Most marketers have too many dashboards, and not enough distilling of data into a few key metrics that will offer potential insight by identifying shifts. I have worked with a variety of companies over the past 12 months to help them refine their dashboards, so I thought I’d share 7 best practice approaches with you in this post.
Rakhal Ebeli, CEO of Newsmodo shares his thoughts with Darren on new fatherhood, content marketing, brand journalism and the role of brands as content publishers. Specifically he shares examples of where some brands are getting it right and the resources and partnership they have to deliver the strategy.
The saying goes, “You get what you pay for”. But recently we have noticed that some marketers have an expectation. They think they can get more than they pay for every time they go to market. It is hard to tell if this is due to the fact that the services on offer have no measurable value and therefore have no value or if it is because like a magic pudding you can simply keep cutting costs to zero and still get the value you demand.
As the world leaders and their negotiators assemble in Paris to finalise an agreement to work together to keep carbon emissions below 2oC, the question should be asked ‘what does this mean for marketers’? Whether you believe the scientists that anthropologic climate change is a major problem or you hold an opposing ideological view, there is a global consensus afoot that will influence the way we live our lives and the manner that business is conducted in the future.
Anton Buchner, Managing Partner of Front Foot Marketing discusses with Darren the way the discipline of direct or interactive marketing can inform marketers on the best strategy using technology and data to more effectively engage their audience.
Some months back, I wrote an article about the things that clients hate hearing from agencies, which caused a minor stir. Only minor, you understand; it wasn’t a Pullitzer prize winner. But it raised a few comments. Then, more recently, someone approached me with a challenge. ‘Great to talk about what clients hate hearing from agencies’, the person said. ‘But what about what agencies hate hearing from clients? I bet you wouldn’t want to write about that, seeing as how it’s the clients that pay TrinityP3’.
When your marketing department is made to feel like it has to carry a pick axe to get results, there’s something seriously wrong. And the fault does not necessarily lay at the feet of the poor pick axe carrying suckers in marketing, although it may. Over the years TrinityP3 have conducted a vast number of marketing strategic alignments, whereby we work with a business to undercover and help them understand whether or not their marketing structures are set up in a way that will support the business to deliver on their strategic goals.
TrinityP3 was approached by a global FMCG client to assess a new, concept store, in South Korea. The new flagship store is being targeted to students, those in their 20s and 30s, singles and couples, with the hope of reinvigorating the brand’s world and becoming a major social & entertainment experience in the city.
Christopher Sewell, Managing Director of the Gaia Partnership chats with Darren on the benefits of sustainable marketing and the opportunities for companies committed to sustainability. But also the challenges and the considerations when embraced as a strategy.
The procurement team of a large organisation in the FMCG sector had recently initiated an internal evaluation of the incumbent media agency, from a financial perspective. The media agency handled a number of significant brands across the business, and had recently submitted a revised fee and structure proposal for consideration. To conduct a robust evaluation, a number of hurdles had to be overcome.
Alun Probert, Group Head at GovCom Group talks with Darren about the role of marketing in Government and the changes being driven by technology to the Government communication process and the increased focus on customers from the Government perspective.
Agency remuneration benchmarking can be quite a controversial topic, especially for agencies. But it is also a point of contention for procurement and consultants. You see there are many people who purport to have robust agency benchmarks and will talk about their thousands of benchmark data samples. In fact it can ironically become a game of “who has the biggest pool of data wins” as tall tales are told about their data samples in an effort to get credibility.
Jeff Cooper & Ashton Bishop, Senior Partners at StepChange talk with Darren on the meaning of strategy and why it has become so confused in marketing and advertising. In a category where everyone appears to be a strategic expert, they differentiate between strategy and simply planning.
With the rise of trading desks and programmatic buying for digital media trading there has been a corresponding rise in concern from advertisers regarding the the level of transparency in their dealings with their media agency. Certainly the Mediacom revelations of last year and the confession of the ex-CEO of Mediacom in the US fuelled this concern. Even though media rating company RECMA announced Mediacom as the highest rated media agency network in the world. But beyond concern, what are advertisers doing to bring greater levels of transparency and accountability back into their media agency relationships? What can advertisers and their procurement teams do to ensure they are getting not just the best media value but also the best performance from their media invest?
Trevor Young, the PR Warrior shares his thinking with Darren on the importance of professionals developing a strong personal brand and why some marketers find it so hard to do. From his book Micro Domination he shares ways professionals can build a reputation as a thought leader in their profession.
