Marketing

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.

In 1964, media visionary Marshall McLuhan coined the indelible phrase “the medium is the message,” all but predicting the Internet and how advances in communications technology would come to shape the symbiotic relationship between what is said and how. The ascendency of digital, social, and mobile has progressively empowered once-passive consumers, now equal partners in content selection, redistribution and even creation. The good news is that digital channels provide unprecedented opportunities for targeting and personalization; the bad news is audiences now control how and with what they engage, tuning in and out as they desire.

Does the advertising of your TV content — a commercial, a TV program – have any “curious empathy”?

We’ve reached a crisis in listening: a study found that the average large organization devoted 80 percent of its resources to broadcasting its messages to the public or clients and only 20 percent on listening. However, creating compelling content that resonates with your audience and drives its behavior begins with listening.

A survey of advertising and marketing executives indicates that, of a variety of emerging technologies, the internet of things (IoT) is seen as the most important.

The widespread and increasing use of data to help manage agency relationships is leading to more informed decision-making. This is delivering positive benefits to client/agency relationships as well as improving efficiencies at both clients and agencies. Furthermore, the increased use of data is improving transparency and accountability, both hot topics at the moment. Bottom line: Data is truly a “force for good” in client/agency relationships.  By Bill Duggan, Group EVP, ANA

In my simplistic vision, both sides must come to terms with the current state of the media industry, and must be willing to compromise. It’s undoubtedly true that advertisers have cut back on the fees they pay agencies for their services. There is a chicken-and-egg question here: Has this happened because agencies seem to be making large sums of money? Or are agencies being forced to find new sources of income, because advertisers have been cutting back?

Many kids become internet users before they learn how to walk. But even as the age at which kids get a smartphone creeps downward, most lack one of their own, as explored in a new eMarketer report, “US Kids and Digital: Gauging How Digital These Digital Natives Really Are”.

Last week Kantar hosted a conference in New York City titled FragmentNation. While the title of the event predated the U.S. election result, Trump’s win helped underline the basic thesis of the event. Brands must prepare themselves to market in an ever more fragmented world and that means understanding the granularity of people’s needs, mindset and values like never before.  By Nigel Hollis

TubeMogul has conducted some interesting research on the changing nature of GRPs (gross rating points).  Edit summary