Speaker 1: In this video I'm going to show you why comms planning is valuable to your agency and for helping you sell in the big idea. So you've done the brand planning, your creative team have landed on the big idea, but now it needs to be blown out into the world. This is where comms planning comes into play. To give the big idea a bigger impact with a ripple effect across media and the target audience. Comms planning isn't tactical media placements, it's a creative engagement to solve customer problems and sits right at the intersection of brand planning and the big creative idea by shaping the exposure and the success of the campaign. Comms planning gives rigor but flexibility to move a big idea even with multiple messages. I'm going to show you how comms planning can help an idea ripple out using an example from Chase Inc. the ripple effect. We created the ripple. The donut and a donut and a

Speaker 2: donut. Right away it was a success. I mean it really took off. What people don't know is that it all started with points for my Chase Inc. card. I bought the ingredients, utensils, even custom donut cutters. Wow. All with 80,000 points. What will you create with your points? Learn more about the Inc. business preferred

Speaker 1: card. What is comms planning? Comms planning may show up in a variety of names such as engagement strategy, creative strategy, connections planning and propagations planning. Regardless of its name comms planning is the creative application or creative engagement throughout the customer decision-making process. We are targeting customers with specific messages at specific phases but in a creative way. Each phase has a knock-on effect within the decision making journey by being relevant and resonant to their needs at the phase and leading our target audience on a path to purchase or purchase consideration. The key takeaway from this video is that the comms plan looks to address customer barriers in the decision-making journey path to purchase by solving them with a comms task and a solution. Note we identify these barriers in the customer journey research. You can learn how to do one in the strategy finishing school. In the school we give you the tools you need to use to create a customer journey and how then to apply the consumer barriers identified into the comms plan. Within the comms plan there are three key phases that we look to address within the journey. Step 1 living. Step 2 looking. Step 3 buying. These are in line with the benefits ladder whereby one living is the emotional benefit, looking is the functional benefit and buying is the features of the product or services. You can learn more about the benefits ladder in my video about that but for now let's focus on comms planning phases and how an idea ripples out. Here's an insider tip. Some might say why don't you just call it awareness consideration and purchase? Well two things. The comms plan is from the customers perspective. Number two the comms plan should be the customers voice to help the creatives and clients get into the mindset of the customer. Have you ever heard someone say wow a great idea and I'm aware of them now or my my I must consider that when I need more information or yes I'm going to purchase that. Let's do a deep dive into the phases and what they look to address at each stage of the customer journey. Living. Living is the phase where customers are going about their everyday lives. How do we cut through their current thinking and be relevant? This stage is typically addressed with above-the-line creative. It can also be known as the emotive stage where our above-the-line creative makes an emotional connection by addressing a deeper need, goal or problem within our targets audience's life. Here we pique the audience's attention to make them want to search for the brand and learn more. Looking is the phase where customers are actively searching for the brand to find more information or learn more about it. This phase is where we showcase the functional benefits of our brand versus our competitors. It's where we set ourselves apart with the benefits that we offer especially with our unique selling proposition. Here we are giving customers the reason to choose us. Buying. Buying is the decision-making phase. This is where the customers are searching for the features of the product and service. It's the finer details that they are after. This tends to be the final stage which includes the value proposition. At this stage we aim to sway and convert the customer with our sales offer. Now let's see an example for Chasing, the ripple effect, before we apply it to the comms plan.

Speaker 2: When I started off it was like a vast uncharted territory. I wasn't interested in doing something that had been done before. I was more interested in what I could do that would express myself and be original. But as people tried my doughnuts and other people started copying what I was doing I had to constantly bring out new things. I mean you have to keep innovating. I wanted to make this new kind of doughnut but creating something new is expensive. I had 80,000 points on my chase ink card. Those points let me buy all these ingredients. Flour, sugar, butter, milk and then also all the equipment we had to make ourselves because none of it existed before. Wow. That's how I created the ripple. The doughnut in a doughnut in a doughnut. I just snapped it and

Speaker 3: honestly it went viral. How is this doughnut possible and what do I have to do to get it?

Speaker 2: It just grew and grew and grew. It was on Zagat's most Instagrammable table and their list of 25 essential dishes to try in New York. I've never seen anything like it before. Everyone has to do something that expresses themselves. Mine just happened to be a doughnut. Without those points none of this would have been possible. Introducing the new ink business preferred card. What will you

Speaker 1: create with your points? Right let's show how that rippled out using a comms plan. To give context to the plan we include our objective and comms strategy. The objective to increase signups with the chase ink card with small business owners. The strategy to show the value of points by using points to create a new product. Now let's break down the phases starting with the living stage. Small business owners are going about their everyday lives. With the first barrier in our customers lives we identified that small business owners are hungry for success. They're looking for the tools and inspirations to help them succeed. They want to be the next big success story. Our first comms task to get their attention is to feed them a success story. Something that inspires and motivates them further to succeed. Showing how simple and innovative idea which is relevant to their business can drive growth and success. We are addressing our customers higher order goal and need. To drive the idea forward our idea needs to be supported with the right media channels and used in the right way. We need business owners to see a success story. In this example we see that chase ink use consumer led channels. They were selected to be relevant to the chase ink customer businesses in order to drive fame awareness and success. I.e. the ripple donut. This meant donut plants customers or potential customers would crave their new product offering. It launched on social, fueled by influences, featured in food blogs and online publications and included limited product offerings to help drive curiosity. All media was geared to attract foodies to the core business aiming to make it a runaway success for other small business owners to notice and admire. Now let's review the looking face. Small business owners are interested in learning more and seeing the effects of the success and what can be achieved. With the second barrier in our customers lives we identified the small business owners think that the business card points are pointless. They are abstract value that are often confusing and filled with a myriad of terms and restrictions. When they need to focus on their business they don't have time to understand and calculate the benefits of points. Our second comms task is to give customers the information that they need. We need to reveal that chasing points have business value. When small business owners are searching to see what donut plant success stories business formula is Chase finally reveals that it was with Chase Inc business card points that fueled the latest food craze. Providing context and a deeper understanding by giving business owners a breakdown of the points used to create the business success story and that it was all possible with the free Chase Inc points when signing up. We are addressing our customers immediate need by demonstrating our USP or functional benefit. Selecting our second media channels we see a switch in media targeting with a B2B focus in the comms plan example. We see the looking phase had two steps. The first step was the reveal. To reveal that the success was via Chase Inc points in order to drive search from small business owners. They raised interest via an evolving outdoor billboard campaign in business districts. Small business owners targeted social media teasers, a press release to business sections at news stations and finally direct mail to small business conferences with the inserts. The second stop was to provide understanding by providing a breakdown of the points and that it is all possible via the Chase Inc points. The breakdown now showcases that the points have real business value. This step was done via wider media targeting. TV ads, print ads, social films, banners, radio and business blogs. The buying stage. Small business owners are now interested in seeing that Chase Inc points can do their business. With the final barrier in our customers lives small business owners understand the points have value but they don't know what value is to their business. Small business owners want to compare the value of Chase Inc points to other business card offers but want to understand if they will get the same value out of points if they sign up. Our final comms task is giving the finer details they are seeking. We need to show the power of the points by providing other business success stories using Chase Inc points. The last stage is to convert our small business owner audience by providing reassurance that their points can help grow their business and achieve success. With the business success case studies they also provide valuable business tips, the Chase Inc points sign up offer, how they work, what are the benefits are while also answering typical small business owner questions. This is building trust understanding and converting with an offer of points similar to the amount used in the business success story. We are addressing our customers final decision to convert by providing a better value proposition and features of the offer. Selecting our final media. We see a focus on business media publishers and a drive to the Chase Inc credit card site. These carefully selected publishers are trusted and a valuable source of business information for small business owners. By developing interactive media with valuable content and the points offer to match aids with conversion with a sign up or consideration to sign up. How did the Ripple campaign perform? The campaign results. Consideration jumped from 3% to 23%. 80,000 points or $800 translated into $800,000 worth of media. The Ripple is a permanent feature on the donut plant menu. Let's do a recap of what a comms plan is and does. 1. It helps a creative idea to have a ripple effect. 2. It aligns the creative teams and the client. 3. It sells in more integrated work by defining the role of each creative execution. 4. It's consumer focused by following the path to purchase or the customer decision-making journey. 5. It addresses the customer barriers by solving them with creative comms, tasks and solutions. 6. Typically it has three consumer phases. Living, looking and buying. And finally, media selection. Choosing strategic and creative media to deliver the creative idea. This comms plan is one of the many tools found within the comms planning module in the strategy finishing school. In the comms planning module I take you through the basics to the intermediate to the advanced of comms planning. Including more examples such as RxBar, Spotify, Seamless, PlayStation, Bacardi and more. How to build a robust consumer journey. How to articulate an idea and to get creative consistency. How to develop a campaign ecosystem to show the flow of your plan. And how to storify your idea and sell it to your clients. How to also use a campaign blueprint to sell more integrated work. And finally, accessing the framework factory. Your comms playbook with over 50 ready-made frameworks to save your time, articulate your idea and win more work. Thank you to Matthew Osborne, a member of the strategy finishing school for helping pull together this great case study. Let me know if you have any questions or any recommendations for other brands that you would like to see next.