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.
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.
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?
The Cannes Lions festival featured endless ill-informed speculation about 5G mobile networks, all rendered pointless by Mark Ritson’s wondrous new invention – 9G.
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.
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.
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.
Whether or not Thomas Cook responds to financial rumours, once trust in its stability is undermined its brand equity will erode, obliterating future sales.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Distinctiveness and differentiation are both integral to brand success so there doesn’t need to be a trade-off between the two.
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.
There are two ways to position a brand – ‘about’ something and ‘versus’ something – and the most powerful examples of positioning do both.
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.
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.
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’.