Strategy: Because of the rapid integration of European youth culture for example same brands, sport tastes in music and fashion tends reoccurring in country after country, this had obvious implications for the development of a unified Pan-European strategy for Adidas. Adidas exploit the tension that exists between the different aspects of the brand, these being youth, sporting heritage and product innovation.
Tactics: Adidas chose a multi-executional approach. Instead of the same message being repeated over a series of advertisements, they had over the last two years developed a large number of advertisements with different messages. From literal to lateral expressions of sport, fun to serious tones of voice, through to the latest product technology. Last year they produced 50 different TV commercials and 150 press advertisements running virtually every market in the world.
Target market: Very simple every one but most of all youth.
Satellite enables the strategy and tactics to be deployed on global scale and the dynamic technology complements the dynamic product.
5.0 Future Developments
As we have previously seen in the prior articles, there are currently some exciting developments in the particular with reference to the growing Digital Television revolution. Marketers are already beginning to realise the potential of such a medium. With greater exposure of more channels Digital Television is perfect medium for marketing communication. But with such expansion in technology what possibly can the future bring and what application and benefit might a marketer gain and have for these developments.
The most obvious and current development in the commercial television sphere is the increase of interactivity. With this we see the development of British Interactive Broadcasting. BIB will play a key role in establishing a base of digital satellite set-top boxes and will supply interactive content to digital platforms; BIB will distribute the service on digital DTH.
British Interactive Broadcasting (BIB) was formed on 7 May 1997 to deliver interactive services in the digital environment. British Sky Broadcasting Group owns 32.5% of BIB, the other partners in the venture being British Telecom (32.5%), HSBC Midland Bank (20%) and Matsushita Electric (Panasonic UK) (15%). In return for service distribution on BSkyB’s new digital DTH platform, BIB will provide the technical infrastructure for interactive services, and will enable digital set-top boxes to be sold at a retail price of approximately 200. Essentially, the set-top box converts digital transmissions into analogue signals, which can be seen on conventional television sets. With the launch of BIB, digital satellite transmissions will also enable the customer to access an array of interactive applications. These should include interactive home-delivery shopping services, television banking, holiday reservations on-screen, learning on-line, computer games and ‘the best of the Internet and e-mail’.
Despite this, for true interactivity, many believe some sort of PC is inevitable and the computer industry believes it knows the shape of the future. “There are soon going to be three types of device on the market,” says Bob Sterns, senior vice-president for technology and corporate development at Compaq. “PCs capable of doing TV, devices which merge the full capabilities of both, so they have a big screen and can be controlled by a remote control but have full computing functionality, and TV appliances, intended solely for digital TV use, but which contain some basic processing capabilities.”
Microsoft has incorporated support for digital TV into Windows 98, due out early next year. It has also enabled the next version of Internet Explorer with buttons that look very much like channel select buttons on your TV. These can be set up to point at Web-casting sites and essentially be used to bring different TV channels on to your PC.
Web TV is probably the best known of the boxes to bring the Web to your sitting room. Microsoft bought Web TV Networks earlier last year for $425m. A Web TV box is essentially a stripped-down computer that allows you to access the Web over your telephone line and display the image on your TV. It will be released in Europe later this year.
However Web TV will be coming into what could soon be a crowded market. NetStation, a system developed by Acorn founder Hermann Hauser, is attracting a lot of attention, while in France NetGem has its own solution. Nokia will be adding Web browsing to its Digital set-top box next year and there are many others.
Digital TV will also bring in totally new ways of delivering the Internet. BIB proposes several ways – none as yet finalised. Its most basic service will involve some 20 Web sites (totalling perhaps several thousand pages). These will be broadcast over the air in a sort of carousel with some information stored in the set-top box’s memory, like a sort of super teletext. One of BIB’s main claims for this service is that it is a “walled garden”. The company will know exactly what is on show and will make sure there is no unsuitable material. “Most of the Web’s most popular sites are pornographic ones,” says Chris Townsend, acting commercial director of BIB. “The regulator [the ITC] is very keen that we do not put anything on the screen that might cause offence.”
In the US, cable modems, typically with speeds of between 10 and 30Mb per second, are just beginning to find their way into homes. This makes it possible to have incredibly smooth images and sound broadcast through the Internet giving the potential for thousands of programmes produced from thousands of locations. The potential for marketers is incredible. Through this incredible possible range of programmes individual segments can be directly marketed. Perhaps even sending programmes with advertising to particular homes.
6.0 Presentation
As part of this module, we had to do a presentation. As it had to be for an hour, all of us thought it would be boring to each have an individual piece and read it to the class. We decided that one of the most popular aspects to come out of satellite was the Jerry Springer show, so we decided to do our presentation Jerry Springer style.
Over 10 weeks we met roughly 2 3 times a week and came up with not only material, but also how we would present it. As it was the style of a Jerry Springer show, we needed an argument. We decided that a good argument would be Satellite/Cable TV Vs Digital TV. This was going to be backed up with two representatives from Satellite/Cable and digital, respectively and advertising agencies on one of the mediums, criticising the other medium. Also we had a host, a floor manager, a cue cards man and security guard.
We used a number of visual aids and pieces of equipment to help with the presentation. They were:
+ A Laptop Computer with PowerPoint was used instead of an overhead projector to communicate important notes to the class.
+ Cue cards
Used to get audience participation. For example, cards saying applause, Jerry
+ 3 Video cassettes
1? Past clips of Jerry show. Used to tell audience how on past shows people have lost their temper with these subjects. We used clips from Jerry Springers Uncensored video and dubbed the sound out and used the instrumental from Eminem s song, My name is .
2? Satellite link up. Used for an example of Digital’s interactive abilities. Filmed on a previous date, where a group member, posing as an international agent, talked about the advantages of digital. Another member of the group, posing as a digital spokesman, interacted with them by not only conversing but also actually stepping into the TV, and pulling out the agent and both continuing there conversation to the live studio audience.
1? Video of adverts. Used at the advert break.
With all the material and information we included, it fulfilled all the criteria needed for the course plus more. Some parts were more noticeable than others were. For example, the advantages and disadvantages was a big section of the presentation but the international perspective, was on going throughout the whole presentation, due to satellite and digital being broadcast internationally.
In appendix 2 we have given you a who’s who run down, explaining in the layout. Due to unforeseen circumstances, Jemma could not make the presentation so we had to take her bit out. Looking at appendix 2, her part would have been before Andrew D and she would have talked about the advantages of Digital. We had planned alternative presentations just in case a member did not turn up, so we had to use it.
Conclusion
Having being the 1st group to do commercial satellite as an advertising mean, we had no past reports to have a basis on. We had to set a precedent. Deciding to use digital TV as well as satellite was a cohesive decision, which we thought would be beneficial. We covered all aspects of the syllabus and made this report different from the presentation, but still covering the same aspects. Due to this we found doing the presentation very helpful towards the report.
As we were doing a fairly new subject, books were hard to come by. A few books mentioned brief parts about satellite but we did not find sufficient or relevant information about digital. The majority of the research conducted was off the internet and we found the sky web page, www.skytv.com, especially helpful.
Advertising on satellite has its advantages. We came to the conclusion that its main advantage is it being a popular, profitable, well-established advertising medium. Other advantages are the scope it gives companies to sponsor, low cost per thousands, wide range of channels and the commercial impacts. Satellite has its disadvantages though, too many commercials, interference and the introduction of digital.
Digital is the future and has many new features to offer not only the subscriber but also companies who wish to use it as a medium. The scope of digital is immense and far too deep for this report. It has a very bright future and will change the way in which you use and watch TV. As digital is new, it is too early to measure your viewers, therefore do not know how many people are watching. Even though Digital has a huge scope and has a lot of new, innovative features, the majority of them will not be available until the long term. Companies have to keep this in mind before deciding what medium to use. If they want an established medium, then satellite would be the best choice but if you want to advertise in the future using different methods or you are a new company wanting to penetrate the market, then digital is the best medium.
Bibliography
Smith,P (1993), Marketing Communications an intergrated approach, Kogan Page
Advertising Association (1997), Marketing pocketbook 1998, NTC Publications
BBC (1998), BBC online sales package
BSB (1998), Sky Digital sales package
References
WWW.DigitalTVReport.Com
Authors Shaun Match, Andrew Akuffo, Andrew Davis
WWW.Sky.co.uk
WWW.BBC.co.uk
WWW.Telewest.co.uk