Articles

6.8.2010 Marketers still stuggle with global campaigns

The vast majority of marketers are still having difficulties in delivering a coherent message in their global campaigns, a new study has found.

Buddy Media partnered with Harris Interactive to survey 105 senior executives, in order to find out how they approached marketing products in several countries.

Overall, 93% of the panel said that reaching customers across the world with a "unified brand message" was either very or somewhat challenging. Elsewhere, 89% regarded identifying cost-effective tactics as problematic, a figure that fell to 88% for managing overall outlay and 81% for determining which channels to employ.

Some 70% of contributors afforded such a status to tracking return on investment, leveraging social media and finding appropriate local partners. A majority also thought customizing messages in individual countries and developing content for individual markets was a meaningful obstacle.

When asked to choose which marketing tools were typically the most effective, 81% of the brand managers polled selected websites tailored to the local market. Print advertising claimed second spot on 72%, with television on 60%, radio and social media fan pages on 54%, and paid-for exposure on sites like Facebook on 51%.

Looking to social networking more specifically, 72% of contributors agreed that this medium would be an effective tool to reach consumers. Some 57% of participants were active on Facebook, although uptake has higher among the larger companies featured.

The primary obstacles included proving the payback on this activity on 48%, managing and maintaining information on 45% and effectively engaging audiences on 42%.

B.L.6.8.2010