Marketing

Programmatic plans require fluid budgets and adaptability. Control freaks may be tempted to pre-plan every tactic of their campaigns, but it’s better to start broad, have a thesis on what could work, observe performance, and optimize your campaign based on that data.

The new report released explores “The CMO Shift to Gaining Business Lift” and the evolving role of the CMO as a growth driver, change agent and customer experience advocate. Nearly 70 percent of more than 200 participants in the international study say there is a clear mandate or high level of expectation among their senior management teams and board members for marketing to be the growth driver and business value creator in their organizations.

Tapping into deep-seated emotions that connects us as human beings can provide brands with the means to engage across a diverse audiences, writes Nigel Hollis, chief global analyst at Kantar Millward Brown.

The beauty of this old-media definition of working was the proper alignment of incentives.  Whether you were a publisher or an advertiser, investing in better content produced deeper connections with consumers.  As a result, publishers made more money, and advertisers felt better about spending it.  When new-media publishers arrived, driven by the frenzy of venture capital dollars, these publishers agreed to deliver unrealistic ad revenue goals despite having no established record of “working.”

Successful marketers know that people engage with ideas that are meaningful so they try to create powerful, insights-based campaigns that resonate with their target audience. Achieving success isn’t easy, and game changing work can be thwarted by any number of pressures. But marketers who develop a consistent, disciplined approach to creative development increase their probability of generating stronger brand value and business performance–the ultimate success criteria.  By Ann Green – Managing Partner Creative Development Practice at Kantar Millward Brown
 

For years, the AICE — the trade group for independent post-production houses — has been loudly complaining about the ad industry practice of “check bids,” and other unfair practices utilized by Adland in the course of producing commercials for their clients. Now it appears that the U.S. Department of Justice is looking into the matter.

Kantar Millward Brown released its annual digital and media predictions for 2017. For the ninth year running, the company’s predictions provide marketers with a clear guide to the challenges and opportunities of the next 12 months, helping them shape their digital marketing strategies.

Although drinks of choice differed among generations, consumers from millennials to seniors continue to indulge in beer, wine and spirits products with regular frequency at home and on premise.

It looks like the ad market has settled into a post-recession growth pattern that is stable, but in the low single digits as marketers remain cautious and continue to demand optimal ROI for their advertising spending investments as more dollars move to digital channels. Economic and political uncertainties appear to be factors keeping growth at a moderate pace.

Emerging markets have become an increasingly important audience for today’s marketers, as they offer significant new avenues for revenue. Traditionally, marketers would create buyer personas and place consumers into buckets to drive targeted marketing campaigns, but this approach doesn’t take into account the unique needs and personalities of cross-cultural consumers.

All sorts of news was vying for attention this past week.

This was a banner year for multicultural market research. With large consultancies like PwC with their Always Connected study entering the multicultural arena to stalwarts like Nielsen continuing to produce high-quality work, total market consumer insights are widely available for brands looking to tap into this market.  Yet, out of all the studies that have been published this year, it was hard to pinpoint data that was “new.” CPG preferences we tracked were updated and Spanish-language media consumption shifted, but rarely did we see studies that explored emerging technologies and trends.  By Mario Carrasco, partner, ThinkNow Research

Marketing budgets are now, on average, 12% of company revenue. The Gartner CMO Spend Survey 2016-2017 explores where this new marketing spending will increase most—and how CMOs will adapt to this new responsibility.

Emotion has a huge role to play in determining which brands people buy and when. However, ignoring the interaction between emotion, recognition and brand associations risks motivating no one. To avoid the emotion trap marketers must figure out how to harness the power of emotion to benefit their brand.

Rubicon Project revealed new findings from a major study conducted in partnership with The Female Quotient (TFQ) Strategy, proving the power of programmatic investment and the impact of data-enabled, digital media buying. The study finds that by doubling investments in programmatic, marketers may achieve as much as a 6% increase in sales and a 22% increase in marketing return on investment.

According to our new quantitative study, “Storytelling: The Current State of Branded Content,” conducted in partnership with Forbes and S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, branded content’s impact is superior to display advertising in terms of recall, brand perception and intent/consideration.

Millennials are digitally savvy, increasingly segmented and highly unpredictable. They expect to be able to shop anywhere, anytime and want seamless, personalized experiences across multiple platforms — from tablets to smart devices to home computers.

Millennial women (ages 18-34) accounted for about 33 percent of the user base for cosmetics and skincare and almost 50 percent of heavy buyers of both categories (defined by the number product types of each category purchased). Over the last three years, there has been a sharp rise in the amount of cosmetics purchased by Hispanic women and they now account for 15 percent of all category buyers, 24 percent of all heavy buyers of cosmetics, and 20 percent of heavy skincare buyers. The skew in purchasing toward high income purchasers continued, but the study showed a dip in purchasing after the $99,000 per year in earnings mark.

The rising adoption of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) by advertisers and consumers will deliver transformative creative experiences. Yet as much as creative and production shops will need to change to meet the new artistic and technical demands, media shops will face the more critical questions.

But if everyone is authentic, can it still be a differentiating factor? If even the most processed food products are touting their “real ingredients,” how can truly natural and organic brands stand out? At this point of saturation, authenticity can no longer be a true point of difference.