Marketing

Ad agency creativity was pure magic in the traditional days of Bill Bernbach and David Ogilvy.  Advertised brands flourished and grew, and iconic brands like Tide, Budweiser, McDonald’s, Visa, Chevrolet, American Express and others became genuine Lovemarks, earning countless millions for their brand owners.  By Michael Farmer

Social media in-feed ads, online video and other digital formats such as paid content and native advertising are leading the growth in global advertising.

David Chitel’s article “Wake Up and Smell the Cafecito, the Despacito and The ‘Total’ U.S. Hispanic Market” provides an accurate and comprehensive history on the evolution of Hispanic Marketing. It is an exciting time to be a culture specialist, as demographics, technology and consumer behaviors are driving mainstream trends at unprecedented rates!  By: AHAA Chair Linda Lane Gonzalez

A couple of months ago, The Coca-Cola Company—one of the benchmarks of the marketing discipline around the world—was the latest corporation to announce the revamping of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) position into Chief Growth Officer (CGO). This trend was well documented by the Russell Reynolds Associates report, “The Emergence of the Chief Growth Officer in Consumer Packaged Goods” in February 2016, where the move was described as “a powerful role charged with finding new pathways to growth.”  By Isaac Mizrahi – Co President, Chief Operating Officer

When you hear loud voices proclaiming that a new technology is going to radically transform industries for the better, and a group of equally loud people decrying that same technology as either snake oil or even irredeemably sinister, you know that you’re onto something big. Perhaps even transformational. As thoughtful industry participants, this is a familiar situation. We’ve observed this with the advent of the internet as a consumer accessible experience and, later, social media and Web 2.0.

Retailers tend to focus on content distribution via their own networks, posting it on their websites and social media pages or sending it via email. In the process, they may be missing a chance to widen their audiences.

A while back the MSI series ‘5 Things I Know About Marketing’ featured Scott McDonald, President and CEO of The Advertising Research Foundation. One of his five things was that brand equity is hard to build and hard to shift – except in a negative direction. But is that always true?  by Nigel Hollis

If a campaign delivered 50 GRPs but didn’t have a mechanism for measuring ROI, did it simultaneously overperform and underperform? For years, marketers didn’t have the tools to provide an answer.

A survey of online shoppers found widespread use of brand manufacturers’ websites—with millennials more likely than average to frequent brand sites.

It seems protests are the new norm and Generation Z has been at the heart of much of the activity.  Gen Z, people born between 1995 and 2015, believes they can change the world, according to our research. This is a generation of activists born in the post-Internet age and they have harnessed social media to marshal forces to their causes and tell the world what they believe.  By Karla Fernandez Parker

One of the big shifts that has taken place over the last couple of decades has been in the way people seek entertainment and information. We now have the ability to find what we want, when we want. Along with all the other changes that have taken place this makes life more difficult for advertisers.  by Nigel Hollis

New research from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council reveals that brands and communications service providers will need to become tightly coupled in order to truly fulfill their shared vision of delivering a more gratifying, valued and relevant omni-channel experience for customers.

Once upon a time, the U.S. Hispanic marketing model was a single-minded thing of beauty — a perfect, irrefutable story that went something like this. “Unless and until advertisers marketed to U.S. Hispanics in Spanish, they were missing out on tens of millions of under-served customers with over a trillion U.S. dollars to spend, who were more brand loyal and more efficient to target than their non-Hispanic counterparts (i.e., – everyone else who spoke English).”  By David A. Chitel

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