Time and again companies have proved unwilling to stick to their lofty purpose statements when it costs them money. For purpose to have any meaning, corporations need to put it before profit.
If Elizabeth Warren or another Democrat wins the White House, Facebook, Google and Amazon may finally realise they can’t hang on to their dominant positions forever.
Many marketers will see Tesla’s decision to shut its dealerships in favour of online sales as another example of physical retail’s decline, but the real reason is more mundane – cash.
Professor Mark Ritson introduces the Marketing Week Mini-MBA in Marketing. He explains the logic and syllabus behind the course, looks at the course format and shares some of the feedback from those who attended the course in 2017. If you are considering the Mini MBA this year then this is a unique chance to learn … Continue reading Is the Mini MBA in Marketing Programme right for you?
Mark Ritson, our award-winning columnist, consultant and marketing professor, is never one to shy away from an opinion and he had plenty of those in his talk at Marketing Week Live. Ritson gave his view on the importance (or lack thereof) of eight marketing concepts: millennials, CSR, brand purpose, brand valuation, digital marketing, zero based budgets, targeting and TV advertising.
Those who highlight what digital media you could buy for the same price as a Super Bowl ad miss the point – they offer unrivalled effectiveness among the largest of audiences.
Internet ad spend may still be growing at the expense of newspapers and magazines, according to GroupM forecasts, but market maturity is approaching, news brands have diversified and most ‘traditional’ media will also grow next year.
Classic ads and product placements continue to have a brand-building effect decades later, which is a benefit more marketers should pay attention to when commissioning creative.
Influencer marketing suffers not just from the problems of fake followers and viewability, but from a lack of credibility, as I proved when I paid influencers to make a picture of my posterior go viral.
New Ebiquity data questions whether TV’s superiority for marketing effectiveness will last beyond five years, but it ignores people’s propensity to change behaviour as they get older.
Many variables affect sales, which don’t always correlate to how good your ads are. The only way to measure campaigns effectively is against the metrics you want to change and the time you need to do it in.
As Gary Vaynerchuk continues to dominate much of the debate on marketing around the globe, our branding columnist suggests he is wrong – repeatedly – about the respective value of TV and social media.
Only marketers have the behavioural understanding and analytical training to determine if the extra money illegally spent on the Vote Leave campaign swayed the Brexit result. Now is the time to do just that.
Mastercard dropping its name from its logo demonstrates branding strength most companies lack – and it’s all down to the sustained and consistent use of highly distinctive assets.
Byron Sharp’s recent claim that it is ‘impossible’ to place a value on brand perceptions is not just mistaken, it is a rejection of true scientific method.
Leeds United last week conspired to create the worst rebrand in history, but the club’s response to fans shows how much passion and character still surrounds a brand languishing far below its competitive peak.
Burberry has finally parted ways with its totemic chief creative officer Christopher Bailey, leaving a tough task to find someone equally able to represent its brand DNA of functional, accessible luxury.
Consolidation of teams to remove duplication by specialist digital marketers can’t come soon enough, and will allow us to focus on the consumer instead of the media channel.
JD Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin has been criticised for closing the brand’s social media accounts, but it shows he’s brave enough to decide they don’t fit his target market or objectives.
As long as Google and Facebook are considered intermediaries rather than publishers, policing offensive content will primarily be the job of algorithms rather than those with sound editorial judgement.
What are you doing wasting your time on segmentation, targeting and positioning when 2018 is about AI, millennials and Blockchain? Here are seven marketing bandwagons you need to jump on before it’s too late.
A new report confirms media agency staff are nothing like the consumers they serve, but the bigger question is whether they and marketers are market-orientated enough to know this and let customer insight guide them.
Superbrands’ bogus methodology regularly turns up inexplicable and nonsensical ‘findings’. Here are my top 10 aberrations from this year’s Superbrands Consumer Top 20 ranking.
Psychographic segmentation has been out of favour for a while despite its obvious usefulness, but combining it with behavioural and addressable data creates a potent mix that could make targeting supremely effective.
Even if we smack our heads in frustration when consumers make stupid choices, there’s nothing worse than a marketer who wastes money ‘educating’ a market. Customers’ perceptions must become your reality.
There are two ways to position a brand – ‘about’ something and ‘versus’ something – and the most powerful examples of positioning do both.
Channel 4’s research claiming consumers want purpose-driven ads is the latest flimsy attempt to bolster a morally bankrupt concept that simply covers over corporate indiscretions.
Lush has only alienated consumers with its poorly judged #Spycops campaign, which has nothing to do with the brand as well as being of no benefit to society.
Pret A Manger has built a brand positioning based on serving natural food, yet the E numbers in its bread clearly undermine that, so it has to decide whether to change its processes or its advertising.
Gillette’s purpose-driven attempt to revitalise its slogan, ‘The best a man can get’, isn’t just a waste of ad budget but an expensive exercise in destroying its dominant market share.
Direct Line Group’s brand strategy is best-in-class, as evidenced by its IPA Effectiveness Award win last week. Here’s 10 reasons why marketers should sit up and take note.
By opening a new chain of budget stores, Tesco is trying to compete in an arena its business model is unsuited to, and which Aldi has taken decades to perfect.
Instead of reading articles about the latest technological trends, marketers should spend that time on strategic thinking about their brand’s goals.
Kraft Heinz is suffering from a number of self-inflicted wounds, from underinvestment in its brands to a failure to adapt its portfolio to modern tastes, leading to a parlous financial situation.
The number of direct-to-consumer brands is ballooning, as are predictions of the traditional FMCG sector’s demise, yet people underestimate the resilience and capability of the established giants.
Marketing leadership has failed to instill pride in the discipline, as a LinkedIn post by Unilever’s European president proves, leading to constant attempts to use purpose to apologise for or redefine it unnecessarily.
Richemont, owner of luxury watch brands such as Cartier, is boldly forfeiting hundreds of millions of pounds to keep stock out of the grey market, but it is a crucial step in preserving long-term brand equity.
No company before Facebook has had so many users while being so disliked, but the risk of moving Instagram to the same platform is one Mark Zuckerberg seems willing to take to keep control and integrate the brands’ data.
The merger of Wunderman and JWT into Wunderman Thompson shows the key challenge of consolidating agencies: while necessary, it’s complicated by their commoditisation and lack of differentiation.
The way companies structure their brands gets little attention but is of huge importance, as three high-profile stories have reminded us this week.
To maximise both revenues and savings, Sainsbury’s and Asda’s merger must get brand architecture right, unifying operations while keeping the brands distinct.
Noel Edmonds’ clever campaign for compensation from Lloyds Banking Group is harming perceptions of the Lloyds brand, which will ultimately cost it customers – and he’s unlikely to give up.
The KFC chicken crisis caused by DHL’s delivery failures could have been disastrous, but a rapid strategic response has ensured the brand will benefit long-term from increased awareness and a boost in consumer demand.
Marketers were reportedly upset that their ads appeared next to expletives on Mumsnet, but that’s how real people talk and it pales in comparison to terrorist content as a risk to brands online.
A National Lottery Twitter campaign has been hijacked by trolls, but marketers would have seen it coming if they weren’t so absorbed in their fantasies of ‘brand love’.
FIFA is short of sponsors for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, which is unsurprising given recent brand safety scandals and the tarnished reputations of both the host country and governing body.
The Olympic swimmer lost four sponsorships by behaving drunkenly at a service station then claiming he was robbed, but is this all just a cunning ploy to secure lucrative endorsement deals for diet pills, erectile dysfunction treatments and other dubious brands?
With only a few weeks until the opening of the latest Star Wars movie, there are no shortage of brands jumping on the bandwagon. Here I review the logic behind the brand partnerships.
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No doubt about it. Fifty Shades of Grey has exploded across cinema screens and looks set to spank box office records for 2015.
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