Marketing

A trip on the New York subway soon reminds you that we live in a mobile-first culture. Out of the ten people in the same carriage as me most were using their phones: listening to music, reading the news or streaming video. This is the environment in which today’s advertising needs to exist and thrive.  by Nigel Hollis

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

• When a “fresh off the boat” Cuban arrives in Miami, one of the first rites of passage his or her friends and family put them through is “the supermarket experience”: visiting an American grocery store aisle for the first time.
• Some of them hyperventilate.
• A few have been known to drop on their knees and start sobbing.
• I kid you not.

ast week I referenced Richard Thaler, winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his ground-breaking work on behavioral economics. We now accept that the old economic models of rationality are wrong and it makes me wonder whether we should be questioning some more up-to-date assumptions.  by Nigel Hollis

In the world of innovation, there’s a clear line of separation between a concept and a product. A concept represents what you plan to offer; it’s a helpful tool for prioritizing features and claims and for determining how to communicate the product’s benefits. It also informs ideal price points and which varieties will be needed to drive trial. On the other hand, a product is a tangible object that consumers purchase and use; its long-term success (i.e., repeated purchasing) relies heavily on the experience that consumers have with it.

The job of managing the amount of data available to marketers has become too big for humans alone to handle. If marketers haven’t yet handed off some data management tasks to machines, they undoubtedly will soon. Allen Nance, global CMO at marketing automation firm Emarsys, spoke with eMarketer’s Sean Creamer about what artificial intelligence (AI) does best, while leaving human marketers to refocus on connecting with consumers.

The customer aftermarket has become an afterthought for makers of home appliances, power tools, consumer electronics and other durable goods. Manufacturers and their retail partners have differing opinions when it comes to ensuring a valued, satisfying and profitable product ownership experience.

Gender stereotyping in advertisements is a common tactic used for many brands and products to portray their target audience. Whether it’s the strong, luxurious shampoo that only features women with beautiful, long hair in their commercials or the newest camping gear that only shows a male on the packaging. Brands are consciously choosing to highlight and promote to one gender over the other. Are consumers aware of this gender stereotyping? Do they like having products for one gender over the other? Should the advertising industry even contribute to gender stereotyping?

There is not one simple definition so there is not one simple strategy to reach them, and connect.  The 37-year-old Millennial is … everything you’d expect from a millennial, and in some cases more.

In marketing circles, the current construct for developing a strategy revolves around paid, earned and owned media.  This is a useful model to start with, but  it doesn’t provide enough granularity around timing.  A strong strategy for marketing campaign development requires you think how these three areas interact and at what time you should be launching each phase.

Picture this, you’re a senior marketing executive and your Hispanic ad agency has just presented a creative idea for your next campaign. You like the direction but suddenly you ask the question: “Have you seen what our General Market agency presented? Why wouldn’t that work for Hispanic? What’s not Hispanic about it?”  Pressured to find synergies and budget efficiencies year over year, the temptation to adopt a “one size fits all” approach that may not only save production and agency fees, but could also save valuable time by reducing the number of meetings is a reality facing many marketers in America.  By Isaac Mizrahi – Co President, Chief Operating Officer of ALMA

With culture at the very heart of the identity of different groups across the country, the United States has become very diverse with regard to the different groups that comprise it. As such, Hispanics have become a very unique group to market to within the United States. Targeting this demographic is a distinct task, as the group itself is often mistaken to be one homogeneous culture. However, although Hispanics share many ideals, it is important to remember that each group that comprises Hispanics contains its respective identity; and, with these groups having generational identities within them, marketers are tasked with creating campaigns that acknowledge their unique identity while embracing the different values that they share.  By Sean Sawicki / Florida State University

Last week Kantar Millward Brown hosted a webinar titled ‘Create Digital Ads that Drive Brand Growth’. Tip number one was to “Make people feel something” and tip number two is the closely related “Stand out at the start”. Yes, with digital video you have to engage those emotions quickly.  by Nigel Hollis

While computer scientists have been touting artificial intelligence (AI) for more than half a century, the technology is just starting to reveal its potential. In spite of the hype, machine learning, deep learning, computer vision and natural language processing have quietly become entrenched in many people’s daily routines.

Pockets of growth seems to be a recurring theme amidst an era of economic change, modest growth and evolving consumption patters. Across the board, growth in Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) is getting harder to achieve but if you scratch below the surface, there are many examples of companies, segments and channels performing strongly.

In the past few years, the advertising industry has made tremendous strides in measuring viewability. But buying viewable ads doesn’t always translate to positive results. As a matter of fact, it often translates into worse results.  By Scott Knoll is the CEO of Integral Ad Science

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

• For decades and decades, packaging was supposed to be the last stretch of the CPG shopping experience.
• Packaging had the tough task of closing the deal during that last, millisecond-long moment of truth at the supermarket aisle.
• Clinch the sale.
• Cap the consumer journey.

For every ad campaign they execute, brand and agency leaders have to decide on an array of variables: how much to spend on creative development and testing; whether to seek high reach or more precise targets; the context for the message; and how to add an element of recency to deliver the ad prior to the next expected purchase. But it wasn’t too long ago that creative was the most important part of the mix by far. It was a pretty simple formula: Good creative sold products, bad creative didn’t. In 2006, Project Apollo found that 65% of a brand’s sales lift from advertising came from the creative.

One morning recently, an impromptu discussion broke out in the office about what makes for great advertising. We discussed a few of our favorite recent ads and, as one can imagine, the range of suggestions about which was best was broad. Short form and long form. Funny and sentimental. Product-driven and brand-focused. Rational and emotional. While they ranged in length and objective, one thing was clear: They were “must-watch” ads—not filler in between program breaks, but great creative that we want to talk about, share and watch—over and over again.  By Carl Marci, Chief Neuroscientist

This week Richard H. Thaler, professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his pioneering work in behavioral economics. In an interview Thaler promised to spend the prize money as irrationally as possible, a statement that acknowledges that he might otherwise try to make rational decisions.  by Nigel Hollis

The results are an eye-opener for marketers and their brands as they show how marketers’ societal biases and age-related stereotypes are contributing to a significant overestimating of millennial spending power and an underestimating of the value of consumers 55 and older.