Marketing

Every good marketer knows that the most successful brands don’t sell products; they sell identities and values. For health and wellness products, those revolve closely around lifestyle.

The consumer decision journey has evolved from the early days of brand building. To successfully build brands today, marketers should have a solid understanding of the new path to purchase. The digital brand ecosystem and the sheer volume of behavioural insight data available have changed things dramatically.

Influencers have an incredible ability to drive conversation and engagement on behalf of your brand. The right influencers will create quality content that ultimately inspires purchase of your product or services. Thus, it is no surprise that influencers have become an important part of the marketing mix today.

Based on the importance and frequency of agency reviews, we created a short survey for client leaders in marketing and procurement and agency leaders to give a sounding board for what’s good and less good in the new business process.

In June, K2 Intelligence issued their report, commissioned by ANA, titled, “An Independent Study of Media Transparency in the U.S. Advertising Industry.” K2 found substantial evidence of non-transparent business practices in the U.S. market in the form of rebates as well as substantial evidence of potentially problematic agency conduct concealed by principal transactions.  ANA and Ebiquity/FirmDecisions have issued the much anticipated follow-up report titled, “Media Transparency: Prescriptions, Principles, and Processes for Advertisers,” which offer a number of recommendations.  By Bill Duggan, Group EVP, ANA

The Marketers Confidence Index remained stable in the second quarter of 2016, increasing two points from 121 to 123, despite a dampened jobs report, stock market turmoil and political upheaval.

Recently, many marketers have been focusing their attention on the U.S. Hispanic millennial demographic. By making Hispanic millennials their top priority, marketers may turn a blind eye to the older Hispanic generation.  By: Lee Vann, Chief Strategy Officer at Captura Group

Many marketers are faced with hurdles when it comes to digital advertising in a multiscreen environment. Ad clutter and creative quality are just some of the challenges they’re looking to overcome.

Brands and marketers competing to engage content-hungry consumers need to be creative in the strategies they deploy to appeal to viewers, especially in an age of ad-blocking technology.

Hispanic Americans are by far the fastest growing target audience in the U.S. Do you know how to reach them? Do you know their motivating factors and purchase habits? Or which types of content work best in connecting with this audience?

In the wake of the recession that hit the U.S. economy hard and plagued consumer spending, private labels staked their claim in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) space.

Kenny Mitchell likes to keep Gatorade’s marketing at the top of its game. As head of consumer engagement, he oversees Gatorade’s integrated marketing efforts, including advertising, branded content, digital, social media, and public relations.  By Molly Knol, senior manager, committees and conferences at ANA

B2C and B2B marketers must look at both the macro and micro forces that are shaping the behavior of their audiences along with the increasingly rapid pace of technological change to understand how to drive interesting and exciting discoveries and innovations in almost every personal, business, and public policy arena.  By KaonFab / Kaon Interactive

Health literacy is a growing concern for all of us who produce content, especially marketers seeking to drive patients to treatment, improve adherence, change behavior, and manage disease.  By Beatriz Mallory, Vice President / SensisHealth

In this opinion piece, the author speculates on the future of advertising. Arguing that the challenge of predicting the future lies mainly in the lack of an acceptable definition of the field, the author solves that problem by developing a set of postulates to create boundaries for the theory and practice of the discipline.  By Don Schultz – Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA

The marketing landscape today bares little similarity to that of the 1970s, yet, through the dawn of digital and proliferation of new channels, one element has remained consistent: the focus on consumers between ages 18 and 49.

Marketers should require media agencies to be fully transparent to elevate trust and restore confidence in the client/agency partnership, according to a wide-ranging set of recommendations released \ by the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) and Ebiquity/FirmDecisions.  A key recommendation was that clients require their agencies to disclose all potential conflicts of interest and allow thorough audits of the agency, its parent company, affiliates, and subsidiaries to ensure full transparency and contract compliance.

The study, conducted by Hub Entertainment Research, was designed to compare viewing of TV shows and advertising across screens to determine whether engagement and recall differ among platforms, and to identify the drivers that have the greatest impact on the viewing experience.

Like in the movie, the marketing Fire Swamp also has three terrors which must be avoided in order to succeed in your marketing quest.  By Mark McNeilly, ANA Faculty

Hispanic marketing is challenging. Believe me, we have been doing it for 15 years. Effective Hispanic marketing requires an integrated team that not only possesses the skills to execute standard marketing principles, but also a deep understanding of the complex and dynamic Hispanic consumer.  By Lee Vann / Capture Group