Lintas Media Group unveils the benefits of Lowe Worldwide Strategy Planning Toolkit

MUMBAI, August 2

The Lintas Media Group formally unveiled the national roll-out of the Lowe Worldwide Strategy Planning Toolkit yesterday, August 1, 2006. The toolkit consists of 16 processes, 12 of which will aid admen in the ideation process. The remaining four have been embraced by the Lintas Media Group and will aid media planners specifically. They will help aid the consumer and media definitions, and selection and evaluation processes in the marketing communication process. These four tools are Path2Purchase, GrowthGrid, MasterMind and Encounter.

The purpose of these four tools is to identify the business problem by looking at things from the consumers’ perspective. Path2Purchase is a tool that identifies the nine stages or paths that a consumer goes through in the purchase process. The first stage is that of investigation, where the consumer checks out as many ads as he can about the product/service in which he is interested. Somewhere in the middle is the actual purchase stage. The last stage (the ninth one) is that of ‘conversation’, which evaluates how happy a consumer is after having bought a certain product and whether he is actually pleased enough to become a brand evangelist and talk about the brand to others.

The second tool, GrowthGrid, deals with identifying the relevant target groups which will bring in the most business for a client. Within those TGs, it identifies the specific requirements that need to be addressed.

MasterMind is an attitude tool. Two people falling in the same demographic bracket, for instance, may react in a completely different manner to the same ad/television programme. Therefore, this tool involves semiotics and checks into how different consumers relate and react to various situations.

The fourth media tool, Encounter, defines the role and purpose of a particular medium in the consumer’s life and helps identify the correct medium for a particular message.

Raj Gupta, chief strategy officer, Lintas Media Group, has been entrusted with the task of implementing the entire toolkit within all Lintas units in India, including the advertising and integrated marketing units. According to Gupta, people generally tend to focus on the ‘myopic 60 per cent at 3+’ type media planning, which only takes into consideration reach and frequency. “This toolkit enables one to closely identify the business problem at hand and open one’s mind to strategic, and not just tactical, communication solutions,” he says.

Premjeet Sodhi, senior vice-president, Intellect, the research and technologies unit of the Lintas Media Group, was exposed to the toolkit two months ago at New York, where it was developed. For the record, India is the first market in which this toolkit has been rolled out. Sodhi is particularly positive about the Encounter tool, which “takes us away from the traditional forms to the purpose of the medium. That puts a new twist altogether.”

In July, key business and planning directors of Lintas were trained on the toolkit at Northpoint by the New York based strategy planning unit of Lowe Worldwide. “Five of the planning directors handling our large AORs were present at this training,” says Lynn de Souza, director, Media Services, Lintas, India. “Today, we have introduced 23 more senior managers to its powers and, within the month of August, all our key planners will have been trained at Northpoint. I expect to see this new method of working make a significant difference to the way we look at our clients’ problems and the solutions we come up with.”

“I see a far greater partnership with the creative side of the business as well as through-the-line activity. It’s not the much touted 360 degrees – the solutions are so tailor made they could even recommend just 20 degrees very well done,” she adds.

According to de Souza, the isolation of media from the total advertising process must not be allowed to continue and tools such as Encounter will ensure that the new generation of planners and buyers will be exposed to the richness of brilliant advertising and marketing communication.

© 2006 agencyfaqs!