ANA Marketing Maestros

2010 ANA Key Findings Report--ANA Recession Survey 4th Edition

By Bill Duggan

ANA recently fielded the fourth wave of what has become known as our “recession survey.”  Over the past two years ANA has polled our members at six month intervals to determine how marketing and advertising budgets are being impacted by economic conditions. 

The recession may be officially over, but it appears that marketers have reset their expectations and a greater degree of frugality has set in. Cost savings and reductions may be the “new normal” even as the economy improves. However, the deepest cuts are likely to have already been made.

Highlights from the most recent survey:

• Marketers are still being pressured to reduce their costs and spending in light of the economy, though reductions are less severe than were reported in the three previous surveys. 
• The top four ways marketers are reducing costs and spending:
  1.  75 percent are challenging agencies to reduce internal expenses and/or identify cost reductions.  
  2.  73 percent are reducing departmental travel and expenses.
  3.  53 percent are reducing advertising media budgets.
  4.  50 percent are reducing advertising production budgets.
• Though the majority of marketers forecast no change in spending for the balance of 2009, predictions about advertising budgets in the next six months suggest some degree of optimism since the last survey.
  1.  59 percent expect budgets will stay the same.
  2.  22 percent forecast that budgets will be reduced (versus 39 percent, 49 percent, and 53 percent respectively in the last three surveys).
  3.  19 percent are hopeful budgets will increase.   
  

Full survey results are available at www.ana.net/recessionsurvey.   

Marketing Accountability is Still Elusive

By Barbara Bacci Mirque

The results from our Annual Marketing Accountability Survey were recently revealed at the 2007 Marketing Accountability Conference. This survey was conducted in conjunction with MMA and fielded by our friends at Guideline Inc.

The conference buzzed after learning that the survey results indicated that rather than marketers progressing in their marketing accountability efforts, it appeared they are backsliding. I took part in many discussions about this phenomenon and a few theories were advanced. The most compelling: the bar is being raised. 

In the past, as we all embarked on our respective marketing accountability journeys, we did not know what we did not know!  Now as we are more enlightened, we realize that we aren’t as successful as we thought we were.

Also, we have tackled the low hanging fruit and now are dealing with the more difficult aspects of marketing accountability such as instituting repeatable, sustainable marketing process and organizational changes which are difficult to implement on a good day. Even finance is becoming more sophisticated about marketing accountability and is challenging us more than they have in the past.  We may have erred in not including their input into the assumptions that we put into our marketing models and now they are questioning if models were built upon faulty assumptions.  All the more reason to keep talking to each other and discussing best marketing accountability practices. We invite ANA members to join the Marketing Accountability Committee to keep the conversations going. 

For more details about the Marketing Accountability Survey results, ANA members can visit the new face of the Marketing Insights Center. Also, I was recently interviewed about the survey by Adweek for their online magazine, click here to read the story.

Technorati tags: marketing accountability , marketing

Confessions of Rockstar CMOs

by Barbara Bacci-Mirque

What an interesting week in the marketing world.  The same week that an Ad Age article reports that CMOs have minimal impact on sales (!), the ANA and Booz Allen Hamilton release our joint publication, CMO Thought Leaders: The Rise of the Strategic Marketer.

I would like to offer some inside information on the CMO report in Ad Age - the quick headline was CMOs have little impact, but a marketing scientist familiar with the study told me that what the research actually found was that there was little difference in the sales growth between companies with and without a Chief Marketing Officer.

So back to the CMO Thought Leaders reader, I was lucky enough to be part of this remarkable publication and attend several of the one-on-one conversations with the heads of marketing we profiled.  What an education that was!  There is no magic bullet to their success but the overarching traits I observed among these marketing leaders are insatiable intellectual curiosity, lack of complacency – they continually question what they could do better – and team building internally and externally.  They all realized they could not do it alone and so had close relationships with their colleagues who specialized in finance, analytics, and consumer insights.   Some  of the marketers we interviewed are more right brain and some are more left brain but they all are incredible.  If you read the book and absorb the lessons from these marketing giants, I bet you will have more tenure in your own senior marketing role.

Stengel - Communications Specialist in Demand

By Will Waugh

We recently interviewed Jim Stengel, P&G's Global Marketing Officer, for an upcoming publication we have coming out tentatively titled Marketing Thought Leaders: Conquering the Growth Frontier. When asked for his predictions on specialized positions for the new marketing world, he only gave one - a communications specialist role. I thought the definition for this was interesting so I thought I'd share it:

It's someone who is a bit of a consumer researcher and a bit of an advertising agency planner type - someone who is an integrated thinker; someone who understands the communications world. And I think someone who also understands the content world. It's a much more complex planning skill -- strategic thinking you might call it.

There you have it. The world's top marketer on what sort of skill sets a new marketer needs to have. I have talked about content as a killer app  as well as the renaissance marketer and how these traits are neccesary components of the evolving marketing world. The challenge, of course, is finding the talented individuals with a varied skill set across this spectrum. 

Technorati tags: stengel marketing communications

What's on the Minds of Senior Marketers?

By Will Waugh

A survey that the ANA released found the top concerns on the minds of senior marketing executives are "integrated marketing communications" and "marketing accountability". The ANA asked over 100 senior marketers to select from a comprehensive list of subjects to rank their top three issues that directly impact their marketing decisions and plans.

Integrated marketing communications (Wikipedia) jumped from the fourth spot in 2006 to the top of the list this year. Marketing accountability, which had topped the list for the previous three annual surveys, slipped to second place.

The ANA will use these findings to help shape the content of its Annual Conference: The Masters of Marketing scheduled to take place October 11 – 14, 2007 in Phoenix, AZ.

The entire selection of questions is below. The top 4 are switched around but remains consistent with what senior marketers and CMOs are telling us. Integrated marketing being number 1 does not surprise me, nor should it anyone else in this space as the marketing landscape continues to transform. The real question for those of us marketers out there is, should we be concerned that "attracting and retaining top talent" is the least of their worries?

Issue	2007	2006
Integrated marketing communications	1	4
Accountability	2	1
Aligning marketing organization with innovation	3	2
Building strong brands	4	3
Media proliferation	5	5
Consumer control over what and how they view advertising	6	8
Globalization of marketing efforts	7	10
Growth of multicultural consumer segments	8	6
Advertising creative that achieves business results	9	9
Attracting and retaining top talent	10	7

Technorati tags: CMOs marketing IMC

Tripodi's Pet Peeves

By Will Waugh

At yesterday's TV Forum, Allstate's illustrious CMO Joe Tripodi told a compelling brand story and shared his pet peeves of advertising. He urged advertisers not to be:

• The Class Clown - Thinks everything is a joke with nothing really tying to the brand or product
• The Jock - An advertiser who is lost in strained sports analogies and attaches product or brand where there is no real linkage.
• The Prom Princess - An advertiser who is all about image with no real product or substance -
• The Slacker - No goals or measures.
• The Geek - In love with all the new media and technology (this might hit a sore spot to this audience). He feels these people are trying to be ingredient branders.
• The Drama Queen - All emotion, all the time. These are advertisers who attempt to inject emotion where there is none.
• The Heavyweight - He mentioned that it is good to go on intuition some time, but not all the time. My favorite quote here: "If you go with your guy all the time, you will be out of a job." The overriding concept here is you absolutely need consumer insight and analysis.

Ad Age is hosting some video of Joe Tripodi here.

Technorati tags: tripodi marketing TV Forum

Out at TV Today

By Will Waugh

We will be hosting our annual precursor to the Upfront today we call the TV Forum. I will attempt to post from there but am not 100% sure on the hotspots at the Marriott Marquis. So that being said, I will report back on what our friends at Allstate, Nissan, NBC Universal, et al. have to say as soon as possible. Also on the slate is Andy Jung from Kelloggs delivering the ANA's commercial ratings stance. This is the area I hope to see some debate on. Most of the chatter about this subject states that our advertisers are fighting a losing cause. Sorry, it's a fight that needs to be fought. Vietnam can do it, why can't we? My favorite quote comes from Chris at Open the Dialogue:

Nielsen's system isn't actually going to be able to track commercial viewing because it only tracks viewer numbers every 2.5 seconds, a time gap that's too wide for accurate measurement. That's just fine with most parties involved in this discussion, though, since ad agencies seem to be paranoid about their commercials actually being judged with hard numbers. They like those fuzzy numbers, but their media-buying counterparts are wanting the same accountability for TV that they're finding online.

Another call from the ANA's paper is that some of the bigger brand names want "brand-specific" ratings, but it's hard for me to fathom the extent to which this won't happen.

Technorati tags: commercial ratings television

5 Tips from Microsoft's CMO

By Barbara Bacci Mirque

On Thursday Mich Matthews, CMO of Microsoft, spoke at the AAAA media conference and then was questioned by our own ANA CEO, Bob Liodice.  It was fascinating to hear Mich admit that even Microsoft, admittedly a prime catylst for the digital revolution we marketers are in, was struggling with media innovation, trying to find appropriate marketing talent, developing a marketing process and dealing with innovation and consumer control. And oh yes, how to make her CFO comfortable that the marketing spending is driving business results.

Some of Mich's top points:

• Technology requires that we innovate or die.
• We constantly have to be part of the revolution by testing, investing and experimenting.   
• As far as marketing talent -- at Microsoft, the marketers have to be able to speak the language of engineers and have the "bandwidth" to deal with all of the emerging media.
• Caution to marketers who are using social networks and the like, not to use them to "market" but rather to engage the communites and enter into a dialogue with them about your products or services.
• She also noted that often the "small guys" are redefining industries so marketers have to pay attention to them.

Good learning for all of us from a very smart marketer.

Technorati tags: microsoft marketing

Microsoft's Mich Matthews at the 4As Media Conference

Mich Matthews, Microsoft's Chief Marketing Officer, will be sitting down with our very own Bob Liodice at the upcoming 4As Media Conference & Tradeshow, themed Communications Leadership: Increasing the Odds for Success, in Las Vegas. Last I heard, they are expecting a record crowd (my friend Max here says conferences are facing a bubble) which is impressive seeing as they topped out at 1100 in Orlando last year.

There is not alot out in the blogosphere or publishing world on the Microsoft marketing chief, but I do know from working with Microsoft that their upcoming product launches, including their OS Vista, offer an intriguing array of marketing opportunities.

The Top Ten CMO List

By Will Waugh

When speaking with senior marketers of the ANA, I have been asked about blogs and their impact. Many have commented that they are "nice" and something they are interested in. Many times, I have been asked to send a list of blogs that would be relevant to what's important to them. Instead of culling down so many brilliant marketing blogs out there, I found some posts/blogs that focus directly on the CMO and the way they do business:

1. First, the person who speaks with more CMOs than anybody, our chief Bob Liodice. Here is a recent post where he predicts what he expects for CMOs in 2007.
2. Peter Kim of Forrester is doing an ongoing study of marketing organizations. His most recent post here on being a CMO.
3. Note to CMO by Stephen Denny
4. Marketing and media in the age of great cynicism from the former CMO magazine editor.
5. Brand Autopsy, particularly the post on the 20 Common Mistakes of Eager Leaders
6. Tom Peters blog on strategy
7. Guy Kawasaki offers practical knowledge for business people, here is a post with a great list of marketing podcasts
8. MarketingProfs Daily Fix has a ton of good stuff for all marketers, here is a great post on Setting Expectations for Marketing.
9. Of course, my good man Eric Kintz who is a senior marketer talking about the issues that affect them, here on social media and organic search.
10. Church of the Customer blog talks about what many CMOs continue to struggle with, word of mouth, customer insights and the world that is social media.

Technorati tags: chief marketing officer blogs marketing