Plan focusses on radio and print
Our strategy consists of two media components, radio and print.
Print will mainly be used to establish a dialogue with the current base of clientele.
It will consist of a 16-page magazine that will not only introduce and explain the Body Guard program, but also provide short pieces on health, dining, personal finance, travel tips, and so on.
The magazine will be sent to policyholders four times annually starting in September and will invite editorial participation.
Overruns will be made available to the general public through a 1-800 subscription line. Of course, the company’s sales agents will also have a quantity made available to them for redistribution.
The first issue will also appear as an insert in magazines, such as LeisureWays and Snowbird, that match up well with what we want to do editorially and geo-demographically.
The creativity and innovation in this media strategy is to forge an association between the medium and the message, by mirroring the best attributes of the client business – personalized service.
Radio will talk to current and potential clients about the Body Guard program using flighted advertising from September to March.
In addition to 30-second spots, selected stations will also feature Body Guard vignettes.
These anecdotal two-minute travel tips will reflect the warm and reliable personality of the company.
They will be announced by billboards and run within news broadcasts two or three times per week.
The vignettes will also serve to publicize the print program and will invite listeners to call the 1-800 number.
This conservative, traditional company that needs to regain lost share, must market its new program to its customer base and potential customers in a way that builds on a heritage of understanding and caring about their needs.
Since this program provides reassurance against the insecurities of travelling abroad, the timing and news adjacency of the radio is designed to reach the target when these concerns are paramount, that is, when planning winter vacations amid unsettling news reports.
The radio vignettes and the print program extend the communication campaign. Instead of simply announcing the Body Guard program, it provides information of interest to the listener/reader.
At the same time, the sponsor is portrayed as a knowledgeable corporate citizen that cares and is listening to the needs of its clientele.
A 16-page magazine, Alive Abroad, put to tender among the best publishers, will be issued four times annually, announcing and detailing the Body Guard program, as well as providing informative and entertaining editorial skewed to health and leisure activities.
Radio and print work well together in this context.
The former provides frequent delivery of the message to a broader base of contacts, while the latter contributes a permanent record in more detail to interested parties.
Both may be executed to efficiently skew to this older, more rural, more affluent target.
The radio campaign will be enhanced by two-minute vignettes, ‘Voice of the Snowbird,’ which will be produced using much of the editorial resources of the magazine.
These vignettes, bookended by Bodyguard billboards, will be folksy, anecdotal entertainment focussing, again, on health and travel.
The 1-800 subscription program also provides another added-value feature of the campaign.
Because people who show the forethought of gathering information to ensure a safe holiday are also likely to see the value of planning and reducing risk in their everyday lives, the database gathered through this vehicle should prove a rich source of new business contacts.
Mark Husak is associate media director at J. Walter Thompson, a Toronto-based advertising agency.
