The Elite advertising agencies in our country are owned by the most respected media personalities. Here’s no denying that they are the most progressive people. They established big brands in this country. They harness the most talented people in the industry no doubt, and provide all sorts of marketing communications services available. But apparently, they’re yet to adopt the spirit of the 3sixty brand communications. They seem at a loss in the whirlpool of hundreds of press, electronic and digital media. But still, they seem reluctant to step out of their comfort zone and reach out to embrace the spirit of 3sixty.
Having all sorts of marketing communications services in the service portfolio doesn’t make an agency a 3sixty communications solution provider. To be able to provide 3sixty solutions, first of all, an agency needs to establish a proper Integration among all of its services in the portfolio, – ATL, BTL, Market research, PR, Media buying, Digital, Production & Procurement, Art Direction, Copywriting, Graphics designing even the Finance department. But this integration should be immersion centric. That’s why in 3sixty, BTL services (immersion services) is the focal point. All other communications services revolve around BTL or Immersion marketing services. If we believe what we need in advertising is a great IDEA to transform the way TG think or act then we need to reach out and immerse in their lifestyle to fetch that Idea. Then we need to involve that IDEA in TG’s lifestyle, and for that we need to reach out again. That’s why in the 3sixty world every other communications services revolve around the BTL. It’s crucial that BTL and the Research wing work in harmony and draw inferences for the Communication strategist so that s/he can generate a great Idea. How the Idea generated? Here comes the power of integration. Great Idea may come from any corner. It may come from a production guy, a finance guy even, who have no knowledge of marketing communications at all! This is the beauty of 3sixty. It harnesses all the departments. The communication strategist brings cross-disciplined people on the same drawing board to generate an Idea that has the potential to transform the world!! This Ideation process is controlled by him/her. The knowledge of the Archetypes helps the strategist to guide the
Ideation process.
How do we bring an idea into life? Here comes the media planning phase. The Idea leads the BTL strategist to identify the channels that are contextually proper for the Idea to reach out. We may need to innovate new channels too. The Idea sets the outlook of an alternative media and OOH. Then comes the ATL and Digital media planning part. Ideally this is within the scope of ATL. ATL strategist keeping in mind the Idea, deploys press, PR, electronic, outdoor and digital media to create resonance of the experiential campaign planned by the BTL strategist. 3sixty plan starts with an experiential quest for an Idea that gets the TG to see the world in a different way. The quest for an Idea to transform the world is in the heart of 3sixty. The Idea of a 3sixty campaign has a unique feature. It essentially has to be activity driven. It means a 3sixty Idea could be trans-created into numerous engaging activities to reach out. That’s why BTL got to be the focal point of a 3sixty solution.
The elite agencies, though equipped with all the marketing communications services available backed by a solid financial base, are yet to bring the harmony among the departments. The Suman Chakraborty, Executive Director, Pixelsearch ltd, mob. 01745-795-282 Immersion marketing (BTL) services are not the focal point and, practically located far away from the center of gravity of the process of Ideation. It’s interesting to see how they approach BTL. Yes, they’re quite sure that without BTL they would lose a great portion of the advertising budget of the clients. So they hire people who can outsource Brand promoters and handle multiple vendors with the skill of route & logistics planning. Of course, they are the prerequisites for executing experiential marketing in field. But do they have the capability to do the immersion research to glean insights? Can we expect them to reach to a solid Idea and Trans-create it into engaging activities? Can they quantify things, measure investment vs outcome? Can they do the strategic planning like market prioritization? Can they write scripts and train BP accordingly to ensure TG’s spontaneous involvement? Can we expect them to innovate new channels and alternative media to reach out? Do they understand the negative externalities that to be adjusted in the budget? Can they create customized monitoring system for each individual campaign? Do they know Archetype? Can they create the Interplay among all the experiential services? Most importantly could we expect them to think in the brand way? We simply can’t. These are not what they supposed to do. Their working scope is in somewhere else, – to recruit and manage people, roll out team and monitor them in field, glean data / information from field.
Time for the elite agencies to step out of their aesthetic comfort zone and make the Immersion marketing (BTL) the focal point of their integrated communications services. The sooner the elite agencies understand that the better. Because it was their failure to adopt 3sixty that allowed hundreds of BTL agencies to grow. These BTL agencies are devoid of 3sixty spirit. So, they are spiritless. brandless. BTL agencies are now nothing but the modern slave traders and, we all know the consequences of their outbreak. They will continue multiplying until & unless the elite agencies adopt 3sixty successfully.