Those of us working in media who are old enough to remember Fraggle Rock probably also remember the 2008 recession; most industries were hit hard, and clients pulled back on their ad spending in an effort to cut costs and ride it out while maintaining profitability. Around the agency hallways, VP’s could be heard echoing the party line of the times: “When the economy is good you should advertise, but when it’s bad you need to advertise.”

What We Learned From 2008

An article in Forbes that came out in September of last year, titled “When a Recession Comes, Don’t Stop Advertising,” hit that idea on the nose by outlining four reasons to continue advertising during a recession:
1. The “noise level” in a brand’s product category can drop when competitors cut back on their ad spend.
2. Brands can project to consumers the image of corporate stability during challenging times.
3. The cost of advertising drops during recessions.
4. When marketers cut back on their ad spending, the brand loses its “share of mind” with consumers, with the potential of losing current – and possibly future – sales. An increase in “share of voice” typically leads to an increase in “share of market.”

These pro-awareness campaign arguments clearly supported an agency’s position, yet many advertisers didn’t buy into it back in 2008, as it was tough to rationalize an expenditure that generally contributed to long-term objectives like brand equity and awareness. When revenue takes a hit for a prolonged period of time, any expenditures not directly tied to generating short-term sales are going to be under scrutiny.

How is This Relevant Today?

Fast forward to today, where this pandemic-induced recession has caused many advertisers to behave as they did in 2008, and with such a rapid decline in revenues amidst so much uncertainty, many are right to cut their ad spending. There are two key differences that exist now, however:

1. The economic impact of this pandemic has been disastrous for a number of industries, such as travel, hospitality & automotive, while being a huge boost for other industries, such as e-commerce, health & wellness, grocery, pharmacy & pizza delivery.
2. Digital media in 2020 is light years ahead of where we were in 2008, when programmatic had yet to change the way online ads were bought and Facebook advertising was only in its infancy. Measurability across all levels of the marketing funnel has become the norm, and brands can easily set campaign KPIs and track everything at the awareness, engagement or conversion level of a consumer’s journey.

What’s mind-boggling is that many of the industries that are currently thriving are reducing their spending as well. With products flying off the shelves and demand far exceeding supply, most grocery stores have scaled back on advertising. When their Amazon storefront is sold out of product, health supplement companies have stopped advertising. Both of these examples highlight a train of thought where advertising is viewed only as being linked to the lower funnel activities of driving sales, and that’s where these companies are making a huge strategic misstep.

Shifting Strategic Focus

Any company whose revenues are not only being sustained but are growing amidst this global health crisis is lucky. While it might be true that advertising need not be used to drive sales right now, the overall financial health of these companies should motivate them to spend differently, as strategic priorities shift to adapt to current market conditions. Now is the perfect time for upper-funnel awareness-driving advertising. Here’s why:

Online traffic is skyrocketing as a result of people self-isolating and working from home, creating more available impression inventory across a number of sites*:

– Media sites up 33%
– Finance sites up 29%
– Food-related sites up 22%
– Healthcare up 15%
– Pharma up 5%
Key takeaway: The supply of online advertising has increased.

I’ve already mentioned how certain industries, like travel, hospitality and automotive, have taken the biggest hit, and as a result have significantly cut back their ad spending, if they haven’t stopped spending entirely. Think about what happens when global advertisers like Toyota, Delta, Marriott and every tourism bureau hits pause on their campaigns – there’s a major effect to ad ecosystems around the world as these key advertisers stop bidding on inventory in open exchanges.
Key takeaway: The demand for online advertising has decreased.

It’s a basic economic principle: an increase in the supply coupled with a decrease in demand results in falling prices, and over the past few weeks we’re seeing CPMs fall across a number of verticals:

-52% on News sites
-22% on Medical Sites
-21% on Portals

Everyone is now hoping for the same thing: that this “new normal” reverts back to the old normal as soon as possible. When this happens, we can expect an opposing scenario, where people abandon their screens and race back outdoors and advertisers feel comfortable enough to resume campaign spending.
Key takeaway: The current market conditions that favour upper funnel advertising are temporary.

No one knows for sure how long we’re going to be cooped up indoors, but as long as these conditions exist, and as long as companies can afford to continue advertising, then they need to shift the strategic focus of their marketing to aim higher up the funnel, widening the top and filling it with more high value potential customers who can be engaged with and moved along to purchase once the current economic trajectory changes. So for any advertiser that never had the budget to get video views, collect emails, publish whitepapers or blanket the Internet with display ads…well, there’s no time like the present.

This past Wednesday, President Barack Obama spoke to a sold-out crowd in Halifax. Within that crowd was a specially selected group of 100 youth, from over 290 who applied to the Future Leaders Initiative.

As part of the initiative, applicants answered a section of questions on how they demonstrated leadership in the community, that included elaborating on a social justice issue that matters to them and what they would ask President Obama if they had the opportunity. This initiative was sponsored by law firm Stewart McKelvey, Business is Jammin’ as part of the Black Business Initiative, and the Delmore ‘Buddy’ Daye Learning Institute here in Halifax.

As part of the historic event, Colour hosted The Future 100 at a pre-event networking reception, at Colour’s Halifax office to help make this event a lifetime memory for many that attended.

“As a board member of the BIJ, I’ve had the privilege to read all of the applications and I must say it was so rewarding and inspiring to learn more about the young black leaders we have emerging right here in Nova Scotia,” said Shaq Smith, one of the members of the panel that selected attendees, and a Senior Strategist at Colour. “As a committee, we spent two days reading through hundreds of applications, and after reading about all of the remarkable things going on across the province, I’ve never been more confident in the future of our Black communities than I am right now.”

The event was truly inspiring and an unmistakably motivating opportunity. It brought together some of the province’s future leaders, to connect on shared visions for the future, and for many, to see a role model who has been inspiring not just those in attendance, but people around the world for over a decade. The event demonstrated the compelling impact these initiatives have had on the province’s youth.  

“It meant a lot to me as a kid, and now I’m getting to live out a childhood dream in a sense,” said Tyler Nadolny, one of the selected attendees.“It’s just kind of a glimmer of optimism going into the future, getting to hear his story a little bit more, see how far and how his journey brought him to become the President of the United States, and hopefully find a few little things to implement into my life to hopefully help me better achieve my goals in the future, so that’s why I’m excited personally.”

The DBDLI is an Africentric Institute, providing support for people of African descent reach to their full potential through education, and creating opportunities to help them thrive. With education being so key to their purpose and vision, they help inform society and government at large on how best to achieve these goals.

BIJ is a charitable initiative in Nova Scotia, focusing on developing education and programming that helps Black and racially visible minority youth through mentorship, education and entrepreneurship, enriching their lives and the business community at large.

 “Colour generously opened their space to host The Future 100 and to provide a real VIP experience,” said Ashley Hill, Youth Program Coordinator at BIJ. “As storytellers themselves, Colour immediately took action to provide youth from across Nova Scotia the opportunity to share their own stories and make lasting connections. Youth were recognized for their excellence and leadership; we acknowledge and thank Colour for such tremendous support. There couldn’t have been a space more perfect, or an organization more dedicated to partnering with BIJ to share our youth’s stories!”

Our thanks go out to Business is Jammin’, the Delmore ‘Buddy’ Day Learning Institute and #TheFuture100 for an unforgettable evening.

The agency looks to beef up its strategy chops by acquiring Bright Blue Wave and making a handful of senior appointments.

Originally published on strategyonline.ca

A number of changes have come to agency Colour Creative Persuasion in recent months, including an acquisition and the appointment of a president and chief creative officer.

Most recently, Martha Stevens joined the agency as VP of strategy in Halifax. She will provide strategic counsel and lead client relationships for Colour’s clients across Atlantic Canada, including Nova Scotia-based neutraceutical company Nature’s Way and New Brunswick-based bakery Fancy Pokket.

Her appointment follows other significant hires at Colour. About a month ago, it hired Paul Lockhard as president and Julie Martinson as chief creative officer. The pair have stepped into the newly created roles and will be based out of Toronto.

Lockhard (with whom Colour CEO Chris Keevill had a pre-existing working relationship) will lead strategic initiatives for clients, while focusing on strengthening industry partnerships and building out the agency’s CRM and data insights capabilities, according to Keevill. He joins Colour after serving as president of Proof, where he led a brand repositioning and was responsible for growing revenue and expanding the communication agency’s creative and digital capabilities. He has also worked on digital and CRM initiatives at Labatt.

Martinson follows Lockhard from Proof, where she was creative director (with prior experience in CPG marketing at Union Creative) and will lead creative across Colour’s Toronto, Halifax and New York offices. Keevill, who says the pair wanted to continue working together, describes their hiring as a “two for one deal” for Colour.

The new hires are the result of a shift in client needs, according to Keevill. “More of the complex work that our clients are looking for requires deep strategy work,” he says. “So strategic creative through Julie and strategic planning and digital through Paul is further developing and strengthening our strategic consulting practice.”

Colour refers to that planning work as system planning. “We’re taking the complexity of the customer journey across fragmented channels and we’re distilling that complexity into a synthesized system plan, which then maps the customer journey against media and against storytelling,” Keevill says. “Baked into that sometimes is advertising, so we can still look like an ad agency. But it’s not the biggest piece any more by a long shot.”

In recent years, Colour has added a programmatic media planning and buying department that operates out of the New York office.

A recent acquisition also speaks to the shop’s evolving priorities.

In March, Colour expanded its strategic capabilities with the acquisition of Toronto-based social media agency Bright Blue Wave. As part of the agreement, it now works with Bright Blue Wave’s roster of clients, including Mercer, EQ Bank, Embark Health, Parkin and Knowledge First Financial. Meanwhile, the acquired company’s founders, Sharad Verma and Brenda Verma, were appointed to senior roles within the agency.

Until around 2007, Colour partnered with Radian6 (which was acquired by cloud computing giant Salesforce in 2011), on social listening, according to Keevill. From there, it developed a community management and content marketing practices.

Bright Blue Wave operates in similar spaces, but with more of a focus on content and social media strategy for B2B clients, he says. “We just added the heft and the scale of their clients to our roster, and just grew the business that way.”

The acquisition has already helped Colour pitch and win the business of Canada 411. In addition, the agency is continuing to develop its cannabis practice, having already served as AOR for Aurora Cannabis for a few years.

Following the acquisition, Sharad Verma was named VP of strategy and Brenda Verma as VP of social media within the parent agency. Prior to Sharad’s arrival, strategy was led by other senior strategists within the agency’s consulting practice.

Both Sharad and Brenda started their careers as consultants at PwC prior to launching Bright Blue Wave, and Sharad had prior experience as president of Digital Cement, the former creative and advertising arm of tech company Pitney Bowes.

Meanwhile, VP of strategy Stevens was previously VP of sales and marketing at Atlantic Lottery Corporation and acting CEO and director or marketing at Tourism Nova Scotia. She got her start at Hawk Communications and has held various marketing roles at telco NBTel, Aliant and Bell in both Canada and the U.S., through which she previously worked with Keevill.

Individual Photo: Martha (Marty) Stevens, (VP Strategy)

Group Photo: From left to right, Paul Lockhard (President), Julie Martinson (Chief Creative Officer), Sharad Verma (VP Strategy), Brenda Verma (VP Social Media)