Digital roles, job prospects, consumer trust: 5 killer stats to start your week

Digital roles disappearing as big companies restructure

Multinational companies are turning to new marketing structures as part of their transformation, moving away from traditional functional and hierarchical approaches in favour of organising around the customer experience.

More than one in four (42%) now regularly work in cross-functional teams, while 30% work in self-organising agile teams. Half say they sometimes have agency staff embedded in their teams.

The research, which spoke to more than 20 multinationals with a total global ad spend of $32bn, also found that 10 companies still have a separate team for digital marcoms, with just seven saying digital expertise is woven into all teams. However, 10 companies said they are working to ensure the latter.

Source: World Federation of Advertisers

Majority of marketers feel an identifying factor has limited their job selection chances

More than half (58%) of marketing professionals believe their chances of being selected for a job have been lowered because of an identifying factor such as their age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or religion.

This is higher than the 52% who feel this has happened in the UK overall.

In marketing, 55% feel their chances of selection have been lowered due to their age, 41% because of their ethnicity or nationality, and 37% because of their gender or gender identity. The majority (55%) said this had happened in the past 12 months.

They also believe career progression has been limited, with 51% saying this is because of age, 37% because of their ethnicity and 43% on the grounds of their gender or gender identity.

Source: Hays

Organisations losing billions by ignoring hidden disabilities

Poor customer service and a lack of staff understanding are among the reasons preventing disabled consumers from purchasing goods and services.

Three-quarters (75%) of disabled people have had to leave a store or website unable to go through with their purchase because of their disability. Yet there are simple things businesses can do to improve the experience for disabled customers.

These include improving staff understanding of different disabilities (56%), the overall customer experience for disabled people (41%), store accessibility (41%) and website accessibility (16%).

More than one in three (34%) of disabled people said poor customer service prevented them from making a purchase, while 33% blamed a lack of staff understanding about their needs.

Source: Purple

Supermarket sales slow as political uncertainty and wet weather hit

Supermarket sales were up by just 1% year on year in the 12 weeks to 3 November, slower than last year, against a backdrop of political uncertainty and warm and wet autumn weather.

There was also an increased focus on seasonal events and promotions, with consumers’ attention already turning to Christmas. Supermarkets sold £17m worth of mince pieces and £3m worth of Christmas puddings.

Co-op’s growth continues to outpace the market, with sales up 4.4% and its market share rising to 6.5%. Lidl was the fastest growing grocer with sales up 8.8% ahead of Aldi with sales growth of 6.7%.

However, the big four supermarkets struggled, with sales at Asda down 1.2% and Morrisons’ sales falling 1.7%. Sainsbury’s experienced a fall of 0.2% and Tesco 0.6%.

Source: Kantar 

Half of marketers confident consumer trust in brands is improving

Nearly half of marketers (49%) believe consumer trust in how brands handle their data has improved, while 46% state that trust has increased in brands and their marketing, and 44% in businesses in general.

The reason for this is widely believed to be new data privacy laws, which have reframed the relationship between organisations and their customers.

However, there are concerns Brexit could impact this. Almost three-quarters (72%) of marketers are concerned about the financial impact of difficulties in exchanging data between the UK and EU post-Brexit. And the majority of marketers (78%) want to retain access to the digital single market after the UK leaves the EU.

Source: Data and Marketing Association