Want to numerically visualize the effectiveness of offline advertising such as TV commercials and flyers - Advertising effectiveness analysis in rebranding activities

Rebranding both inside and outside the company, and increasing brand awareness and sales

Q. Please tell me your responsibilities.

Mr. Hiramatsu:I am in charge of the rebranding of Aoyama Clothing in the Rebranding Promotion Office, which was newly established in October 2019. Specifically, I am implementing marketing and PR measures based on the new brand purpose of "becoming a company that provides parts that improve business performance." I am also consistently reforming the organizational culture within the company, aiming to rebuild the business wear business.

Mr. Yabuta:I belong to the Digital Marketing Group in the Marketing Department, and my mission is to increase brand awareness and sales through online advertising. Not only do I aim to acquire new customers through banner ads, search ads, and promotions using SNS, but I also aim to increase the purchase rate and LTV of existing customers by using apps and email newsletters.

To become a brand that customers can relate to -- Implementing various campaigns to stimulate communication with customers

Q. What challenges have you faced in marketing so far?

Aoyama Clothing's brand recognition exceeds 99%, and the brand name is widely known as a company that deals in suits. However, one issue is that many customers think that "it's a brand that has nothing to do with me." This is because they are not personally involved, and there are 707 stores nationwide.^■Even though we have stores in every prefecture, people sometimes don't notice the existence of a store in their neighborhood. I feel that the difficulty of marketing lies in how to make people recognize that it is a brand that is relevant to them and that has products they want to buy.

We focused on SNS as a way to address this issue. As soon as the rebranding promotion office was established, we launched a Twitter campaign because it can reach the largest number of business people in their 20s to 40s. Originally, we only promoted suits on our SNS, but after market research, we found that suits are actually purchased only about once every two years. Therefore, in order to improve purchase rates and LTV, we decided to promote dress shirts, which are purchased relatively frequently. One example of this initiative is a campaign to sell non-iron dress shirts for 2 yen. It is rare to find a non-iron dress shirt made of 1% cotton that does not wrinkle easily, so we thought that if customers tried the product once, they would become repeat customers. After the campaign was launched, we collected comments on how it felt to wear on Twitter and reflected them in in-store POP, which we were able to use for PR measures. We were conscious of how we could provide an opportunity for as many customers as possible to experience the product, and by making the most of the assets we had, we felt that we were able to implement measures to make it a personal product.

* As of the end of June 2021

Twitter post image for the "Non-iron dress shirts 10 yen campaign"

Currently, under the direction of the Rebranding Promotion Office, we are working on various measures to once again face our customers. For example, we recently introduced a new measure, "AI Chatbot Snack Mama Yoshiko," a chatbot that is a good listener and makes customers confide their worries. We are planning and implementing measures from the perspective of how we can continue to communicate with our customers at all times, without being bound by conventional wisdom.

On the other hand, because we have been successful as a leading company, the hurdles within the company tend to be high when it comes to new measures and ways of thinking that have never been seen before. Therefore, we would like to change the company from the inside and simultaneously proceed with rebranding both inside and outside the company.

A new initiative to strengthen communication with customers: "AI Chatbot Snack Mama Yoshiko"

Want to visualize the effectiveness of offline advertising and realize optimal budget allocation based on the figures?

Q. Why did you decide to use MAGELLAN?

There are two reasons for introducing it. The first is to visualize the effectiveness of offline advertising, such as TV commercials and flyers, in numerical terms. There are various analysis tools for online advertising, and it is possible to analyze its effectiveness to a certain extent. On the other hand, it is not possible to visualize the effectiveness of offline advertising, and it is difficult to analyze its cost-effectiveness, so the issue was that budget allocation was based on the previous year. With MAGELLAN, it is possible to visualize not only the direct effect of offline advertising, but also the synergistic effect with online advertising, so we thought that we would be able to properly evaluate the media and make optimal budget allocations.

The second reason is that it allows for detailed analysis by area. In a previous independent survey, we found that there were areas where both TV commercials and flyers seemed to be effective, and areas where neither seemed to be effective. However, that survey was unable to pinpoint the reason for the difference, which was frustrating. Since MAGELLAN allows for detailed analysis by area, we thought we would be able to clarify this difference. If we obtain useful suggestions from our current area analysis, we would like to expand the area and conduct a more detailed analysis.

Q. Are there any hypotheses in particular that you would like to verify?

Speaking of areas, for example, I would like to determine whether there are differences in the effective media between the metropolitan area and local areas, and even within local areas, between urban and non-urban areas. I think that the effect of TV commercials is weaker in metropolitan and urban areas, and I would like to thoroughly verify this hypothesis with MAGELLAN.

I would also like to analyze whether flyers are worth investing in. My hypothesis is that many of the people who visit the store after seeing the flyers are existing customers. If that's the case, it may be more efficient to use an app or e-mail newsletter instead of flyers. It would be good if flyers were effective in supplementing TV commercials in terms of raising awareness, but I'm looking forward to the results of the analysis to see if they are really worth investing in.

Q. Please tell us about your future plans for using MAGELLAN.

First of all, we want to visualize the effectiveness of offline advertising, which accounts for a large proportion of the advertising budget, and then optimally allocate the budget based on the figures. Since we do not have an unlimited advertising budget, we aim to optimize the budget for online and offline advertising, as well as the overall strategy, by reviewing the budget allocation based on the previous year.

Additionally, we hope to analyze our actions so far with MAGELLAN and obtain useful suggestions for the next time so that we can implement optimal advertising measures for the next Freshers' period (January to March) when demand for first suits increases as students enter school or join a company.

Aiming to break away from the mold of a business wear specialty store and establish a unique position

Q. Lastly, please tell us about your goal in marketing.

The ideal situation would be for customers to want our products and have them specifically purchase our products. To achieve this, we want to ensure that our advertisements reach those who need information, make them want our products, and keep the cycle going.

In the future, based on our brand purpose, we would like to establish a unique position that stands out from the crowd, rather than being just one of a few "business wear specialty stores."