Agency

Republica Havas announced the appointment of Jason Wolske and Danny Alvarez as the agency’s Executive Creative Directors, effective immediately. Based out of Republica Havas’ Miami headquarters, Wolske and Alvarez will report to Luis Casamayor, Co-Founder, President and Chief Creative Officer. In the newly created roles, they will lead the agency’s creative team across a roster of major clients.

Nearly nine-in-10 (87%) of Gen Zers are worried for the environment and the planet, according to the 2019 Porter Novelli/Cone Gen Z Purpose Study. The study, surveying Americans ages 14-22, examines this emerging generation’s expectations of and attitudes toward company involvement in social and environmental issues – and the actions they are willing to take to positively impact topics they care about.

Internet advertising revenues in the United States totaled $57.9 billion for the half year (“HY”) of 2019, with Q2 2019 accounting for approximately $29.9 billion and Q1 2019 accounting for approximately $28.0 billion. Revenues for HY 2019 increased 16.9% over HY 2018 over HY 2018 with revenues of $49.5 billion.

Why brands must forge deeper, more personalized relationships with consumers for future growth.  By Valeria Piaggio, SVP and Head of Identity and Inclusion Insights at Kantar Consulting

A new report, The Older Population in Rural America: 2012-2016, shows that 17.5% of the rural population was 65 years and older compared to 13.8% in urban areas.

Traditionally, organizations haven’t viewed the customer experience as a singular thing owned by one particular person or department. That’s changed, as brands have worked to put customers at the forefront—and it’s given modern CMOs new importance as owners of that experience.

While marketers admit their future growth and success will rely on leveraging deeper relationships with customers, 43 percent surveyed by the CMO Council admit that their organizations identify “transactional” as being the top attribute and descriptor of their customers.

I realise that the idea of a ‘brand’ is one of those ill-defined concepts that causes endless confusion. We all use the same word and yet can assign it very different meanings. Given that a blog post is meant to stimulate discussion, I am going to propose a definition and we can see where things go from there.  by Nigel Hollis

In Norbert Weiner’s landmark 1950 book, The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society, he shares a model for the future of communications and media that is, in fact, applicable today. “Entropy,” he theorizes, “is the original sin.” It’s a tendency in the universe toward the loss of differentiation, and a failure to differentiate among multiple choices leads to chaos. To Weiner, chaos means complete stasis, where everything is so balanced that there is no differentiation of energy and effort, resulting in complete “uselessness, thus creating stasis and chaos.” Entropy is the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Like professional athletes at the mercy of team owners always looking for the next superstar, chief marketing officers appear to have the shortest tenure of any member of the C-suite. The median life span in the role was 28 months in 2018, dropping from the 31-month median tenure a year earlier, according to Spencer Stuart. While some departing CMOs are tapped for internal roles beyond marketing, such as general manager, more often than not they are shown the door and move on to their next gig.

Call her Ms. 305 Worldwide.  Karina Dobarro has been named Chief Strategist and the highest-ranking woman at a venture launched by Cuban-American rapper Pitbull (Armando Pérez) and Horizon Media founder and CEO Bill Koenigsberg. Named 305 Worldwide, a play on two of the musician’s nicknames (“Mr. 305” and “Mr. Worldwide”), the new marketing agency concentrates on quality storytelling for multicultural audiences.  By Court Stroud

Ethical behavior has long been a concern for responsible marketers. But in a digital age, just what constitutes ethical marketing has become a moving target.

Over the past decade, many consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) companies have mastered the fundamentals of pricing, promotions, assortment, and trade investment—revenue growth management’s four main elements. While that development has allowed CPGs to reliably capture value, the landscape has shifted, and the bar is rising.

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

Last week I ranted about the so-called Mimetic Theory.*

• Conceived by the late René Girard, an anthropologist and Stanford university professor, its premise is quite simple: it is impossible for us humans to make fully informed decisions and, therefore, we proceed to imitate other people’s behavior.

iHeartMedia announced that Yesenia Bello has been named iHeartMedia’s Senior Vice President of Multicultural Sales, effective immediately.

Every industrial revolution was catalyzed by a major technological evolution. Today is no dfferent. With 90 percent of the world’s data having been produced in the last two years and more than 26 billion smart devices in circulation, we are living in an era of unprecedented technological innovation—one that has spurred the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

But as consumers’ entertainment consumption patterns continue to change dramatically, a growing number of brands and organizations are starting to look at product placement in a new light, fueled by integrated marketing and more and more affordable programming options.

When it comes to agency new business, agency leadership is confident on one point: “just get me in the room,” they say—as if that alone is the golden ticket. Based on experience, that is most definitely not enough. But why? One reason is that people often don’t have the skills to close effectively. Another is that they are approaching the interaction with the wrong mindset. And another is that they’ve failed to do their preparatory homework.  By Mark Duval / Duval Partnership

As the first generation born and raised in a smartphone-powered world, Gen Z (born 1998 or later) seems destined to have profound connections with and feelings about technology. New insights from GfK Consumer Life suggest that these effects are even more pronounced among Gen Z women, who love new gadgets but question their impact on quality of life.

The fundamental method by which television commercials are bought and sold hasn’t significantly changed since the first spot aired 70 years ago — but that is changing now, and changing fast.