Marketing

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.

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.

We’ve covered this before: reaching Hispanics is much more than just adding a Hispanic layer over general market executions. There are a lot of insights to draw inspiration from to connect with U.S. Hispanics, but there are also general best practices. A major key that can easily get lost in translation is Spanish terminology.

The 21st century has been a wild ride so far, and it has only just begun. The speed with which events are unfolding is creating turmoil and confusion, necessitating a step back to see the big picture—the emerging trends behind so many of today’s headlines. This is no idle exercise, but imperative for businesses intent on surviving the next decade and for policymakers struggling to adapt to profound changes in the way we live.

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.

A while back I reviewed the Kantar North America event, Fragmentnation, which focused on the increasing diversity of needs, mindset and values in the U.S. population, and noted that brands must prepare for a more diverse future. On reflection they must also prepare for a more fickle future.  by Nigel Hollis

Data from social media analytics and monitoring service Sprout Social revealed that many US internet users believe social media has given them more of a voice to expose unfair treatment from brands and be more critical of them in general.

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

comScore published its Top Ten Burning Issues in Digital report.

Amisha Gandhi, head of influencer marketing at the software giant SAP, wanted to inject more value into the company’s Leonardo Live event centered on digital innovation and transformation. She invited five top influencers to participate in the two-day conference, which took place earlier this summer in Frankfurt, Germany, and attracted 1,500 attendees, including C-level and senior digital executives.  By Matthew Schwartz

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.

Over the past four decades, the U.S. Census has documented the growth trajectory of our Hispanic population.  While the numbers alone tell a powerful story of the value of the Hispanic market to brands, to fully understand the opportunity we have to dig deeper.  The Hispanic market is uniquely relative to past immigrant groups.  Hispanics represent a unique movement due to a combination of factors including language, duality and tenacity.

A year ago, the advertising industry was stirred by the ANA-commissioned report “An Independent Study of Media Transparency in the U.S. Advertising Industry” from K2 Intelligence.  The key finding of that report was that non-transparent business practices, including cash rebates to media agencies, are pervasive in the U.S. media ad buying ecosystem.  By Bill Duggan

Many aspects of the digital world are dominated by a single giant: Google dominates search, Facebook dominates social, and of course, Amazon dominates e-commerce. For the vast majority of brands, walking away from the giants simply isn’t an option … so digital success means dancing with these giants more effectively.

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