Dyson's Successful Advertising Campaign: Boosting Sales and Brand Awareness, Lecture notes of Technology

Download Dyson's Successful Advertising Campaign: Boosting Sales and Brand Awareness and more Lecture notes Technology in PDF only on Docsity! AdFx - Advertising Effectiveness 2006. Demonstrating the Effectiveness of Advertising In 2004 Dyson Ireland faced a dilemma. The company was preparing for a ‘difficult’ year ahead. The DC05, which represented 58% of their sales, was being discontinued and ESB Retail, their single biggest retail customer was closing down. Dyson brand awareness needed to be boosted in order to soften the expected drop in sales. If Dyson could communicate its unique brand values the belief was that the company would see a profitable return on investment and counteract the upcoming difficulties. With no previous history of advertising in Ireland Dyson embarked on a ten month advertising, media and communications strategy which ran from March ’05 - January ’06. The strategy was devised to deliver the maximum return from a budget which was modest in major brand terms. The result was remarkable. Not only was Dyson’s key objective of spontaneous brand awareness met, increasing by an incredible 73%, from 44% to 76%, (Source: TNS/Lightspeed), but by early 2006 the brand’s market share had increased by 88% for volume and by 47% for value (Source: GFK). Dyson had turned around what could have been a disastrous year, into the company’s most successful one. The company’s decision to advertise and increase the awareness levels surrounding the brand acted as the sole catalyst to this success. BACKGROUND Dyson products have been sold across Ireland since 1997. There had been no advertising or promotional support. To continue the momentum gained to date in the Irish market and ensure that growth opportunities could be exploited Dyson wished to develop a specific campaign for Ireland. In order to achieve Dyson’s 5 year business growth objectives the levels of brand awareness and consideration needed to leap forward propelling the brand to new and higher levels. An advertising and media investment strategy was required. Research was carried out (by TNS) prior to the start of the campaign so that campaign effectiveness was benchmarked. This research indicated high levels of brand awareness despite low advertising investments by the in-category brands. Awareness levels for Dyson were encouraging. Research showed a 44% unprompted and 83% recognition when prompted response from the research sample. Prior to 2005 there was no accepted retail audit of electrical appliances - it is now measured monthly by GFK. However, Dyson believed their market share by volume was (+/-) 12% and (+/-) 25% by value based on units sold and the known size of the total market. (these estimates were subsequently borne out by GFK). Advertising investment levels by competing brands was very modest and if we invested sufficiently there was a clear opportunity for Dyson to gain category ownership with consumers and the retail trade. Advertising investment would give Dyson a clear ‘top of mind’ position and enable them to leverage the brand proposition of product superiority, while engaging the consumer with Dyson Ireland: Making a famous brand successful DYSON’S DECISION TO ADVERTISE AND INCREASE THE AWARENESS LEVELS SURROUNDING ITS BRAND RESULTED IN UNPRECEDENTED SUCCESS FOR THE COMPANY. GTMEDIA MANAGED THE CAMPAIGN. Silver: New Product Launch Dyson 17/1/07 8:42 am Page 2 44/45 AdFx Dyson’s USP message; “The Vacuum cleaner that doesn’t lose suction”. MARKETING & BUSINESS OBJECTIVES Dyson were very clear about the campaign objectives; • To raise awareness of the brand • To increase front of mind (ad awareness) • To communicate core brand messages The business objective was to soften an expected drop in the number of units. There was to be a run out of the Dyson DC05 model which had contributed 58% of Dyson sales in Ireland and its replacement model would have a significant price premium. Additionally, the closure of the ESB Retail chain was a major concern as these outlets represented 25% of Dyson sales in Ireland. Dyson needed to develop a strong brand presence and to increase the understanding of the brand amongst its key consumer target. Brand values had to be clearly established and the perceived lack of product knowledge overcome to justify, in the minds of our target, the Dyson price premium. High visibility advertising, we believed, could not only influence consumers but also the trade, helping open up and drive new distribution channels which would in turn push the rate of sale. THE TASK To develop a campaign which communicated the Dyson USP - “The Vacuum cleaner that doesn’t lose suction”. We needed to raise the awareness of Dyson’s superior technology, build brand recognition, reputation and differentiation versus the competition. Greater understanding would lead to consideration to purchase, recommendation and ‘word of mouth’. KEY INSIGHTS To achieve the task, we needed people to believe that Dyson create ‘genuinely better products’. James Dyson is the living embodiment of the brand - he did after all invent the revolutionary technology for which his company is famous. Also, James was known to the Irish public due to an appearance on the Late Late Show which had generated a positive response. He had also been on Radio and delivered lectures in conjunction with the Design Awards. The idea: If we could leverage this positivity to, and recognition of James Dyson and what he represents, we believed we could make a genuine connection with consumers, especially the core target - up-market females and housekeepers. However, Dyson did not want to be seen as a practitioner of ‘emotional selling’ techniques. While ‘ordinary’ manufacturers - who have nothing real to sell in terms of technology and engineering solutions - sell through this technique, Dyson is not ‘ordinary’. Dyson is the most effective vacuum cleaner you can buy. The communication needed to be hard, comparative, relate to absolute facts, graphically simple and elegant, emotive but not contrived, spoken as if from a straight talking engineer, confident, modest even, certainly not arrogant. The communication needed to make superiority claims without reliance on unbelievable superlative statements. Using James Dyson as the key communicator of the message enabled the achievement of these goals while instilling a real sense of credibility to the campaign. THE CAMPAIGN The available budget in 2005 of e400,000 did not facilitate the production of expensive creative material given the mandatory for a high level of media investment. However, Dyson Ireland had access to a pool of creative resource which had been created for other European markets and to which we could get access and get amendments specific to Ireland. The challenge was to select the most appropriate treatments, based on our strategic and brand considerations. VCCP were tasked with adapting material for our requirements. Our target market was made up 25-44 year old, AB (C1), predominantly female. Lifestyle expectations amongst this group are high - they are in highly paid employment and are big spenders. CREATIVE STRATEGY TV was used as the primary medium. The idea was simple: “I just think things should work properly”. The 30” TV shows James Dyson sitting at the drawing board, questioning, in voiceover, what it is vacuum cleaners are designed to do - suck up dirt. Whilst other vacuum cleaners claim to be powerful, after only a few rooms they start to loose their suction. Dyson’s patented technology delivers a constant suction, so room after room it never loses suction. This delivers a powerful testimony which is true to the brand. The caption reads; “The Vacuum cleaner that doesn’t loose suction”. The voice-over states, in an honest tone; “I just think things should work properly”. The Dyson vacuum cleaner is unique - a vacuum cleaner that is designed not to lose suction. “…Which makes you wonder what the others were designed to do?” CAMPAIGN STRATEGY Television is where the great brands have been build and it was a pre- requisite for Dyson. TV would drive the required awareness. A total of 550 ABC1 Female TVRS were bought with a spot buying strategy in shows which our core target audience ‘specially chooses to watch’. This would deliver a ‘quality’ association for Dyson with high profile/quality programming. TV was supported with Press at the initial launch period. Readership profiling of our core audience indicated that the Irish Times and the Sunday Times were the key titles. We knew that we had to deliver a serious piece of stand-out for Dyson so full broadsheet page colour advertisements appeared on page 5 of both ‘papers the weekend that the campaign broke. Follow up press appeared in specifically targeted magazines; Image Interiors and Sunday Independent Life Magazine. The unique impact of the press activity really kick started the campaign and Dyson achieved instant lift off. Following the initial 5 week launch phase of advertising Mid-March to Mid- April 2005, research showed that AdFx - Advertising Effectiveness 2006. Demonstrating the Effectiveness of Advertising Dyson Dyson 17/1/07 8:43 am Page 3