Marketing

The Internet has become an indispensable tool for marketers, yet there are still gaps in understanding its role in shaping how consumers choose among brands. With the help of a powerful data set, we have been studying the relationship between the level of digitization across the consumer’s decision journey and the likelihood that a consumer will select a brand after considering and evaluating its qualities.

In the 10 states that constitute half of the consumer Buying Power and the US GDP, Multicultural (M/C) segments are near HALF of the overall population, they generate over 90% of the population growth and almost 40% of the growth in Buying Power, that’s why we call them the ‘Top 10 Total Market (TM) States’. Over 75% of the U.S. newly employed & incremental personal income generated in the entire U.S. in 2014 was also generated by Multicultural; concentrated in White & Gray collar jobs.

Marketing leaders report their most positive outlook since the recession hit six years ago, according to new results from The CMO Survey.

Multicultural new hires are driving the growth of overall U.S. employment while WNH drop off the labor rosters.  By Santiago Solutions Group

Judged by their actions and words, it seems many industry folks believe that “media usage” is directly linked with a corresponding opportunity to reach those people with ads. On the contrary: The two things are not the same, and believing it won’t make it so.

The Economist Intelligence Unit, commissioned by Marketo, conducted a survey that includes responses from 478 CMOs and senior marketing executives worldwide to get their perspective on marketing’s rapid transformation and how to ride the tidal wave of change.

We can’t fault you; we’ve all been trained to do it. In every business, large or small, we continue chasing it. When will we realize what we might be looking for, might not be there?

Brands that innovate by combining “Better for You” alternatives combined with some ethnic flair tend to achieve 3 to 5 times faster buyer growth than the mere Total Market (TM)  0.3% average. In other words, Healthy-minded consumers want to join in on the fun, and innovative brands are helping them bake the cake and eat it too…literally! The three big high buyer growth, high wellness score winners for Total Market are:  Organic everything, Ready-to-serve dips, and Ethnic Ready to Eat. What this means is that growth will not come from just adding a jalapeño flavor to your product, but it MUST also be good for you (Organic Spicy Nachos Chips….please!).  Courtesy of Santiago Solutions Group.

With all the buzz surrounding Millennials, marketers should keep their eye on Latina moms. This influential demographic controls the majority of Hispanic purchasing power, is growing in numbers, and is looking for content that is tailored to them.  by Lee Vann / Captura Group

All the excitement about technology and data in the marketing ecosystem creates new opportunities  — but opportunity depends on change, and change requires new roles and skills. What roles are we giving up when we create these new opportunities?  Will your job be threatened if you don’t know how to proceed?

By now, it’s become obvious that native advertising will continue on a strong growth trajectory over the coming years.

Ola Källenius is a self-confessed “car guy” who still harkens back to being “that kid with the dream of driving that Mercedes star.” The Swedish-born Källenius joined the then Daimler-Benz AG in a management associate program in 1993, was named executive director of McLaren Automotive in 2003, and became a member of the Divisional Board of Mercedes-Benz Cars, responsible for marketing and sales, in 2013.

Fractional Attribution is the new science of figuring out which part of the media mix drove what kind of effect on the sale of any advertised product.

Consumers won’t accept anything besides a good customer experience from start to finish, and marketers continue to cater to such demands. In a January 2015 study by Econsultancy in association with Adobe, client-side marketers worldwide ranked the customer experience as the single most exciting opportunity in 2015, at 22%.

While the digital age has encouraged more consumers to shop and browse products on the web, physical stores are still primary destinations for shoppers, according to PwC’s annual consumer survey, Total Retail: Retailers and the Age of Disruption.

Depending on who you’re talking to at the time, it could be that you’ve heard February 14th is a great time of year to make that special someone understand just how much they mean to you… or that it’s an overly merchandized cog in an insidious corporate machine bent on monetizing as many days of the year as possible.

Everybody is talking about native advertising as the future, but it’s a meaningless term that spans two totally different concepts. How about we define it properly? 

Data can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be.  The fact is, most marketers were trained in marketing, which is more akin to psychology than it is to economics or mathematics.  That was the case until the last few years.  Now marketers are being tasked to be psychologists as well as mathematicians, technologists, statisticians and more.  Pretty much the only job we don’t have to do is technical development — but just you wait, because that can’t be far behind.

While reading the recent Ehrenberg-Bass Institute of Marketing Science’s report “Shopping Takes Only Seconds…In-Store and Online,” I was again reminded of how many marketing executives have an unrealistic and overly brand-centric view of how important their brands are in people’s everyday lives.

Americans often have their preferences. But just how often do Americans reach for “name-brand” products over the store brand options available? That depends on exactly what they’re reaching for.