ANA Marketing Maestros

Marketing Accountability Reinvention

By Barbara Bacci Mirque

Our recent Masters of Marketing Annual Conference was all about marketing reinvention and we expect that need to continue into 2007 and beyond. As marketers grapple with accelerated rates of change, staying with programs because they “have always worked in the past and if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” is no longer going to cut it. In order to reinvent, you have to challenge what has always worked and keep challenging it. But be advised, change is never easy. At a meeting of his I attended, marketing pundit Rex Briggs of Marketing Evolution said that one way to innovate is to “build a little, sell a little, learn a lot… If a challenger looks good, work on it, pilot test it and measure it.” When you have the facts, it will be difficult for the naysayers to bring you down. If you are an ANA member, join our new marketing accountability committee to learn how your colleagues are dealing with this and other issues. For the rest of you, join us at the ANA Marketing Accountability Forum in Palm Beach, Florida, from September 9-11, 2007. Check our website for details in the coming months.

Technorati tags: marketing accountability ROI

Marketers: Prepare for Collaborative Marketing

By Kaitlin Villanova

Thanks to Steve Jobs (Wikipedia) and his team of silent geniuses, we are upon the next big revolution in technology. In his keynote speech on Tuesday, Jobs exposed the meaning behind the teaser on the Apple site claiming "the first 30 years were just the beginning. Welcome to 2007".

Among other things, the most exciting new product that was revealed at this meeting was the iPhone. Jobs describes the products as "an iPod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator" not three separate devices. This product operated by the command of the best pointing device in the world -- our fingers. They have invented and patented the new technology called multi-touch. First the mouse, then the click wheel, and now the multi- touch.

The phone comes complete with: a 2 megapixel camera, a headset jack, SIM tray, and a sleep-wake switch, a speaker, and mic input. Internally there are 3 advanced sensors:

1. A proximity sensor: bring the iPhone to your ear and your display shuts off and touch screen shuts down.

2. Ambient light sensor: adjusts brightness, saves power.

3. Accelerometer: can tell whether you're in landscape and portrait.

As a marketer, the genius is not just the phone, but the collaborations with the new product. Apple’s iPhone is associated with Google (Google CEO Eric Schmidt joked this paring was called applegoo), Yahoo!, Cingular, and of course it’s very own Apple products and programs, Itunes, Safari and Mac OSX.

So what does all this mean for the marketing community?

In 2001, with the apple iPod, competitors and marketers alike were forced to kick in to high gear to support this revolutionary merging of high technology and music.

With this new mobile communications strategy reeking of "Jobsian" refinements, that fulfills the consumers demand for control marketers are faced with one question: how do I get in on it?

Digg is flooding with information and predictions on how this Cupertino CA based company will cause a shift in the next collaborative marketing. Apple’s answer is simple; in the words of the great one "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it’s been."

Technorati tags: marketing digg apple steve jobs iphone

Define Your Marketing Organization

By Michael Palmer

With a New Year upon us, what can we do as marketers to make 2007 a better year? Restore and rebuild our credibility.

Sadly marketing and marketers seem themselves as marketing communications professionals. A MarketingProf survey asked marketers what their primary job was – 90%, that’s right 90%, said marketing communications. If marketers continue to think of themselves as communicators and not strategists, the rest of the world is then going to think the same. And the problem with being a marketing communications professional is?

1. You will not be in charge of your own destiny: some one else, either the sales department or your CFO will determine what your budget is not you.
2. You will be looked at as a tactician, not a strategist: marketing should not be about logos, advertising or brand promotions; it should be all about driving revenues and profits.
3. You will constantly be fighting for resources: sales, R&D and production will out trump when money is allocated because you will be thought of as a support department, not the engine of growth.

Start the year off by first defining the role of marketing in your organization – find out via an audit if need be what your constituents think marketing brings to the table. Do they look at the marketing department as marketing services, or the driver of growth? Once you know that, you can start determining how your going to change and grow the credibility of marketing in your organization. AND if you need help, ask us. ANA has spent the last three years building a model to help marketers "Rejuvenate the Power of Marketing" and we would be delighted to share our insights with you.

Happy New Year.

Technorati tags: marketing organization strategy

New Marketing Professional -- Renaissance Marketer

By Will Waugh

Marketing is changing, we all know that. What is interesting to hear, primarily from our senior marketers and board members, is the sort of talent they are looking for in this environment of continuous reinvention. Companies and brands have already changed the requirements for marketers. They are looking for expansive thinkers and superior problem solvers. The true ‘renaissance marketers’ will be educated in disciplines such as philosophy, behavioral science, applied psychology, history, literary theory, and econometrics (I knew that liberal arts degree would pay off).

I came across some great blogs/stories that play in one way or another into this theme:

• David Armano's brilliant Logic + Emotion, which talks talks about psychology and use of color
• Max introduced me to my new favorite site The New Scientist
• The daddy of all great reading lists from another favorite, Creating Passionate Users
• Rob Field's Marketing Pop Culture looks at how marketing and pop culture has transcended to a level of codependence.

Technorati tags: marketing insights renaissance marketer

Data is the New Oil

By Michael Palmer

"Data is the new oil!" Clive Humby, ANA Senior marketer’s summit, Kellogg School.
Data is just like crude. It’s valuable, but if unrefined it cannot really be used. It has to be changed into gas, plastic, chemicals, etc to create a valuable entity that drives profitable activity; so must data be broken down, analyzed for it to have value.

The issue is how do we marketers deal with the massive amounts of data that are available to us? How can we change this crude into a valuable commodity – the insight we need to make actionable decisions?

First we must understand that data is not insight. It is easy to grab a single fact and extrapolate that one fact into an actionable direction. But without context a fact is just that a fact, it is not an insight. For instance, if you discover that in one area your brand awareness level is significantly below your brand awareness level of other regions, should you panic? One brand analysts did. He sent up a red flag throughout his company telling the world that the sky was falling. However, when the CMO checked other facts (share levels, profit margins, target segment awareness) he uncovered that the once thought issue area was in fact a not a problem at all but a very profitable area.

Open Post to All Marketers -- Why Blogging Matters

Sorry about my tardiness on the open post; I was vacationing for my first anniversary (legitimate excuse).

Below is the brain child of Eric Kintz over at HP -- a group perspective from some bloggers on why the blogosphere matters for marketers . Without further ado...

Introduction

Technology has enabled customers to dramatically change their attitude towards marketing. As a result, they are tuning out in increasing numbers and talking back. Customers are shifting massively their entertainment and information consumption away from traditional media to the new web space.

Marketers are responding by shifting their advertising to web properties, but online advertising is struggling to gain trust. According to a recent Forrester survey of US households, only 6% trust search engine ads and 2% online banner ads. Customers trust themselves and each other in influencing their perception of a brand. Yet few marketers have embraced blogging, although it supposedly enables a more personal and two-way interaction with the brand.

So does blogging matter? All of us are senior marketing executives in established corporations but we also share a common passion for blogging. At the initiation of Eric Kintz at Hewlett-Packard (www.hp.com/blogs/kintz), we decided to all get together to share our thoughts about the opportunities and challenges of this new marketing frontier.

Join the conversation.

David Armano - Creative VP - Digitas – Logic + Emotion(http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/ )

Peter Blackshaw - CMO - Nielsen Buzz Metrics – Consumer Generated Media(http://notetaker.typepad.com/cgm/ )

David Churbuck - VP Global Web Marketing - Lenovo – Churbuck (http://www.churbuck.com/wordpress/ )

Dan Greenfield - VP Corporate Communications - EarthLink – Bernaisesource (http://bernaisesource.blog.com/ )

Eric Kintz – VP Global Marketing Strategy - Hewlett-Packard – Marketing Excellence (www.hp.com/blogs/kintz)

Will Waugh – Senior Director, Communications - ANA – Marketing Maestros (this one of course )

Not Marketing Anymore?

Jim Nail, Cymphony's CMO, has an intriguing post about the state of marketing and brands where he states:

I'm definitely feeling an acceleration in the shift away from what John Stichweh Coca-Cola's Director of Worldwide Interactive Marketing called "Holistic Harrassment" (aka, integrated marketing, 360-degree marketing) to a more respectful, engagement-oriented relationship with consumers.

I'm not sure we can even call it marketing anymore.

ANA is also seeing a shift to a more-engagement oriented model; though within this framework are also some exceptional integrated campaigns (not harassment per se). I believe we can still call it marketing, as Wikipedia states: The practice of marketing is almost as old as humanity itself. Marketing is about building relationships with your customers, it always has been and always will be. Some do it better than others. Some use a ton of different media to reach their customer. But yes, a lot of marketers are getting smarter (and becoming a high value asset as a driver of growth) as the marketing/advertising organization transitions to what Jim identifies as: the true purpose of marketing: to discover and satisfy the want, needs, and motivations of consumers.

Wal-Mart Brand Reinvention

The Wal-Mart brand is being reinvented. After decades of meteoric growth, the brand needed something to help it maintain and enhance its growth prospects in the highly competitive retail workspace. In directing their strategic platforms, Stephen Quinn, SVP, Marketing at Wal-Mart (and ANA Annual conference speaker and board member) altered their growth strategy. The changing brand and media landscapes were a significant influencer in altering their marketing choice and practices.

In an excellent article by Dave Evans at ClickZ, the author discusses another member of the Wal-Mart marketing team, Julie Roehm, who was brought to Wal-Mart to, among other things, direct these interactive strategies:

All of sudden, e-marketing is the focal point for many otherwise offline campaigns, boosting overall effectiveness of each individual channel. Wal-Mart's Julie Roehm noted marketers still pushing the default notion of TV as central are shortsighted. In an Association of National Advertisers (ANA) speech in 2005 she said, "The upfront doesn't recognize or integrate marketing and promotional relationships."

Print Reinventing Itself

Lots of news in the print world about adjustments, layoffs and brand building.

Ad revenue and lagging subscriptions are blamed for the recent layoffs at a number of big dailies, as reported by Adjab. Advertisers are moving their dollars elsewhere so publications are getting leaner and gradually adjusting and reinventing their business models.

Time magazine recently announced their switch to Friday distribution, just one of many adjustments. Time's Inc.'s thoughtful leader, Anne Moore, is leading the company's change process and leveraging Time's core values to bolster company-wide trust. The Time Inc. CEO (and ANA Annual Conference speaker) said:

"We are creating a more vibrant TIME brand overall that will undoubtedly energize our readers and
also attract younger consumers so we're competing more effectively with all news brands in the print and digital worlds." (Thanks to News on Women for the heads up).

Print, like the marketing function/profession, continues to reinvent itself. The changes in the marketplace continue to affect all media, while some get fat (Google), some get lean (the news dailies) and others (like Time) modify their brand strategy.

Join the Masters -- Reinvention and Innovation

ANA's Annual Conference -- The Masters of Marketing -- has grown over the last few years to a point where one media guru called it the "Congress of Kings." After attending my first one last year, I could clearly see why. The slate this year is just as powerful, with a rich line up of industry leaders and CMOs (and, of course, the rich social scene) The list of our esteemed presenters:

• The  keynote is Procter & Gamble's CEO A.G. Lafley --an article here discusses how Lafley sees innovation driving top line growth.
• Linda Kaplan  Thaler -- CEO and  Chief  Creative Officer of The Kaplan Thaler Group
• Stephen Quinn -- SVP, Marketing at Wal-Mart talking about reinventing the retail giant's brand.
• Becky  Saeger --  Charles Schwab's CMO on leveraging 'Talk to  Chuck.'
• Jim McDowell -- MINI's Managing Director will discuss how innovation has driven the brand.
• Russ Klein -- Burger King's Marketing Chief on their strategy with "The King."
• Sony's CMO Mike Fasulo highlights their reinvention and the power of ideas.
• Larry Flanagan -- MasterCard's CMO discusses how he made "Priceless" accountable and grew brand equity.
• Yahoo's CMO  Cammie  Dunaway  will  discuss how technology can help brands in increasingly innovative ways.
• HP's Gary Elliott on brand leadership and surviving the technology crunch.
• Anne Moore --  TIme Inc.'s CEO gives the media perspective on the evolving landscape.
• The Battle of the Bairds -- The NFL's Lisa and Philips' Bob square off on 'The Great Media Debate'
• Kathryn Olsen, CMO of Leapfrog, on how marketing innovation keeps them at t he top.
• Ken Romanzi,  COO of Ocean Spray teams up with adman Fran  Kelly to discuss brand  reinvention.

If  interested in finding out more, our Masters of Marketing website has a wealth of information. If you are interested in blogging the conference in early October (5-8 to be exact), please let me know.  ([email protected]).