Agency

Despite a long and relatively steadily improving economy, consumers remain so focused on value that pricing remains retailers’ most pressing business worry.

Here, Duncan Southgate, Global Brand Director, Media, explains why marketers should always look beyond simple, generic rankings when deciding which media channels to use.

For Millennials and most modern consumers, television has been a key part of our daily lives — whether it’s looking forward to relaxing and watching a show after a long day at work or cheering on a favorite sports team during the playoffs. However, the rise of technology has changed the way people consume visual content, making it tough for television to compete with the digital world. Could television really be dying a long, slow death? Here are four reasons why digital media is causing the death of television and why marketers should ditch television for digital media.

Navigating the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) landscape has become difficult. It’s not just the consumer path-to-purchase that’s grown in complexity. The playing field for manufacturers and retailers has evolved as well. Notably, for the first time since 2009, the total number of brick-and-mortar stores in the U.S. has declined. As we’ll review a little later, this hasn’t affected all channels to the same extent, but it does highlight the importance of handling product assortment and distribution with utmost efficiency.

As digital makes its mark on the advertising world, it’s all too easy to forget that, collectively, traditional media still rules the roost. But for how long? We discuss this, and more, in the latest episode of eMarketer’s “Behind the Numbers” podcast.

The imperative to compete on the basis of customer experience is heightening the job security risks of chief marketing officers who are struggling to keep up with new digitally driven ways to engage, satisfy and enrich the experience of more mobile, savvy and fickle consumers.

How much time do American consumers spend each day with their multimedia devices, tablets, computers, AM/FM radio, TV, or their smartphones?  By Pierre Bouvard

While today’s media consumers have a greater choice of content through ad-free or ad-blocked environments, the belief that ad-supported media is on the decline is just not true, according to Peter Katsingris, Senior Vice President, Audience Insights, Nielsen.  He noted that despite the changes in content availability through increased platform and device options “over the last 15 years, ad-supported media is still far more dominant and successful than perception may indicate.”

Whether they’re catching up on the news in the car or tuning in to true crime on the treadmill, chances are US consumers are listening to a podcast.

The fast-moving-consumer-goods industry has a long history of generating reliable growth through mass brands. But the model that fueled industry success now faces great pressure as consumer behaviors shift and the channel landscape changes. To win in the coming decades, FMCGs need to reduce their reliance on mass brands and offline mass channels and embrace an agile operating model focused on brand relevance rather than synergies.

Yes, the 72-million strong Millennial generation is coming into their own and are starting to buy stuff. Enamored marketers are salivating (or running scared) at the prospect of serving them.  Older marketers, and students of consumerism, remember the defining impact of the last mega-generational cohort, the Baby Boomers; how they shaped consumer trends, created categories of products and services, and generally made or broke one’s business success.  By Stephen Palacios, Principal, Ahzul

To really understand the attitudinal power of brands we need to look beyond the absolute scores and instead examine relative strengths and weaknesses. If more people say good things about a brand than claim to use it then that difference represents an opportunity to grow, provided that association has a positive relationship with business outcomes.   by Nigel Hollis

Univision Communications Inc. (UCI) announced that Liz Blacker has been appointed to SVP of Branded Content Revenue. Effective immediately, Blacker will be based in New York and report to Lisa Valentino, EVP of Revenue Innovation for UCI.

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

“Students are borrowing money they  do n ot haveto study stuff that does not matterto try and find jobs that do not exist.”
Tweeted by @charliekirk11

Miami-based independent marketing communications firm CCOM Group announced the rebranding of its business to represent the fluent and ‘always-on’ nature of today’s culture and the agency’s relentless effort to help clients authentically navigate this new and evolved space.

Despite the headlines about digital disruption in financial services, big banks are actually holding their own. Globally, financial-services revenues have grown 4 percent annually over the past ten years (thanks largely to growth in emerging markets), and fintech start-ups and large tech companies have so far captured only tiny slivers of market share.

According to a new study from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council, news coverage about inaccurate, questionable and false digital media reporting measures have already caused 21 percent of marketers to pull back on advertising spend. More than 70 percent of brand leaders admit that negative news headlines have had an impact on budgets.

We are at a time of unprecedented commercial opportunity in global sports. Barriers to entry have never been lower. More markets around the world than ever before are receptive to the power of sports. It’s never been easier to reach millions—even billions—of fans.

The other week I was involved in a little email exchange with my colleagues about the power of social influence. As usual I was getting boxed into the Luddite corner until I realize that what was worrying me was the apparent assumption that social influence was universal and all powerful. If so, I beg to differ.  by Nigel Hollis

On May 25th, only 30 days away, the European Union will launch the greatest privacy experiment in history. On that date, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) goes into effect. It will immediately impact the more than 508 million people who populate the EU and multi-millions more throughout the world who collect personally identifiable information about EU citizens. Despite the hopes and claims for these highly complex proposals, no one knows the true impacts of these stringent regulations.