Marketing

The tracking of consumer perceptions – and the overall equity built from these perceptions – is a vital part of understanding and building a consistent, compelling 360° brand experience. Getting a fast read of what people believe and feel about a brand, and how this is impacted by the communications they see, enables marketers to quickly course-correct – flexing and changing messaging and creative to better deliver on brand goals.

Failure is a common innovation outcome; 85% of new products are ultimately unsuccessful. While there are many factors at play, decline in the second and third years in market can largely be attributed to the “launch ‘em and leave ‘em” philosophy of many manufacturers today. Brands tend to focus less on new products after the first year in market, leading to significant declines in sales.

According to research from a CMO Council survey of 276 marketers in the first half of the year, there’s a new focus on finding high-performance marketing partners with specialized knowledge and business acumen. An overwhelming 83 percent of clients surveyed are looking for unique skill sets and specialized capabilities not found in most ad agencies or media buying firms.

This report, Millward Brown Digital’s 2nd annual Getting Digital Right study, provides an overview of the state of digital. With input from over 400 marketers spanning brands, media companies, and agencies, we summarize their insights and perspectives on getting digital right.

There’s no doubt that advertisers are funneling money into digital, mobile and social (DMS). However, recent research suggests they’re still struggling to deliver audience across these channels.

While 2000 didn’t bring us the end of the Internet predicted by Y2K, technology has transformed dramatically in the intervening years. We’ve gone from the earliest smartphones to roughly three-quarters of Americans owning a smartphone. And technology isn’t the only thing that’s changed. The composition of the country is shifting: 92% of the total growth in U.S. population from 2000 to 2014 came from multicultural groups. With these changes, our lifestyles and consumer habits have also evolved.

It’s amazing how many things we don’t question, how many critical assumptions powerfully shape the world around us that are based on muscle memory and reasons that we forget no longer exist.

Here’s the thing. When I said much of a businesses performance comes down to luck, that sounded disparaging. But it’s far from it. Luck could also be defined as the circumstances of our environment: the factors that lie beyond our control.

Lately, as we have grown accustomed to, there have been some articles suggesting that the use of Spanish among Hispanics may be dying out. I have been hearing very similar comments and reading similar studies since I started in this industry ―almost thirty years ago. In fact, I can even quote an ex-colleague saying, “Chica, don’t waste your time in the Hispanic advertising industry ―it will disappear in the next five to ten years.”  by Gloria Constanza – Partner and Chief Contact Strategist / d expósito & Partners

For a few years, media agency group Havas has published an annual index of “Meaningful Brands.” The index measures if consumers could see themselves living without brands X, Y or Z. Turns out they can. And also without A, B, C and pretty much the rest of the alphabet.

When asked about the biggest challenges to multichannel marketing, nearly a quarter of respondents said they lacked the time and resources to develop and execute multichannel campaigns, and the same percentage struggled to get buy-in at the board level. Similarly, other issues related to a lack of investment in tools needed to manage multichannel campaigns as well as a limited understanding about the process as a whole.

Target’s #SinTraducción advertising campaign caught my attention recently. The ads incorporate Spanish language songs and lullabies to try to resonate with their Hispanic customers. An interesting aspect of these ads is that they’re running English and Spanish versions of them but in both versions the songs are in Spanish.

It’s long been the mantra of marketing specialists to build brands that are so attractive and magnetic that people are drawn irresistibly to them, like moths to a flame. In truth, it’s much more likely that the brands we’re all developing and running are much less important to people than we might like to think.

Is Brand Cohesion our future marketing currency?  We are in the middle of a global brand marketing crisis

A brand name can be one of the most valuable assets a company possesses. It can lend credibility to product efficacy and provide an assurance of quality, letting consumers know what they can expect when they buy a product. But because brand building can be costly and time consuming, it can be extremely advantageous for established brands to lend their name to a new item in the same category through line extensions.

Young men today play a wider variety of roles than previous generations of men did at their age. Slaine Jenkins, senior manager at Insight Strategy Group, spoke with eMarketer’s Alison McCarthy about the multidimensional millennial man and what brands should consider when marketing to him.

BuzzCity shares findings from its latest quarterly research into the digital consumption habits of mobile users around the world. The report benchmarks findings from those in 2014 to analyse the changing trends and usage habits of today’s connected consumers.

Millennials are the most coveted demographic target group today among healthcare marketers.

Though the Great Recession’s sluggish job market pushed some mothers into stay-at-home status, a large majority are in the workforce.

Teva, ShopStyle and Dr. Pepper are recent examples of brands and companies leveraging influencers to drive engagement and awareness, and usage isn’t slowing.