Marketers deal with crises through communications, but it is through product, price and distribution that we can make most difference to customers and keep the economy moving.
The coronavirus crisis will test us all, but marketers need to think long-term and keep building their brands, protecting their staff and honouring their values.
Direct Line has replaced one of the most effective brand campaigns of recent years with a new approach that promises similar success, all thanks to the team’s understanding of distinctive brand assets.
Brands from Marmite to Peloton have shown negative publicity is beneficial if it doesn’t undermine your core image, which is why Corona will be fine but Burger King is heading for trouble.
There is a growing sense that reaching giant audiences to build brands in the decade ahead is going to be more difficult.
As the NBA faces calls to update its logo with Kobe Bryant’s image, more marketers should consider being playful with their brand imagery rather than acting as the brand police.
As The Guardian stops taking fossil fuel ads, marketers should take a similar stand and end big oil brands’ strategy of distracting the world from the harm they are doing.
Everyone gets something blown in Vegas. For our star columnist it was his mind. By innovation. At the annual Consumer Electronics Show.
Marketers should follow Santa’s example this Christmas. He needs elves and reindeer to deliver all his presents in time, not just one or the other.
Renault’s new ad featuring a lesbian couple is a beautiful story and cultural statement, but the brand’s presence is nowhere near distinctive enough.
If you have a big budget and are making long-form video ads, it makes little sense to leave the most effective medium out of the mix, as Gap has done by rejecting TV for its Christmas campaign.
Ritson reveals his insights into what makes “perfectly effective” campaigns and why marketers must go big if they want to see the best results.
The ‘Matesong’ campaign is a wonderfully executed piece of advertising but Australia’s bushfire crisis has sadly changed the country’s image – perhaps forever.
Procter & Gamble’s US Tide brand delivered a perfect brief and chose a brilliant piece of creative by Saatchi & Saatchi, making it a deserved Grand Effie winner.
Marketers delude themselves into believing consumers like ads, but by accepting they don’t you’ll better understand how to make an effective one.
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.
For the first time in many marketers’ working memories, the fastest-growing ad channel next year will be non-digital, and it’s a testament to cinema’s enduring audience appeal and emotional impact.
The Cannes Lions festival featured endless ill-informed speculation about 5G mobile networks, all rendered pointless by Mark Ritson’s wondrous new invention – 9G.
Les Binet and Peter Field’s research has gained fame by showing the need to balance long- and short-term marketing, and while criticisms of their methods are fair, their conclusions still appear to be valid.
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.
Salience is a much bigger challenge than differentiation, and codes are the way to achieve it – but using them creatively first requires decades of consistency.
By adopting Liverpool FC’s red colour to celebrate its long association with the club, Carlsberg continues to play with its distinctive assets in a way that revitalises the brand.
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.
Companies like McDonald’s are abandoning the CMO role in part because marketers insist on constant, pointless reinvention of the position and its responsibilities.
Founders live and breathe their brands, and Superdry’s Julian Dunkerton should be able to correct the strategic mistakes of the past, as long as he’s not stuck in the past himself.
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.
Ofcom’s latest data yet again shows why TV should be at the top of most big brands’ media plans, yet some marketers insist on ignoring the facts. Here are the answers to their most common quibbles.
Focus groups are a bone of contention, as a Twitter debate featuring Professor Byron Sharp this week showed, but while they are flawed, they are still a quick and cheap route to useful insights.
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.
Interbrand is a respected name in brand valuation, but its proposal to replace brand positioning with ‘iconic moves’ demonstrates a lack of strategic sense.
Sit back, grab the popcorn and enjoy what will surely prove to be the most competitive commercial contest in marketing history.
By unveiling that 007 will be a black woman in the next James Bond movie, the producers of the franchise have learned a lesson all brands should take heed of – brands that want to stay relevant and true to their identity must continue to evolve.
Carlsberg has turned its famous strapline on its head to admit it is ‘Probably not the best beer in the world’, a move that recalls its heritage while achieving a much needed repositioning.
Masquerading as a tech firm has done no favours for WeWork, neither have its premature brand extensions and over-inflated view of its own self-importance.
The Guardian is a fine newspaper and should be proud to reverse its losses, but by giving its product away for free it is preventing the news industry profiting from quality journalism.
After probing America’s newest industry four key questions spring to mind: Which will be the big marijuana brands of the future? Why does scale drive ad effectiveness? What day is it? And, why have my legs stopped working?
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.
As the Marketing Week Mini MBA enters its fourth year, its professor, Mark Ritson, explains the origins of the course and why it is expanding into a new subject area.
Zero-based budgeting hurts long-term brand-building, while advertising-to-sales ratios are entirely arbitrary. There’s a much better, ‘two-speed’ way to set marketing budgets.
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.
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.
Adam&eveDDB deserves recognition for its outstanding creative work but with its creative nous it should know it’s time to drop the adam&eve name for the good of the wider DDB brand.
Can veteran marketer Miguel Patricio use his expert eye to turn a dusty and confused portfolio around or has he got himself into a giant box of shit?
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.
Not all publicity is good publicity, but as long as you don’t undermine your proposition or entirely alienate your market, the salience gained from a bad news story often outweighs any damage to brand image.
Apple has messed up by adopting a biased algorithm that disadvantages women applying for its credit card, but the chances of it harming the core technology business are slim.
Cadbury’s efforts to promote diversity have been ridiculed on social media, but the bigger issue is the hypocrisy of doing so while paying no UK tax.
Whether or not Thomas Cook responds to financial rumours, once trust in its stability is undermined its brand equity will erode, obliterating future sales.