Following on from my last article regarding business case valuations I wanted to look at what for us is an earlier step in the process, the development of the ideal campaign architecture and subsequent platform selection. Crucially, all of the assets that will be required are identified before contacting any rightsholders.
It’s in many ways the traditional hand-over point within a standard advertising model between the planner and the creative, the moment where all of the insights that have been accumulated through the process are converted into an idealised model of what the perfect campaign would include. By working to achieve the idealised model we can ensure that any creative solution retains a strong link to the drivers of business value that have been identified in the strategic assessment.
So what is the campaign architecture?
Typically it’s a visual representation of the components of an ideal campaign. It will provide a structure for the different geographies, timeslines, channels, and audiences that will be involved in the campaign and provide a vision that the creatives should work towards.
The additional planning stage is required because of the inherent complexity of a sponsorship campaign compared to traditional ATL. Not only does sponsorship need to reflect the brand and media profiles of a traditional ATL brief, but also the assets and differing experiences required for hospitality / experiential / special edition product and all of the other variables that allow sponsorship to fulfil such a diverse range of objectives.
A typical architecture will include an over-arching proposition, the need for time-specific or country-specific events, split between different types of B2B hospitality, customer rewards, new business incentives, employee activities, any role for product, DM/online content, assets for ATL use. Everything that we want the creative solution to include is spelt out upfront.
By being more specific at this stage about the assets needed to meet the full range of business objectives it allows for greater freedom in selecting platforms. We’re no longer looking for a property that appeals to 18-24 year olds (hello another music festival), we’re looking for assets that we can either buy or create that will fit within a consistent over-arching proposition and deliver against a specific objective tied to a financial return for the business.
Those assets may all come from the same rightsholder (in which case they become the first building block in the negotiation plan), or from many different rightsholders, or from organisations who don’t even consider themselves to be rightsholders. It’s the difference between planning a trip you’ve tailored to your exact needs rather than just forking out for a package holiday.
Off the shelf rights packages are built to hit a certain price point, typically throwing in a bit of everything on offer with a few unique assets for the top tier of partner. They aren’t built to fulfil specific client objectives; because rightsholders primary responsibility is to their bottom line, not yours.
Proper planning takes time, effort, and yes, money. But if it provides a more intelligent solution with a better financial return then even the hawks in finance will recognise it as money well spent.