Will the real heroes please stand up?

A recent glance at the Adspend numbers for the first four months of 2008 makes for scary reading. Adspend is only up by 9% on last year, which is basically an inflationary increase on 2008. I suspect once we get the May - July data, the numbers will be even worse!

Marketers are cutting back on spend in a desperate attempt to make the numbers balance at the end of the month. It is, however, here where, if this was a Hollywood movie, the inspirational music will start playing and despite being knocked to the ground numerous times, the protagonist will rise from the ashes and start kicking some serious butt.

Ideal opportunity

In the same way, I think this is an ideal opportunity for marketing managers and ad people to make heroes of themselves.

I recently had the privilege of hearing Bob Thacker speak at Caxton and NAB's RAC Lite conference. Thacker is a world-renowned marketing guy, who is currently spending his time working for Office Max, an office and stationery retailer in the US.

Last Christmas, Office Max only had a budget of US$40 000 for its Christmas promotion. Not much, even in a South African context. Thacker and his agency partners ended up designing a website called www.elfyourself.com. You should check it out this Christmas. The website allows users to impose pictures of their faces on a little dancing elf and send it with a Christmas message to their friends and family all over the world. There was, of course, a little retail pop up message about Office Max and its offering. The entire exercise cost US$40 000 to put together.

Overshadowed its competitors

What happened after that was amazing. Elfyourself became one of the most popular websites in the world! 193 million elves were created and the website received 123 million visitors! This is undoubtedly the most popular viral web campaign ever. I am sure Office Max overshadowed its competitors and gained greater share of heart with its tiny budget. Furthermore, Office Max has now created a ‘property', which it owns. The elves will be back this Christmas with a few techno upgrades. I can't wait to see what they'll be.

We should see smaller budgets as an exciting challenge, not a millstone around our neck. Some of the campaigns that I have enjoyed working on most are the R100 000 campaigns for a small promotion. Bigger budgets often force marketing folks' minds to the straight forward and traditional - TV, Radio, Print etc. On a smaller budget, you are forced to look at focusing on one thing and doing something really smart with it. Some of the most famous work that brands such as Nandos have done was on small media budget.

Do something spectacular

Tighter budgets force us to focus more closely on our core market as well. If Prato is to be believed, we should be spending most of our budget on a smaller core market anyway. Now that budgets are small, let's do something spectacular for the 20%. I am sure it will be worth it.

I say, bring on the tough times. I like a challenge. If you want to be a hero in your boss' eyes, now is the time to do it!