Business

While digital marketing technologies and engagement channels multiply, many marketers remain concerned that they are still not delivering what customers want most: a seamless, frictionless and individualized buying and problem-solving experience.

Major organizations across the globe are attuned to the urgent need to transform their business and operating models, in light of evolving customer behaviors, disruptive technologies, regulatory policies, and globalization.

PwC released its 2016 Big Decisions Survey, focused on how enterprises around the world are limiting risk and leveraging data to make the Big Decisions that will give them a competitive edge.

My conclusion is that Cannes is an ad festival by tradition only anymore. What it has turned into is a tech-deal-makers meet, agency-deal-makers swap meet.  Don’t get me wrong. Deal-making is really important. And to have a large number of buyers, sellers and middle men in one place is convenient, allowing for meeting after meeting after meeting in search of a deal. But it has very little to do anymore with celebrating great creative work.

The ID Comms 2016 Global Media Talent Survey is the second in a series of seven ID Comms investigations into the major drivers of media performance.

Hispanics are often noted for their heavy digital activity, mainly due to high smartphone engagement, but this characteristic isn’t as straightforward as it seems.

While Arthur W. Page Society members remain dissatisfied with the level of diversity and inclusion on their communication teams, few are being held accountable for developing and implementing strategies to improve. This is the key finding of a recent student conducted by Syracuse University and funded and released by the PRSA Foundation and the Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations at the University of Alabama.

At the ARF Audience Measurement 2016 Conference held June 12-14, SMI CEO James Fennessy and I presented the first hard data on spending across TV and Digital by the top 100 advertisers since the beginning of 2014 through Q1 2016. For the 19 advertisers in the CPG category we also analyzed ROI data in relation to media shifts, courtesy of IRI. We were also able to get published quarterly sales data for 10 Non-CPG advertisers in retail, automotive, QSR, technology, entertainment and also relate media shifts to ROI for those.  By Bill Harvey / In Terms of ROI

By Gonzalo López Martí / Creative director, etc / LMMIAMI.COM

• Solutionism is increasingly present in the world of marketing and advertising.
• Two disciplines that used to be humanist crafts with a touch of alchemy are now permeated with growing doses of algorithmic pseudoscience.
• It is getting out of hand.

As we reflect on the success drivers of the 92 Breakthrough Winners across the five years of our study project, leadership has played a consistent, decisive role. Given its pressing importance, for 2016 we have chosen to elevate and dedicate this report to breakthrough leadership.

Daisy Expósito-Ulla, Chairman and CEO of d expósito & Partners has been selected by ADCOLOR to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 10th Annual ADCOLOR Awards

CONTOBOX has hired Multicultural Media veteran, Felix Perez as VP of Multicultural Solutions.

Compared with the rest of the world, Americans are feeling pretty good about their finances. While many consumers in other countries are living paycheck to paycheck and worrying about becoming unemployed, American consumers are comparatively unconcerned about their household’s financial future. This isn’t to say that US consumers are exuding confidence: financial-market volatility and the political uncertainty surrounding the upcoming presidential election are stoking fears of another downturn.  By Max Magni, Anne Martinez, and Rukhshana Motiwala

Marketing becomes an information problem as computers augment humans in the execution of online marketing. It was bound to happen, but it leaves CMOs with a question about exactly how to incorporate information skills into their organizations.

Clarity Media Group designated New York-based communications strategists David Puente and Juliana Silva to head the global expansion of the company’s media training, presentation coaching and message development services

Previously, I’ve argued that consumer confidence is almost always determined by national economic conditions, rather than by global events, or events in one or more other countries. The one exception to that rule in recent memory was the 2009 financial crisis that originated in the U.S.  Because the U.S. makes up one-quarter of global GDP, the effects on confidence were felt worldwide.  By Louise Keely, president, Demand Institute, and SVP, Nielsen

The Latin American economy has seen better days. Over the past few years, Latin American countries have experienced slowdowns in both GDP and private-consumption growth, a rise in inflation rates, and devaluations in currency. In this difficult environment, consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) manufacturers must make careful choices and deliberately weigh trade-offs.  By Bruno Furtado, Felipe Ize, Antonio Rocha, and Miguel Suadi

BabyCenter has appointed Clarisse Cespedes to Executive Editor of BabyCenter en Español.

The region needs to build a more diversified and sustainable economic base, focusing on consumers as the pivotal driver of growth both globally and at home.  By Andres Cadena, Patricia Ellen, Jaime Morales, and Jaana Remes

By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc / LMMIAMI.COM

• What is it with your average creative that he -or she- whines, kicks, screams and throws tantrums yet he -or she- rarely has the rocks to start his or her own agency?
• How many agencies in America were founded by creatives?
• How many agencies in the US Hispanic market were founded by creatives?