campaign just because you heard lots of people watch TV.
Always test and track (put a small budget into one medium, ideally focus on a
specific region or group of potential customers). And then, if it meets or beats
your “cost per acquisition” requirements, spend more. Let’s face it, if you
spend £1 and make £5, then why not double the budget? But don’t start with a
budget, start with a cost per acquisition (or customer, if you will).
By all means trial TV and online marketing (if you have sufficient budget and
attitude to risk… eg. rubber underwear). But control your spend and make
sure the media reflects the customers you want to reach. Pointless otherwise.
You should then find that the available and suitable media will happily “stack”
itself.
Available media (stack) in summary:
TV – great for brand building and direct response, but if your advert is poor
and you pick the wrong channels you could tear through your budget and lose
your shirt.
Radio – very cosy, but see TV in terms of losing your shirt or something
slightly smaller.
Outdoor – longer attention spam (eg. people read panels on undergrounds),
but can be costly and hard to track where people saw the ad when used with
other media.
Press – can be quite cheap, but less and less people read paper news and
magazines these days.
Search engines – highly trackable, can be very cost effective if you have a very
specific product, but prices are rising and big brands throw large budgets at
web advertising.
Social networks – great for younger audiences, but a tough nut to crack as
they don’t lend themselves to, or welcome, hard sell advertising. Works for
clubs and associations but the jury’s out (and will remain so for some time) for
more profit-focused brands. Beware viral “phone a friend” brand damage if
you get social network marketing wrong!
Guerrilla – even more cutting edge, and therefore relevant to younger
consumers, can be good for a quick bit of shock brand awareness, but timing is
paramount. See social networks re viral brand damage. And still seen by a
gimmick by many (anyone for hang gliding with a can of coke from
Parliament?...).
Copyright 2010. Simon Thorp Consulting.

5. That just about wraps it up. Hopefully as a starting point this was helpful. If
so, you might want to contact us for more info.
Simon Thorp Consulting
Sales and Marketing solutions made simple
STRATEGY | CREATIVE | MEDIA BUYING | DIGITAL | GUERRILLA | PARTNERSHIPS
Copyright 2010. Simon Thorp Consulting.