In her first column for Marketing Week, Ehrenberg-Bass’s Jenni Romaniuk, illustrates the impact of trying to integrate ‘meaning’ into the four stages of distinctive asset creation.
In a world rushing toward bot-to-bot commerce, shopping lists illustrate why human connection remains the ultimate differentiator.
The ban on advertising ‘less healthy foods’ highlights marketers’ dilemma: prioritise profit within the limits of the law, or focus on solving societal issues.
Finance’s demands for predictability are at odds with the probabilistic nature of marketing.
Tom Roach explores the implications of the GenAI revolution on creativity, and takes an optimistic view that this advertising revolution will be a more creative one than the last.
The ‘buyability’ model unifies brand and demand, and helps attribute revenue, with a strategy built around B2B buyers’ needs and how they make decisions.
Our marketer on the inside reflects on what the thousands of posts, talks and articles on leadership don’t address about the key to success.
Brand models are necessary and important pieces of work, but marketers overcomplicate them with too much fiddling and overly ornate language.
By identifying manufacturing efficiencies, brands and their supply chains can improve customer experience for all – which encourages them to go premium later.
Marketers who crave ESG narratives about doing social good should focus on how profitable businesses keep people employed and bolster public finances.
At times it can feel like proving ROI stretches beyond metrics to a question of professional credibility. Marketers have the power to reframe the conversation.
As Cannes Lions kicks off, creativity is high on the agenda. But for marketers looking to explain its impact to a cynical CFO, the case is best made through its effect on risk, not growth.
Humility should be a key trait of all marketing leaders, especially at a time when they are under scrutiny and pressure to perform. Find the time, and encourage others to ask for help and acknowledge what they don’t know.
The moment is approaching when B2B brands realise they need to invest more in brand than performance. Just look at these examples for inspiration.
Many are talking of the ways AI will rip up the rulebook on creativity, but for B2B the biggest disruption AI will cause is to diagnosis.
For B2B firms, investing in brand marketing is the best bet in good times, and it’s an even better bet in bad times when the pool of current buyers shrinks from 5% to 1%.
In his second column on reframing the marketing function, Ogilvy UK’s Dan Bennett explains why leaving a legacy as a marketer comes from changing consumer behaviour and not vanity metrics.
Politics is becoming increasingly divisive – and marketers need to prepare and adapt for an uncertain future. Doing nothing will only leave your brand in a difficult position.
Marketers may view events like Valentine’s Day as a commercial goldmine but the way people celebrate such moments is evolving so brands must adapt to avoid being seen as tone-deaf.
Underwear brand Bonds’ ubiquity in Australia will only serve to make it more coveted elsewhere, just like Budweiser and Mini when they launched abroad.
Coca-Cola constantly churns out great financial results, but there’s no secret to its success other than consistent marketing excellence on every level.
Tesla’s woes are a rare example of bad press that does harm the brand, because its CEO’s public profile is so opposed to its environmentalist image.
Given the erratic nature of Trump’s tariffs, marketers need to be prepared and have a scenario and a strategy for each future possibility.
Econometrics, experimentation and attribution have been described as the ‘golden trinity’ of measuring effectiveness but there is a far better framework that brands should consider.
Reading data and reacting to it means you can get caught in a never-ending loop that prevents you from seeing the bigger picture. It’s far better to set your strategy first and use data to check the plan is working.
Brands shouldn’t leave it to their agencies to prove marketing’s impact, but working closely with them creates a virtuous circle of learning and improvement.
The desire to tinker is deep seated among marketers but what works is often staring them in the face.
Brands today have to balance competing needs: more digital content to drive engagement, but also more consistency to drive long-term effectiveness.
Emotion and vulnerability are celebrated in advertising, but often lacking in leadership. It’s a double standard marketers must stop ignoring.
If you look at Donald Trump’s second term in office through a marketing lens, judging purely on leadership effectiveness and audience connection, he has made three indefensible errors.
There is a clear opportunity for brands to help redefine masculinity but a single campaign won’t cut it. It must come from a deeper, collective effort across everything from the stories they tell and the behaviours they normalise to the identities they promote.
Think carefully about the words you use in advertising copy as they could have an impact on the customer that you didn’t expect.
While it may seem that working in partnership with AI would lead people to be even more efficient – behavioural science tells us that may not be the case.
Research into customer service shows that ending on a positive note matters more than the experience overall – and is something marketers should consider when tailoring their customer journey.