Marketing

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) and startup brands have been eating away at the margins of long-established legacy brands for years. From belts to booze to Keto snacks, no industry sector is safe from the onslaught, which is just beginning.

Younger generations are more likely to buy products based on influencer recommendations, as well as consider them reliable. However, these demographics still see influencers as less trustworthy than other sources.

As companies look to improve their multicultural marketing in 2020 and beyond, it’s time to bring new depth to the conversation and address colorism.

The leadership challenge of balancing short- and long-term business pressures, and doing so in an ethical way in which both a company and its stakeholders can thrive, is a challenge that is well-known to all business leaders.

Super Bowl advertising has come a long way. This year’s commercials were no longer limited to male targets with creative using guy humor to get a good laugh and be memorable. The categories represented were no longer dominated by the more traditional ones, like beer, soft drinks, snacks and automobiles, but included technology, beauty and, of course, politics. Female-targeted spots were in full force, with empowering, #FutureIsFemale-themed creative including Secret, Olay and Genesis; as were messages of sustainability from Saucony and SodaStream. The casting selection made major strides in terms of diversity, with spots featuring protagonists representing the Black, Asian, Hispanic, 50-plus and LGBTQ+ communities.  By Louis Maldonado – partner at d EXPOSITO & PARTNERS

By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc / lmmiami.com/

• Here’s Gonzalo’s take on the big game’s advertising extravaganza. Methodology: I made a point of watching the whole thing the way an average Joe or Jane would: untethered to the biases of an industry insider. I might have missed a few spots due to bathroom breaks or sheer disinterest, but what you will read below is unaided recall off the top of my head, which, if you ask me, is the one and only way advertising should be judged and measured. Then again, I’ve been in this racket far too long so the professional critique is there.

For the second year, Bain Media Lab and AI pioneer Hive partnered to analyze marketing within and around the Super Bowl using Mensio, an AI-powered TV advertising and sponsorship analytics platform developed in partnership between Bain and Hive.

I have to thank those nice people at Mediacom for sharing ‘Two minutes with Simon Peel, Global Media Director at adidas’. In the video, Peel shares his thoughts on the power of a shared idea, and while he might be thinking that a shared idea of what makes things cool encourages people to buy a pair of sneakers, I think it applies to all strong brands.  by Nigel Hollis

Product innovators and marketers spend an exorbitant amount of time and effort perfecting their products before they bring them to market. So, after they spend all this time behind the scenes developing the packaging, positioning the marketing materials and finalizing the product itself, how do they know when the innovation is ready for launch?

The great hope for digital/social media was addressable advertising, with its lower creation and production costs coupled with higher advertising effectiveness. How could one argue with this formula, particularly while the consuming public was retreating from broadcast advertising? Unrecognized by digital/social enthusiasts, though, are the hidden costs of complexity, which today threaten to erode the marketing effectiveness of advertisers and agencies alike.

I always used to say that the people that created a great TV ad got fed up with seeing it long before its intended audience did. After all marketers and agency team see the content on a regular basis, normal people do not. But, on reflection, this problem applies all aspects of marketing activity. Maybe all marketers should remember the adage, ‘If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’.  by Nigel Hollis

Given all the hoopla about virtual assistants it seems so yesterday to be talking about the importance of visual impressions in marketing, but not everyone has a virtual assistant, and even fewer use them to make purchases on a regular basis. Most purchases are still made in a physical environment and marketers still need to make sure people recognize and respond to their brand in that context.  by Nigel Hollis

In VAB’s latest quarterly report surveying the video landscape it updated the media consumption habits of major demographic segments based on Q2 ’19 data. It also updated its comprehensive segmentation analysis highlighting the who, what, where, when, and how by device in order to continue exploring the nuances that exist within the video ecosystem.

2020 feels very much like a year of recalibration for the tech-driven future. The news is everywhere about public attitudes towards the commercial use of personal data, the manipulation of information, and the real dangers of network and data breaches.

Brands have never been more important than they are today. Consequently, brands are under more pressure than ever before. Age, religion, and geography are boundaries that no longer hold a monopoly over defining communities — brands have risen into that echelon to play the role of uniter.

Do brands care enough about fraud?  Ask most brand managers and their agencies and digital publishing partners that question, and the answer will be a qualified yes.

2020 is the year when the majority of all Americans under seventeen years old will be from a minority background, a process that will culminate with a so-called “minority-majority” population by the mid-2040s. These demographic changes will bring about a significant transformation to Corporate America. During the next few months, I will discuss some of these consequences in each article targeting one specific area of our business environment.  By Isaac Mizrahi- Co-President of ALMA

IZEA Worldwide, Inc. released the examination of earnings equality among social influencers. The report provides analysis of influencer earnings observed in IZEA’s online marketplace spanning 2014 to 2019. Data is comprised of negotiated rates between marketers and creators spanning the spectrum of micro-influencers to celebrities.

As a long-time cord cutter much of my real-time TV exposure happens in a hotel room, and, OMG, most ads these days seem to expect an immense amount of interest and attention from the audience. What are their creators thinking?  by Nigel Hollis

New global research released by Accenture and conducted by Forrester Consulting reveals an opportunity for chief marketing officers (CMOs) to expand their remit by assuming the role of CMO Collaborator. By ushering in new levels of collaboration across the C-suite, technology ecosystem and agency partners, CMOs can drive customer experience (CX), a proven source of growth in modern organizations today.