This controversy would've been quite predictable for an experienced media planner. Did Lowe's failure at media planning cause this fracas?

Media planning – not crisis communications? Sure, some PR person will soon write up a case study declaring what the Lowe’s PR team did wrong amid the uproar over the company’s decision to pull its advertising from the TV show All-American Muslim. To summarize, Muslim groups have organized a boycott of Lowe’s as punishment for responding to the demand from a Christian group that the company pull its advertising from the show. I drove by a Lowe’s in Pennsylvania yesterday, btw, and saw no protesters (and few customers).

Yet the fatal failure in this fiasco falls not upon the crisis PR response but upon the media planning. If the case for advertising on the show was sound and advanced the interests of the shareholders then at least have the courage to stand by the decision when asked to pull the advertising. Instead, it appears Lowe’s caved pretty quickly, likely for fear of a boycott.

If it wasn’t a sound decision then the media planning failed and invited the costly controversy. Oh, what little care and consideration seems to be spent in deciding where to advertise!  It’s unfortunate that in many ad agencies and in-house marketing departments, media recommendations are entrusted to novices who lack the wisdom and experience to understand the ramifications of where their advertising dollars are placed. In fact, it’s scary to think how many people at Lowe’s with marketing and advertising job titles either never anticipated this situation, or worse, decided not to speak up for fear of appearing less than politically correct.

There is more to smart media planning than just numerical ratings, circulation and impressions. The mere act of supporting a show or publication suggests support for the content regardless of the organization’s actual positions, if any. Media planners bear a great responsibility to everyone in an organization that goes beyond delivering the ad message to the right people at the right time at the right place at the lowest cost. If this boycott grows legs and actually hurts Lowe’s then stores may be closed and good people put out of work. That’s the extended impact of media planning that needs to be carefully considered before media plans are approved and ad space is placed.

For anyone experienced in media planning, the backlash should’ve been completely predictable.

When faced with lackluster response they conclude, “advertising doesn’t work,” or “direct mail doesn’t work, we tried that.” “Next time, we’ll focus a higher percentage on publicity,” for example. It’s easier to blame low response on the decline of print media readership, the use of email spam filters or on the consumers’ short attention spans than it is to blame the strength (or weakness) of the message.

If the case for the product/service is so strong that it’s worth manufacturing and/or selling then maybe it wasn’t presented or described as effectively as it could have been. Maybe the message wasn’t integrated or leveraged effectively across the multiple channels. Many marketers overlook that a wide variety of different factors beyond the media mix affect the response rate and that the method of message delivery is but one of these factors, despite the disproportionate amount of attention it’s often given. Consider these other factors:

• Does the product/service meet a need?
• Does the message clearly solve that need?
• Does the visual design capture attention and support delivery of the sales message?
• Does the copywriting hold attention and lead to a response?
• Is the message being delivered to the right audience?

Imagine a financial planner obsessing about the ideal asset allocation ratio among stocks, bonds and cash. It isn’t enough to conclude that 50 percent of assets need to be in stocks. To be successful, the planner needs to know in which stocks. For marketers, it isn’t enough to conclude that the budget needs to be allocated among different channels by a given ratio. There’s more to it than that. Marketing success demands the right message is delivered to the right audience with the right presentation at the right time. And that’s true whether the message is delivered by advertising, direct mail, publicity or any other channel.

How to determine the ideal media mix to follow in a separate post.

Ad Sales: “Oh! Thanks for returning my call (elation).”

Apparently, most people don’t return their calls. I can hear the keyboard being feverishly attacked as this sales person tries to call up my database entry. But to no avail. Stumped. Then near panic as if having a conversation without my contact information on screen would be too terrifying an experience.

“Wait, where are you located (confusion)?”

Me: “New Jersey. You just mailed me a copy of your magazine.”

At this point, I already know the most useful information I’m ever going to get about this publication is by reading it regularly and reading the media kit. But I play along to be polite. Remember, I’m trying to give a pass to the rookies. Then,

Ad Sales: “What’s your email address so I can send you my contact info?”

Me: “I’m holding your business card in my hand. You sent me your contact info with the magazine.”

And later,

“Send your press releases to me instead of the editor because he’s so busy but I’ll push it through.” Interesting, because I’ve placed news on your front cover, nine of my press releases come up in the online database on your Web site and I’ve never placed a single ad in your magazine. Your editor seems pretty comfortable running my news without a push from a sales person 25 years his junior. In fact, you said on your voicemail it was a press release published in the very issue you sent me that sparked your initial phone call. But I won’t say any of that. Instead,

“Thanks for the offer to help. I’ll keep that in mind.”

It’s even more painful with experienced sales reps because they don’t have inexperience as an excuse.

Me: “It’s more than a month since the issue came out, my copy never came in the mail, and I’m still waiting for the extra copies with my feature article in it.”

Ad Sales: “I’ve forwarded your request to circulation.”

Wow, what service! What dedication! Surely this sales rep must know there are several competing magazines serving the same readership and their ad sales reps would be bending over backwards for our full page ad program.

The good sales reps understand that if their magazine is truly the right fit for the advertiser then very little selling should be needed. If your target audience is converters, for example, and 98% of a magazine’s BPA-audited circulation reaches converters, then it makes sense to advertise. No amount of badgering or rate cutting can make a magazine that’s a poor fit become the right fit. No amount of discounting will entice a vegan member of PETA to buy a lifetime supply of buffalo burgers.

The good ones try to understand what their Clients are trying to accomplish. They understand advertisers are actual people, and paying Clients I might add. From a recent conversation,

Ad Sales: “I know you wanted more frequency of exposure…”

Me: “Yes, but we still need to work within a budget.”

Ad Sales: “If you went to a ½ pg. ad instead of an island ½ pg. ad you could run five times instead of four for the same amount money.”

Me: “Yes, but your graphic designer always stacks two horizontal half-page ads on top of each other. I want my ad to be the only ad on the page so it’s surrounded by editorial. Then your readers spend more time on the page with my ad. An island half is your only fractional size ad that guarantees we’re the only ad on the page.”

Ad Sales: “Well how about if you ran the ½ pg. horizontal and I’ll guarantee your ad is the only ad on the page? No extra charge.”

“Ok! Excellent idea. Thanks for the offer.”

And that didn’t even cost them anything – just some time and effort thinking about how to serve the advertiser. We scored a 25% increase in exposure at no charge and the entire process was done without my contact information being on anyone’s screen.

In Praise Of Print

I admit I was one of the first to jump on the digital magazine concept. After moving three times in six years, getting my address updated on 50 or 60+ magazines and newspapers had become quite a hassle. Now that we’ve had several years to grow accustomed to receiving digital versions of print magazines, I’ve noticed a few things that might be useful for publishers to consider:

The ability to click on links in articles and ads is great and it’s certainly a benefit for advertisers but I don’t click them as much as I’d anticipated. Why not? Probably because I’m not actually reading the digital editions as much as I’d anticipated. Reading on screen is simply not a comfortable experience. I typically open a digital edition as soon as it arrives in my email, read the editorial, and scan the entire issue page by page. If an article warrants more in-depth reading, I print it out or simply plan to go back to it later, then close the issue and return to whatever I’d been working on. Rarely do I seem to go back to the issue. And once it’s hidden in the In Box or deleted, it’s not likely to be seen again.

Print magazines stick around. They often get read or at least skimmed and scanned several times before being discarded. A 30-day shelf life for an ad in a monthly magazine offers far more opportunities for exposure than a 30-second shelf life in a digital edition if it’s deleted. Sure, there are opportunities to forward a link to an article or ad in the digital edition but people have proven their willingness and desire to go to a Web site upon reading a print ad or article despite the inconvenience of having to type a few letters into the browser.

Thankfully, advertisers don’t need to choose in which edition their ads are to run – the digital edition is typically included at no charge. Of course, if there’s no print edition in which to advertise, everyone loses.

See the list of magazines that folded here

Like dollar cost averaging in a mutual fund whereby a constant amount of money purchases more shares when the price has declined, continuing to invest in high visibility marketing in the form of advertising, publicity and other vehicles during a slowdown yields substantial returns. Ads and articles running in thinner print magazines command more attention than in hefty editions, attention that is even more valuable if the competition has fled and retrenched. Online ads appear higher on the page for the same budget or bid amount. Plus ad rates are either reduced or can be reduced by a skilled media buyer. You can get more bang for the buck with less noise to drown out your message.

I’m not disputing the concept that investing in marketing during a slowdown yields a huge boost when the recovery comes around but my point is that there is no recovery coming around. The economic boom we longingly remember from a few years ago was artificially created by a series of government-driven policies involving interest rates, credit, taxation and other areas. Economic activity should not have been as brisk as it was. Therefore, to sit still while awaiting the return of another artificially created economic boom before taking action dooms your company to failure.

Instead, we need to operate not based on a hypothetical economic recovery but based on the actual economic conditions we face today and will likely continue to face for the foreseeable future. There is less low hanging fruit today than in the past. Each sale requires greater effort. More leads need to be generated to maintain comparable sales. More follow-up is needed to stay in touch as the buying cycle gets extended. More after the sale contact is needed to drive repeat business and referrals. Yet people and companies still need to buy things. They still need specialized services. The question is, “How will they know to buy them from you if they think you’ve disappeared?”