Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Aleksandar Milojević, Strategic planner at McCann Belgrade
The sudden Jolie-Pitt breakup was the main topic in all media, and has sovereignly reigned both the internet and all classic media formats, overtaking even the US presidential elections in the race for the top spot. Thousands upon thousands of internet memes were shared every minute, and magazines around the globe competed to see who will have the wittiest front page and sell even the last copy of their magazine. From Business Insider to Mirror. Until Friday. And then, BOOM! “Brad is single. Los Angeles. From/one way, incl taxes. £ 169.” One print ad of the Norwegian Airlines has taken all the attention of this topic, plus it occupied the entire digital space.
Checking the pulse of consumers is always on the top of the list of marketing strategy of any brand. What is happening in the society or the industry, what are people clicking on, what are they sharing, and how to place your brand in those discussions? One solution is reactive or real-time marketing. It is a response to unforeseen events. Why did the Nowegian ad attracted so much attention? Because they reacted immediately, in a simple and funny way. And these are the three essential elements on which the reactive marketing rests. Had the Norwegian Airlines reacted only a day later, they probably wouldn’t be the first brand to react on this occasion. They wouldn’t have gotten even a piece of the attention they did. And maybe it would have been featured in a weekly review of the most interesting campaigns on this topic on some news website
By tapping into the current topics, brands create a great connection with the audience as they show that they listen to their customers, and keep up with what is important to them. Internet and new media have changed the dynamics of advertising. In addition to being an excellent litmus paper to check which topics are hot and which are not, they give brands the opportunity to immediately respond to these issues.
Norwegian is not the first brand to use an unforeseen situation and made it into a campaign. There are well-known campaigns of brands such as Oreo, Nokia, Stabilo, Tide, Mini … These brands are of course not the only ones who advertised on “their own” topics, but what elevated them from the sea of reactive campaigns is that they shrewdly predicted the popularity of events and placed their contents quickly, in line with their brand attributes, customized for the context.
Unlike proactive marketing, reactive marketing is spontaneous, unplanned, because it is a reaction to unforeseen events. However, many campaigns that look like they were made quickly and in response to an event are actually thoroughly and properly planned. These relate to expected events in respect of which there is not much danger of failure. All are united when it comes to the Olympic Games, the birth of the “Royal Baby” in the UK, or even on topics related to the LGBT community. These are excellent opportunities for brands to adapt their marketing strategies to mentioned situations. Planning reduces the risk to a minimum, or makes it nonexistent. And risk is the greatest danger in the reactive marketing.
It often happens that a brand reacts to the wrong occasion, or with a completely wrong message. This was the case with brands such as Kenneth Cole, which linked its spring collection to the Arab Spring in Egypt, or the BIC‘s sexist campaign on the occasion of Women’s Day. Although the aforementioned brands quickly apologized – internet remembers everything. And the competition also had a speedy response, and took advantage of the situation to better position themselves.
Reactive marketing has enormous potential. One of the greatest values for brands is free venture out of the media plan. In the case of Norwegian Airlines, all which the client had paid to the media was an A4 print ad, which was then seen by every user on Facebook. Good reactive campaigns guarantee brands a huge reach and safe buzz on social networks, and almost certainly some festival awards from the relevant professional public.