We met with Laia Prunera, Marketing Director in Santalucía, to walk around Madrid and talk about strategy, creativity and the decisions that have marked her professional career. During the conversation with Javier Guadiana in Light & LightsLaia recounts some of the bets that accompanied the launch of “Help” and how introducing changes to media planning that was already working required more negotiation and assuming some risk, but allowed the company to improve results.
And innovating in media does not always mean betting on a new channel or developing a format never seen before. Sometimes it involves questioning the way in which already known tools are used and, above all, wanting to assume the added complexity that comes with doing things differently, when it would be much easier to repeat what has already been proven to work.
One of those decisions consisted of activating the different media simultaneously at 9:00 p.m. on the day of the launch. Santalucía had previously tested this concentration on digital and decided to extend it to the entire plan to achieve the greatest possible coverage from the first moment. Coordinating the different supports so that they coincide at exactly the same time required specific negotiations that, in some cases, lasted for more than a month. But thinking about the media from the beginning of the process, and not only when the time comes to distribute an already closed creativity, allows strategy, idea and dissemination to work in the same direction.
The second bet was to concentrate television planning in a single group. The decision allowed us to negotiate in a different way and build a plan that continued to meet the quantitative and qualitative parameters set by Santalucía, but it meant abandoning a more conventional formula and assuming the uncertainty of later checking if it would work.
Both decisions put the focus on a part of the campaigns that sometimes takes a backseat to the concept and creative execution. Because a good idea needs good dissemination to reach the right people, at the time and in the way that can be most effective. It may seem obvious, but integrating that perspective from the beginning continues to be one of those fundamentals that, between processes, teams and specializations, does not always receive the attention it deserves.
Laia Prunera frames both decisions within a philosophy that she tries to promote in her team: “I like that there is a culture of controlled risk” and question formulas that, although they already work, may lead to finding better ones. “We already know how we are doing well. Now I want to know how we can do better”he summarizes.
The reminder here is that a great idea can lose steam when moving to certain channels if the adaptation ends up being almost reactive.
But media planning is just one of the issues that appear during the walk. Laia also tells why she was initially not attracted to working in the insurance sector and what made her change her mind; how he managed to defend before the Council a different way of working with the brand; what it means to compete with advertisers who can invest up to eight times more; or how marketing, notoriety and commercial pressure coexist within an organization.
