Radio Doesn’t Work For Us: Contiki Marketing Director

Radio ain’t the ad platform for youth travel brand Contiki, says its head of marketing Vanessa Stavrou.

The marketing director said as a millennial brand, they don’t use traditional media channels to pull in the young guns.

“We’ve tested radio and it just does not work for us,” she said. “Travel, visual, dreaming – on radio, it’s not as impactful.”

Rather, it’s predominantly digital and content, she told the Remix Summit in Sydney this past Friday.

That doesn’t mean though it’s about shoving a pre-roll into a YouTube video, or including a heap of display banner ads, as that hasn’t done much in terms of return on investment (ROI) either.

“Content is king,” she added. “We have our own blog which is very successful but to give content credibility and to give it reach – given we don’t have big budgets to go do massive TV buys and outdoor – influencers are a massive part of our strategy as well.”

Instead, Stavrou said they collaborate with influencers and create content that works on their channels where there’s already an audience.

That being said, cinema and outdoor do deliver a semblance of results for them, she remarked, but often Contiki doesn’t have the budgets for big outdoor campaigns.

Stavrou was speaking on a Junkee Media curated panel at the Sydney version of the Summit, on the ever-elusive Millennial, a market many brands are frothing over.

Junkee Media CEO Neil Ackland said the ultimate challenge is getting the scrolling thumbs to stop. And while there’s an abundance of articles on how to reach this effervescent bunch, not everyone is there.

We need to stop interrupting what people are interested in and instead be what people are interested in.

Echoing Vanessa’s sentiments, Nick Reynolds, CMO of computer tech brand Lenovo said they too haven’t spent a dollar in traditional advertising in a campaign they targeted towards Millennials.

Some 18 months ago, the brand was well-known in the business area but rendered a blank face when it came to the general consumer.

So Reynolds put head down, bum up to get the brand up among the consumer – ideally the Millennials. The tech brand launched a new premium PC and tablet range called YOGA.

“We thought we’d do a very focused campaign on a disruptive product range and go and appeal to a disruptive audience – Millennials – who really want to engage with a brand or a product and be seen as different.”

Some 75 per cent of that particular campaign was spent in digital and social. There was no traditional advertising included.

“We did that because we felt we could cut through to that Millennial audience,” he said.

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