On the Bus, Off the Mark

The term "integrated marketing" has become so trivial that it's almost meaningless. These days, all you need do is add the tagline from your TV spots to packaging and P-O-P and, presto, you've got yourself an "integrated" campaign.Integration is supposed to go a lot deeper than that. The real idea is to develop a marketing plan that accurately represents the experience your brand gives to consumers. It's not about integrating TV spots with header cards, but integrating the message with the brand's essence. It's about making a marketing promise that your brand can keep.The fact that some people understand this, and others do not, is apparent in two back-to-school campaigns launched late last month. Both take the "integrated" approach by employing a consistent tagline in all communications. But that's where comparisons end.The first campaign comes from Staples, Inc. First off, let's commend the chain for creating an entire back-to-school effort without once referring to a school bus -- an obvious marketing image that is overused to ridiculous levels year after year.The campaign's tagline, "Back to School. And On to the Next Thing," simply and effectively explains the company's promise, which is to make back-to-school shopping faster and easier than at other retailers. Store signage features the tagline prominently, as do TV spots.More importantly, the store's merchandising plan delivers the promise. Walk into Staples, and you immediately run into huge displays of notebooks, binders, pens, glue, scissors, markers and all the other requisite supplies. Much of the inventory is piled into corrugated dump bins -- hey, it's not pretty by any stretch, but it executes the marketing message. So do other initiatives, including extended store hours and lists of recommended supplies by grade.Displays from product vendors bring added value: Paper Mate hosts a $10,000 sweepstakes, BIC runs a BOGO, and Brother offers rebates. These displays help fulfill the promise while enhancing the shopping experience.That leads to the second campaign, Kmart's "The Bus Stops Here." (You know where this is going, don't you?) The problems start right away with the tagline, which in addition to using the obvious and overused bus imagery, is the exact same one used by the Eckerd drugstore chain. So it offers nothing to distinguish Kmart from every other retailer with a notebook and a backpack to sell.The TV spots utilize the only two things for which Kmart has been praised in recent years: the Joe Boxer product line, and the goofy dancer who's become that brand's unofficial spokesperson. Company officials say using this theme shows that Kmart is "taking up the fun factor" in back-to-school shopping.Trouble is, Vaughn Lowery can't be found dancing the "Joe Boxer Boogie" in the aisles. And hanging a few ceiling signs and positioning a batch of yellow displays in one area doesn't up anyone's fun factor. Slapping the Joe Boxer name on a wide array of merchandise (including microwave ovens?) may improve the chain's status among teens and young adults, but it does nothing to improve the typically unpleasant shopping environment at most Kmart stores. (I get the "one-stop" concept, but do shoppers really want socks and underwear alongside Elmer's glue?) So the marketing promise you see on TV is definitely not the brand experience you get in the store.That leaves a dangerous disconnect between the message and the experience -- and you can't hide that with an "integrated" tagline.

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