For the past few years my housemates and I have hosted a pre-Thanksgiving potluck dinner on the weekend before actual Thanksgiving. Each year I roast the turkey, which has usually been quite easy, until last year when the turkey I bought didn’t include a pop-up thermometer. I did some quick googling to estimate the approximate cooking time, but other than that I had little to rely on the gauge its done-ness. It turned out okay, but was perhaps a a degree or two underdone in certain parts. This year, we wound up inviting 25+ people over, necessitating the biggest turkey Safeway had. Not wanting to risk giving my closest friends botulism, I also invested in a meat thermometer. Obviously this made things much easier- I tested the turkey at least 4 times before finally it reached a perfect 165 degrees.
This article from the Wall Street Journal reminded me of my turkey roasting experiences as it compares two ways that advertising firms take the temperature of their target audience. Without discounting the importance and validity of traditional marketing research, in many ways it compares to the way I cooked last year. I did some research online and found that the recommended cooking time for a 20-25 pound turkey is 5 hours. But this estimate is just an average- it doesn’t take into account various oven or the specific weight of my particular bird. Once it came out of the oven, rested and was carved for 25 waiting and hungry guests- there was little room for fine-tuning. Likewise, researchers do focus group work and marketing research and execute campaigns, but are rarely able to gauge the immediate reaction or rework their advertisements.
These days, the vast number of conversations that occur online about particular brands act as the thermometer, allowing advertisers to adjust their message, take the temperature and adjust again if necessary. One of the examples the Journal reporter gives is of Harrah’s casino in Las Vegas. By reading reviews for the hotel on Trip Advisor, the firm working with the casino noticed that most guests had commented on spectacular view of the strip from the company’s Paris hotel. Acting on this, they changed their main page to a photofeaturing the “Eiffel Tower” surrounded by the other iconic attractions of Las Vegas like the fountains at the Bellagio. They also noticed that customers were responsive to information about hotel amenities so they made sure to include information about room size and menus on their advertising. The company’s vice president of advertising credits these changes to a double digit increase in advertising.
The other example in the article is about IBM and changes they made to print ads- so these types of changes are possible not only for online advertising, but other mediums as well. The ability to fine-tune your advertising is an invaluable result of the increased conversation on the internet. Not only can your prospects get information from other students and from your institution, but you can tap into their thoughts and concerns to better address them through your marketing materials. But while the turkey must eventually come out of the oven, your advertising turkey can cook indefinitely, evolving and adapting to your prospect’s needs and concerns over time.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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