Marketing communication is facing more challenges today than before. Customers have changed as well as the marketing strategies, technology and information from which it has now become of easy access.
Today, access to information is immediate and free for everyone, customers can find out the brand or products information easily through internet and other technology in their decision making process. This has marked companies to pass from mass marketing to micro marketing which aim is to create a stronger bond with clients. To achieve this, companies must carefully integrate their communication channels as a means to send the same clear message, transmitting what the companies’ interests are. This is defined as Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)
Promotion tools like advertising, personal selling, public relations, direct marketing and sales promotion should be aligned to send the same message to customer through these channels. Companies should consider these aspects when designing an advertising campaign. (Armstrong etal, 2009)
THE BE MORE DOG CAMPAIGN
“Be more Dog” was a marketing campaign done by Telefonica (O2) during 2013. The message of the campaign was to prove that life in the digital 21st century is amazing and that there are thousands of things that should marvel and inspire us, but unfortunately we are clouded by other experiences that blinds us to appreciate what technology can do for us. In other words, we’ve become more “cat” as less interested and distant while we should be embracing our inner dog (energized and friendly).
The 4Cs theory below explained by Pickton and Broderick indicate 4 key objectives to develop the goal of the campaign under integration marketing communications.
- Coherence: Are the different communication channels connected logically?
- Consistency: Are the messages sent through the communication channels contradictory?
- Continuity: Are the communication channels connected and consistent through time.
- Complementary: The sum of its parts is bigget than it all?
Alex Heaton, written in his blog in smart insights, explained how the 4Cs are applied to the “Be More Dog” campaign. (Alex, 2014):
- Coherence: Messages from the communication channels are delivering a simple centralised message: – to take life by the scruff and make the most of opportunities.
The below 2 ads bring the same message, Don’t do nothing, go and grab something.
- Consistency: Once again the strong central premise allowed comms across a series platforms to adhere to key points. bemoredog.com is the platform (website) created to engage customer to the campaign in a consistent way. There are quizzes, and other relative information for potential customer.
- Continuity. While the campaign changed over time the strong central premise and it’s application across platforms allowed long-term continuity. The campaign is still running till today.
- Complimentary: The considered interaction of communications across platforms allowed a momentum to grow and helped the campaign gain a wider audience through social media and sharing. (Heaton, 2014)
Question:
- What the message from the campaign means to you?
- Do you think the “Be more Dog” campaign is a customer acquisition campaign or a brand reputation building campaign.
References:
- Armstrong, A, 2009. Principles of Marketing. 5th ed. Australia : Pearson.
- Pickton, D P, 2004. Integrated Marketing Communications. 2nd ed. England: Prentice Hall
- Three examples of integrated campaigns – Smart Insights Digital Marketing Advice. 2015. Three examples of integrated campaigns – Smart Insights Digital Marketing Advice. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.smartinsights.com/traffic-building-strategy/integrated-marketing-communications/three-examples-integrated-campaigns. [Accessed 19 September 2015].
Author: Group 200
Marketing Management Blog 
Technology has changed the way consumers process communications and whether they choose to process it at all. The reason is that things like smart phones broadband and wireless internet connections and digital video recorders have replaced the effectiveness of mass media. Consumers have a variety of media to choose from and they can also decide whether and how they want to receive the commercial content. These has lead to marketers have to use the right marketing communication channels to reach their target market.
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The message gives me a preception about the company and their product, my buying decision is depend on my feeling.
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The Be More Dog campaign you’ve described is an interesting way to market O2 (a telecommunications company) as it does very little to promote the company’s products and objectives. The campaign really attempted to sell O2 by establishing a core philosophy in the minds of its potential consumers. In particular the commercial you posted (which I still remember from my time in the UK) used animals, relatable scenes and catching music to get attention. Once it had a potential consumer’s attention it was able to communicate the core philosophy O2 was looking to market quickly, simply and effectively.
It raises an interesting question about whether, as a market manager, it is more important to try and sell the features of a product or the philosophy for choosing to use it. As a large telecommunications provider it would be very difficult for O2 to market all products to all its potential segments. Instead O2 have created a campaign that will encourage interest in its brand and lead to potential customers using other forms of media to better discover its products.
As you stated, we now have many forms of communications between Marketers and their potential consumers. By launching such a simple, yet catchy, campaign O2 have a message that they can consistently market across multiple platforms to build brand recognition.
The success of this campaign was well documented with numerous campaign of the year awards been won by O2.
http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/campaign-year-2013-o2-be-dog/1224596
http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1208758/adwatch-o2s-be-dog-will-long-running-success
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Firstly, I’d say the commercial is amazing. Using the examples of cats and dogs and referring to the difference in their nature is a brilliant comparison drawn. Answering your first question, I believe the ad draws a comparison between customers who are okay with “Status Quo” – represented by the nature of cats in general, and customers who really want to do more – represented by the nature of dogs. The subtle message in the ad commercial persuades one to shift to O2 in order to do more with the technology available to them, embracing the available technological resources, instead of ignoring it and settling for the usual. The brand draws a well-known comparison (Basic difference in nature between cats and dogs) and relates it to what they want to say. It’s a brilliant concept and not only draws attention and brand recall, but also puts the messages across in a very innovative manner.
Answering your second question, I feel that the ad is a combination of both objectives – i.e. brand building and customer acquisition. Reaching out to prospective consumers, who are currently not using the brand, the ad tries to persuade them to “Be more Dog” – which stands for the want to do more with the resources available to them (Basically, not be Cats!). On the other hand, right at the very end of the commercial, the ad mentions how the brand can help a customer make the change and “Be more Dog” – Basically, get the best out of what is available to them using O2. Thus, also talking about the brand and how it can be of use to its customers.
Hence, for me the ad talks about a change, and then also helps with the answer that would help facilitate the change – O2. To me the ad subtly builds brand reputation and majorly works towards customer acquisition.
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Thanks for your blog.
1.What the message from the campaign means to you?
I really love this advertisement and campaign, however while it is entertaining, I still have no idea what the brand actually is. I understand the campaign is trying to say to live life more passionately and differently. But am unclear on what the product is, having never heard of Telefonica.
2.Do you think the “Be more Dog” campaign is a customer acquisition campaign or a brand reputation building campaign.
It appears the campaign could be a brand reputation building campaign. But based on my answer to question number 1, not very successfully. However it does make me want to research this company and find out more about them.
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1. What the message from the campaign means to you?
1. I am not an O2 customer and it would take a bit for me to change. The main hurdle is the contract and the inconvenience of new contacts, time and little to no obvious negative aspects from my current provider.
2. Do you think the “Be more Dog” campaign is a customer acquisition campaign or a brand reputation building campaign.
1. Looking at the campaign initially I would think that it is trying to raise more awareness/reputation of the brand. It is saying our brand is different, we have more character, we can show you new things, give you a different angle on things. Following that it builds positive associations with familiar scenes. It is comparing indirectly other brands with the benefits of O2, this could also indicate that it is more of a band reputation building exercise.
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Thanks Chung, interesting to see how this marketing strategy has played out. It would appear that this kind of campaign is suited to mature brands, in this case O2 who dont have to rely on explaining the value/benefit of product sell. It is a great campaign in terms of its attractability, in general people often qualify themsalves as a dog person or a cat person and with the central character being a cat that exhibits dog like qualities it appeals to both!
Personally i think the undertone of the campaign is about reinventing the way that consumers view a brand/company that the consumer thinks that they know and understand. It has a unique feel that will attract attention, it is positive in message and has people questioning do they know what the modern O2 has to offer them ?
It evokes the imagery of teaching old dogs, or in this case cats, new tricks!
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Thanks for your interesting blog.According to the American Association of Advertising Agencies’ definition that marketing communications is an approach to planning communications that gives a small business the potential to get better results from campaigns and reduce marketing costs. By integrating tools such as advertising, direct mail, social media, telemarketing and sales promotion, can provide clarity, consistency and maximum communications impact.
What the message from the campaign means to you?
As we can know that In the traditional approach to marketing communications, businesses and their agencies plan separate campaigns for advertising, press relations, direct marketing and sales promotions. However, I think that Integrated campaigns use the same communication tools to reinforce each other and improve marketing effectiveness. In an integrated campaign, can use advertising to raise awareness of a product and generate leads for the sales force.
https://www.boundless.com/marketing/textbooks/boundless-marketing-textbook/integrated-marketing-communications-12/introduction-to-integrated-marketing-communications-81/introduction-to-integrated-marketing-communications-403-4061/
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Great Blog! What a great ad, I haven’t seen it before but it made me look up the O2 campaign. It is a quirky ad and it draws you in to try and understand what it is selling. If I had only seen the stills in a newspaper ad, I would have likely stored the details away to revisit later.
I really think in the beginning it was a customer acquisition campaign. The awareness generated would create a lot of new customers for a product that they may not have heard of before. Now that it is an ongoing campaign, it is really a Brand awareness campaign as the product has moved to a more mature part of the product lifecycle with the awareness generated.
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I liked the way you arrived in defining what IMC is. Technology is growing up every day but not every one is aware of how to use it. The campaign by telefonica was brilliant in conveying how one has to act when the resources and potential is available. The campaign definitely inspired to be more proactive to technology. I also liked the 4 C’s that you have defined and related to ‘be more dog’ campaign. Whichever the firm it is, one has to aspire that there brand has to get recognition and make people life much better and telefonica is no exception to this.
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Excellent strategy by one the leading telecommunications brand. Telefonica is using lots of internet and mobile marketing in this campaign. They are using their own website to stay connected with customers. They are maintaining fan pages in the most popular social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc. Those tools can help the company to stay close to their customer. They are also using mobile app to create experimental marketing of this campaign. Last but not least, they have done a superb job by maintaining the above be more dog campaign which is definitely a classic way to be connected with their customers.
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“Be a Dog” A great campaign showing how to be proactive and embrace IMC. The main idea behind be a dog campaign rather than a cat shows the nature of dogs and their characteristic and adopting such behavior into the marketing world will boost the campaign of any brand. Technology should spark creativity and enthusiasm. This was the main thought behind creating the Be More Dog campaign.
Great work.
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good job with the blog!
Research has shown that brand identity is only one reason advertisers use animals to
promote their products or services. Specifically, the use of animals to market products
encompasses several psychological perceptions including cognitive, behavioral, and emotional
components.
It’s no secret that the internet’s love of animals has certainly evolved; from everyday pets achieving international fame via personal YouTube channels or Instagram profiles, to animal social networks and hilarious pet memes, you’re sure to come across a post, tweet, blog, pin or snap of an animal of some shape or form, wherever you are on the web. In fact, you can’t get away from them! This love for animals, coupled with today’s excellent animation technology, helps us to realise that using animals in advertising is not only clever, but it’s becoming a bit of a trend.
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Thank you for such a great blog! Also thank you for bringing this commercial to our attention, loved it.
To answer your questions:
Q What the message from the campaign means to you?
A The message i get from this campaign is to be get out there and experience new things, take an active approach and dont be passive. Seize the moment. It basically says that life is awesome and theres lots of things that we should be amazed about but be have become complacent and aloof.
Q Do you think the “Be more Dog” campaign is a customer acquisition campaign or a brand reputation building campaign.
A I think the main aim of this campaign is to create a personality for the company. Its a telephone company – boring! bring in cat that wants to be a dog and your are appealing to huge market that has grown up on cat videos on youtube and lolcats. This campaign creates a philosophy that O2 can apply to all its integrated marketing communications. There is no mention of the company’s products in this campaign because I believe they are trying to push brand awareness instead.
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Interesting blog.
The most intersting part is how the 4c’s are implemented to this campaign.This ad by Telefonica was highly influential and creative.I think this campaign is for the brand building because this campaign in so creative and it will be always remembered in the brand name.As you can see in social medias such as Facebook,Twitter etc,This campaign has succeeded.
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Great blog,
It is a great campaign, it clearly explains why the consumer should try the product. It also shows the difference in the consumer before and after using the product in a humorous way. I personally think it is a successful brand building and also customer acquisition campaign.
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