Misguided and shortsighted marketers are to blame for falling budgets, a new survey by Gartner reports. Marketing budget allocation has shrunk to 2015 levels, dropping from 12.1 percent of total revenue in 2016 to 11.3 percent this year, the firm reported in its latest findings.
Why’s The Money Gone?
“While the descent is not yet steep, it still poses difficult questions for chief marketing officers,” said Ewan McIntyre, research director at Gartner. “Previous budget increases have come with weighty expectations, some of which have yet to be met. The time has come for marketing to show its financial management credentials, proving it can deal with financial constraints, assume accountability for business performance, build budgets based on future returns rather than past assumptions and grow the business while making hard choices.”
Chief marketing officers are pessimistic, however, about budget-allocation prospects in the coming year. Only 15 percent expected a significant budget increase in 2018, while 33 percent expected their finances to be either frozen or even cut.
While the report suggests that recent natural disasters in addition to Brexit and global political volatility may be responsible, it quickly points out that this is not the full picture.
“CMOs may have become distracted—either by a heavy focus on operational and tactical measures of performance or by large, cross-functional initiatives such as customer experience programs that have yet to provide hard economic benefits,” the report reads.
McIntyre recommends a middle course to reverse this trend in the coming years, saying, “The risk is that CMOs are either being too nearsighted to be strategic or too visionary to deliver against marketing’s objectives.”
Where’s The Money Going?
Despite, or perhaps even because of stagnating budgets, many CMOs plan to significantly change up their strategies, with 67 percent planning to increase marketing budget allocation for digital advertising at the expense of traditional media. Over half of the surveyed CMOs planned to plateau or reduce spending on event and partner marketing next year, and 63 percent said the same about offline advertising in general.
As marketers find themselves with less leeway to take risks on new technology, martech spending has dropped by 15 percent this year. Additionally, martech’s share of total marketing budget allocation has dropped as well, from 27 percent in 2016 to 22 percent this year.
Following this trend of reducing risk in budget allocation, marketers have shifted resources drastically toward keeping consumers and away from attracting new ones. Spending on customer retention now dwarfs acquisition by a two-to-one ratio, something Gartner warns may be sacrificing long-term health for short-term safety.
Increasing focus on measurability explains much of this shift in spending. As brand safety and fraud concerns grow, marketers are pushing for more quantifiable data to ensure a proper return on investment. Gartner emphasizes the importance of paying attention to metrics, but warns against playing it too safe.
“CMOs need to think and act fast, ensuring they continue to meet the growing business expectations,” the report reads, “or further cuts will be ahead.”
Forbes has just released its annual 30 Under 30 list, recognizing 600 young professionals for innovation in their respective fields. Among the honorees, here are five from the marketing and advertising category that stand out for excellence.
As with Forbes 30 Under 30, these honorees are listed in no particular order and are acknowledged equally.
Yiamsamatha joined Instagram in April of 2015, after nearly five years managing brand and content strategies for Foursquare. This young professional oversees a team of product marketers that bring Instagram’s biggest functions to market, including Instagram Stories, the ability to post multiple photos and videos in a single post and face filters.
Since its launch last fall, Instagram Stories has gained a reputation for shaking up the social media arena, from influencer marketing to the way brands use the platform. Instagram’s search and Discovery features are attractive to young creators, and Facebook’s analytic tools allow brands to track ROI. Instagram Stories now reaches more than 200 million users a day—more than competitor Snapchat’s entire user base.
Through the efforts of Yiamsamatha and her team, the launch of Instagram Stories was so successful that parent company Facebook has added the feature to its social network.
Neal joined Hallmark in September of 2016 after several years of agency-level marketing and on-camera hosting. As the host of Hallmark’s show “Party 101,” Neal revamped the series into a light-hearted DIY series while also marketing Hallmark Gold Crown Stores.
She was the lead strategist for Hallmark’s collaboration with CMA Music Fest, the company’s influencer marketing program and leads social media for Hallmark’s Gold Crown Stores on Instagram and Pinterest.
As a legacy brand over a century old, Hallmark sells paper cards in a world now dominated by email and text messages. Neal’s digital native insights and on-screen personality help reach young consumers in a relatable way through how-to videos and inspiration, as opposed to hard selling.
Melanie Cohn—Senior Manager Of Digital And Social Media, Dunkin’ Brands
As the founder of Young Women in Digital, Melanie Cohn created a network of over 1,500 professionals either working or interested working in the marketing field. She joined Dunkin’ Brands in January of this year, where she leads the digital media planning and strategy for its Dunkin’ Donuts brand.
Dunkin’ has baked up a number of interesting marketing strategies this year, especially around the holidays. Cohn’s digital native perspective has helped launch campaigns across social media platforms, including Snapchat geofilters.
For fall, Dunkin’ partnered with Rue La La to create a “Girl on the Go: Fall Style” boutique. Open for one week only, the activation featured cross-promotion between the lifestyle shopping website and Dunkin’ Donuts to offer discounts and style ideas.
To celebrate Halloween, the brand resurrected a meme from years past—Dancing Pumpkin Man. One Halloween night in 2009, news anchor Matt Geiler donned a pumpkin mask and black unitard, then danced in front of a green screen to fill a hole in their programming. The dance went down in meme history, and Dunkin’ Donuts teamed with Geiler to help usher in its line of fall-flavored coffee drinks.
Alandha Scott—Head Of YouTube Originals Product Marketing
YouTube Red has turned a video-watching site into a source for original, streaming entertainment. Alandha Scott joined YouTube in 2012 after a year as product marketing manager for Google. Since then, Scott has been behind some of the site’s most notable features, including the first-ever YouTube channel “trailers.” These preview videos have become the primary marketing tool for creators and channels to encourage subscriptions.
Scott conceived and executed the first YouTube Creator Summit—a now annual event that gathers social media talent from across the world that fosters the influencer marketing economy.
This year, YouTube Red has produced a number of shows that appeal to the gaming demographic, including Clash-A-Rama and Fruit Ninja: Frenzy Force.
Eric Mogil—Director Of Digital Innovation, Michael Kors
Michael Kors, like many luxury brands, has been under pressure to adapt to a digital native consumer base. In 2011, Eric Mogil joined the company as a digital strategist and worked his way up the ranks to director of digital innovation over the span of six years. During his time at Michael Kors, Mogil helped usher in a new era for the brand through social integration, mobile technology and the KorsConsierge style-as-a-service platform.
In May, Michael Kohrs announced its Runway 2020 plan—a revitalization strategy that includes a major shift to e-commerce. The brand shuttered 125 stores and now places a significant interest in Instagram shopping.
The brand is combining fashion with technology through products like its Access smartwatch collection—devices that integrate Google Assistant voice-activated technology.
Eric Mogil left Michael Kors in November to accept the role of CMO at Token—a technology company that specializes in wearable authenticators. Token is manufacturing one ring to rule, err unlock computers, doors, start cars or pay for them all.
We at AListDaily would like to congratulate all those honored in Forbes 30 Under 30. Here are all the marketing and advertising honorees.
Jake Zim, SVP of virtual reality at Sony Pictures Entertainment
The movie industry has taken full advantage of virtual reality as a marketing tool to engage audiences by immersing them into the worlds of its blockbuster films. Of the various studios, Lionsgate and Sony Pictures Entertainment have fully embraced both in-home and premium location-based experiences at VR arcades. As more arcades open and audiences become increasingly aware of VR, movie marketers are paying greater attention to the technology as major touchpoints for promotional campaigns.
“We’re looking at all of the VR distribution channels, and now we see in-home and location-based as being complementary,” Jake Zim, senior vice president of VR at Sony Pictures Entertainment, told AListDaily. “Location-based VR is a great way to introduce VR to a new audience and reduce some of the barriers that are inherent to the in-home VR business.”
Zim said Sony’s strategy is based on the idea that the world of the movie can stretch and embrace immersive opportunities like VR, which also include partnerships with The Void for Ghostbusters and IMAX VR for The Walk.
“We look to create aspirational moments for audiences. When, where and how these immersive experiences take place is dependent on the experience itself, but we believe they can exist in parallel with the movie,” said Zim. “We’re also exploring options for scalable solutions that would allow us to distribute our virtual reality experiences into a larger network of locations.”
Part of that goal includes VRX Networks, which creates premium VR experiences and distributes them to its kiosks found in shopping centers and movie theaters across the US and UK. It helped develop TheEmoji Movie VR experience and one based on the horror movie Jigsaw, separate from the one Unity launched in October.
VRX is also distributing Jumanji: The VR Adventure across its kiosks, an experience co-produced by Reality One and developed by MPC that’s related to the upcoming movie Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. Although it is being designed as a standalone commercial experience, Sony Pictures will be using it as part of the movie’s promotional campaign. Also, even though these kiosks primarily use Oculus Rift and Touch devices, Jumanji and the Emoji Movie—both being Sony films—will eventually launch longer-form VR experiences for the PlayStation VR.
“Our business model is to create productions that come out in line with the film,” Nicholas Cooper, co-founder and chief creative officer at VRX Networks, told AListDaily. “For us, we leverage the huge marketing spends that are done by other studios. For the studios, we offer the added value of having a direct touchpoint with the consumer that’s not invasive.”
With Jumanji: The VR Adventure, users play a virtual table-top game where they control characters from the movie to lift a curse. Sony has released a wide variety of VR experiences over the past months, including one for Spider-Man: Homecoming, where players get to put their web-slinging skills to the test. That’s in addition to the Ghostbusters attraction that launched in partnership with The Void and Madame Tussauds in 2016.
“Predominantly, we create content that’s exclusive for the location-based market because the in-home market is so small right now,” said Cooper. “To monetize and get the best ROI (return on investment), the best place is location-based. The cost per thousand from a marketing standpoint for studios and IP holders is greatly magnified by the fact that we’re at locations where customers see them.”
VRX currently operates 35 kiosks, with plans to grow that number to 50 by 2018. It’s looking to have 300 worldwide by next summer, with expansions in South America, Europe and Australia. The company is also working with Sony Pictures to create a VR experience that will coincide with the launch of Hotel Transylvania 3 in July.
Cooper said people are willing to pay to try the promotional, interactive and narrative experiences because it’s unlike the passive 360-degree videos that many movie studios rely on.
“After being in the market for a couple of months, we’re starting to see repeat visitors,” said Cooper. “I think it’s value for the money. When people come in, they’re not afraid to come back because they’re happy with the money they’ve spent and the value they’ve received.”
According to Cooper, even though there’s a sales process that occurs before people are willing to slip a headset on, VRX’s conversion rate is near 45 percent.
Additionally, having both the family oriented Emoji Movie experience presented alongside the adult horror-themed Jigsaw one has given VRX some perspective about consumer behavior. Jigsaw tends to do better during weekdays, particularly on Halloween last month, due to how teens and adults have better access to these locations. However, The Emoji Movie remains the top-seller on weekends.
Another added benefit of having location-based VR experiences is that they continue to keep IPs alive well after their time in theaters has passed. Although the peak time for any experience is during the four weeks after a movie launches, when the marketing momentum and buzz fizzles, VRX keeps its experiences running for a minimum of one year. Families are still stepping into The Emoji Movie VR experience months after the film left theaters.
Cooper said that VRX is currently in talks with TV networks to produce VR content for popular shows for its kiosks. He explained that audiences continue to be drawn to locations because they already have an affinity for major IPs, so films, TV and VR could potentially leverage each other as access to the technology expands.
“It’s a growth business,” said Zim. “We believe strongly that the world of movie IP and known brands are the right way to introduce audiences to this powerful, exciting new medium.”
With online spending set to surpass in-store sales this Black Friday, it’s no surprise that interest in the retail holiday has globalized. However, as stores push their deals earlier and earlier, the bargains arms race only further emphasizes the increasing stranglehold that online retailers such as Amazon and Alibaba have on the retail market.
Alibaba’s Singles’ Day shopping extravaganza, a holiday invented by college bachelors in 1993 and co-opted by the e-retailer giant in 2009, culminated Nov. 11, and consumers from 225 countries and regions completed over $25.3 billion in transactions in 24 hours, a 42 percent increase from last year’s figure of 17.8 billion.
“It represents the aspiration for quality consumption of the Chinese consumer, and it reflects how merchants and consumers alike have now fully embraced the integration of online and offline retail,” said Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba Group.
Black Friday Around The Globe
The ideas behind Black Friday are by no means unique to America. Boxing Day, a public holiday in the British Commonwealth, almost exactly has mirrored American Black Friday trends. Retailers have pushed discounts earlier to public pushback over mistreatment of retail workers. Similarly, Mexico has run El Buen Fin (The Good Weekend) since 2011 for the purpose of emulating the American holiday.
In recent years, however, international interest in Black Friday has grown exponentially. In 2008, overseas search queries about the retail holiday were almost nonexistent, but by 2014 the United Kingdom, Brazil and even Romania were searching for the holiday as much as Americans were. Global tech company Pitney Bowes attributes this growth to cross-border orders from overseas, registering massive growth in online orders from India, Kuwait and Japan.
International audiences weren’t the only ones to take to online shopping, either. More Americans have shopped online than in person during the post-Thanksgiving weekend since 2015, for the same reasons that e-commerce continues to outstrip physical retail in 2017.
Despite the globalization of the holiday, American participation has waned. According to the National Retail Federation, just 154 million Americans shopped on Black Friday weekend in 2016, down from the 226 million in 2011. Indeed, the NRF has not reported sales figures for the Black Friday weekend since 2011, and this year neglected to release any projections for Black Friday at all, instead expanding the reporting period to include the entire holiday season.
Digital Retail Vs. Black Friday
Plenty of online ink has been spilled over Amazon killing Black Friday, and as the holiday itself approaches, Amazon’s tactics so far haven’t proven it wrong. The company started rolling out its holiday deals on Nov. 1, causing a slew of ad“leaks” fromconventionalretailers in the following days. Amazon hasn’t just been cutting prices on its own stock, but forcibly subsidizing similar discounts by its third-party sellers as well. And, with its recent acquisition of Whole Foods, Amazon now has a physical location for its Black Friday deals, further undercutting brick-and-mortar retailers.
Due to a recent ad run by Amazon in the UK, some parents are even accusing Amazon of “killing Christmas.” But Jeff Bezos and company aren’t the only ones acting as the retail Grinch this year. eBay announced it will ship for free and match any conventional retailer’s Black Friday prices until Nov. 17.
Online retailers are only contributing to the progressing obsolescence of Thanksgiving weekend as a retail holiday. Amazon invented a holiday in the summer of 2015, declaring “Step Aside, Black Friday” in the very press release announcing it.
Internationally, Google created the Great Online Shopping Festival for the Indian market in 2012. Though the holiday was canceled in 2015, it was only because competitors in India had begun to launch their own shopping holidays at around the same time. Amazon and Bangalore-based competitor Flipkart invented holidays of their own to tie in with Diwali, called the Great Indian Festival Sale and Big Billion Days sale, respectively. Amazon’s effort was so successful that they rehashed the same holiday just a week and a half later.
Amazon’s own holiday, Prime Day, experienced even more meteoric growth this year, growing 60 percent over the 2016 festival, though in terms of hard sales paled in comparison to Singles’ Day.
E-commerce giants like Amazon wield an exceptional amount of power, even making American cities pitch themselves in manners reminiscent of college application essays to host the company’s second headquarters.
So far, these titans of globalized online industry have been using this power to push back against Black Friday, creating proprietary holidays to the tune of billions.
Before long, physical retailers might very well need Alibaba or Amazon’s permission to participate in retail holidays at all.
Richard D. Fain, chairman and CEO, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.
The Internet of Things is drastically changing all aspects of life, including vacationing. Major cruise brands such as Carnival Cruises, Princess Cruises and Royal Caribbean have been quick to evolve with the ever-changing technology landscape by introducing fast broadband across its ships, integrating video game technology to attract younger passengers and families and embracing virtual and augmented reality as marketing tools.
Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (RCL) showcased a series of new technologies that will be rolled out across its Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises brands this year. The company recreated the at-home, terminal and on-ship experiences at the massive Duggal Greenhouse at the Brooklyn Navy Yard to illustrate how new technology is changing the entire cruise experience.
Richard D. Fain, RCL’s chairman and CEO, told AListDaily that the Internet of Things has opened up new opportunities for the brand to connect with consumers and improve their vacation experience with the company’s 48-ship fleet.
“Everyone having a phone or some type of connected device today allows the cruise experience to become integrated into the Internet of Things,” Fain said. “Instead of wearing a device, you can just use your iPhone or Android device. People want their technology integrated, and the ubiquity of the smartphone allows us to have technology available to anyone at anytime so they can use it as they want.”
RCL has partnered with Jaunt VR to shoot a series of 360 videos that encapsulate some of the excursion experiences available at ports of call around the world. Three experiences were demonstrated at the event, but additional production is underway to add to that library.
Jay Schneider, senior vice president of digital at RCL, told AListDaily that VR headsets are now available at the excursions desks on ships for people to get previews of trips before purchasing them. They can also be downloaded at home for any headset and they’re playable on YouTube 360 for those without a device.
“There are a lot of first-time cruisers who don’t know what our excursions are about, so VR is a great way to give them a taste of what it’s like to be 500 feet above the ground with the wind at your face in a hot air balloon,” Schneider explained.
“VR didn’t even exist a couple years ago, and now it’s exploding,” Fain added. “We’re working hard to stay on the crest of that explosion. We’re even using VR to design new ships like the Celebrity Edge, which allowed our designers to see every aspect of the ship in 3D using CAVE technology.”
RCL also introduced a culinary VR experience at the event, which combined HTC Vive headsets with real food.
“The culinary VR experiment came from our belief that you can use technology to enhance the dining experience,” Schneider said. “We essentially hack your senses through this gorgeous VR world that matches the cuisine. The guest moves through the cuisine courses with immersive audio and video. We layered augmented reality to the experience, so guests can see their hands in the real world.”
Jay Schneider, senior vice president of digital at Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.
Schneider said this concept is currently in its beta phase, but his goal is to pilot this on a ship at sea one day.
“We have great dining experiences at sea and we know our guests want different types of experiences,” Schneider said.
Augmented reality gaming will soon be added to RCL ships. The company featured a trio of “midway-style” games (a term that describes skill games found at the mid-points of boardwalks and ships) like Ring Toss Challenge, Plinko and a Duck, Duck Bear Shooting Gallery. What looks like a series of large, colorful posters on the wall come to life through smartphones for travelers to play. One of the games, Plinko, employs a Microsoft Kinect for hand-controls, while the other two games use smartphones for interaction with objects. The plan is for these types of free games to be added to the midway area of RCL ships over the coming year.
AR was also on display through X-Ray technology, which uses art located throughout the vessel as a way to look at the inner workings of the ship. Guests will be able to peer through walls using smartphones to see inside the kitchen or the engine room. Even the staterooms will one day incorporate AR, as one demo showed a ceiling turned that into a starry night sky while the floor became a waterway.
Schneider said the gamification of many aspects of the cruise experience has been helped by the ubiquity of gaming across all age groups, thanks in part to the rise of casual games on smartphones.
“Gaming is something a lot of guests like to do on board, and we have the fastest internet at sea,” Schneider said. “One of the things games do really well is connect people from all over the world. People want to stay connected, even when they’re on vacation. Games have amplified those connections. We’re recognizing that the consumer wants to always be connected anywhere they are on the ship.”
And gaming is just part of that connected experience. The Allure of the Sea ship allows passengers to connect to Spotify, for example, and social media has become a key element to the connected cruise experience.
“Everybody wants unique experiences today and they want to share their experiences across social media,” Fain said. “We added pervasive WiFi because people want to access information from outside of the ship, but many want to share their experiences on the cruise with friends. We see that as free advertising. It’s the best way for us to market our experience by having guests share their good times with all of their friends.”
This shift to embrace new technology, including the use of artificial intelligence in the form of a virtual concierge that appears on the Sea Beyond app, is a big push by RCL to market its cruise lines to millennial and younger audiences. It also allows the line to remain in the technology race with other companies like Carnival Corp. and Disney Cruise Line.
Fain said technology is expected by today’s passengers, and RCL’s research has found that Baby Boomers, Gen X, and millennial guests are all willing to pay more on experiences than material goods. The Internet of Things opens new experiences that RCL can use to market directly to these generations, while providing a platform for guests to further amplify their individual experiences with this technology across social media.
Murder on the Orient Express is the fourth on-screen adaptation of Agatha Christie’s mystery novel, so the marketing team had to convince audiences they were seeing something new.
“We asked ourselves almost every day, ‘How do we celebrate its timelessness and yet reinvent at the same time [as if] we’re hearing a great piece of music again new?’” Actor/director Kenneth Branaugh told People on adapting the classic tale. “Well, you need different interpreters, so the cast becomes really critical.”
As with its award-winning 1974 predecessor, Murder on the Orient Express unites an all-star cast—each portraying a suspect in the murder to be solved by Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh). Marketing for the film highlights each character with a brief description that suggests hidden motivations.
Beyond highlighting big names like Johnny Depp and Daisy Ridley, marketing for the film focuses on the love of a good mystery.
Months ahead of the premiere, a series of clues began to surface for fans to discover—the first being a train ticket appearing on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. Over the course of the Murder on the Orient Express marketing campaign, a number of clues were featured in trailers, on posters and during TV appearances by the movie’s actors.
Each of these small clues, which implicate a new suspect in the murder investigation, can be entered onto the official website to learn more about each character. There, fans can also explore a train car scene and click on items to examine them for additional clues about the murder.
The Infamous Mustache
Agatha Christie’s famed detective, Hercule Poirot is known for his sharp eye, neatness and a curled mustache. To celebrate Movember—a yearly mustache-growing tradition to support men’s health—20th Century Fox teamed up with the Movember Foundation and encouraged fans to “grow their mo like Poirot.”
A dedicated team was established to raise funds for the organization, using photos of mustachioed characters from Murder on the Orient Express.
Kenneth Branagh also took over the official IMDb Twitter account for a Q&A session, calling it “Mustache Me Anything,” a nod to Reddit’s Ask Me Anything. Branagh answered questions via text and video about the film’s production and miscellaneous topics.
Murder on the Orient Express takes place on a luxury train in a time of 1930s opulence, and Home Shopping Network curated a designer collection inspired by the aesthetics of the film’s time period. The collection includes items such as furs, gloves, jewelry, home furnishings and luggage, as well as additional clues to explore on the film’s official website. Visitors to the Home Shopping Network site can also view exclusive videos from behind-the-scenes of the movie.
Godiva also teamed up with 20th Century Fox to create a series of chocolate gift sets inspired by the movie. A dedicated page on the Godiva website features bios for each of the suspects, another clue to add to the movie’s website and a chance to win a trip to San Francisco.
Murder on the Orient Express is expected to earn between $19 and 25 million during its opening weekend in the US.
Xbox One X is officially in stores and to celebrate, Microsoft is showing off its mid-generation console with the help of its brand partners. Gamers love their tech, but they also tend to be competitive—so it’s no surprise that marketing tapped into this enthusiasm for winning.
https://youtu.be/AVpSlqJDFZg
Despite a $499 price tag—over $200 more than Xbox One S—gamers pre-ordered Xbox One X at record-breaking speeds. For everyone else, there were plenty of chances to win the console through marketing partnerships.
In September, Taco Bell teamed up with Microsoft for a pop-up arcade in Seattle to coincide with PAX West. The activation offered a chance to win an Xbox One X console, Steak Quesarito $5 Boxes and signature cocktails. The promotion extended to all Taco Bell customers, who received a chance to win with each Taco Bell $5 Box purchase.
Food and gaming have a longstanding fruitful relationship that Mountain Dew and Doritos are known to capitalize on. Specially marked packages from both PepsiCo brands offer codes that can be redeemed for the “Every 60 Seconds” promotion.
The promotion features an online auction program that gives gamers the opportunity to win one of thousands of Xbox One X consoles. Between Nov. 6 and Dec. 15, points can be used in daily online auctions to win the new console, games and other Xbox prizes.
Fans can physically compete for an Xbox One X as well with a Mountain Dew and Doritos Drop Zone activation. Live competitions are taking place in select cities. An app uses GPS to locate a virtual Xbox One X in the area. Participants can capture and defend their console with the help of power-ups that are dropped every 60 seconds or can be purchased with codes from specially marked Mountain Dew and Doritos products.
Speaking of athletic-wear with which to snag a new console, Microsoft teamed up with Under Armour to create the Xbox One X and Curry 4 “More Power” VIP kit. Reserved for select influencers and members of the press, the VIP kit includes an Xbox One X console, two Xbox One Elite controllers, Under Armour Curry 4 shoes, gaming headphones, games and more.
With all those games playing in 4K, gamers will need a 4K TV, which created a timely partnership opportunity for Samsung.
“The gaming industry is extremely attractive to Samsung because these are passionate consumers that desire the best technology available to drive the ultimate gaming experience,” Eddie Combs, vice president of home entertainment marketing at Samsung Electronics America, previously told AlistDaily.
The partnership between Samsung and Xbox will include various marketing and retail activations throughout the country, including a national TV spot.
“I feel like this is every bit as energetic a console launch considering that it’s not a next-gen console launch,” Albert Penello, senior director of Xbox console marketing at Microsoft told GameIndustry.biz. “From my perspective, I think we’ve shown we can have almost the same level of energy around a mid-generation upgrade as you can for a new console launch. I think you’re going to see a pretty significant push from us actually for both products this holiday.”
At Ad:tech New York, there was a common refrain: brands must get away from thinking about reach and frequency and embrace a concept of when, where and how they’re needed in a “post-advertising era.” That was the sentiment shared by Catharine Findiesen Hays, founding executive director of The Future of Advertising Program at The Wharton School and host of this year’s event, which came to a close last week.
“Think about an orchestration of all interactions with a brand,” Findiesen Hays said during the keynote presentation at The Metropolitan Pavilion. “All the experiences that people have. If you think about it from a people-centric standpoint, this is what they see. They don’t just make a distinction between your advertisements and your product and customer service—it’s the sum total of all of these interactions.”
Hays outlined forces of change, which include exponential advances in technology so we can understand ourselves better than ever. Emotion is ultimately what drives people, and technology lets them act on it. There’s also an “explosion and redefinition of the media landscape,” which is transforming communication between brands and people through devices and word-of-mouth. At the heart of it is the notion of empowering a skeptical consumer, who has the power to skip, ignore or block messages.
“Companies can no longer think of themselves as separate from what’s going on in the world,” said Findiesen Hays. “The barriers between what their role is in the world and nations and communities are changing, and there are a lot of issues and challenges to take care of.”
As science, data and creativity come together, new alliances are being formed across the entire C-suite. The biggest impediments brands face to change are entrenched mindsets, she said.
“The listening, learning and delivery is there for real-time customer activations and enabling,” said Findiesen Hays. “That is in conjunction in a longer-term building of platforms and branding away from campaigns, which have a start and a finish, to more of an investment mentality.”
Here’s how brands are tackling the challenge of integrating listening, creating and sharing:
NHL Takes Brand Digital For Deeper Fan Engagement
The National Hockey League is a 100-year-old brand, and like all sports leagues, it faces the challenge of remaining relevant in the digital age. That’s why Heidi Browning, EVP and chief marketing officer for the NHL, was tasked with crafting the experience that will define the next century.
Browning did not come into the league as a hardcore hockey fan, which is something commissioner Gary Bettman liked. The mission was to grow the sport through connecting with casual sports fans and younger generations by helping make the hardcore community more approachable.
The first step in transitioning the brand to digital was using data, which include 31 different feeds from both real world and digital touchpoints. The data covers where consumers buy tickets, merchandise and food along with when they visit NHL.com, download the app and participate in contests and polls. The information builds a fan profile to deepen relationships.
“A big part of our transformation is how we harness of all this information down to a single place—single-fan identification—then look for opportunities to help our fans get personalized plans for ticketing and messaging,” said Browning. “We’re also looking for opportunities to promote more events and merchandising opportunities and increase the fan base through the use of our data.”
Browning said that it’s important to both rights holders and advertising partners that the NHL be able to tell a story about who the fans are.
“We have the youngest fans, with the highest income who are the most educated out of all the leagues, but there’s so much more a story that we can tell about them,” she said. “The notion of harnessing the fan data into a single ID so that we can activate it is really exciting.”
The second most important aspect is social media, which Person said makes up the fabric of millennial and Gen Z’s lives. At the same time, they’re disrupting sports, since younger audiences interact with the games they watch more than older generations. For example, younger audiences don’t need to watch full games, as they’re satisfied with highlights across multiple screens.
Other trends include how younger fans are looking more to engage with individual players rather than teams, which runs counter to the NHL’s mentality of putting the team first and not be self-promoting. Browning said that the NHL is working with its players to help them feel more comfortable about connecting with fans and sharing their contributions to the community.
“I think we’re seeing the birth of a new type—or definition—of fan,” said Browning. “For us to be able to understand what it is that makes people consider themselves fans and how they want to interact with our product—live, digitally or on TV—is critical, and social media is that connective tissue.”
Browning highlighted how ongoing commitment to community service was paramount to the digital strategy. The NHL has a corporate social responsibility platform that’s dedicated to giving back to others—covering the environment and people fighting cancer while celebrating how hockey is for everyone.
November is Hockey Fights Cancer month, and the entire league is celebrating by wearing lavender; every team has its own featured day. Channeling the spirit of Movember, the NHL is also doing a huge mustache push this month.
“We realize that it’s not just about doing a good deed and giving back,” Browning said. “Our fans expect to have shared values because this truly is a family and the connectedness that we have within the fan base when kids start playing and grow up into fans. This is about making sure our shared values are out there, both for our fans and brand marketing partners.”
Using Tech To Deliver On Brand Promise
Jack in the Box has been around since 1951, and it regards itself as a constant innovator that’s committed to its brand promise of making life easier for customers. It prides itself on being the first restaurant to use a two-way intercom in its drive-through lanes, removing much of the friction from the take-out dining experience. Fast-forward to today, third-party delivery services like DoorDash and Uber are being used as another way for consumers to experience the brand.
Jack in the Box CMO Iwona Alter explained that for 2017, it hasn’t been about having different dining experiences, but it’s about how the brand talks to its guests and while making their lives easier.
“Word-of-mouth, being the most fundamental marketing technique, is alive and well right now,” said Alter. “All these different ways we communicate with each other are just enabling us to share through word-of-mouth. It’s a traditional principle used in a modern way.”
To engage with a new generation of diners, the brand has relied heavily on its mascot Jack. Before he was part of Project Moon Hat, which used the solar eclipse to promote the chain’s philanthropic efforts, he was the central figure of the “brunchfast” campaign. Last year, restaurants emphasized how it served breakfast all day. Jack in the Box offers a breakfast menu 24/7, so it changed the conversation away from breakfast by leaning into the more relevant term—brunch.
The story was that Jack’s pregnant wife was experiencing late-night cravings for brunch-like food, which tapped into an opportunity that was relevant to younger diners who wanted to have Sunday brunch every other day of the week. In doing so, Jack tapped into a new audience that doesn’t normally eat fast food.
The brunchfast campaign kicked off with a virtual reality music video featuring Bart Baker, Josh Elkin and Daym Drops. Jack partnered with Funny or Die to create a cravings chat show on Facebook Live along with a chatbot on Messenger. This was in addition to a series of Snapchat stories showing Jack on a quest for brunch in the middle of the night and a multisensory brunchfast experience at the inaugural ComplexCon.
Alter said the campaign resulted in over five million impressions, with the VR music video getting a 90 percent completion rate, and Jack’s social mentions went up by 408 percent. Jack in the Box sales increased by five-to-eight percent in the first five weeks following the launch of Brunchfast.
Jack in the Box also discovered that there are indirect and non-intrusive ways to interact with consumers. One prime example is the Crave Van, which was featured across a number of TV spots. Alter explained that it began as a way to showcase the menu, but then it was taken in a new direction.
The brand discovered that its audience loved video games, but it also realized that the last thing gamers want to see is brands trying to sell them something.
Demonstrating an understanding of its audience, Jack in the Box created Crave Van mods that could be used the immensely popular driving games Grand Theft Auto V and Rocket League as playable vehicles. They were seeded using Reddit and influencers so that the branded content wasn’t forced onto audiences, and gamers loved it.
Those holding the highest paid marketing jobs at major international brands can make as much as $15 million per year in compensation, according to new research by Equilar.
Charter Communication had the highest paid CMO last year, granting $15 million in total compensation to Jonathan Hargis. However, this was just 15 percent of the income of the company’s CEO, Tom Rutledge, who made $98.5 million in 2016.
Dell Technologies’ Jeremy Burton and Palo Alto Networks’ Rene Bonvanie were neck and neck for the No. 2 spot, earning $13.4 million and $13.1 million, respectively.
The gender disparity among top US CMOs should be noted, as there is only one woman, Stephanie Linnartz, among the ten list of highest-earning salaries. However, even with the gender gap, the Equilar study found that female marketing executives made an average of $400,000 more per year than their male counterparts.
The top-earning CMO of 2016 made a full $10.5 million more than Frank Eliasson, the executive in the number 10 spot.
For the study, Equilar looked at all US-based or listed public companies with more than $500 million in revenue from fiscal years 2012 to 2016 and included bonuses and stock options awarded in addition to listed salary figures.
Equilar noted that the median earnings of the highest paid marketing jobs increased by 24 percent over the last five years and additionally points out that the number of CMOs named as one of the top-five highest paid executives in the company increased by 157 percent over the same period.
However, despite the general trend upward, the median CMO salary has stagnated somewhat in the last two years. This year’s average of $1.26 million is, in fact, lower than 2014’s figure of $1.27 million in compensation for marketing officers.
Forrester has released the latest edition of its industry forecast series, calling 2018 “a year of reckoning” for both businesses in general and marketers specifically. The vision of the future the Forrester Predictions report paints is a bleak one, one of failure and disappointment, stagnation and missed opportunities.
“2018 . . . will force many companies to take decisive action,” said Cliff Condon, chief research and product officer at Forrester. “While the economy is still growing and employment is healthy, the fate of companies has never been more uncertain.”
According to Forrester predictions, the gulf will widen between companies embracing innovative marketing technologies and those who aren’t willing or able to keep up. Forrester’s report claims that a full 30 percent of companies will fail to meet rising user expectations for customer experience, and another 20 percent will not properly adapt to the changing digital market.
“As a result, those firms will be acquired, or begin to perish,” the report’s introduction reads.
For firms lagging behind in the digital space, life will only get harder. Forrester predicts that 25 percent of companies will fail to grasp the algorithms that drive duopoly platforms, “resulting in their brand becoming undifferentiated and silenced in the market.” Furthermore, these “digital laggards” will find it more difficult to find the talent necessary to close the gap, as in-demand specialists will flock to brands already ahead of the curve.
The future of advertising is equally shaky, Forrester predicts. In 2018, 1 percent of the American population will take advantage of advancing AI technology to filter out advertising and further cocoon themselves in filter bubbles. That’s $24 billion in spending that marketers will be separated from, Forrester warns, and that number is likely to increase as AI and intelligent agents become more powerful and more popular.
As Americans increasingly avoid ads, Forrester predicts that the industry will suffer. According to their research, ad spending will fully plateau in 2018. Instead, chief marketing officers will shift their focus and investment in consumer experience, digital platform algorithms and advancing marketing technology.
Forrester points to short-sighted investment and managerial decisions for many of the problems on the horizon, especially at CEOs and managers for neglecting AI and blockchain research, as well as failing to properly understand both GDPR and digital platform algorithms.
Most importantly, Forrester says, slow and safe adaptation just won’t cut it anymore.
“Incrementalism may feel good, but it masks the quiet deterioration of the business,” the report reads.
“The window of opportunity to take bold action is starting to close,” said Condon.
