Agency

Despite the economic downturn wrought by COVID-19, over 75% of local US businesses have remained open during the pandemic — with many  looking to adopt effective, fresh marketing and advertising strategies, according to a recent study by Viamedia.

It wasn’t too long ago that developing and launching a truly breakthrough product was largely dependent on a company’s size and brand stature. Yes, there were exceptions, but they were just that—exceptions. Today, amid widespread information access and connectivity, the scales have tipped, and while massive scale and big budgets remain valuable in launching breakthrough innovations, they’re not necessarily essential.

In this third study of advertising Buyers, IAB focuses on Upfronts/NewFronts spend, plus the impact of COVID on total advertising spend for the 2nd half of the year.

The Covid-19-induced shift toward digital tools and interaction channels has helped dispel four key myths about B2B selling.

According to a 700 media and advertising professionals conducted just prior to Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter activism, 43% of Black, Hispanic/Latino and Asian professionals in the advertising and media business agreed that the industry is doing its best to advance diversity, equality and inclusion. By comparison, 60% of Caucasian professionals in our community agreed. Only 12% of white people in the ad/media business believed current efforts are insufficient vs. 35% of Blacks, 31% of Hispanics/Latinos and 21% of Asians. The remaining group offered no opinion.

Multicultural Excellence Award winners showcase insight and learning from the brands taking the strategic steps to ensure their engagement with multicultural consumer segments is relevant, creative and compelling.

Media owners’ advertising revenues will decrease by $42 billion in 2020, from $582 billion to $540 billion, as advertising spending shrinks due to the severe economic recession triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, as GDP is expected to contract between -5% and -12% across the world’s largest markets. Global advertising revenues will decrease by an estimated -7%, as the heavy, double-digit decline of linear ad sales (linear TV, print, linear radio, OOH, cinema), -16% to $238 billion, will be mitigated by the stability of digital formats: +1% to $302 billion.

Last week’s Cog Blog post, on what the agency of the post-pandemic future might look like generated some interesting feedback. This week’s post tries to provide some suggestions (answers would be presumptive) to the points raised, based purely on my own experience. I’ve grouped these around four of the most popular topic areas.  By Brian Jacobs

​The expansive role of the chief marketing officer is filled with possibility, but many CMOs lack the confidence to truly engage with the C-suite. How can CMOs build confidence to elevate their influence and fully realize their role’s potential?

The famous “Got Milk?” campaign started with a deprivation experiment. You can find the history here, but, in essence, participants in a focus group were asked not to consume milk for a week prior to the research. It occurs to me that the Great Lockdown has forced many of us to give up our normal behaviour and brands. The question is: what happens when lockdown ends?  By Nigel Hollis

I’ve been working in multicultural market research for over twenty years. I remember, in 2000, when Hispanics overtook African Americans as the largest minority group in the United States. I remember the Language Wars, when we all argued about what the right language was to reach LatinX people (Hell, we certainly didn’t see the term LatinX coming in 2000!), a population that was becoming increasingly U.S. born. I chimed in during the whole Total Market debate, the “we can reach everybody” phase; it never seemed right to me.  By David R.Morse – New American Dimensions

Marketers, looking for increased productivity and transparency in their media investments, are calling for sweeping changes and improvements in the media ecosystem. This includes transformative changes to the upfront marketplace.

d expósito & Partners launched the “Lucha vs Virus” PSA campaign to remind people that the battle against COVID-19 has not yet been won and that everyone should still wear a mask.  HispanicAd.com sat down with Paco Olavarrieta, Chief Creative Officer at the agency, to understand the genesis of the campaign and what it aims to achieve.

Gen Z Deconstructed: The Shifting Tides of Race & Diversity is a continuation of our partnership with The University of Texas, Stan Richards School of Advertising and Public Relations. It focuses on how the Gen Z generation is fighting for equality and shifting society as we’ve known it – more significantly than any proceeding generation. Today we are already witnessing how this generation’s voice is finally helping force individuals to hear, listen, and understand the inequities of those who have been oppressed and deserve social justice.

Every day we are thinking about how to drive growth by conditioning demand in the market for our brand(s) over the other brands that we compete with.  By Bill Pink – Head of Global Analytic Leads / Kantar

On April 16, the National Association of Hispanic Journalist (NAHJ) board announced, in a press release posted on NAHJ.org, that it had voted to cancel national board elections and extend, for another year, the terms of board members, including those of the president and the rest of the executive board. This move encompassed both elected and appointed board members.

The 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer Spring Update: Trust and the Covid-19 Pandemic shows a significant rise in Americans’ trust in both government and business. Since January, trust in government has risen nine points, and trust in business has risen six points.

With Women’s History Month upon us, there’s no better time to recognize that efforts to increase gender diversity in the boardroom are finally beginning to yield results.

Healthcare Ready, a national nonprofit organization focused on health preparedness and response,  released findings from its fifth annual “National Domestic Preparedness Survey,” revealing that participants’ concern about some disasters has increased significantly. For example, concern about an emerging disease impacting communities quadrupled over 2019 numbers. These findings were illuminating when stratified by race, which revealed a heightened concern about the threat of emerging diseases among black communities, who have born a disproportionate impact from COVID-19.

To become more inclusive and LGBTQ+-friendly, brands need to lead with actions rather than just words. Making statements isn’t enough anymore. Instead, culture needs to change from within a brand, not just within its creative copy.  How can this happen?