How ATL BTL testing helps fmcg brands in marketing activity

ATL and BTL Marketing

What is ATL Marketing?

Above the line, or ATL marketing, is a traditional marketing media that aims to reach a broad group of people with a message targeted at reinforcing a brand and also communicating basic product information in order to elicit a reaction. It is also known as mass marketing.

The goal of ATL marketing tactics is to direct communication toward the mass consumer. All promotional communications are untargeted, which means they are not directed towards a certain demographic.

The purpose of this is to tell customers about the product’s availability. Customers are encouraged to visit stores and actively seek out products by marketers.

ATL strategies enable businesses in reaching a bigger audience and increasing brand awareness. The audience can readily perceive and connect to the communication language and message that has been produced.

ATL marketing is done on a large scale to reach a large audience.

It contains non targeted advertising with a broad reach in order to establish a brand image. Advertising on TV, radio, the internet, newspapers, posters, banners, billboards, and magazines are all examples of this.

Furthermore, the fundamental goal of ATL media is to raise brand recognition, educate customers about the goods, and increase sales. B2C (business to consumer) firms are the most likely to use it since they want to reach a big number of consumers at once.

What is BTL Strategies?

Below the line marketing efforts are more targeted and oriented toward certain key stakeholders. They are highly targeted, with advertising produced with certain audience categories’ demographic and psychographic qualities in mind. The goal is to increase conversions, thus the communication is extremely tailored.

The performance of the campaign is tracked easily using BTL strategy. Thus return on investment is high.

Additionally, within a single segment, advertising can be adjusted for multiple subgroups of customers.

Below the line marketing is unique since it targets a specific set of people, either geographically or demographically, based on their interests or a specialized area.

To advertise the product, it uses precise, catchy, and direct communication methods. It is mostly used by B2B (business to business) firms, although it is also used by some B2C businesses.

The BTL marketing strategy’s main goal is to convert leads into paying customers.

Direct mail campaigns, sales promotions, public relations, SMS marketing, gift vouchers, shopfront activity, telemarketing, exhibition, social media marketing, trade exhibitions, flyer distribution, catalogues, sponsorships, and other activities are all included.

ATL Marketing: ATL Marketing stands for “Above The Line Marketing”. This kind of marketing that has a very broad reach and is largely untargeted. Think about a national TV campaign, where viewers across the nation see the same advert aired across the various networks.

For example, The Line marketing would be a TV campaign run by a cereal company. The ad would be aired across the nation, with every viewer seeing the exact same message. As mentioned above, this kind of marketing would be used to build general brand and awareness of the business and goodwill.

BTL Marketing: BTL Marketing stands for “Below The Line Marketing”. This kind of marketing is that targets specific groups of people with focus. The same cereal company could also run a direct marketing campaign in a large city. This would be a strategy designed to target a specific group of people and to try and encourage quick purchases, or conversions.
For example, A Google Adwords campaign targeting a certain group or a direct telemarketing campaign targeting specific businesses.

TTL Marketing:TTL Marketing stands for “Through The Line Marketing”.This kind of marketing is really an integrated approach,where a company would use both BTL and ATL marketing methods to reach their customer base and generate conversions. It might seem obvious, although not all marketing campaigns are like this – some are ATL only and some are BTL only (it would be much more common to see a BTL-only marketing campaign in practice though).

For example,As you can see a pizza company could launch a nationwide Youtube campaign that would show different video ads to different users according to where the users lived, featuring a promotional code for a discount on purchases made at their local outlet.

Frequently Asked Questions about ATL and BTL advertising

1. What is ATL Marketing?

ATL Marketing stands for Above the Line marketing. Some people say it with ATL advertising. Both are the same meaning.

This type of advertising main goal is to reach large number of people to build brand awareness.

2. Could you explain about ATL activities?

ATL activities are actions that must be performed in order to reach broad number of prospective customer.

Therefore, ATL uses particular media (Above the line media) to broadcast the messages and communicate with mass audiences. For examples: TV, Radio, Billboard, etc.

3. Could you explain below the line promotion definition?

Below the line promotion is another term of below the line advertising, because they have the same fundamental meaning. I have explained BTL ads above.

BTL activities example is promotion. Below the line promotion examples: direct promotion to the consumer, such as: direct mail, personal marketing by one to one meeting, discount promotion, and so on.

Below the line communication between company and customer or prospective customer uses mass media (below the line media), such as: mail, business card, brochure, direct meeting (personal touch), etc.

4. You have defined Above the Line and Below the Line, what about TTL advertising (Through the Line advertising)?

TTL is one of an advertising line. TTL advertising means advertising that utilize above the line and below the line media communications. It allows company to communicate it’s message to prospective customer in multiple communication channel. For example: advertising agency put an ad on TV, in addition to this he put a special number or email to encourage the prospect contacting directly.

5. What is the example of BTL marketing plan?

Activities planning for BTL marketing:

Define your target audience, like area, demographic, interest, etc.

Calculate and align your ad budget with your target audience.

Know them detail, such as: are they loyal or brand switchers?, are they price sensitive consumer?

Choose the right media to communicate with them.

Below are the examples of BTL marketing activities based on BTL marketing plan above:

Your product is assorted biscuit.

You want to build the image that your biscuit is good for breakfast. And this is appropriate for people who want to breakfast quickly and breakfast everywhere.

Target audience is people who is commuters especially one who on the way to work.

The appropriate communication media is direct marketing.

Then your activities must be: Run one to one marketing campaign meet the prospective customer in train or bus.

Offer them free biscuit samples in first week in the same train or bus to obtain more leads.

Get their feedback.

Communicate with them.

Offer them vouchers in the next week. Vouchers that can be used in your store.

Calculate the conversion rate.

Analyze, make summary, and make improvement.

BTL marketing plan and activities examples

Above are BTL marketing plan examples for assorted biscuit that market to commuters.

6. Mention some of ATL marketing tools.

ATL marketing tools are tools which are utilized for ATL marketing activities.

For example:

Goal of ATL advertising is to increase brand awareness to large number of people. The media is TV. Therefore the tools must be employed are rating management tools, TV rating database, twitter TV rating based on hashtag, audience measurement tools, etc.

Another example for understanding brand awareness is customer survey tool, such as: online form, form, statistic method to comprehend the survey, spreadsheet software, customer question survey (online form in website or direct meeting with customer to get a feedback from customer), etc.

Difference between Atl and Btl

Social Media as ATL:

Facebook Mass Advertising (broader targeting), Facebook generic brand postings, Google Display Ads & Mass Mailing campaigns can all be considered as ATL. Let me put an example of Facebook postings of my current clients & how 2 different content pieces can be positioned in ATL & BTL respectively

Social Media as ATL:

Generic promotions of the brand which are not very specific to a set of an audience can be considered as ATL.
Facebook Mass Advertising (broader targeting), Facebook generic brand postings, Google Display Ads & Mass Mailing campaigns can all be considered as ATL.
Let me put an example of Facebook postings of my current clients & how 2 different content pieces can be positioned in ATL & BTL respectively.

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are particularly suitable for the B2C sector, for community management and to address the target group through visual and interactive content. These social networks are also suitable for B2B companies, primarily to stimulate discussion and interaction and encourage customer loyalty.

Social Media as BTL:

Content specific to a niche audience, well-targeted advertising, lead generation campaigns can all be considered as BTL activities.
Below post can be a classic example of social media for BTL as the communication is pretty clear that it is for a specific audience in Pune.

Grab the chance to own a 2 & 3 BHK apartments in Bavdhan, Pune. Because we believe that a home should be such place where you will enjoy spending your life. Find out more here: http://bit.ly/1Ss54L9
Posted by Nisarg Palms on Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Mass mailing campaigns on one had can be treated as ATL, however now mailing campaigns does offer a lot of customization options so that your mass mailers also appear to be more personalized. For example, emails containing your name, company name

The best mediums of ATL marketing are Radio, TV, Newspapers, Magazines, Outdoor hoardings etc

ATL, BTL and TTL Advertising

ATL (above the line) and BTL (below the line) are two terms often used every day in the field of media buying and advertising and people tend to get confused about them.

So, to start off, here are quick definitions of ATL, BTL and TTL marketing:

ATL marketing definition: above-the-line marketing – widespread brand-building advertising.

BTL marketing definition: below-the-line marketing – highly targeted direct marketing focused on conversions.

TTL marketing definition: through-the-line marketing- integrated ATL and BTL marketing campaigns.

Now, let’s talk in detail about each one of them.

Above the Line Advertising

When we create a media plan, it’s important that we think about the media reach we want to have.

In ATL marketing, traditional, high-reach media is used such as television, radio, print media, and the Internet.

The main purpose of ATL advertising is to build brand awareness. It’s mostly used to promote brands and reach out to the wider group of consumers as it has a very broad reach and is largely untargeted. Think about a national TV campaign, where viewers across the nation see the same advert aired across the various networks.

Below the Line Advertising

BTL is more personal and response-driven. It targets specific groups of people with focus. Basically, it is using more direct advertising approaches such as a leaflet drop in a specific area, door to door sales, a Google AdWords campaign targeting a certain group or a direct telemarketing campaign targeting specific businesses.

This kind of marketing is best for conversions and direct response.

Sometimes in case of lower budgets, marketing departments could decide to use a BTL approach. This could be a bad decision if a brand is completely new. So, it is better to reach at least some level of brand awareness in public before using BTL ads.

In cases of the very niche target groups, BTL advertising is a better and more cost-efficient solution.

Through the Line Advertising

TTL is in fact an integrated approach, where a company would use both BTL and ATL marketing methods to reach their customer base, increase brand awareness, and generate conversions.

It is a kind of 360° Marketing where the different aspects of marketing are linked together to reach the wider customer base and generate the leads. TTL Marketing emphasis more on BTL Marketing, but it also makes use of the ATL advertising strategy.

It is basically the term TTL developed with the emerging of the concept of digital marketing and the boundaries between ATL and BTL were gone. This kind of marketing delivers both a wide reach and a focus on conversions.

So, to make it clearer and remove any confusion, above the line: ‘brand building’ based advertising, below the line: direct, response-driven marketing and through the line: ATL methods designed to feed leads into BTL based campaigns

It seems simple enough and it definitely works like that in practice, most of the time anyway.

ATL and BTL

ATL

ATL (Above The Line) is the first group of marketing expenses. These are the “brand image” expenses that are to improve band awareness, perception, and finally influence the intent to buy among the shoppers. To achieve it usually TV/radio/outdoor or the internet are the media used for communication.

Unlike for the manufacturers, ATL investments of distributors and retailers are usually focused much more on PR and price communication. The exception is the own brand, which should be communicated by the brand owner in the same way the manufacturers do, and has the same impact on the product sales. The general (non-brand) communication covers in the game:

PR communicating the general values delivered by the business, e.g. quality, service, convenience, assortment range etc.
Price communication telling about good price to quality ratio, and superior price offer as compared to competitors.

These two forms of ATL investments have quite significant impact on sales in case of retailers. If a product is available at a number of retailers, PR and price communication increase share of the stores in the overall product sales in the market (while the overall sales of the product reflects the brand investment).

For the distributors PR and price communication of their customers tend to buy every product from a number of suppliers – this investment increases share of the business in the product purchase.

BTL

BTL (Below The Line) – marketing activities at the point of sales, addressed directly to shoppers, and intended to influence their shopping decisions there. In practice Point of Sales materials (POSM) are used to improve product visibility and appeal at store.

In the game the BTL investment is to increase the shelf space occupied by the products in the market. It is to be the case for distributors/retailers who decided to use automatic shelf space allocation. If they decided to manually allocate the investment does not have to make any difference. However, since it is a fee that directly feeds the customer profit, it’s good to use it in negotiating the trade terms, including the guaranteed shelf space.

Investment in BTL are made by the brand owners who sell their own product to other businesses for re-sale. Since retailers sell to end-shoppers, they do not invest in BTL. They manage their shelves independently. They can benefit from investment of other businesses. Distributors can both benefit from the manufacturers investments, and invest in BTL at their customers.

Describe ATL and BTL

ATL, TTL, and BTL marketing are all different marketing techniques. Before you use any one of these marketing techniques, understand your target audience.

ATL – Above The Line marketing technique focuses towards specific audience and specific purposes. This marketing technique target is to cover large number of audiences and is much more effective, when the target group is very large and difficult to define. Used for building goodwill of the company.

Ex.- TV, Radio, Magazine, Press Ad etc.

BTL (Below The Line) – This type of marketing targets specific groups and reach the customers directly. BTL is used for one-to-one marketing like distribution of pamphlets, sticker, Flyer, Brochure, Door to door sales, Telemarketing etc.
TTL (Through The Line) – This marketing technique involves the elements of both ATL and BTL. This is useful for building brand awareness and also includes the direct response feature.
This marketing technique has the better exposure, and allows you to target specific audiences using different platforms for higher return on investment.

So, what is the difference between B2B and B2C approaches in social media marketing? For both kinds, alongside social media marketing itself, analysis and monitoring play an at least as important role. Before social media marketing can be carried out, the target group must first be analysed in order to find out how the intended audience can best be reached. The social media activities must then be monitored constantly to find out which content is best performing and how it can be continuously improved. In the age of customer evaluation, reputation management plays a decisive role. Discussions on social media platforms must be moderated and, above all, the problems of customers should be responded to.

However, in order to operate successful social media marketing, the implementation for B2B and B2C companies requires different approaches in terms of content marketing, social media channels and the final formulation of objectives.

The three most important differences between B2B and B2C social media include:

Content is king: fact v emotions

Content is King! This also applies to all marketing and social media marketing in particular. While B2C companies should focus on an emotional and entertaining approach aligned to the personal interests of their target group, strong B2B content is characterised by all of the above plus a mix of emotions, facts and statistics. For both B2C and B2B companies, the narrative style, ie the preparation of the content, is decisive. Here, storytelling based on facts is crucial.

Community management in social networks

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are particularly suitable for the B2C sector, for community management and to address the target group through visual and interactive content. These social networks are also suitable for B2B companies, primarily to stimulate discussion and interaction and encourage customer loyalty. The channels are therefore used less for selling services directly and more for making people aware of the company in general. LinkedIn is more suitable for B2B companies, but can also be interesting for B2C companies, as an employer rather than marketplace.

Different objectives

B2B and B2C companies differ in their objectives for each platform. For the B2C sector, the positive perception of the brand is in the spotlight. B2B companies on the other hand focus on increasing their web traffic and thus measure the success of their content by leads that they generate by leading people from social media posts to their landing pages.

For these reasons, Hybrid Theory adapt the goals and content to the respective social media platform. For example, Hybrid Theory uses Facebook to create brand awareness by informing its audience about current industry topics like statistics that enable the followers to always relate the interesting information to the company. LinkedIn is used to communicate the company’s expertise, with the objective to get in touch with potential customers by showing off concrete solutions for their needs.

The content and objectives on social media should be designed according to whether the company is a B2B or B2C company.

What Is ATL And BTL With Example

Difference between ATL and BTL

Advantages of ATL Marketing Strategies

1. Above the line marketing is a fantastic tool for building a brand and investing in long term brand awareness in the general market.

2. It’s all about delivery and positioning.

3. Because it gives a wide stroke of mass marketing, this strategy may boost market penetration rates. In fact, Above the line rates are greater than any other kind of advertisement.

Advantages of BTL marketing Strategies

1. Due to significant audience involvement, the links and interactions formed between brands and customers are stronger and stay longer.
2. The methods and campaigns are typically far less expensive and accessible.
3. Below the line advertising strategy is tailored according to the demand of a certain target audience and different customer segments.

Examples of ATL Strategies

1.Television

“From watching Ramayana and Mahabharata on bulky wooden packed box, to enjoying the Indian Premier League on sleek, smart screens, the television in India has become a staple in most homes.

Adored equally by all, television was easiest source of accessible media in the country, expected to cater to the needs of over 200 million households by the fiscal year 2023.” according to Statista

ATL and BTL testing

What is ATL and BTL testing?

Where did the term come from?

The terms ATL and BTL were first used in 1954 after Proctor and Gamble began paying advertising firms separately (and at a different rate) from other suppliers who dealt with more direct promotional efforts. In effect, marketing that was more broad in nature was separated from marketing that was more direct in nature.

Fmcg-merchandise-in-super-market

Now let’s look the basic definitions:

‘ATL Marketing’ stands for ‘Above the Line Marketing‘. This kind of marketing is the kind of marketing that has a very broad reach and is largely untargeted. Think about a national TV campaign, where viewers across the nation see the same advert aired across the various networks.

This kind of marketing is mostly used for building brand awareness and goodwill.

‘BTL Marketing’ stands for ‘Below the Line Marketing‘. This kind of marketing is the kind of marketing that targets specific groups of people with focus. For example, a leaflet drop in a specific area, a Google Adwords campaign targeting a certain group or a direct telemarketing campaign targeting specific businesses.

This kind of marketing is best for conversions and direct response.

‘TTL Marketing’ stands for ‘Through the Line Marketing‘. This kind of marketing is really an integrated approach, where a company would use both BTL and ATL marketing methods to reach their customer base and generate conversions. It might seem obvious, although not all marketing campaigns are like this – some are ATL only and some are BTL only (it would be much more common to see a BTL-only marketing campaign in practice though).

This kind of marketing delivers both a wide reach and a focus on conversions.

To conclude, on the two forms of brand communication, Below-the-line is extremely important, but then when wasn’t it? It is just that till now it was taken a bit for granted and not too many innovations were made. I am glad the industry is planning to revolutionize this game. It is not a question of mass media versus below-the-line. It is an era of mass media plus below-the-line.”

Fmcg-Merchandiser-ensures-proper-display.

Statistical tuning is performed by applying above-the-line (ATL) and below-the-line (BTL) testing to validate and tune thresholds and parameters. This process, known as threshold tuning, is done to verify the performance of models.

ATL and BTL marketing

Come festive season and the market is flooded with ATL and BTL campaigns. Right from FMCG to automobiles and consumer durables to retail, every industry is ready to spend and reap the benefits of the festive spirit. After all, Indians are emotionally driven to make purchases during the festivals, and hence, the market is flooded with offers.

Real estate as a sector is no different than any other industry when it comes to marketing spending during festivals. As a matter of fact, real estate in India is the second largest advertiser after the FMCG sector. However, historically the sector has had its own challenges in strategizing the ad spend during the peak cycle of marketing campaigns, and here are the reasons why.

The festive season is the time when the newspapers are flooded with very many cover jackets; TV commercials are repetitive and digital campaigns are too many. Hence, it is a challenge to grab the attention of the target audience during the festive season.

This is not to say that the brands can’t leverage the festive season to boost their marketing strategy. As a matter of fact, this is the best time to leverage, if one has the ability to strategize the campaigns which solve a very big & relevant pain point of the customer.

There is no one size fits all answer to this complicated market dynamic. One has to delve deeper into the consumer psychograph to get a clear answer.

For instance, when mutual funds were not gaining ground in India, the Mutual Funds Association of India under the mandate of SEBI launched a campaign for investor education. A simple ad with assurance narrative ‘Mutual Funds Sahi Hai.’ This has been one of the most successful marketing campaigns in India. Its success could be measured by the tangible results where the AUM (Asset Under Management) of mutual funds in India grew manifold.

So, can an industry-led narrative work similarly in the business of real estate in India? The answer is not a simple one. Real estate as an industry is a micro-market business where the ground realities differ between market to market and product category wise too. In order to leverage the festive season, marketing strategists have to think out of the box.

what is ATL and BTL with example

Radio

Radio is one of the most powerful mediums , with a weekly reach of around 82.5% among adults.

There are over 334445, radio stations in the world., all competing for a piece of this massive market.

00:00

Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume.

Print Media (Newspaper & magazine)

Billboard/Hoarding

Dunzo billboard Advertisement — Credit: Allaboutoutdoor

Examples of BTL Strategies

1. Direct mail Marketing

Direct mails (emails, text messages, etc.) are customized texts about the brand with different offers produced according to the needs of each consumer.

2. Sponsorship

3. Trade Fair & Exhibition

FMCG Brand Building “ATL & BTL” The way Forward

ATL marketing is a brand building effort whereas BTL marketing is focused on direct marketing effort that prioritizes on customized approach of customers.

As a result, ATL marketing targets the undifferentiated segment, whereas BTL marketing targets the specific targeted group.

ATL operations may be sufficient for certain businesses, others may require BTL. Everything hinges on how effectively marketers read the market and whether the client and the message are compatible.

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ATL and BTL Marketing

What is ATL Marketing?

What is BTL Strategies?

Frequently Asked Questions about ATL and BTL advertising