Rob Thomas
Marketing is now much more targeted. Rob Thomas is the Business Development Director of Adare International, the print management company. Since the start of your career what’s the biggest change in media? The arrival of digital marketing, the Internet and the move away from things like mass push communications. Marketing is now much more targeted with more one-on-one communications than ever before.
For your clients what is the leading medium today? For our clients, Nokia are spending a large amount in some markets with big campaigns on TV and digital, on social media and blogs. It’s youth orientated so online is a massive area for them.
Google and Amazon are two examples of companies, known around the world who promoted themselves just online. Do you see other companies particularly for your clients repeating this? If you go back to the mix, different markets have different levels of online maturity. Markets such as Russia for instance are more of an analogue market. The examples you mentioned are exceptions because they are solely based online so they can solely channel customers through the Internet.
Could you take print out of the mix and transfer to digital?
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It’s unwise for anything where the promotion of an item requires a lot of technical information or prestige. If we’re looking at the launch of a new campaign for Nokia its necessary to have the mix, I can’t picture a time when they won’t have that. Very rarely do I receive brochures anymore. I devote more time to a hard copy brochure, because I don’t get very many of them. Print now stands out. Particularly if it’s well targeted, if it’s going out to the right person, with the right information. If I get a newsletter and it’s something that takes my interest as an email I will give it perhaps 5 seconds to skim through it before I delete it.
Who out there is doing integrated marketing particularly well? Tesco are outstanding in the UK. Giving you offers that are targeted to you, the websites are pulling you in, they are directing you there, you’re receiving sms’s from them. So as far as consumer brands I would say major retailers are leading in integration.
What is the main role of social media for brands, if you don’t know your customers is it a good way to get to know them? Yes, but it depends on the type of product or service you have. I don’t consider myself techno-savvy but if I’m interested in making a purchase I will find out information online. Whether it’s availability, price point, comparisons or what people think of it. Personally for any type of purchasing decision I use forums or blogs, particularly for technical devices.
If I want to get the most out of print production who do I phone? Who do your customers phone? Us! Traditionally it’s been the role of creative agencies to advise on production, but some of the agencies are losing this skill set. And that is why we have grown so dramatically. Agencies focus on creativity, and print managers focus on execution. It’s their job to come up with ideas and give instruction, we feed into the idea that already exists and make it into a reality. And sometimes we feed a lot in to that creative process free of charge, which in turn provides the spark that takes it on to excellent results.
“ I don’t consider myself techno-savvy but if I’m interested in making a purchase I will find out information online.” What would you like to see as the next big advancement in print production and print media? Consistency is number one for brand owners, so let’s forget about improvements in personalisation and job turnaround. We need constancy when it comes to price, quality, et cetera.
Who is helping with consistency, the printers, or the paper? Do you look for printers with the same presses? We operate from the UK to Russia and the technologies available are very different, and so are the materials. Availability is a key part of the answer, it goes back to making sure you have consistent suppliers and materials, particularly from a Direct Mail side. Getting that consistency and quality would be the next advancement for me across the industry.