The Cultural Cold War

Written By: Fred A Buro

Casino Enterprise Management
August 2006

The Cross Functional Integration of Marketing reveals invisible silos

Brand Awareness and Performance Marketing Advance.

While gaming companies remain chronically focused on competition, growth and consolidation, they face the acute challenges of fostering brand awareness while evolving marketing and performance strategies using in-house technologies that are often jumbled and obsolete. Layer on older equipment, the brain trust of old school shared best practices, and progressive discussions about the total integration of marketing and brand emersion become all but doomed. The daunting task of integrating emerging technologies and trying to change performance orientation throughout an organization to “perform the brand” can yield a perverse feeling of barely controlled chaos - the cost of which is frightful.

As it should be, every department within an operating business performs solely and specifically to achieve one very specific objective; to make their numbers. Those numbers are typically revenue based, performance based or cost based. Therefore, any potential distraction from that objective is literally, a cultural enemy. So it is not surprising that within every organization exists resistance to change. One might argue that people do not intentionally resist change, and that organizations unintentionally do. The flaw in the organization is that it is set up to resist anything perceived to have the potential to cause lingering distractions or rippling ramifications to performance - and change certainly has the potential to do that,.

So it is no wonder that separate business silos along with separate agendas and vastly different performance objectives exist to some degree within every organization. They are physically transparent but every bit lethal to emerging technology and new ideas – literally a cultural blockade that inherently quashes any sign of entrepreneurial spirit or imagination. Cultures like that become more and more reactive every day and are the antitheses of evolution. In other words, they obfuscate new projects as long as the numbers are good. . So gradually but consistently the comprehensive performance can fall behind because they compete less effectively over time - which can ultimately cause an otherwise healthy company to end up on the block

The point is an important paradox; marketing is excessively forward thinking, creative, imaginative and all about new ideas which is in contrast to a stay safe, stay the course reactive type thinking. So taking calculated risks to stay competitive enough to reap long term rewards requires much more than an expectation that everyone see the obvious value in emerging technology. Most executives will not simply buy-in on your recommendation. An example of this in today’s marketing environment may be the growing popularity of Mobile Video on Demand (VOD). And that most marketers will look back on 2006 and realize that they knew they were on the cusp of a technological milestone, and that they really should have pushed to have more resources allocated to it.

Unfortunately, the task of selling the idea of cutting edge technology (VOD in this case) requires more political capital than most marketers have to spend. Not withstanding, the current prediction is that the popularity of VOD and its effect on targeting strategies, reach, content, and delivery options will be profound.

Effective branding requires every media channel to be fully integrated – with targeted branding messages that stick. And every employee within every vertical business must be trained to reinforce the brand and to be the brand – consistently. Separate silos must give way to complete consistent branding and performance integration. A consistent Word of Mouth messaging strategy precipitated by every executive and every employee should embrace and augment ever-changing advertising and marketing methods.

As you know, every branding and call to action initiatives when deployed via broadcast TV have two significant restrictions – time and cost. For the most part, commercials are written and produced to fit a message that strikes an emotional cord with consumers into a thirty second spot which is broadcast to viewers at cost that can be excessive depending upon ratings and demand.

And even when prime time is purchased, your expensive masterpiece is diluted by two or three dozen other spots during your target consumer’s favorite TV show. The sad part is that; after a long hard day, most of those viewers would choose not to view commercials if they had a choice – although commercials do provide the perfect opportunity to use the bathroom or to prepare a quick snack from the fridge without missing any of their favorite show.

The forecasted paradigm shift is that: as VOD usage climbs, conventional TV commercials will take a back seat to the completely different format and function. VOD cell phones will be carried by everybody. I-pods and pod-casts are currently a hot medium. On demand mini movies which can morph a target consumer’s desired entertainment with branding, information, promotions and hotlinks, will be deployed among other devices, via cell phones - on demand, and completely at the viewer’s discretion.

Cost effective targeted reach. Since cellular telephones access the internet with increased speed these days, web based applications can satisfy a user’s impulse to “go there now” which may precipitate a transaction process in a way that wasn’t feasible before. The obvious appeal is that your viewer is viewing your spot by their own choice which, in and of itself, qualifies him as a desired prospect. Not only does this technology allow impulsive transactions, it potentially captures important information such as; e-mail address, or cell phone number and origin about new target customers which is much more than a billboard, print, or a broadcast spot ever could.

By reverse appending that data, postal mail prospecting would likely enjoy much greater response percentages – eventually it too will become obsolete. Why not allow customers the ability to print their offer at home, or not at all – present a bar code on the video display of their cell phone at the promotions center to receive their promotion. Hence, the economics of the conventional thirty second broadcast spot, and direct response postal initiatives may soon be eclipsed by the value of a more liberal, targeted, interactive, cost effective VOD technology.

Of course, lying in the shadows of the VOD ground swell is your major concentration on developing an effective CRM program - which as we know is a process that never ends. It can easily gobble up every hour of every day and is impacted by the varying degrees to which all relevant and detailed information is captured and utilized. The fact is that; postal direct response, public relations, consumer marketing, advertising, promotions, special events, entertainment, and i-media initiatives such as; key word strategies, viral campaigns/ugm, organic and paid search strategies, e-mail blasts, sms text messaging, v-cast, pod-cast, and web site transactions, all create new types of files and transaction records about customer responses to a plethora of marketing campaigns. It must all be completely integrated, tracked and analyzed to be of any real value.

So how do we get there from here? Don’t underestimate the ground swell of resistance to new ideas. As marketers, we are paid not to get frustrated and must accomplish great things. Therefore, marketing internally is as important as marketing to your most revered customers. So end the cold war! Dismantle the separate silos by strategically marketing to key people across your organization. Provide information. Update and educate corporate influencers on emerging trends and the long term returns of new technology, new projects or creative ideas.

The orientation you provide each executive must be formatted specifically for them individually and must answer many questions about how each of their lives will change by supporting and implementing your new idea. How many people in your organization live its brand every day, and how many know about or even care about VOD?