Marketing

Data. Data everywhere.  I’m borrowing from Charles Dickens here, but the vast expanse of data available to us can feel overwhelming at times, and the challenge of interpreting the data can feel a bit like wading through the foggy landscape he once described.  By James Oates, U.K. Client Delivery Lead

Hispanic voters are poised to play a potentially pivotal role as to whether the Democrats or the Republicans control the US Congress after the midterm elections. Hispanic voters have grown as a percentage of the electorate, largely as a result of young Hispanic-Americans attaining voting age.

One of the reasons why culture is underestimated in marketing is because it is too complex and dynamic. They are different components that make up culture for individuals: music, tradition, religion, customs, language and furthermore. Culture is always morphing in meaning and changing over time.  By Regina Sanquintin – Florida State University

In her latest article in Marketing Week Helen Edwards declares, “Unless you’re ahead of the consumer, you can’t be ahead of the competition.” And she is absolutely right. The problem is that too many marketers seem to have defaulted to blindly following their consumers, rather than trying to stay ahead of them.  by Nigel Hollis

Who would want to be at an agency these days?  Pitch after pitch after pitch, controversy after controversy, new vendors every time you turn around, competition from (comparatively) new entrants.  It’s no life for someone after a quiet life, that’s for sure.  And now along comes a new threat: clients taking parts of the media agency role in-house, reducing their reliance on their partners and threatening agency revenue.  By Brian Jacobs

Businesses are tasking marketing pros with more responsibilities than ever before. Sales and advertising are now commonly combined with marketing as well as public relations, digital, social media and everything else in that arena. With so many demands, marketing professionals are leaping to opportunities that either match more appropriately with their exact niche or are finding they’re on a hamster wheel and are ready to have more peace with a new organization.

For years, folks in the ad industry have talked wistfully of the day when TV advertising would be bought through automated online interfaces on auction-based bid marketplaces, as search, social and digital display advertising have been bought since the middle 2000s.

Marketers are drowning in information. And they often scrap excess data rather than sift through and make sense of it.

Effective brand marketing increases the probability of consumers either picking a brand or paying more for a brand when it is time to buy.  But what data and analytic approaches help us to understand the influence of brand marketing on sales?  By Bill Pink / Kantar Millward Brown- Head of Brand Guidance Analytics in North America

When Unilever CMO Keith Weed announced at June’s Cannes Lions festival that the leading CPG company would no longer partner with influencers who buy followers, it was a wake-up call to the industry about the rise of fraud in the practice of influencer marketing. Defined by eMarketer as marketing that “identifies and activates individuals who can sway the brand preferences, buying decisions, and loyalty of the broader population,” in practical terms the tactic also refers to how companies compensate celebrities, social media “stars,” or industry experts to create content on behalf of brands and endorse products — typically paying them based on their follower count.

he issue of strategic and operational alignment between sales and marketing is not a new topic in the B2B realm, and most organizations agree on its importance, at least in theory. Why, then, is it so challenging to achieve that alignment in practice?

I am always amazed at the power of a good meme, but the idea that humans have an attention span shorter than a goldfish has had a disastrous effect on the advertising industry. Worse, it now appears that there is no real evidence to back up the original claim.  by Nigel Hollis

The latest headlines, based on the Association of National Advertisers research, notes that three out of four marketers have in-house capabilities. The same research also acknowledges that 90% of ANA members still have a relationship with an agency, proving that agencies endure as we undergo the most massive transformation the industry has ever experienced. It’s also worth pointing out that some of these respondents may work at in-house agencies-the industry should be wary of reports where respondents are rating themselves.

The landscape of advertising is constantly evolving. New technologies, Millennials, aging Baby Boomers, and shifting social climates shape and re-shape the way advertising is consumed and perceived.

Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc. (MMNA) announced a new Hispanic marketing campaign to support the brand’s 2019 crossover utility (CUV) family.

For memorability and emotional connections, nothing beats a good story.

Throughout the history of mass consumer advertising, creative teams drove the bus while the media team played a support role. The advent of programmatic digital flipped that model on its head. Today it is the media team that leads every digital marketing effort, while the creative team has been relegated to a supporting role.

What exactly separates people from machines?  Two things, actually: creativity and empathy.  No matter what gets developed in AI, these are the two elements that can keep the agency services business alive, and keep marketers busy for years to come.

Reading Joel Trethowan’s article ‘Need, culture and experience – three sides to the brand relevance triangle’  reminded me of the lengthy discussions predating the launch of BrandDynamics. The old BrandDynamics pyramid is long gone, and maybe the word “relevance” should be as well.  by Nigel Hollis

America’s multicultural audiences are on the leading edge of the tech adoption curve. From 2013 to 2018, Asian, Latino, and black audiences have been ahead of the streaming curve. The average TV viewer spends 43% of time with live TV, 35% with streamed content. Latinx, blacks, and Asians split their time almost evenly, with about four in every 10 hours spent on live, another four in 10 on streaming, and the rest on vod, dvr, or dvds.  By Adriana Waterston- Senior Vice President of Insights and Strategy at Horowitz Research