Marketing

The days of one or two great ads playing to the masses on a single channel are over. Today, many ads go to a dizzying array of screens and devices. It’s no wonder that marketing teams and their field and agency partners are struggling to keep track with simple spreadsheets. Wrangling brand stories and keeping track of who has permission to touch them, prepare them, tag them, and, ultimately, play them according to strict guidelines covering talent and rights terms is a high-stakes game that calls for a sophisticated, intuitive, and collaborative solution.

The rapid turnover of CMOs today does not mean they are underperforming. Instead, it may stem from unrealistic expectations on the part of CEOs and boards, who often don’t know which key attributes they should be looking for in a marketing leader.

I find my Mum’s idea of a salad totally uninspiring. Sorry Mum! But then, she is working with whatever Waitrose and their growers can most easily supply. For instance, the average supermarket tomato is designed to travel well and look good but, as a result, it does not taste of much. A similar affliction applies to a lot of marketing today: it is efficient but not necessarily effective.  by Nigel Hollis

When it was time to launch this year’s back-to-school marketing campaign, the clothing company Old Navy knew it had to switch gears. Typically, the San Francisco-based clothier, which is owned by Gap Inc., devotes its marketing efforts to the moms who purchase clothes for their sons and daughters.

Traditional celebrities built their influence and fame through traditional channels such as television, radio, magazines, movies, music, or other fields of talent. They have fan bases across all age groups, income levels, geographic locations, and a varied general public. Internet celebrities, on the other hand, built their presence through non-traditional media channels such as social media, blogs, vlogs, and other internet-based platforms. They have subscribers on various platforms including YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitch TV; reaching niche audiences who have specific interests.

It’s about time women were portrayed in media accurately. When it comes to sports, there is a misconception that women’s sports aren’t popular. This isn’t actually true: Female athletes just aren’t getting the attention they deserve from the media — which are two different notions.

You’ve heard about multicultural societies and groups, but have you thought about multicultural individuals and what they bring to organizations? Multicultural individuals — such as Chinese-Canadians, Turkish-Germans, or Arab-Americans — commonly think, perceive, behave, and respond to global workplace issues in more complex ways than monocultural individuals.

The ANA’s Marketing Word of the Year for 2019 hits particularly close to home for many marketers and the consumers they target.

Lynn Blashford, marketing VP at hamburger restaurant chain White Castle, doesn’t target customers according to their age. Nonetheless, Blashford is keenly aware of millennials’ craving for authenticity. “They have an appreciation for nostalgia when the story is authentic, and that works to our advantage because we have a heritage that goes back 98 years,” she says.

Being a two-way feedback exchange between a committed client and an active agency, the agency evaluation process could be better described as a relationship evaluation. And while much has been written about agency evaluations from the client’s perspective, there’s been little coverage of the agency’s side and its specific practices and behaviors.

In a new KPMG study, “The Truth about Customer Loyalty,” we asked close to 19,000 consumers across 20 countries – including 2,000 in the U.S. – for their views on brand loyalty. Their responses clearly show that loyalty is not dead, but it is evolving and there is a lot of headroom for change.

A new white paper released by five leading advertising standards organizations highlights the importance for brand safety of adopting effective identification measures across the digital advertising supply chain. Released by the Brand Safety Institute (BSI) in coordination with Ad-ID®, EIDR, Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG), and IAB Tech Lab, “Identification: It’s as Easy as ABC” outlines the full scope of existing and planned identifiers for advertising assets, businesses, and consumers.

Languages are constantly evolving to suit the needs of its users, this can clearly be seen when looking at the Hispanic/Latino population living in the United States. This segment of the population has blended their language, cultural heritage, and the experience of being Latino in the U.S. with American culture in order to navigate and simplify their day-to-day lives. As a result, trends such as Spanglish and code-switching have become a natural way of communicating for U.S. Hispanic consumers. We will discuss what each of these trends are, as well as the implications that they have for advertising to Hispanic consumers.  By Isaac Levine  – Hispanic Marketing – Florida State University

Far be it from some sort of over-arching, existential, or politically-charged claim, the statement that “all marketing is cultural” is demonstrably true and inescapable. Whereas traditional schools of thought may have held that marketing is detached from human nature or consumer interaction, marketing actually constitutes a form of communication which is inseparable from its means of creation and from its audience. In this sense, all marketing certainly is cultural; marketing (especially integrated marketing) is a form of communication; all communication is informed by culture; and cultural aspects inform both the creation of and receptivity to marketing communication.  By Chloe Lane / Florisa State University

IAB research reveals that, in contrast to the most recent wave of high-valuation startups, direct brands are focusing on profitability and customer satisfaction ahead of market share. In fact, 90 percent of DTC brands report that they are already profitable.

Cultural intelligence is an invaluable way to cut through the clutter and deliver campaign results. That’s why, as the media landscape becomes increasingly fragmented and mobile audiences grow harder to reach, cultural intelligence should sit at the core of content production and distribution.

Marketers love to talk about personas, those ideal customer archetypes as revealed by online activities and other markers. But perhaps the most overlooked attribute of personas may be purely demographic: age groups.

eMarketer junior analysts Blake Droesch and Lucy Koch join principal analyst Jillian Ryan to discuss whether companies still need a traditional CMO. What are the new responsibilities of the new CMO, and what can they do to thrive? Jillian, Blake and Lucy also talk about the smartphone shipment rebound and whether people prefer to watch the same content separately, or different content together.

New and ground-breaking marketing often grabs our attention. But the evidence points to consistency as the key to brand growth. How can brands be consistent yet still attract their audience’s attention?  by Myles George – Director / NeedScope International

Digital marketing is about to enter more challenging territory. Building on the vast increase in consumer power brought on by the digital age, marketing is headed toward being on demand—not just always “on,” but also always relevant, responsive to the consumer’s desire for marketing that cuts through the noise with pinpoint delivery.