The 4A’s New Business Committee has developed new “Agency Prospect Assessment Guidance” to help facilitate more consistent and efficient implementation of longstanding 4A’s guidance regarding the appropriate level of thoughtful consideration and discussion prior to engaging in a review.
Every year around this time, brands begin to bombard Hispanic consumers with special promotions, ad campaigns and cameo appearances in the community. Many brands take advantage of Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 to October 15) to engage with the U.S. Hispanic community and celebrate Hispanic heritage and culture. But are they perceived as authentic? By Pacino Mancillas, Partner & VP of Strategic Partnerships, AC&M Group
David Chitel’s article “Wake Up and Smell the Cafecito, the Despacito and The ‘Total’ U.S. Hispanic Market” provides an accurate and comprehensive history on the evolution of Hispanic Marketing. It is an exciting time to be a culture specialist, as demographics, technology and consumer behaviors are driving mainstream trends at unprecedented rates! By: AHAA Chair Linda Lane Gonzalez
A couple of months ago, The Coca-Cola Company—one of the benchmarks of the marketing discipline around the world—was the latest corporation to announce the revamping of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) position into Chief Growth Officer (CGO). This trend was well documented by the Russell Reynolds Associates report, “The Emergence of the Chief Growth Officer in Consumer Packaged Goods” in February 2016, where the move was described as “a powerful role charged with finding new pathways to growth.” By Isaac Mizrahi – Co President, Chief Operating Officer
Following the ‘Despacito’ VMA snub, actor John Leguizamo pens a powerful essay on Latinos’ absence from film, TV and media in general.
“From Music to Movies to TV, Latinos Are Widely Underrepresented – And I’m Done With It”
Once upon a time, the U.S. Hispanic marketing model was a single-minded thing of beauty — a perfect, irrefutable story that went something like this. “Unless and until advertisers marketed to U.S. Hispanics in Spanish, they were missing out on tens of millions of under-served customers with over a trillion U.S. dollars to spend, who were more brand loyal and more efficient to target than their non-Hispanic counterparts (i.e., – everyone else who spoke English).” By David A. Chitel
For decades, the advertising industry has lagged behind when it comes to reflecting cultural diversity both within agency workforces and as part of the creative work developed for traditional and non-traditional media. Changes are being made as consumers become more vocal about representation and marketers exercise their influence on agency partners. Agencies are also holding themselves to a higher standard insofar as identifying and addressing institutional bias from hiring to retention practices.
After WPP’s poor financial showing in its latest results, much has been made of the imminent demise of Sir Martin’s agency conglomerate, and the ad agency holding company model in general. Let’s be clear: there are a lot of pressures on that model.
With the advancements in big data, advertisers know more about consumers than ever before. And yet, they’re still challenged with how to drive the greatest return for their marketing budgets.
Organic growth is key to companies’ futures. According to survey results, the best firms follow more than one path to achieve it and also are better at developing the right capabilities to support it.
I have just reached the 100-day mark in my role leading the 4A’s, and one thing has been made exceedingly clear to me over the past few months: Before we can make true progress, we must address a critical issue. That issue is trust. By Marla Kaplowitz – 4A’s President and CEO
ANA slide show
Bill Duggan penned a piece in MediaVillage.com last week continuing the ANA’s attack on ad agencies — this time over production transparency, which is the code name for unethical and possibly illegal bid-rigging activities conducted by some agencies to secure production contracts at favorable rates. A previous transparency issue, media transparency, was investigated by ANA in 2016, and it confirmed instances of media agencies enriching themselves at client expense through rebates, kickbacks and other “non-transparent” practices, many of them not forbidden by existing contracts. Duggan summarized ANA’s view about these two transparency issues: “The advertising industry continues to suffer from a transparency crisis, which has broken down trust between advertisers and agencies … the ad agency community now needs to acknowledge and address these issues rather than continuing to issue denials …” By Michael Farmer
In recent years, most consumer goods companies have exponentially grown their digital agendas, typically resulting in higher costs of time, energy and money. Yet for many, top-line growth remains elusive and profits are under pressure.
From the rise of online shopping channels to ad campaigns created for an audience of one, consumer marketing has changed more in the past ten years than it did in the previous 30. Despite that level of change and disruption, if you had put a few typical marketers from the 1980s into a time machine and sent them into the marketing departments of today, they would probably feel right at home. There might be a new IT department and a few other changes, but the job titles, structures, approach to performance management—even the vocabulary—would be remarkably familiar. By Raphael Buck, Biljana Cvetanovski, Alex Harper, and Björn Timelin
In an era of hyper-segmentation and personalization, can mainstream marketing still provide total relevance? The concept of mainstream is obsolete. It comes from a simpler time, when the U.S. population was less diverse. The overwhelming majority was non-Hispanic, White, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant, and, relatively speaking, the population was much more economically secure.
It was once the case that multicultural marketing initiatives were only considered after the general market strategy was in place–but no more. The influence of these important consumers is rapidly expanding. Today, multicultural shoppers control more than $3.4 trillion in buying power thanks to a growing population, advancements in education and business, as well as an intense interest in everything tech.
How quickly and effectively marketers respond and adapt to ongoing consumer feedback has become a new determinant of brand performance, reports the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council in a survey report.
ANA, ever-faithful and aggressive on behalf of its advertiser members, struck a second blow to 4As this week — a right uppercut to the chin — with a new ANA study of advertising production practices. The report detailed “a range of improper behavior, including allegations that some agencies have steered production contracts to their in-house production and post-production outfits by urging other companies to inflate their prices during the bidding process,” as reported in WSJ. ANA’s first blow — a left to the head — was its 2016 media transparency report, which outlined improper media owner rebates and kickbacks to media agencies. The combination 1-2 punch is sure to further undermine trust and lead to contract reviews and reductions in agency remuneration. 4As is taking it on the chin. What can they do? The fight is a mismatch. ANA has the weight advantage — or does it? By Michael Farmer – Madison Avenue Manslaughter Archives
Non-transparent production practices exist at multiple ad agencies and agency holding companies, according to a new study by the ANA (Association of National Advertisers).
