Is your brand portfolio fit for purpose?
The world’s largest consumer brands are sharpening their portfolios, culling unprofitable ranges to free up investment for experimentation and to capitalise on the latest trends.
Carling owner launches premium marketing hub to drive ‘closeness with consumers’
The UK’s second biggest brewer Molson Coors wants its marketers to be closer to their target consumers, whether through a new premium marketing hub or a new positioning for Carling that focuses on local communities.
One marketer on why leaving Unilever was the best thing she ever did
Story of my CV: Margaret Jobling’s experience at Unilever gave her the perfect foundation for a career in marketing, but she says leaving was the “best thing I ever did” because it taught her how much she’d learnt.
How this 120-year-old apparel giant is trying to reinvent retail
From augmented reality mannequins to ultra-customisation, the parent company of Vans and Timberland wants to prove big corporations can embrace change fast and stay relevant in a volatile retail landscape.
Brand of the Year shortlist profiled: Ikea
Ikea’s innovation and sustainability commitments have positioned it above competitors in consumers minds, earning it a nomination for Marketing Week Masters Brand of the Year, powered by YouGov.
Festival of Marketing unveils this year’s line-up
Marketers from brands including KFC, Diageo, TSB and Waitrose will be joined by Marketing Week columnists Helen Edwards, Thomas Barta and Mark Ritson on stage at this year’s Festival of Marketing.
Brand of the Year shortlist profiled: Greggs
Greggs’ marketing prowess has contributed to a year of stellar business results, culminating in being shortlisted for Marketing Week Masters Brand of the Year, powered by YouGov.
Watch: Ritson on how Dove’s Real Beauty campaign found the perfect balance between long and short
In this latest video looking back at 50 years of Effies case studies, Mark Ritson explains how market research into beauty industry stereotypes and a balance between long- and short-term investment led to Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ campaign and a sales boost.
Mary Portas: ‘Innovation is the key to rescuing retail’
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‘Queen of shops’ Mary Portas believes retail is entering an exciting period where innovation is key and the future of the high street depends on community, connections and removing ‘friction’.
Marketoonist on data-driven marketing
Tom Fishburne is founder of Marketoon Studios. Follow his work at marketoonist.com or on Twitter @tomfishburne See more of the Marketoonist here
Thomas Barta: Don’t lose sight of the fact your job is to find customers
While a marketer’s job is varied, ultimately the end-goal is to find profitable customers.
Alcoholic kombucha and salmon skin crisps: How Sainsbury’s innovation team chases ‘entrepreneurial heat’
Led by marketer Rachel Eyre, the Future Brands team is looking to bring the best challenger brands into Sainsbury’s and solidify the supermarket’s reputation for innovation in the process.
Creativity and effectiveness, brand building, voice commerce: 5 killer stats to start your week
From the ‘broken’ link between creativity and effectiveness to a lack of understanding of brand building among the C-suite, we arm marketers with all the numbers they need to tackle the week ahead.
How financial brands are innovating with data
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The financial services sector may be big and cumbersome, but brands are using an increasing number of data sources, focusing more on customer experience and engaging more customers in real time than ever before.
Ben Davis: User experience will suffer without trust in AI
People don’t automatically trust machines, so as personalisation and automation step up a notch marketers need to ensure they do everything they can to create transparent and user-friendly experiences.
Apple, Airbnb, M&S: Everything that matters this morning
Good morning and welcome to Marketing Week’s round-up of the news that matters in the marketing world today.
Brand of the Year shortlist profiled: Cadbury
Cadbury has invested in product innovations and core lines, helping it raise sales, awareness and purchase intent and earning it a shortlisting for Marketing Week Masters Brand of the Year, powered by YouGov.
Coca-Cola, Unilever, Mars: 5 things that mattered this week and why
Catch up on all this week’s big marketing news including how Mars is trying to improve gender equality in its advertising, Coke’s new diet coke campaign and why Unilever is DNA testing its marketers.
How understanding customer journeys helps brands drive more sales
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Join our live video webinar to find out how brands are using customer journey mapping to maximise sales and engagement, and how marketers can integrate it into their own strategies.
Helen Edwards: There’s no perfect method for measuring creative
As the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity draws to an end for another year, many marketers will be patting themselves on the back for wins at the awards. But are they really measuring the effectiveness of their creativity?
How Man City is building an ecosystem around ‘under-served’ women’s football
Manchester City already sees women’s football as a “strategic investment” ripe for innovation, but a new report reveals a major barrier lies not only in speaking to, but also reaching, a new wave of fans.
7 models for greater marketing effectiveness
Marketing suffers from a lack of consensus about what’s likely to work and many marketers often kill creative effectiveness by making things more complicated than they need to be.
Burger King CMO on creativity: We are not in the pursuit of random ideas
The recipient of 94 Cannes Lions in four years, Burger King global CMO Fernando Machado is “100% focused on the idea”, as long as it links back to the brand and business strategy.
Marketers urged to open-up hiring processes to diverse talent
The School of Marketing is asking marketers to commit to open-up their hiring processes to fresh talent from diverse backgrounds.
Mark Ritson: Apple’s confusing product portfolio makes Microsoft look sleek
Steve Jobs built Apple’s brand on simple design and a sparing product line-up, but now its portfolio is a mess of wires and product variants that make Microsoft look like the cooler brand.
The CX50 2019 revealed: Our list of the top 50 customer experience professionals
Marketing Week announces our second annual CX50 list in partnership with Zone and Cognizant, celebrating the individuals excelling at customer experience, demonstrating innovation, influence and impact.
How customer experience is building brands and businesses
As the members of the CX50 list demonstrate, a great customer experience doesn’t just make people feel good, it translates into tangible business results – but the field is getting more competitive all the time.
Unilever CEO says Keith Weed’s replacement will be a ‘CMO++’
Alan Jope says the top marketing role has taken a while to fill as the business has been refining what it means to be CMO at Unilever and looking at both internal and external candidates.
YouTube ‘supports’ advertisers pulling spend amid brand safety concerns
Google says advertisers should pull spend from its YouTube streaming platform if it means it helps them to “understand what’s there” and “do the right thing”.
How taking a stand is helping brands tackle negativity
Marriott and Pinterest have had to deal with fierce criticism – albeit for very different reasons – but in both cases they responded with a clear comeback that was in-keeping with their core purpose, which helped guide them through.
Mars’s three-point strategy to improve gender equality in its advertising
The FMCG giant wants to “unprogramme” the way marketers and agency partners think to address the gender bias in its advertising, after research revealed men outnumber women three to two.
Link between creativity and effectiveness ‘broken’ as short-termism rises
A new report from Peter Field that analysed the IPA databank has found creatively-awarded campaigns are now the least effective they have been in 24 years and no more effective than non-awarded campaigns.
Why Twitter’s ‘next big ideas’ will be user-generated
Twitter has always relied heavily on users when it comes to innovation, but its recently launched prototype app will play a fundamental role in helping the brand stay ahead of consumer demand.
More than a third of marketers think awareness effectiveness is decreasing
Clutter, ad avoidance, declining reach and decreasing trust in advertising are all blamed for top of funnel effectiveness declining, according to new research by the WFA.
Marketoonist on Cannes Lions
Tom Fishburne is founder of Marketoon Studios. Follow his work at marketoonist.com or on Twitter @tomfishburne See more of the Marketoonist here
Brands and tech giants come together to launch first digital safety alliance
Launched at 2019’s Cannes Lions festival, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media marks the first time an alliance that represents all sides of the media industry is forming.
P&G puts focus on reach: It’s a more important measure than spend
The marketing boss of the world’s largest advertiser is more interested in measuring reach than spend, with P&G increasingly finding it can use money that would have been “wasted” on frequency to boost the number of people it reaches.
Ad spend forecast, LGBT+ representation, social media harm: 5 killer stats to start your week
We arm marketers with all the numbers they need to tackle the week ahead.
Coca-Cola highlights its innovation credentials in campaign for new Diet Coke flavours
Coca-Cola is promoting new flavours of Diet Coke including ‘Twisted Strawberry’ and ‘Exotic Mango’ in a tongue-in-cheek campaign.
CMO to CEO: ‘The numbers will only rise if marketers become more commercial’
Marketers struggle to progress to CEO because they focus too much on marketing rather than the bigger picture, according to Diageo’s Syl Saller, O2’s Nina Bibby and Verizon’s Diego Scotti, who suggest a lack of role models is also preventing CMOs from taking the next step.
The benefits of taking control of the creative process
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The typical marketing agency business model has had to change because the customer journey increasingly starts on mobile and ends up on ecommerce.
Watch on-demand: How to reach shoppers at key moments
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A host of technologies and tactical considerations are on marketers’ radars as they seek to help shoppers choose their brands over the competition, especially during key shopping periods such as Black Friday and Christmas.
How messaging bridges the chasm between brands and customers
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From discovery of new products to customer care, today’s customer journey is more complex than ever. In this competitive landscape, brand success is centred on meaningful, one-to-one interactions.
Should brands have a voice on society’s big issues?
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New research from YouGov examines whether it’s riskier for brands to speak up on important social and political matters, or to stay silent.
Watch: Ritson on how Tourism Australia used the sales funnel to boost effectiveness
Marketing Week columnist Mark Ritson explains how Tourism Australia used its understanding of the sales funnel to diagnose an issue with intention and create a campaign that boosted tourism spend among US travellers.
Johnson & Johnson, L’Oréal, RBS: Everything that matters this morning
Good morning and welcome to Marketing Week’s round-up of the news that matters in the marketing world today.
How brands are injecting creativity into digital
Digital channels are often looked upon as a world of metrics and short-term thinking, but there are opportunities for brands to be creative if activity is underpinned by branding basics.
Unilever gets marketers to take DNA tests to challenge stereotypes beyond gender
The FMCG giant is broadening out its Unstereotype initiative to include ethnicity as it looks to get more of its marketers be more critical about diversity in its ads.
FCA wants to avoid being seen as ‘dull’ or ‘preachy’ in final PPI campaign
With the PPI deadline fast approaching, the financial industry’s regulatory body is making a last-minute drive to educate consumers, but the challenge is ensuring it remains authoritative without being boring.
Coca-Cola, Amazon, Diageo: 5 things that mattered this week and why
Catch up on all this week’s big marketing news including Coca-Cola and Costa’s new product launch, the world’s most valuable brands and how Diageo is getting its marketers to think more creatively.
How Treatwell uncovered the most effective way to spend its marketing budget
Sponsored by Facebook
When the European beauty bookings service needed to find new customers, it decided to get rigorous about the impact of each pound spent on advertising.
Are brands measuring the impact of creativity?
An exclusive study by Marketing Week finds that while almost two-thirds of marketers are measuring the impact of creativity, they are still reliant on more “old-fashioned” research methods.