Multichannel Campaign Analysis

When I think about multichannel campaigns the first things that come to my mind are marketing campaigns for things like movies and games. These things are commonly marketed between several outlets to attract people to viewing or purchasing a product. Because of this I will use a company such as Paramount Pictures, owned by Viacom, in answering these questions. 

What type of campaigns is your company using?

Paramount makes extensive use of multichannel campaigns for every major picture release. These campaigns typically reach across several outlets including TV, print, and most recently Internet. They have even combined these mediums into viral marketing campaigns which have led to the creation of interesting campaigns known as 'Alternative Reality Game', or ARG for short. These more interactive campaigns have captured many people and make people more excited for a release.   

How might they be able to tell which channels are giving them results?

Measurements can be conducted on each channel to determine the amount of viewers it reaches. From this alone though it may be difficult to determine the effectiveness of any individual advertising medium. Demographics however can be used to generate a rough idea. For instance, if an company finds that most of its consumers are from an older age group with relatively fewer younger individuals then perhaps the more traditional mediums were more effective. That's assuming the product wasn't already targeted towards that group of people however. Surveys are really the only for sure way of getting accurate results but may be difficult for a movie studio as it's not typically something surveys are conducted for.    

How can they track results that may flow across online to offline (or vice versa)?

This would be an interesting to track for a movie studio, especially with the advent of viral marketing. To track offline to online would be fairly easy. First the movie studio will create a website for their film and then monitor the traffic after it begins marketing on TV or in print. A change in site activity should be expected to follow. To track online to offline is a bit more difficult but one interesting way it has been done by movie studios is through the previously mentioned ARGs. These games operate usually by clues found online which correspond to an offline place or thing. Measuring the participation in this is a fascinating way to track online to offline flow.