Marketing

Ad spending on original digital — both desktop and mobile — programming has more than doubled since 2014, and those budgets have come primarily out of television, according to findings of a survey of advertiser and agency executives released this morning by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

Writer Richard Rodriguez calls Richard M. Nixon the inventor of Hispanics.  His logic? In 1972, Nixon signed a federal mandate called Statistical Directive 15, establishing the current system of classifying Americans into five racial or ethnic groups: White, African American, American Indian / Alaska Native, Asian / Pacific Islander, and Hispanic.  In Rodriguez’s words: “I have traveled throughout Latin America and I have looked for Hispanics. Everyone tells you there are no Hispanics there. Essentially, the whole category of the Hispanic is in fact an American fabrication.”  By David Morse / New America Dimensions

Attention is the allocation of mental resources, visual or cognitive, to visible or conceptual objects. Before consumers can be affected by advertising messages, they first need to be paying attention. As Thales S. Teixeira writes in this paper, the quality of consumer attention has been falling for decades. Consumers have lost interest in the information content of ads because they can access more and better information on‐demand on the Web.

People tune out messages that do not connect with them emotionally, according to Dr. Thomas Trautmann, certified neuromarketing instructor and business partner at SalesBrain, a San Francisco-based marketing agency that uses psychology to figure out the best way for brands to convey their message. eMarketer’s Sean Creamer spoke with Trautmann about how brands are leveraging mobile to elicit emotional responses from their audience.

Some content is so flat and boring that it can be hard to read.  No one wants to be faced with an article that is corporate, uninspiring, and feels like it has been written by a robot.  Behind every brand is a human being that is passionate about the industry they work in and is driven by their area of expertise.  But how do we make the human side of a brand come across? Being authentic in your content marketing efforts is key.

So if brands started out as labels for ‘stuff’ and now it’s becoming apparent that we’re generally into less ‘stuff’, what do brands need to do to keep thriving? Are they now redundant or do they have a new role to play? We went about finding out with a five phase study: Creating Cultural Value.

Every brand has a generalized framework for approaching consumers or customers. It usually goes something like this: First, assess the landscape, then define the prospect (“Who”); figure out what we want to say (“What”), and determine the best ways and means to communicate that message (“How”).  ATL, Who, What, How. Pretty standard.  This framework is so pervasive, so robust, and so fundamental that no one ever questions it. It has worked for a long time. You might ask, if it’s so great, why is brand advertising having so much trouble?

U.S. Hispanics are more prone to smartphone distracted driving than the general population, according to AT&T* It Can Wait research. 83% of Hispanics admit to using their smartphones behind the wheel. That compares with 71% of Americans as a whole.  

igital expertise in security, as well as web and mobile development, were most in demand for executives in the US and Europe during Q4 2015, according to research. Within a few years, competency in analytics and big data will be a more crucial skill needed.

U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce President Javier Palomarez once described Hispanic entrepreneurs as “America’s business future.” Mark his words because it’s looking as if he’s right. Not only is the Hispanic and Latino community expected to make up a third of the entire U.S. population by 2050, but this demographic is also creating businesses at 15 times the national rate today, according to a report from analytics firm Geoscape and the USHCC.

Nearly 75% of global respondents, on average, say a brand’s country of origin is as important as or more important than nine other purchasing drivers, including selection/choice, price, function and quality, according to findings from the Nielsen Global Brand-Origin Survey releasedy.

It was the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death this weekend.  It’s quite an achievement to be remembered for what you wrote over 400 years later. The British bard was obviously an enormously gifted wordsmith.  I was reminded of the importance of wordsmithing as I was working with a client on process, architecture and organizational structure.  We jointly creating a new approach to allocating budgets, defining target audiences and creating integrated marketing plans. But we soon realized that language stood in the way of clarity.

The hype around artificial intelligence (AI) is ramping up, especially as big tech companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook, IBM and Microsoft attempt to commercialize its use. Agencies are also starting to figure out how they can leverage AI to make their clients’ marketing and advertising efforts more effective. eMarketer’s Bryan Yeager spoke with Josh Sutton, global head of the artificial intelligence practice at Publicis.Sapient, to demystify how AI is used for marketing and what its future may hold.

Over the past decade, U.S. Multicultural consumers drove over 100% of total economic expenditure growth, and now comprise ~50% of the Millennial and youth populations. If these are priority segments, you will find our new eBook very useful. It helps marketers evolve their strategies to succeed in an increasingly Multicultural marketplace.

Forget Mad Men. Today’s marketers are more likely to be math men and women. They plumb the depths of Big Data with advanced analytical tools. They buy and use dazzling new software—some spend more on technology in a given year than their companies’ IT departments. They are hot on the trail of marketing’s holy grail, the ability to measure return on investment (ROI) on every campaign.

Our industry, indeed our world, could accurately be described as obsessed with Big Data. It’s an oft cited solution to many problems, be they ones of branding, advertising, customer understanding or even healthcare, city planning and finding love.

Post 3rd Open Enrollment CMS figures by ethnic & racial group are yet to be published by CMS, however, as of last Fall, most states had yet to enroll more than half of their Hispanic & African American uninsured ACA eligibles. But surprisingly, Multicultural segments eligibles are surprisingly less risky than White Non-Hispanic eligibles.

Spending on brand activation marketing in the U.S. rose 5.5 percent in 2015 to more than $560 billion, accounting for almost 60 percent of advertisers’ budgets, according to a new study by the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) in partnership with PQ Media. This year, brand activation is expected to grow 6 percent, to nearly $600 billion.

Nearly a third of senior advertisers in North America are familiar with people-based targeting and know the concept well, according to February 2016 research. A further 39% said they have a general idea of what it is.

Technology continues to be on the fast track—from the advent of the connected cars to recent improvements in virtual reality gear. These changes are shifting consumer behavior and influencing how people experience video content.