PEO: The Perfect 'Recipe' For Brand Activation

From the Brand Activator Blog on CMO.com

By Ted Kohnen, Vice President, Integrated Marketing, Stein + Partners Brand Activation

As the holidays get into full swing, no doubt some of us will be stressing over cooking the perfect meal for family and friends. Of course, having the right tools are important to creating that perfect meal. But even more important are the ingredients you use–that exact mix of individual elements combined to make a memorable experience.

The same approach applies to a “brand activating” media mix–specifically, the harmonious mélange of paid, owned, and earned (PEO) media. These three ingredients, when blended correctly, deliver an experience that engages your target, raises your brand above the noise, and accelerates conversion opportunities.

Each of the three media types has a set of attributes and characteristics that make it effective in its own right. For example, paid media gives you control, reach, targeting, and share of voice; it is projectable, predictable, and easily measurable. You have absolute control over your messaging. Earned media provides the context and authority of an independent third party speaking on a brand’s behalf; it carries more credibility than paid media. Owned media provides the opportunity to offer real value to a target audience and, in effect, creates your own channel.

But when synchronized, the PEO media “sum” far exceeds the performance of individual “parts” if deployed in silos.

To empirically prove the point, Stein + Partners Brand Activation (SPBA) had a bake-off of sorts. We analyzed our own media channel performance over the past three years and found that the artful mix of PEO media evidenced a 35% increase in response metrics.

You can read the full results in the SPBA whitepaper "Paid, Earned & Owned (PEO) Media: Orchestrating Opportunity."

Optimally delivering the right PEO mix for our clients has become part of our Brand Activation DNA (read my colleague Tom Stein’s blog post "Is Your Brand Activated?") and has enabled our clients to dominate highly competitive markets and quickly establish a foothold in new ones.

So, this holiday and into 2012, create that perfect marketing meal. I promise, you won’t fall asleep afterward.

About Brand ActivatorThe authors of the Brand Activator blog are from Stein + Partners Brand Activation, New York, BtoB Magazine 2011 Agency of the Year.

Read more: http://www.cmo.com/branding/peo-perfect-recipe-brand-activation#ixzz1h6kPB5g1