Marketing

As Gen Zs have replaced Gen Y in high schools, their approach to college admissions and their perception of the value of a degree are shifting dramatically from that of previous generations.

Exceptional service? Customers like it, and they want more. In May 2015 polling by Harris Poll for Lithium, 82% of US corporate executives said that customers’ expectations of their company were “somewhat” (47%) or “much” (35%) higher than they were three years ago. And it’s not easy to keep up, as nearly six in 10 said it was “somewhat” (50%) or “very” (9%) difficult for their company to please customers.

The sports world was rocked a couple weeks ago when the FIFA scandal broke out as the U.S. Department of Justice accused the international soccer governing organization of 47 counts of corruption charges, including racketeering, wire fraud, money laundering, and bribery. Much like valuing a person’s right of publicity, a serious scandal can negatively impact a celebrity’s brand value. FIFA’s reputation has suffered a similar blow, also resulting in a reduction of the value of the FIFA brand’s persona.

According to a new report from AHAA: the Voice of Hispanic Marketing, the Hispanic advertising share in the restaurant industry has soared to 11.4 percent from 2010 to 2014, while the Hispanic share of overall ad spend among the top 500 advertisers increased to 8.5 percent. This explosive growth indicates restaurant marketers understand the revenue that can be generated by the Latino consumer – in fact, this category has boosted their aggregate Hispanic advertising spend by 68 percent to $559 million in 2014.

Brand promises are a dime a dozen, but few companies have mastered the ability to engage their entire organization to deliver a truly unified, authentic and consistent customer experience that underscores the brand claim.

Intent data can help marketers understand and target consumers appropriately during the path to purchase.

We have a complex psychological relationship with pricing. A new brain scanning study out of Harvard and Stanford starts to pick apart the dynamics of that relationship.

But what about today’s Hispanics?  Will they go the way of prior immigrants and amalgamate into the category of “white,” “black” or “Asian?”  By David Morse / New America Dimensions

Federal policy defines “Hispanic” not as a race, but as an ethnicity. And it prescribes that Hispanics can in fact be of any race. But these census findings suggest that standard U.S. racial categories might either be confusing or not provide relevant options for Hispanics to describe their racial identity.  By Ana Gonzalez-Barrera and Mark Hugo Lopez

Dr. Robert Heath is a professor at the University of Bath and a pioneer in establishing the value of emotion in advertising. His research includes the development of the Low Attention Processing Model of advertising, as well as an advertising research system known as the CEP® (Cognitive Emotive Power Test), which analyzes Information and Emotive Power. Nielsen is collaborating with Dr. Heath to incorporate CEP into its new TV Brand Effect module, Creative Evaluation. Creative Evaluation will allow marketers to measure how consumers are connecting with their ad compared to competitor ads and across key demographics.

Our information-seeking and health management behaviors are rapidly changing, offering many new ways for brands to engage with customers. We can no longer accept that “our regulated environment” is entirely to blame for our laggard adoption of new marketing tools. As stewards of change, and helping our clients define strategies, we have to address the recurring question, What is holding pharma back from truly embracing what is here today?

Research indicates that consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands lead other industries when it comes to digital video ad impressions and views.

When studying young consumers, we look at more than just Millennials overall. In order to understand the generation, we focus in on males, females, college students, parents, and more to understand the way that their behavior and preferences might vary. So of course our monthly surveys of young consumers include stats on teens as well—and we can tell you that there are definitely ways that they differ from their older peers. They have different taste in music. They text more.

When I was a teen, getting a job usually meant one thing: flipping burgers at a local fast-food chain. Today, teens are just as likely to launch their own businesses as to take an entry-level job.

Univision Communications Inc. (UCI) released The Why? Behind The Buy™ U.S. Hispanic Shopper Study that provides valuable insights into U.S. Hispanic shopper behavior. As the U.S. Hispanic population grows, this report will help CPG companies and retailers develop marketing strategies to best attract and win with this important consumer segment.

According to a new report from AHAA: the Voice of Hispanic Marketing, pharmaceutical marketers increased their aggregate Hispanic advertising investment by only 4 percent between 2010 and 2014 to $165 million. Among the top 500 U.S. advertisers, the pharmaceutical category allocation to Hispanic dedicated media remained basically unchanged at 2.5 percent, which is significantly less than the national average of 8.5 percent.

The US consumer packaged goods (CPG) and consumer products industry will spend $2.33 billion on mobile advertising this year, representing 47.0% of digital ad spending in the industry, eMarketer estimates.

I’m fascinated by the weekly deluge of studies and columns about the preferences and behaviors of the Millennials. While it is good to keep a pulse on future generations, I think that there is a lot of undue attention being thrust on this very small corner of the larger consumer picture. My caution is not one to ignore the Millennials but to realize that while there is a lot of noise in this area, much of the data stands contrary to the amount of attention.

Gathering data is critical for marketers, but in order to act on insights gleaned from all of the information collected, the right tools and skills are necessary. An April 2015 study by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) and Winterberry Group found that while marketers acknowledged the demand for data integration, they were behind in implementing the technology and training needed to do so.

One of the big talking points over the last few weeks has been the flood of agency reviews announced by many large U.S.-based and/or global advertisers. I think these reviews are driven by a combination of factors, not just the much-publicized murkiness of many media agency dealings.