Business

This report, created by Havas Media and shared with the 4A’s community, estimates media inflation rates for the second half of 2017 and first half of 2018.

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.

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

Imagine you are a CMO at a large company with multiple customer touchpoints.
A big retail bank, for instance.
You develop a great brand narrative, a visually stunning corporate id, an awesome customer experience.
You get the unanimous blessing of the board of directors.
You validate it all with market research: the public will love your value proposition.
In theory, that is.

The communications team at Hyundai Motor America has added Hyundai Brandon Ramirez as the senior group manager of Product Communications.

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.

Media-Nxt is a project of the Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. It includes a free, annual Media-Nxt Report on the emerging media technology landscape, identifying trends that media professionals should take into account when considering the future of their industry.

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

There’s no right or wrong way to snack, but there’s little doubt that Americans are growing increasingly health conscious as they reach for a bite in between meals—or in place of one. And as consumers’ hunger for healthful options rises, it’s important for retailers and manufacturers to stay on top of consumption trends in the produce aisle.

New research by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) has found that global brands have made major changes or are planning to make extensive changes to their media governance practices across a wide range of areas.

Emojis reportedly work in email marketing. But people who use them in the office are seen as incompetent.

Bob Liodice, the President and CEO of the ANA, once said (and I’m paraphrasing here) that client CMOs are not sufficiently in charge of the activities of their agencies.  He wasn’t chastising them but merely sending a word of caution that if clients expect more from their agencies, particularly in areas of transparency, they have to be more intimately involved in what they do and how they do it.  By Mike Drexler

The agency holding companies continue to find themselves the pariahs of the industry, implicated in dubious media-buying practices, non-transparent digital media processes — and now by murky advertising production practices as well.

Whether people in the United States believe they can thrive economically in a digitally disrupted world depends strongly on the amount of education they’ve attained, according to a new survey.  By Don Baer, worldwide chair and CEO of Burson-Marsteller

BOTTOM LINE: 2Q17 advertising likely grew around +5% in the United States during 2Q17 against despite a -1% decline in national TV advertising and double digit declines for many other media.

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.

Rapid adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Intelligent Automation (IA) brings a host of broad questions leaders must thoroughly consider as their organizations move into the automation age. A new KPMG LLP report explores these potentially massive issues and provides important insights to help drive decision making as robots and cognitive technology begins to outpace human intelligence.

Few sectors have experienced as much disruption as banking over the last decade or so. The trusted partner personified by a high street presence and friendly bank manager has given way to an uneasy hybrid of digital and telephone services. Recession, digitisation, and high-street closure have changed our relationship with banks from trusted partner to service provider. Banks have suffered from their lack of customer centricity, focusing on sales rather than forging the long-term relationships of old.

BOTTOM LINE: Marketer trade group the ANA has released a detailed report on fee transparency issues in the commercial production ecosystem, which is the focus of a Department of Justice probe. While the report does not detail any specific agency or holding company’s wrong-doing, the description of practices and recommendations to marketers may add to the scrutiny marketers are increasingly applying to their agency and holding company contracts.  By Brian Wieser / Pivotal Research Group

Bernardo Rodriguez will be responsible for advancing J.D. Power’s digital transformation with responsibility for new product development, branding, marketing and mergers and acquisitions. In this role, Rodriguez will be responsible for the design and content of J.D. Power’s digital interface with clients and consumers, reporting directly to Finbarr O’Neill, Chief Executive Officer and President.