31 July 2014
Background
How do Australian consumers want to hear from brands, and how well do marketers know their audience?
To find out, Australia Post surveyed more than 9,000 consumers in July 2013. They researched how they viewed advertising, what they felt are the most effective channels for promotional messages, and which channels they found useful when interacting with businesses.
The results raised the question as to whether marketers shared a similar view to consumers. To investigate further, Australia Post teamed up with Marketing magazine to find out the beliefs held by more than 300 Australian marketers as to which communications channels are preferred by consumers.
The results of both surveys are compared and contrasted in this report.
Findings
- Consumers may be nowhere near as negative about advertising as marketers think they are.
- The attributes of each channel are generally uncontentious, but the degree to which certain attributes matter may be underestimated by marketers.
- Marketing goals should not only determine creative strategy, but channel selection as well.
- Marketers in some industries are in touch with the channel preferences of their audience. Others are backing channels their customers aren't looking to for their marketing messages.
