Business

By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc / LMMiami.com

• Do we really “create” in the ad business.
• I think we don’t.

We are good. We are really good, at reading traffic signs. This is not a new skill. The earliest form of road signs were milestones, giving distance or direction. The Romans were known to erect stone columns throughout their entire empire, so you always knew how far you were from Rome. Sadly, our ability to read traffic or road signs quickly fades when dealing with less obvious, but equally critical, signs in our everyday environment. It has never been truer than in the advertising industry, and the critical client/agency relationships that enable great work.

From our AUDIENCExSCIENCE stage, Linda Yaccarino, Chairman, Advertising & Client Partnerships at NBCUniversal and Megan Clarken, President at Nielsen Watch, share their unique perspectives on media currency and media measurement. Most importantly: their shared emphasis on getting to reliable measurement of outcomes asap.

US consumers’ shopping behavior isn’t as mall-centric as it once was, but declaring the death of traditional shopping centers might be a little premature.

We’re rapidly approaching summer vacation season. This time of year — perhaps more than any other — encourages us to unplug and drop off the grid. Summer seems to justify a little more distance from our daily to-do list. I, myself, am writing this while I’m on my way to Nova Scotia to do one of my “bucket list” bike rides, Cape Breton’s famed Cabot Trail. Today, having spent several years looking for my own exit from the grid, I wanted to lay out some strategies for unplugging and unwinding in these lazy hazy days of summer.

For most marketers, location data is a powerful marketing tool. By using it, they can get actionable insights on consumer behavior and purchase intent.

The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals that trust in the U.S. has suffered the largest-ever-recorded drop in the survey’s history among the general population. Trust among the general population fell nine points to 43, placing it in the lower quarter of the 28-market Trust Index. Trust among the informed public in the U.S. imploded, plunging 23 points to 45, making it now the lowest of the 28 markets surveyed, below Russia and South Africa.

Targetspot announced an expansion of its MultiCultural Platform with a new office in Los Angeles and appoints Rudy Balderrama as West Coast Senior Sales Executive.

Companies that harness creativity and data in tandem have growth rates twice as high as companies that don’t. Here’s how they do it.

By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc / LMMiami.com

• Advertising is under fire.
• As a business, as an industry, as a cultural agent.
• Our relevance and our legitimacy as creators and guardians of the canon and its values is called into question literally 24/7.
• In the age of social media, everything we “create” is scrutinized and torn apart ipso facto by some troll with too much time in his or her hands.
• Everything our creatives come up with seems to be tin-eared, flat-footed or offensive in some way or other.
• Fair enough.
• Question is, do we really “create” in the ad business.

Dallas-based executive search firm, DCAProSearch, announced the rebranding of its firm to represent all diverse markets in the areas of advertising and marketing professionals in this new digital age.

Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are transforming businesses and will contribute to economic growth via contributions to productivity. They will also help address “moonshot” societal challenges in areas from health to climate change.

The Culture Marketing Council (CMC) believes that the addition of the citizenship question will decrease census participation, causing the census to yield inaccurate results.

Most companies take an internally oriented approach to organizing around products, processes and functions such as risk management and marketing. But a few pioneering companies have begun to organize around how customers experience their products and services. They have decided that the well-developed metrics and processes for product and functional management don’t provide a reliable compass for tracking the overall experience.

Entravision Communications Corporation announced it has acquired Smadex, a digital advertising technology company. 

ANA (Association of National Advertisers) members widely oppose the addition of a “citizenship” question to the 2020 U.S. Census Bureau forms because they fear it would create inaccurate data that could lead to misallocated marketing resources, according to a new survey.

By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director/ LMMiami.com

• As I said in the first installment of this piece last week, casting “regular folk” in advertising has been tried repeatedly with spotty results at best.
• When I say “regular folk” I mean “racially realistic”.

The Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce announced the appointment of Maria Salinas as the Chamber’s new President and CEO

Every leadership transition creates uncertainty. Will the new leader uncover and seize opportunities and assemble the right team? Will the changes be sustainable? Will a worthy successor be developed? These questions boil down to one: Will the leader be successful?

Randall Rothenberg, President/CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), credits 2010 as the start of the direct-to-consumer brand revolution. That was the year Warby Parker was founded. But while a few direct-to-consumer brands have become relatively famous – like Dollar Shave Club which was acquired by Unilever for $1 billion – most remain largely unknown. What will the future bring?  by Nigel Hollis