Brace yourself for marketing's perfect storm! Less than two months into 2008 and a lot of the marketing trade press has shifted its focus from their trends and forecasts to the possible impact of the US recession on the marketing domain. Two examples: Recession marketing: be brave or be gone and CMOs Get Ready for a Rocky Ride. Whether or when Belgium is to face a recession, key advice for “branding in a recession” includes the expected: identify new creative, media or targeting opportunities; strengthen market position against weaker rivals; and hold firm to a long-term direction. Three forces at play are surely: the “bionic” consumer with extra connectivity and control, a complex media environment and a landscape littered with undifferentiated brands.
How are companies marketing online? Well, the latest Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) estimates that €270m was spent in Belgium last year on Internet ads, +50% compared to 2006, which reflects the European trend. Only 15% of Belgian surfers buy on the internet though, so it will take time to see e-Commerce’s return in our land. Americans spend an average of 14 hours a week online and 14 hours watching TV. But marketers spend 22% of their advertising dollars on TV and only 6% online, according to Google. So if online marketing is the future, why are some CMOs stuck in the past?
The future state of marketing budgets is of course a big issue. Rise in some marketing budgets is foreseen by some, although it’s anyone’s guess. According to B2B marketing trends 2010 (ISBM), the most significant challenges for B2B marketers over the next two years will be to “gain insight into customers' needs.” and “identify new opportunities for organic growth.” Yes, not bad for a marketing function... Marketers cited lack of time, resources and skills as critical challenges too. More interestingly, the focus was also on “building better tools to compute value, such as pricing strategies and value creation throughout the value chain,” as well as building better metrics to measure ROI.
According to Martin Sorrell, 2008 will be "a pretty good year, in fact better than 07, with the Beijing Olympics, US presidential election political €4.5bn ad spend and the European football championships." He forecasts more issues in 2009, with a new political cycle in the US and a post-Olympics slowdown in China. In the meantime, marketers are subdued about 2008 spending and the last quarter of 2007 saw UK companies revise their marketing budgets downward more steeply than at any time in the past two years.
Formerly online agencies are evolving into full service agencies through partnerships/acquisitions and recruitment of strong 'offline' creatives.
They are entering competitions with the 'big' offline guys, and are winning clients looking for integrated communication solutions.
Land Rover Belux has chosen These Days (Wunderman) as agency to realize its integrated communications strategy.
This means the agency will develop above and below the line activities, database management, events and of course the online campaigns/presence.
Boondoggle (the agency formerly known as iMerge) attracted new creative teams coming from the 'offline' world, in order to strengthen its position as a full service supplier.
Every business site has been busy drawing a list of marketing and socio-economic trends for 2008 during this last month. How each marketer interprets these will depend on their industry sector, personal experience and business focus. Nevertheless, two dimensions seem to be emerging as a marketing priority this year: on one side, the need for marketing to be more creative and innovative in both strategy and implementation; on the other, the focus on engaging with customers in an authentic, interactive and personal way.
These two aspects are obviously linked and overlap each other, but they still represent different priorities on the internal–external axis, touching all marketing points from its organisation to the customer experience. The key will be to ensure a balanced integration and measurement of the all marketing activities, whether the initial focus is within your company or at one of the many customer touch points.
A vast range of corporate and consumer trends can be easily accessed and interpreted from various online sources. But how do marketing and marketers feel at the beginning of 2008? A quick health check around the world reveals these trends:
• Senior marketers are facing an increasingly complex world with new technologies and new market segments rising to the fore
• Brand value and differentiation as well as the 4Ps of marketing remain key concern
• Marketing basics are more important than ever! Customer satisfaction, retention, segmentation, brand loyalty and ROI remain key
• Marketers (still) want more impact with less money
• Web and green marketing remain hot; as well as women, senior, Gen X and Y, and ethical groups catching up to baby boomers
• Marketers feel a new but cautious optimism, as both the market and budgets are maintained
• Re-winning the trust of the consumer is high on the agenda; providing the right support and contact points to them
The usual suspects of Web 2.0/social media, green/ethical marketing and return on investment will stay on Belgian marketers’ agenda for some time to come, but it is important to anticipate the next wave of developments impacting the marketing world, both on the online and physical sides. Getting the 4Ps and its mix right is still required before starting to play with blogs and social networks. Whether you talk B2B or B2C, understanding your market fully, adapting your marketing processes, integrating your channels optimally and facilitating impactful customer experiences will be crucial to your success. Stories in branding has been a hot topic for many communications agencies. Brands are now built primarily on the respect and love values while conversations are linked to brand reputation. Marketers might have lost some of the “control” of their customers indeed. They need to be more engaging, authentic and creative than ever before, from strategy to measurement.
For those of you who are eager to devour some of the latest predictions and analysis of 2008 trends, feel free to consult these articles:
Simmons researched the media behavior of 75.000 Americans through online and cati interviews.
The results show that people watching online TV shows are 47% more involved with the ads showed than a regular TV viewer.
The online viewers feel 25% more involved with the content of the shows online than a regular TV viewer.
Can we conclude that an American online TV viewer is more involved with the ads than with the content?
Depends on what we consider as 'involvement'. According to the study involvement means things such as 'relevant for me', 'inspiring', 'trustworthy', 'enriching', 'interactive', 'personal time-out'.
Some other conclusions:
-Consumers in general feel 18% more involved with online (website) content than printed content
-They feel 15% more involved with online magazine content than printed content
-Women and youngsters are more involved than men and elderly surfers
-Print consumers still are more involved with their trusted printed content than with TV or internet content
Online content apparently triggers stronger involvement, both for the content and the ads surrounding it. Except for the 'die-hard' print readership (but this is a segment in decline).
Looking forward to some European figures!
04/01/2008 | 10:54 am
Tangible application of the polluter-pays principle in French auto industry
A new decree in France introduces a new system of bonus/malus at the acquisition of new vehicles on the market. It is a concrete application of the polluter-pays principle and aims at encouraging the purchase of the less CO2-rejecting vehicles:
- a bonus of 200 up to 1.000 euro for the purchase of an environmentally performant vehicle (rejecting less than 130g CO2 per km)
- no bonus or no malus for the purchase of an average vehicle (rejecting between 130 and 200g CO2 per km)
- an extra tax of 200 up to 2.600 euro for the purchase of a very polluting vehicle (rejecting more than 200g CO2 per km)
03/01/2008 | 10:49 pm
Top 10 learnings from Stichting Marketing Congress
The House of Marketing’s consultants were actively listening to all the key presentations of the Stichting Marketing Congress held in Gent last December. A compilation of the key trends and learnings was prepared to build on the company’s knowledge base. From Green to Poverty Marketing and serving ageing baby boomers, marketing topics keep evolving every week. The ageing demography, impact of climate change, immigration mass-changes and the increasing women’s power were four key trends discussed at this Stichting Marketing Congress. Here is The House of Marketing’s summary of some of the Congress’ conclusions which marketers have to pay attention to:
1. Futurologists and artists need to help us build scenarios and create better products. Finding a new brand approach to face new times is essential
2. Women are in charge and religion is on the rise, while life expectancy increases as biology is under control
3. These days brands have difficulties to differentiate due to the high level of copy-cat brands, low prices and the decrease in customer loyalty. The solution is to add emotional associations to your brand and activate the brand across the customer’s five senses. The better marketers understand how customers “feel”, the more successful they will be
4. From now, brands will have to propose a real USP with a vision for both the consumer and the society in general
5. Democracy and transparency of the new media environment mean that a company’s size is no decisive factor for success anymore. Large companies now have to act small by dividing themselves into niches, personalize, go back to their roots, think local and make decisions as a small company
6. Marketers are in-breeding, they have to shift to more long-term mindset. They need to be artists, non-marketers and challenge all ideas as well as respect five key values: think cradle-to-cradle (ecology), give creativity back to people, offer experiences through “prosumption” (production by consumers) and share innovations
7. The customer now decides on the place which will take the brand in his (her) environment
8. The focus on core brand values implies an investment in human capital that positively influences consumer branding and social branding, all being linked with each other
9. Private labels and low-cost providers need as much bonding with the consumer as premium brands. A value brand today is not the same as 10 years ago; “cheap and low quality” is replaced by “clever and excellent value for money” products
10. Consumers moving from brand image to establishing relationships with brands, trading up and down in their buying habits
In the event Autoshow, starting today in Los Angeles, Volkswagen is presenting its brand-new car: Space up! Blue.
This new concept is the new variant on the standard Space up!, ‘new small family’ which was unveiled earlier this year.
What makes the Blue variant different is a unique technology using a combination of high temperature fuel cell and an array of twelve lithium-ion batteries. The car also has a plug-in function for loading the batteries. It even apparently uses solar energy.
According to VW, this car would be a real ‘zero emission vehicle’. VW says the high temperature fuel cell system is superior to prior fuel cell technologies because it offers several advantages such as a considerably lower weight, a significantly greater everyday utility, a substantially lower price.
Are you also tired of the classic spots where manufacturers of razors would announce that they added yet another blade to the razors? Have you also wondered how we would manage to shave if this race would continue another few years?
Good news from Wilkinson. Instead of launching a campaign to introduce a razor with no less than 16 blades, they went for a little more innovative option this time. Don't hesitate to have a look at here.
Let's hope that this initiative sparks some out-of-the-box thinking in the razor market!
Véronique Vergeynst, Senior Consultant at The House of Marketing, invited Caroline Maerten (Social Media consultant) to conduct a workshop on Social Media.
It turned out to be a very interesting evening.
The "power to the people" idea that is intrinsically and positively connected with Social Media however is not being shared by everyone.
Andrew Keen wrote "The Cult of the Amateur". Some quotes:
"what the web 2.0 revolution is really delivering is superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis"
"for the real consequence of the web 2.0 revolution is less culture, less reliable news, and a chaos of useless information"
