What’s Next In Marketing And Advertising (2009)

Here is an updated look at What’s Next In Marketing and Advertising based on the presentation by the same title that Paul Isakson gave last year at Marketing 2.0.

The greatest takeaway from this outstanding presentation (outstanding in so many ways:- message, typeface, imagery) from my perspective is, “It’s not what you say that matters, its what you do.“

Living by that statement alone will make me a better marketer, and the companies that I work for more many times more effective.

The future of marketing communications….

….or “How to think in a world gone digital.” by Jan Leth, Ogilvy & Mather.

Please help

Sport Relief

(I should apologise for bringing you here by illicit categorisation and tagging, but I won’t. You might have wasted just 10 seconds. Hopefully you will make the choice to change someone’s world in less than a minute).

Mad Men in the UK

New to the UK and the BBC, Mad Men is a Golden Globe winning drama series set in the world of advertising in 1960s New York.  And with Emmy® Award-winning executive producer and writer of “The Sopranos” Matthew Weiner behind it, Mad Men really is the provocative drama that UK Marketing professionals should catch.

My advice is to cook a good meal, sit down with the wife, and watch it. ….under the pretence of course that the working day has ended…..When in actual fact you are thinking about the approach back in 1960′s, and how it applies (or doesn’t) in today’s era of multiple channels and a plethora of media types.

That’s what I did. Enjoyed it too.

What you are, what you want, what you love doesn’t matter. It’s all about how you sell it.

Manipulation of the media. Hell, that’s what I pay you for.

For UK viewers, it’s on iPlayer for another 4 days.

For the tech heads amongst you the throw away line to the newbie; “now try not to be overwhelmed by all this technology,” was just great.

Can someone help me though? What’s the difference between an Account Executive and a Creative Executive? lol.

US Marketers Losing Confidence in TV

<Update 03/02/08: More advertising shifts here>

Whether traditional TV advertising has truly lost its power, marketers and advertisers are already eager to find alternatives. The US based Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Research’s fourth biennial TV and Technology survey shows a dramatic loss of confidence in the medium as the industry gears up to explore new ad formats and forms of video commercials.

Wow.

There is a bit of me that is surprised that someone somewhere still feels the need to research TV and marketing; but with so much money spent on TV advertising it is very understandable that TV is being scrutinised so heavily, and for so long.

Here’s the science bit…

• 2/3s of C-level-executive respondents said they are watching the medium closely, up from just half two years ago
• 87% of respondents said they were going to be spending more on web ads in the coming year.
• 62% percent of marketers believe traditional TV ads have become less effective during the last two years.
• 50% of marketers reported that when half of all TV households use DVRs, they will cut spending on TV advertising by 12%.
• 87% percent of advertisers believe branded entertainment is the key to TV advertising in the coming year, and 65% of them are eager to try ads in online TV shows.

And emerging technologies continue to lure marketers looking to experiment.

• 43% would like to try interactive TV ads
• 55% are interested in ads embedded in VOD; and
• 32% would like to try ads attached to the set-top-box menu.

With the proliferation of new media, media agencies have stepped up their game to help clients deal with the changes. Two years ago, just under half the agencies reported they were ill-equipped to address changes in TV advertising, whereas only 28% did so this year.

But quite surprisingly it is the creative agencies that are falling behind, according to marketers:

• 47% of them said their agency was ill-equipped to deal with the changes, a mere 8% improvement from two years ago.

By the way the study was conducted in January 08 and is based on a survey of 78 leading advertisers across all major industries and categories in the US.

10 emerging trends in Media

Rainer Präsoll points out this study which examines 10 emerging trends sure to have a major influence on the media sector.

Celebrity endorsement. The good and bad

Sporting icons have long been used in B2C advertising. Thierry Henry for Renault, David Beckham for Adidas and dare I say it George Foreman for the….ahem….Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine.

Initial thinking might lead you to the conclusion that B2B, and high technology marketing in particular, has been slower to adopt the celebrity endorsement. But actually the reality is that this is not true. For instance since 2003, Tiger Woods has been the centrepiece of Accenture’s advertising. The sporting world’s “ultimate symbol of high performance” serves as a metaphor for Accenture’s commitment to helping companies become high-performance businesses. Cute.

And low and behold today, in Computing Magazine another sporting celebrity with cause to endorse an I.T. product. It’s an enormous pity Minolta’s campaign isn’t quite so well thought through though.

Somehow taking a picture, capturing a toothy grin and adding the strapline “The Skills to win” doesn’t quite cut it. Even if we are talking Ronaldinho. And that Minolta Football kit. OMG!

Lets face it. Accenture wins hands down. Now in its fifth year, the campaign is no doubt widely recognised by IT buyers around the globe.

Accenture has clearly spent big on this initiative. And their research and findings are no doubt the outcome of comprehensive studies. But lets face it, the creative idea “We know what it takes to be a Tiger” surpasses a cheesy grin from the worlds best footballer any day of the week or year.

Online Advertising trends

While I am in the mood to look at trends [see post: 6 factors that make a marketing leader successful made yesterday], this article on VentureBeat does a good job of highlighting the trends in Online Advertising; in particular the Content vs Community debate, which continues to surface, re-surface (and yet never go away).

6 factors that make a marketing leader successful

Forrester‘s Marketing department do a great job, and they have cut me a very personal email called the Marketing Leadership home page, which has 6 Success Imperatives – the 6 factors that make a marketing leader successful.

Needless to say each imperative leads to a report that I can’t share, but I can share the imperatives themselves!  They are;

1. Harness emerging customer trends.  Find the results of global Consumer studies which expose how consumers change their interaction with brands, media, and each other.

2. Thrive on market and technology change. Markets and technologies change rapidly, and effect how your firm manages consumers, content, processes, and business partners. This imperative will help you set priorities and select the right tools and markets to stay ahead of your competitors.

3. Differentiate the brand experience. Brand loyalty continues to drop as product cycles shorten and consumers turn away from advertising. To differentiate your brand from the pack, and justify high margins, find the latest research on brand and loyalty management.

4. Optimise the marketing and media mix. “Half of the marketing budget is wasted; we just don’t know which half” no longer holds true. With new marketing and media planning tools and methods, you can raise the return on every marketing dollar and develop effective multichannel campaigns.

5. Build influence across the company. The role of the CMO is evolving from “market communications” to corporate business strategy, putting the customer first in everything the firm does.

6. Create and nurture high-performance teams and partnerships. The changing role of marketing forces leaders to review their organisation, skills, and partners.

Sound advise as usual from Forrester, who I have to say have always been my favourite analyst co.

Why next year will be make or break for traditional media

I’ve never copied anything into my blog verbatim so I really want to reference the source on this one……so for the absence of doubt what follows is taken entirely from The Business, and was authored by David Crow (Not me). It is a great piece, and I think you should read it.

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It is hard to overstate the changes that took place in the media in 2007. In Europe, this was the first ever year that 16-24 year olds – the consumers behind today’s technological revolution – accessed the internet more frequently than they watched TV. Now, nearly eight years into the millennium, even the heretics who dismissed the internet as a flash in the pan are realising just how wrong they were.

While 2008 will be a year of flux, some things are unlikely to change. Circulation figures for daily paid-for newspapers will continue to dip, with the odd exception; the best editors will be the ones who adopt a two pronged approach of managing the decline in print sales – instead of trying to avert it – while investing more and more resources in their digital operations.

The Daily Mail – one of the few papers to post a year-on-year increase in November’s ABC figures – will continue to be the envy of all on Fleet Street. Last month’s assurance by editor Paul Dacre, 60 next year, that he has no plans to step down came as a relief to shareholders; it is hard to imagine the paper reading the mood of modern Britain so expertly without him. In 2008, the title will build on its newfound digital success after it hit the ground running earlier this year.

Sunday titles will continue to fare better than their daily counterparts in 2008. The Observer – which reported a 1.41% year-on-year increase in November’s ABCs – is testament to the fact that the peculiar British relationship with Sunday newspapers will remain strong. All eyes will be on how its integration with The Guardian goes, however.

Daily freesheets will be one of the few print products to see increasing revenues in 2008. Metro, owned by Associated Newspapers, is likely to be the star of the sector; its combined regional distribution – currently at around 1.4m – will continue to rise and, at some point in 2008, overtake the Daily Mirror’s circulation.

The latter, along with nearly every other daily and Sunday red top – with the inexplicable exception of the Daily Star titles – will watch The Sun continue to demonstrate that it is possible to build a successful red top brand online and in print. Hopes that the Mirror will be able to follow suit are fading.

Across the pond, staff at the Wall Street Journal will realise that Rupert Murdoch’s plans to turn the title into a global power brand can only benefit the newspaper. Media coverage of the presidential election – like Australia’s recent vote – will be increasingly defined by web giant Google, which will come into direct competition with newspapers and broadcasters by reporting the contest first hand.

DAB digital radio will continue its march to become Britain’s preferred radio platform. By the end of 2008, 30% of households will own a DAB radio, with sales rising by 26% to 2.6m units worth £200m. 4 Digital – the consortium behind the 10 new digital radio stations that will launch next year – is hoping to open up digital radio in the way Channel 4 boosted the fortunes of digital Freeview TV.

The new stations will provide some much needed competition to the BBC. E4 radio, which will focus on the youth market, will go head to head with Radio 1 while Channel 4 Radio – a contemporary speech station with what the consortium call “public service values” will provide an alternative to BBC Radio 4. Earlier this month 4Digital poached the controller of BBC Radio 5 Live, suggesting it is serious about taking on the Beeb. BBC radio stations account for 54% of all radio listening and a massive 86% of speech-based listening; 2008 will be the year that this starts to change.

For established broadcasters, next year will be one of unlikely alliances, formed in an attempt to see off the growing threat from new competitors. The BBC, ITV and Channel 4 will launch a joint on-demand service, enabling customers to download content from all three broadcasters on one platform. The trio hope that the on-demand service – codenamed Kangaroo – will provide an alternative to Sky+ and Virgin On Demand.

In America, Murdoch’s NewsCorp and NBC Universal will officially launch their joint internet TV effort, Hulu, a website hosting popular shows such as Saturday Night Live and Journeyman alongside user-generated clips. Google’s YouTube will continue to be the product to beat.

In 2007, social networking sites finally reached the tipping point, becoming truly mainstream for the first time. In 2008, they will be increasingly counted alongside TV, newspapers, magazines and radio as the fifth staple of the consumer’s media diet.

Facebook will continue to be the social network to beat, although top-dog status will bring new woes. Mark Zuckerberg, its founder and chief executive – once the poster-boy for the Facebook generation – is fast becoming a scapegoat for the increasing panic over social networking and privacy. Having bungled its attempts to reassure customers over their concerns, Facebook will have to get better at managing its success.

The firms that succeed in 2008 will be those that focus on the needs, desires and interests of their consumer in the contemporary marketplace – and discard their archaic, elitist prejudices born of a different era. For those still referred to as the “traditional” media, 2008 will be the make or break year.

Advertising’s evolution….

IBM Global Business Services in its new report, The End of Advertising as We Know It (report PDF, summary PDF) forecasts greater disruption for the advertising industry in the next five years than has occurred over the previous 50.

Whilst I find this type of sweeping statement a tad nauseating (agreed: it is not as bad as Facebook’s boy-coder turned big-thinker Mark Zuckerberg who said last week; “Once every hundred years media changes.”). But nonetheless the report is worth a read.

It states:

• broadcasters will have to change their mass audience mind-set to cater to niche consumer segments.
• Distributors will need to deliver targeted, interactive advertising for a range of multimedia devices.
• Advertising agencies must become brokers of consumer insights and guide allocation of advertising dollars amid exploding choices.
• All players must adapt to a world where advertising inventory is increasingly bought and sold in open exchanges vs. traditional channels

Not really ‘new’ news. But good all the same.