The following is an portion of an article that appeared in the November 10th New York Times. As you will see marketers are promoting “better value” and “more for less”. So the question becomes why, given the economy, given budget cuts and lower margins, would a marketer not look for lower cost, better value options from their own marketing efforts and marketing partners. Part of the reason is that their current high-cost agencies are not built for change and can not and will not deliver more for less. Their multi-level management structure and shareholders are not set up for value or lower margins.
Also change from a client perspective is hard, but true leaders embrace change and will go outside the norm or outside their traditional high-cost agency relationship in order to deliver better value and more for less for their own company. Of course leaders do this. Maybe that is why there has been so much excitment about TVLowCost USA. TVLowCost USA was founded on delivering more for less – and a much better value for those brands that currently leverage TV and for those that have not because TV has been out of reach from a budget perspective. If you would like, no need, to get more for less from a low-cost, big value TV ad agency you should, at a minimum take 15 minutes and learn more about TVLowCost. TVLowCost develops, conducts research, shoots, edits and places the first 150 GRPS of targeted media for less than many agencies charge for fees. And quality does not suffer.
You will be amazed by the quality of the brands that have already taken this first step. You have nothing to loose, except bloated budgets that do nothing to sell products. A Low Cost option is something everyone should consider today.
Please email me at lurie@tvlowcostusa.com or call me at 646-839-6239.
Take a quick read of the article below and see if marketers advice makes sense for themselfs.
“As the economy rapidly deteriorates from flourishing to floundering, marketers are scrambling to remake their advertising so products seem affordable and sensible rather than indulgent and fabulous. For many big marketers, including automakers, retailers, consumer product companies and even financial services, a major shift in consumer psychology spells an end to the aspirational advertising that has dominated their campaigns for the last decade.
There is a sense that expensive purchases — even if consumers can afford them — have become gauche, said Stephen J. Hoch, professor of marketing and director of the Jay H. Baker Retailing Initiative at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
“At times like this, you don’t want to be as conspicuous,” Mr. Hoch said. “It’s really rude.”
“Since when is overpaying a status symbol?” asks a magazine ad for the 2009 Borrego sport utility sold by Kia Motors America. Prices for the Borrego, proclaimed to be “a new kind of luxury S.U.V.,” begin at under $27,000.
A campaign from Procter & Gamble compares a product that is part of its Olay line of skin care products with more costly alternatives.
Olay Regenerist Micro-Sculpting Cream, which costs less than $30, is “more effective than the department store cream costing $350,” an ad asserts. “(You just don’t get a chic shopping bag.)”
In the recent boom times, Mr. Hoch said, “marketers were hesitant to bring up value overtly because they were worried about it diluting the aspirational aspect of the product,” he added, but now they “have to try something, because nothing else is really working.”
That was a reference to economic data that included the reports last week from the nation’s largest retailers for sales in October. Almost every chain, from purveyors of haute couture to practitioners of the philosophy of piling it high and selling it cheaply, suffered percentage declines that reached double digits.
Some brands seem to recognize their plight. The Target retail chain, for instance, is striving to play up the “Pay less” part of its long-time slogan, “Expect more. Pay less.”
The trend toward frugality is sweeping along even wealthier Americans, or those Americans who still consider themselves wealthy after the last few months.
The well-to-do are “making lists, they’re planning, they’re comparison shopping, they’re starting to think more strategically,” said Pam Danziger, president of Unity Marketing, a market research company in Stevens, Pa.”
