Business

Do you understand digital media enough to make good decisions?

A new index from The NPD Group’s Checkout TrackingSM shows that some of the biggest names in retailing and foodservice have become fully woven into American life – reaching an extraordinary percentage of buyers at least once a year.

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

• There’s a cottage industry around the concept of “growth hacks”.
• It is built around one premise: there always is a shortcut, an alternative way, a silver bullet.
• Growth hacks, however, must be firmly rooted in big data.
• It ain’t just throwing spaghetti to the wall to see what sticks.

By Miguel Arias – Adman

• The outcry is a bit too much.
• In all fairness, why is the premise of Pepsi’s Kendall Jenner spot stupider than the vast majority of content coming out of Hollywood, the music industry or Madison Avenue?
• If the socialsphere and the thought police applied the same level of self-righteous scrutiny to every figment of pop culture out there, no movie, music video, TV show or TV spot would ever see the light of day.
• At the very least, Pepsi tried to do something different.

Consumers are right to be concerned about and demand strong protection of their privacy rights. Advertisers have long understood this highly legitimate need. That is why in 2010 the ad community launched the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) self-regulatory program to give consumers broad power to determine whether their Internet and mobile activities would be collected and utilized for advertising purposes. The ad community also has strongly supported a broad array of legislation to protect consumer’s truly sensitive financial, health, children’s and other similar data.

APC Collective, launched their #APCChats podcast during SXSW to spotlight some incredible, nuanced and important stories that often go untold. Free from the traditional format of 140 characters, a social video, article or blog post, the intention is to let creators share the origins of their ideas with in-depth backstories.

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

• Loosely defined, “growth hacking” is the constant tweaking of a product and its marketing to find the sweet spot of maximum user engagement with minimum friction.
• By definition, it is a never-ending process.
• Life in Beta mode.
• Perpetual AB testing.

In its latest advertising forecasts, MAGNA forecasts US media owners advertising sales are expecting to grow by +3.7% in 2017, excluding the impact of cyclical events (Political & Olympics).

Hispanicize Media Group (HMG) announced that it has acquired a major stake in several leading Latina online and social media platforms and has also entered into a joint venture to own part of the Hispanic celebrity influencer network Exit 7 as part of HMG’s acquisition strategy to expand its digital reach.

At a conference in October 2016, Bob Liodice — the CEO of the Association of National Advertisers — posed a clear challenge to its members: “The CMO must get more involved with the activities of their suppliers” (meaning agencies and others who provide them with marketing services). With a deterioration of the relationship between advertisers and agencies, he pointed out that the CMO really needs to steer the ship. There is no room for detachment in any area, particularly media because of its rising complexity and rapid requirements in decision making.  By Mike Drexler

Univision Communications Inc. (UCI) announced that Malek Robert (“Bobby”) Amirshahi has been named senior vice president, Corporate Communications, effective immediately.

Internet advertising will attract 36.9% of all advertising expenditure, up from 34.0% in 2016. This will be the first year in which more money will be spent on internet advertising than advertising on traditional television (which will total US$192bn).

Trust in key institutions has plummeted in the US, but a new survey finds significantly more consumers say they trust advertising now than said the same three years ago.

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

• When I started out in this biz roughly two decades ago, fooling around with a company logo was considered a quasi-mortal sin of bad taste.
• A serious, unprofessional faux pas.
• Utter sloppiness.
• Or, worse, branding suicide.
• Strict corporate identity guidelines were enforced.

Brewing giant AB InBev has kicked off a global media planning and buying review and is inviting the six major holding companies to put together teams to pitch the assignment, the company confirmed early Wednesday.

Cision released its 2017 State of the Media Report, which includes findings from a survey of 1,550 journalists, editors, influencers and producers. With the rise of misinformation and “fake news,” a major new trend emerged in this year’s report: journalists are extremely concerned with the public’s perception of the industry.

Although I’ve spent much of my professional life as a marketer, it’s safe to say I — like most of us — have spent much of my personal life as a consumer. Recently, a colleague asked me which brands I was loyal to, and I had to really think about it. Finally, I recalled a particular coffee brand that I always buy.

NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises announced it has named Beau Ferrari to Executive Vice President of NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises. Ferrari previously served as Executive Vice President, Corporate Strategy and Development for Univision Communications Inc.

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

• THE big problem that might be scaring away Twitter’s users: it is one of the most notorious open air landfills of modern culture.
• Fake news, widespread poisonous snark, harassment, hostility, hatred, impropriety, vulgarity, filth and multitudes of anonymous or bogus accounts singlehandedly dedicated to trolling fulltime are the everyday currency in the 140 character realm.
• Nevertheless, for those who have the stomach, open mind and thick skin to put up with the detritus, the little blue bird’s habitat can also be a fascinating cultural observatory full of small discoveries.
• One man’s trash is another one’s treasure.

Deloitte recently completed “Business Chemistry in the C-suite,” a study on the Business Chemistry types of 661 C-suite executives, finding two of four primary Business Chemistry types – which highlight both similarities and differences in working styles – account for nearly two-thirds of the sample.