The founder model works, even if Jack Dorsey didn’t for Twitter
Mark RitsonDorsey’s contention that founder-led businesses are overhyped doesn’t hold water. The right founder offers huge marketing advantage – that just wasn’t him.
Mark Ritson
Only a fool would bet against Amazon succeeding on the high street
Mark RitsonNewly leaked documents suggest Amazon has begun a concerted push to become a grocery retailer on the British high street. Our columnist looks at why it will eventually triumph, and why this new move is a big part of the omnichannel revolution.
Christmas advertising is drowning in marketers’ fake tears
Mark RitsonChristmas 2021 is shaping up to be an exercise in hyper-emotional brand bullshit, with Coca-Cola even choosing to edit itself out of its own campaign. But don’t worry, the holidays are still coming.
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Does Facebook’s corporate rebrand to ‘Meta’ prove the future is ‘beyond’ it?
Mark RitsonOur marketing columnist stayed up late in Tasmania and put his headset on for the Facebook Connect VR conference. But he came away unimpressed with the branding revelations that followed.
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The horror of marketers’ strategic bankruptcy is about to be laid bare
Mark RitsonAs the Better Briefs Project will reveal this week, 90% of marketers fail to brief agencies effectively, and their failures begin with a total lack of strategy.
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Trust in brands is illusory, just look at Facebook’s continued growth
Mark RitsonFacebook repeatedly ranks low in consumer trust surveys, yet user growth continues, revealing the idea of trust in brands as anthropomorphic nonsense.
If your distinctive brand assets are exclusively visual it’s time to come to your (other) senses
Mark RitsonVisual cues are all very well but don’t forget the other four senses when developing brand codes as they can be just as powerful – if not more so – at creating stand out and appeal.
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If the old logo ain’t broke, fix it anyway: Ritson’s rules for playing with brand codes
Mark RitsonThose questioning the updates to Heinz’s slogan and the British Rail logo miss the salience the brands will gain – but there are rules for playing with brand codes effectively.
Ritson’s 10 marketing hacks to help small businesses go big
Charlotte RogersFrom a new recipe for pic n’ mix comms, to making extreme choices, Mark Ritson shares his marketing twists that can help SMEs get big brand outcomes.
The seven things marketers need to know in order to answer The Question
Mark RitsonRight-minded marketers understand the need for long-term brand building investment, but most still question how they can convince those above them. Here’s how you do it.
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‘Bothism’ is the cure for marketers’ fascination with pointless conflict
Mark RitsonMarketing theory is a constant battle between opposing viewpoints, but an open mind and accurate data set will show you usually need to adopt both perspectives.
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Don Schultz may be gone but we can’t let integrated marketing die with him
Mark RitsonMarketers must heed the great Northwestern University professor’s principles of integrated marketing communications, or risk the loss of effectiveness that comes with focusing on individual channels.
P&G and Coke’s pandemic performances prove it: You don’t cut ad spend in a crisis
Mark RitsonProcter & Gamble doubled down on marketing when Covid hit, while Coca-Cola went dark. The former’s revenues surged, the latter’s dwindled, and Ehrenberg-Bass data now proves if you stop advertising you lose sales.
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Amazon is the perfect example of why big brands need to advertise
Mark RitsonAmazon now tops the global ad spend charts, despite founder Jeff Bezos’s original scepticism towards advertising – not surprising, since it’s crucial for defending market share.
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TikTok is nothing new – to marketers, it’s just another ad platform
Mark RitsonAlthough its strapline, ‘Don’t Make Ads, Make TikToks’, touts it as revolutionary, TikTok will soon reveal itself to be another ‘traditional’ ad business, as its own media strategy makes clear.
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The ad industry’s ‘dirty dozen’ must rescue us from this shambolic Covid comms strategy
Mark RitsonThe government’s message on controlling coronavirus while leaving lockdown is fatally unclear, and only expert intervention can avoid a disastrous failure.
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Facebook’s Horizon Workrooms sucks ass
Mark RitsonFacebook’s new virtual meeting software falls victim to one of marketing’s worst sins, product orientation, simply because Mark Zuckerberg needs to find a use for virtual reality to justify his investment in Oculus.
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Wondering why Netflix wants to stop password-sharing? It’s all about funnels
Mark RitsonNetflix has reached a level of penetration it will struggle to improve, with most customers already paying premium prices, so converting those sharing passwords into paying subscribers is its biggest growth opportunity.
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Marketing’s Midlife Crisis: A screenplay by Mark Ritson
Mark RitsonIs loyalty dead? How many positions is too many? And who the fuck is Byron? Our columnist presents a modern marketing love story.
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Attempts to update the four Ps are embarrassing – they’ve endured for a reason
Mark RitsonWhenever a marketer sets out to improve, augment or adapt the four Ps, they reveal the absurdity of the exercise and reinforce why product, price, place and promotion remain the core concepts of the marketing mix.
Bamlanivimab and the challenge of brand names
Mark RitsonBrand naming is always a difficult job, even more so for pharmaceutical drugs, but marketers should remember to put the naming carriage behind the positioning horse.
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Logo fix or logo flex? Marketers should be more playful
Mark RitsonAs 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.
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Standing out is the key brand challenge – that’s why great brands play with their codes
Mark RitsonSalience is a much bigger challenge than differentiation, and codes are the way to achieve it – but using them creatively first requires decades of consistency.
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Turning Carlsberg Liverpool-red is a branding masterstroke
Mark RitsonBy 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.
Ritson on why successful marketers make time to listen
Marketing Week ReportersListening is a key attribute of high-performing marketers, alongside empathy, curiosity and an ability to make even the complex look simple, says Mark Ritson.
Ritson’s top 10 quotes from marketers who aren’t ‘dead white men’
Marketing Week ReportersMark Ritson called on the industry to help him compile a list of quotes from a diverse selection of marketers who better reflect the “powerful” and “brilliant” talent of today.
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Jeff Bezos’s success at Amazon is down to one thing: focusing on the customer
Mark RitsonFor all Amazon’s innovation and invention, it is the world’s most valuable brand principally because its founder Jeff Bezos got to know his customers.
Customers’ benevolence won’t keep brands alive – we serve them, not the other way round
Mark RitsonBrands can’t expect customers to behave generously, or even reasonably, to save them from the Covid crisis. They must accept their situation with humility and find new ways to offer value to their markets.
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To win the biggest legal battle in marketing, Google must show who its competition really is
Mark RitsonGoogle might have an 80% share of the search market, but as the investigation by the US Department of Justice will no doubt show there are now many more ways people find information online.
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Seven reasons why TV’s doubters are wrong
Mark RitsonOfcom’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.
Ethnography beats focus groups hands-down, but they still serve a purpose
Mark RitsonFocus 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.
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The first rule of marketing is you are not the customer
Mark RitsonA 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.
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Tom Kerridge’s prices aren’t a rip-off if they’re what the market will pay
Mark RitsonForget worshipping at the altar of revenue. Marketers who take a leaf out of Tom Kerridge’s book and embrace pricing power will find the surest route to profitability.
Follow The National Lottery’s example: Don’t rebrand, revitalise
Mark RitsonWhen brands struggle, marketers’ first thought is a rebrand or repositioning, but by going back to its roots you can boost sales and retain brand equity cost-effectively.
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John Lewis the landlord? Welcome to brand extension nirvana
Mark RitsonEven if John Lewis cocks up in its bid to rent homes to the masses, the blowback on its department store business will be limited – even non-existent – thanks to the magic of brand extension.
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Damaging brand image is rarely harmful because it matters so little
Mark RitsonMarketers should worry less about their carefully crafted brand image and take more risks because, as brands such as Porsche, Volvo and Ben & Jerry’s show, consumers don’t care about what they stand for.
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Three axioms and three questions that summarise all of brand strategy
Mark RitsonBrand strategy is not complicated, it’s just the systematic application of the basics all marketers are taught. Here’s a simple way to be sure you’re taking the right steps – in the right order.
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It’s time for ‘share of search’ to replace ‘share of voice’
Mark RitsonShare of voice is a key metric for setting budgets and predicting growth, but digital media make it impossible to calculate accurately. Understanding your share of search queries is a simple and elegant alternative.
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Take Tesco’s lead, prepare for a recession that will dwarf the financial crash
Mark RitsonForget ‘U’s and ‘V’s, this recession will be F-shaped, and Tesco knows from the financial crash that all most brands and retailers can do is minimise their losses.
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WeWork’s IPO debacle highlights the failures of modern brand building
Mark RitsonMasquerading 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.
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The Long and the Short of It maps exactly onto the challenges of global marketing
Mark RitsonThe boundaries between marketing teams’ responsibilities become clearer if you simply make long-term brand strategy a global job and short-term, targeted product activations a local one.
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Be like Plusnet and ‘do a Ritson’
Mark RitsonBT marketing director David Stratton says Plusnet has ‘done a Mark Ritson’ by simplifying its brand codes to differentiate from sister brands EE and BT – a no-nonsense approach our columnist is proud to associate with his name.
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Coronavirus won’t hurt Corona, it will actually boost sales
Mark RitsonBrands 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.
Why Marketing Week’s Mini MBA is branching into brand management
Mark RitsonAs 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.
Adidas’s sale of Reebok makes strategic sense all round
Mark RitsonReebok hasn’t reached the heights of the 1980s and 90s since Adidas bought it in 2006, and its sale means Adidas can focus on its ‘branded house’ while new owner ABG has the skills to bring Reebok into its ‘house of brands’.
There’s no downside for Boohoo in buying Debenhams’ brand
Mark RitsonCritics might scorn the fit but consumers care little about corporate ownership, and acquiring the Debenhams brand at a knockdown price helps Boohoo target more profitable customers.
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For the ‘agency of the decade’, adam&eveDDB is a mess of a brand
Mark RitsonAdam&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.
Kraft Heinz’s new CEO needs to deliver a much-needed dose of tough love
Mark RitsonCan 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?
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If an influencer’s what you want, find a 90-year-old with bad WiFi
Mark RitsonThere’s no influence like a customer’s, as AT&T found when nonagenarian Aaron Epstein placed an ad in the Wall Street Journal criticising its service.
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To end associations with the Proud Boys, Fred Perry needs to do more than stop selling them shirts
Mark RitsonRestricting US sales will only strengthen the neo-fascists’ bond with the shirts they use as a uniform. The brand needs a big ad campaign to show it stands for the opposite ideology.
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Marketers must follow The Guardian and stop enabling oil brands’ hypocrisy
Mark RitsonAs 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.
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Peloton’s ad is bad, but it will ultimately benefit the brand
Mark RitsonNot 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.