Agency

There are two sides to every coin, and a coin can’t exist without both sides.  The same can be said for marketing: You need a great product and a great story, and you can’t succeed with only one of those elements in place.

The report provides a retrospective view of the major shifts in cross-platform consumer behavior occurring in sectors such as TV, digital media, mobile, social media, advertising, box office and e-commerce, with an eye toward what these trends mean for the year ahead.

With 80% of U.S. households having broadband internet, the popularity of TV-connected devices such as Roku (box and stick), Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV and Google Chromecast, as well as game consoles, is growing.

For the most diverse generation in U.S. history, there’s no single American Dream. Ethnic and racial influences matter, in both expected and counterintuitive ways. When it comes to Black Millennials, counterintuitive is the name of the game. …

According to The Walls Street Journal, The recent split between Honda Motor Co.’s U.S. unit and its media agency serves as the latest example of a breakdown in trust between a client and its agency.

The study—titled “Empowering the Data-Driven Customer Strategy: Addressing Customer Engagement From the Foundation Up”—highlights the gaps between strategy and execution that continue to prevent marketers from creating seamless, real-time engagements with today’s connected customers.

Planning — then and now — has always been about picking the right ingredients in appropriate quantities to ensure that the end result works for the client. To do this well any planner needs to appreciate the pros and cons of all available communication channels.  By Brian Jacobs / The Cog Blog

Most B2C marketers now have more distribution channels than they did just a few years ago. Though these channels afford marketers more data to leverage and opportunities for conversion, they also create more challenges in closing the attribution loop.

Republica announced the appointment of Melissa Bartolini as head of strategy, and Fredda Rodriguez as director of channel strategy, new executive positions that aim to reinforce the agency’s brand strategy, media, and analytics practices.

Univision Digital announced today a new digital web series “3, 2, 1 Clarissa!” featuring Clarissa Molina, the Social Media Host for the award-winning entertainment news show “El Gordo y La Flaca”

Move over Millennials, it’s time to start discovering the next demographic headed our way: Generación Zeta.  The topic of what drives Latino teens – one of the hottest demographics that brands need to gear up for – is the focus of a groundbreaking survey completed by Alma, which was presented this week at SXSW Interactive.

The other day Satya Menon, Senior VP of Client Solutions and Consulting, and I were reviewing the topline results from a set of market mix models. While qualitative in nature, the assessment suggests that brands may be increasingly reliant on driving short-term sales to maintain overall volume trends. If this finding proves more widely applicable then it has some scary implications.  by Nigel Hollis

Although I’ve spent much of my professional life as a marketer, it’s safe to say I — like most of us — have spent much of my personal life as a consumer. Recently, a colleague asked me which brands I was loyal to, and I had to really think about it. Finally, I recalled a particular coffee brand that I always buy.

NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises announced it has named Beau Ferrari to Executive Vice President of NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises. Ferrari previously served as Executive Vice President, Corporate Strategy and Development for Univision Communications Inc.

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

• THE big problem that might be scaring away Twitter’s users: it is one of the most notorious open air landfills of modern culture.
• Fake news, widespread poisonous snark, harassment, hostility, hatred, impropriety, vulgarity, filth and multitudes of anonymous or bogus accounts singlehandedly dedicated to trolling fulltime are the everyday currency in the 140 character realm.
• Nevertheless, for those who have the stomach, open mind and thick skin to put up with the detritus, the little blue bird’s habitat can also be a fascinating cultural observatory full of small discoveries.
• One man’s trash is another one’s treasure.

Professor Byron Sharp and the Ehrenberg Bass Institute have long championed distinctiveness as an important brand asset. They have been equally forthright in denouncing the role of perceived differentiation. While I agree on the importance of distinctiveness, I have to disagree with their viewpoint on differentiation and see the two qualities complementary.  by Nigel Hollis

Clients have started thinking about 2018, even though 2017 only just started. I know it seems crazy, but keep in mind, national retail and promotional partnerships require significant lead time. Meaning, as a marketer, if you want to do a promotion around next year’s big soccer tournament, you need to start thinking about it today. Yes, I’m referring to the World Cup. We are about 15 months away from Russia 2018, with soccer qualifiers and lead-up tournaments already in the works.  by Roberto Siewczynski / Epsilon

This document presents guidelines for the measurement of digital location-based advertising including measurement or attribution of device and user location for physical visitation and advertising exposure (including static devices such as desktop PCs, connected TVs, OTT devices, as well as mobile devices such as tablet, smartphones, etc.) as well as place measurement as a reference point for physical visitation and location-based targeting.

Deloitte recently completed “Business Chemistry in the C-suite,” a study on the Business Chemistry types of 661 C-suite executives, finding two of four primary Business Chemistry types – which highlight both similarities and differences in working styles – account for nearly two-thirds of the sample.

In today’s fast-changing environment, it seems like we’re bombarded by new approaches and techniques to help us understand how much consumers “love” a new product idea every day. Product innovation specialists spend time and energy pursuing trends and various techniques, whether it’s “gamification,” the wisdom of the crowds, or the various “quali-quant” approaches prominent in new product innovation processes. The point of this post isn’t to debate the merits or limitations of these approaches—lots of great thinking is taking place in the market today. But we spend a lot of time on finding the “the new new thing” in order to pick the “best” idea and not enough time on the fundamentals.  By Ramon Melgarejo, SVP, Innovation Practice