Surely this is the tail wagging the dog! You, your marketing director or, worst of all, your customers will probably have left before the solution is ever implemented.

Let’s take a step back. The role of IT or an IT department has to be as an enabler for the rest of the business – understanding the requirements of different business areas and working with them to source and implement solutions that deliver the necessary functionality while mitigating security risks.

We don’t view IT as something that should dictate how brands interact with their customers. The trick is to use technology to identify and understand changes in customer demand, decide how you want to respond and to do so in a way that enables you to capitalize on (or minimize) the impact of the change in customer behaviour. The moment that IT starts to encroach on a brand’s ability to market itself, speed to market, competitive advantage and probably sales are compromised.

These are simple principles that hopefully most marketers would agree with. However, the reality is that in too many case IT departments are dictating the terms, timelines and functionality. Most IT is shrouded in a veil of mystery which prevents proper scrutiny and wouldn’t be tolerated in any other business discipline – if the Finance guy can’t justify why a budget is being cut, he isn’t going to be allowed to cut the budget. But because a lot of marketers don’t “get” IT or are even scared of “IT” they are reluctant to challenge or simply state their requirements.

Fortunately, thanks to some fairly recent developments, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Open Source Software has entered the mainstream and gives a practical alternative to licence based software. Rather than buying expensive software licences, Open Source gives us the option to download the software for free and then pay for consultancy and support in using the software if it is needed. The benefits for marketing departments are clear: you can implement something fast and prove the business case, you aren’t committing significant budget to something that you may want to change or throw away, it is a customized solution for your business not generic to businesses that could be like yours and you build knowledge and value internally.

Open Source software has gone beyond the domain of the geek with commercial Open Source software (such as Linux and Google’s Android) now widely used and blue chip IT consultancies like Accenture and IBM advocating its consideration – have a look…

Agile approaches to IT development make Open Source software even more powerful. If a project is managed in an Agile way, you define your requirements and priorities and start developing with solutions available for use as soon as they are ready – delivery time for each stage is typically weeks rather than months (or years). It’s iterative, fast and perfectly suited to marketing-led technology. If you are interested, take a look at this somewhat lengthy video

So there are viable, commercial alternatives to massive lead times, massive IT costs that dwarf your marketing budget and solutions that are designed for the market rather than your business. The challenge is in the thinking, the strategy and having the confidence to treat technology as something that powers your brand.

I did know, of course, that we had entered the DMA Awards already, so I wasn’t being entirely hypocritical in terms of whingeing about the costs of award schemes.

They are too expensive all-round, and they do exist to make money.

However, there are less around now; casualties of the recession, along with some of the publications that funded them.

So the cachet of the schemes still in operation has risen (along with the prices, possibly) and are therefore worth winning that little more. Besides, the DMA has always been the holy grail for anyone who has anything to do with personal communications which, nowadays, is almost everyone.

All of which are my attempts to justify the fact that actually I don’t really care!.

The smile is still on all of our faces three weeks on from the event. We’ve had a lot of comment about the win from other clients and most importantly of all, the guys at IKEA are also thrilled (deservedly so as it’s recognition of their vision, talents and commitment). Killing off the assertion that clients don’t care about awards.

This includes some key changes at the top of the company, and the introduction of a number of new faces.

Alongside Nigel Gatehouse, I will be Group Managing Director and Robin Presky becomes Client Director.

Stuart Woodington relinquishes his role as Creative Director to his erstwhile partner Philip Bird, and assumes the new role of Business Development Director, where he will work with existing clients to help them exploit market opportunities, as well as marketing our own interests.

Lindsay Cowan joins the Senior Management Team as Insight Director and introduces herself with a brilliant article “What decisions are today’s shoppers making?”; Darren Searle as Head of Copy and Rebeca Alamo who heads up IKEA UK.

In addition the following people have become QPMites!

• In creative: Brian Boughen, Amy Hornett and Chris Coulsen.
• In Analytics: Leah-Ann Grey, Taraka Reddy, Mo van Praag and Niranjan Umashanker.
• In finance/admin, Zoe Staton and Georgina Crudgington, plus John Clarke will take on the role of Finance Director and Jan Simon as Head of HR.
• In Business Management: Pia Christiansen, Ursula Marrow, Abby Swaffield and Sayara Muthuveloe.

Welcome to them all, they won’t be the last!

For example, we’re seeing trade-down in non-emotional items, like toilet rolls and light bulbs, but upturn in the fortunes of ‘feel good’ range sales. In fact many ‘indulgent’ (typically, more expensive) categories are more popular in an economic downturn. Why?

15% of households are shopping for ‘Value’ Products and trading up their usual brands, all in the same shopping basket. (Datamonitor 2008)

Professor Ravi Dahr, Director of Marketing at Yale Centre for Customer Insights – expands on this theme: “Although we are all looking to save, we are all human beings. When you are not shopping, but planning to do it next week, you are in rational mode and feel able to resist temptation. But this isn’t necessarily the case when you are actually in the store.”

Shoppers are now interested in ‘trading their spend’. So, although the expensive night out is out, they’re still looking for a ‘good-times’ fix. They just treating themselves, with a cheaper ‘at home’ alternative.

In a nutshell, consumers are definitely feeling the financial pinch, but the choices they are making when shopping are, interestingly, being dictated by a range of emotional functional and self-esteem related factors. This is often resulting in a greater increase in impulse spend at the point of purchase.

Professor Dahr suggests: “I may no longer be able to afford a $1000 suite, but now a $2.50 latté seems a more reasonable price treat!”

Which retailers are benefiting?

Not surprisingly, Premium retailers are having a hard time and discount stores are getting the customers – as you’d expect. However, what is new is that shoppers going into stores seeking ‘Value for Money’, will not only spend more on the other price deals on key essential products they discover in-store, but, at the same time,  their emotional triggers can be prompted for premium, branded ‘indulgent’ goods.

Clearly the retailers that are prospering are the ones offering a ‘Value for Money’ message. But this has to be reflected by the look and feel of the store experience and the retailing environment i.e. the store may have some good deals on offer, but unless it looks like it does, shoppers may not walk in.

Manufacturers

Datamonitor reports that the real win for manufacturers is to convey ‘Value for money’ on all products. Not necessarily by cutting price, but by showing extra benefits that justify price. The shopper needs to feel ‘I can afford this everyday luxury product’.

Empathy and understanding of shoppers and the decisions they make has become an essential factor for today’s successful retailer. Brand is still crucial and there are numerous factors which lead to a purchasing decision.

Purchasing Triggers

• Clear packaging messages allied to stand-out.
• Targeted point-of-purchase messages, linking product to need
• Purchase-friendly displays, leading shoppers to products that meet their needs.

Engaging shoppers with a real reason to purchase at every touch point, and changing their normal behaviour, is the method that is winning through.

The winning combination

The facts

In an average supermarket, a shopper is faced with between 50,000 and 70,000 product SKU choices. In the UK alone, more than £750 million is spent on in-store POS and POP materials each year. Yet, at least 80% of that investment is wasted.

A shopper’s mind can only process five to seven visual messages at any one time. At least 60% of a shopper’s fixation is on the product and packaging itself, with a further 12% of attention being given to the shelf edge. Impact is everything if in-store POP and POS investment is going to be well spent.

An insight into our approach to Insight!

At Quant Presky Maves we believe that brands are best positioned, customers better engaged and communications made more relevant, only when there is real knowledge about what is driving purchasing decisions and the buying process itself. Therefore, the strategies we create and execute for clients are always developed by combining data with behavioural and attitudinal factors  - validating all of the who, what, where when, how and why’s. This, we believe, is true Customer Insight.

There’s the entry itself – most are near the £200 mark – and any costs you need to give it a chance of winning, plus the studio time.

The cost of the table. “For 10, luv? That will be two grand please, oh and don’t forget to add on the VAT!”

Typically, you have to pre-order of the drinks – why is it that Central London hotels can find a way of charging forty quid for a bottle of plonk that you can get in an off licence for a fiver? Watch out here, on the order form you may well find a note stating that a ‘discretionary’ service charge, in the region of 12.5%, will be added to the drinks bill. That’s simply for placing it on the table, not pouring it!

And when you’re actually at the event, pre and post-do drinks are exorbitant and heaven help you if you actually win, because champagne becomes de-rigeur.

All in, you can do your monthly debit card limit in one night. Mind you, it’s a lot cheaper than recruitment agency fees (another subject worthy of a moan) and the smile does take a while to get off your face.

Not surprisingly, a lot of people I know in other companies are saying awards schemes are off the agenda at the moment, which is a shame as they can provide a real morale boost to companies in these financially challenged times. Do you think they should be a little more sensitive in their pricing?