News

Taking a zero-based budgeting approach to enterprise-wide marketing costs can uncover new opportunities and spur more-informed spending decisions.

The vast amount of product information available to consumers through online search renders most advertising obsolete as a tool for conveying product information. Advertising remains useful to firms only as a tool for persuading consumers to purchase advertised products. In the mid-twentieth century, courts applying the antitrust laws held that such persuasive advertising is anticompetitive and harmful to consumers, but the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was unable to pursue an antitrust campaign against persuasive advertising for fear of depriving consumers of advertising’s information value. Now that the information function of most advertising is obsolete, the FTC should renew its campaign against persuasive advertising by treating all advertising beyond the minimum required to ensure that product information is available to online searchers as monopolization in violation of section 2 of the Sherman Act.

As marketing technology, or martech, becomes more sophisticated, companies are finding they can accelerate and optimize everything from basic commercial functions like e-commerce conversion to more complex ones, such as managing multi-dimensional customer relationships across multiple channels. In this interview, Scott Brinker, VP, Platform Ecosystems, at HubSpot, and Jason Heller, a McKinsey partner leading our Digital Marketing Operations and Technology service line, share their insights on the evolving world of martech with McKinsey’s Barr Seitz.

Marketers are invested in accurately identifying their target audiences, but they often miss the mark.

Seven years ago, being a purveyor of Spanish-language media wasn’t exactly the most lucrative business opportunity in the Milwaukee market. Today, the business climate is so strong that Bustos Media of Wisconsin this week launched a second FM signal targeting Latinos. What’s changed? Could this point to opportunity for your stations? FInd out in this Hispanic Radio Podcast.

PACO Collective announced the acquisition of Noble Food, an independent food-marketing agency headquartered in Springfield, MO.

Curacao, a Hispanic-centric retailer on the West Coast serving diverse communities in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Tucson and Phoenix, is rolling out a series of initiatives to attract Hispanic millennials and reposition the company as the premier Omni-channel shopping destination for the new generation of Hispanic America.

Tesla founder and all-around tech visionary Elon Musk made waves earlier this month when he tweeted that he was considering taking the electric car company private.  The tweet, which generated wild trading in Tesla stock and reportedly sparked a federal investigation, illustrates the perils of C-level executives acting on their own on social media.

The average tenure of a Chief Marketing Officer is 44 months, and the number of first-time CMOs jumped 31% in the past year, according to a recent study by executive search firm Spencer Stuart.

A while back, I wrote a post about the spurious dichotomy between the short and long-term effects of marketing. In it I argued that the separation between the two time frames was a spurious one, but how do you predict whether your marketing will have a positive effect in the longer-term?  by Nigel Hollis

54% of U.S. teens say they spend too much time on their cellphones, and two-thirds of parents express concern over their teen’s screen time. But parents face their own challenges of device-related distraction.

Noticias Telemundo announced it has named Romina Rosado as Senior Vice President of Digital News, effective immediately. She will be based in Miami at the company’s new headquarters, Telemundo Center, and will report to Luis Fernández, Executive Vice President of Network News, Telemundo Networks.

Adsmovil has been awarded the TAG Certified Against Fraud Seal by the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG)

Traditional and new television distributors seeking to retain and acquire customers in an increasingly competitive market should focus on super-serving Black consumers, who have consistently proven to be some of TV’s best audiences, according to Horowitz Research’s FOCUS Black: The Media Landscape 2018 report.

Women started an average of 1,821 new businesses per day in the U.S. between 2017 and 2018, according to analysis in the 2018 State of Women-Owned Businesses Report, commissioned by American Express. This level of new business formation by women is greater than the daily average during the pre-recession period from 2002 to 2007 (714), the recession and recovery period between 2007 and 2012 (1,143), and the post-recession period between 2012 and 2017 (952).

Coming off the successful launch of its new season on Univision, with record ratings beating those of general market English language Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) properties, Combate Americas president Jacqueline Hernandez announced the opening of La Jaula Studios, a new multi-platform content production studio created to serve the most digitally native, multiracial and multicultural generations that have ever existed—Hispanic Millennials and Generation Z.

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharma marketing used to be simple: Run a TV spot on news or late-night talk shows and wait for consumers to contact their doctors.

Growing faster than the general population and maintaining income and education rates higher than any other racial or ethnic group, Asian Americans continue to make gains as tech-enabled influencers with unlimited potential. Asian Americans have the added advantage of maintaining ties with brands based in their native countries that are global leaders in smartphone manufacturing, social media and online commerce.

Not only do consumers want businesses to be open and honest in their social posts, consumers actually hold businesses to a higher standard than they hold for themselves.

Everyone knows that to get noticed in today’s frenetic media environment you have to pick a side and argue your case as vehemently as possible. That strategy might spawn a negative reaction, but then they say there is no such thing as bad publicity. But what if making hyperbolic assertions is undermining the effective practice of marketing?  by Nigel Hollis