Learning the commercial case for creative marketing

I'm a fan of marketing that thinks, before it does. And, if I am honest, tired of "digital" marketing that focuses on channels and moving media spend without addressing the real strategic challenges, without putting the customer, and so integrated marketing, first. It's why I posted recently about meaningful marketing and brands such as Dove, I think wherever brands are seeking to genuinely connect with the consumer, commercial success will follow. If brands act in a commoditised way, expect commoditised results. Just a few weeks ago the Coca-Cola Company won 20 awards at the 2013 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, presented with the 2013 Creative Marketer of the Year Award at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, widely considered the world’s most important award for creative excellence in brand communications. So what can other…

Making your brand promises matter

"Move from [product] differentiation to actually making a difference" Umair Haque, the director of the Havas Media Labs and Harvard Business Review blogger

Earning your way into a consumer's heart is something that we know is important. Helping consumers feel something positive is the goal, convincing someone of purchase can only be an easier win as a result, surely?

The case for this being important, I think we'd agree, has never been as strong, when so much of marketing success hinges on forming connections with consumers, earning even seconds of their valuable time.

This at a time when despite the billions of £/$'s spent on marketing, Haque's latest report states that consumers just don't care - 73% of people don't care if the brands in their life disappeared tomorrow. Ouch, and yet so obvious. If consumers are that indifferent, then we have to make them feel, we have to…

10 permission marketing principles and campaign examples integrating web, email and social media marketing

It is now nearly 15 years since Seth Godin launched his permission marketing mantra. Yet it remains highly relevant - I still recommend newcomers to online marketing download and read his permission marketing principles.

But how does permission marketing apply today? In this post I show examples of how digital marketers today are applying Permission marketing principles  to their email marketing and social media marketing activities today.

In his book, Godin explains the principles of using permission marketing both in the offline world and online world, but he doesn't describe in detail how to best achieve permission marketing using web and e-mail.

For each of the core principles of permission marketing, I identify, define and illustrate my principles of ‘e-permission marketing’ which show how web,social, e-mail and offline communications can be…

Why businesses need to adopt an omni-channel approach

The recent (and well publicised) reports of a number of high street retailers such as Comet, HMV and Jessops going into administration has reinforced the need for businesses to continue to adapt their strategies or suffer the consequences as a result. Prominent high street retailers that failed to capitalise on the e-commerce boom (making the move online too late) have consequently been dealt a harsh lesson in reality.

The opportunity online

On the flip side 2012 was another strong year for e-commerce with UK retailers achieving 14% year on year growth (IMRG) with similar growth is expected in 2013. Combine this with the incredible growth of mobile/ tablet commerce and this year presents a real opportunity to online businesses. According to the latest BRC-Google Online Retail Index tablet searches increased 238% in the fourth quarter and the IMRG m-Retail index reported…

Examples of the cultural customisation needed for international retail sales

Our friends at Practicology recently held an event looking at approaches to customising Ecommerce for local markets. We thought it would be useful to share the presentations for marketers working on tailoring their proposition to increase international sales. We highlighting the retail e-commerce case studies from Clarks and Debenhams, along with multi-channel research from Amplience.

In their presentation, they shared '6 strategies in play' for e-commerce:

1. Do nothing: Don't allow anyone to buy from overseas.2. Standardisation: Switch on the buy button only.3. Adaptation:  Localise some aspects.4. Localisation: Fully localise the customer proposition online.5. Multi-channel market entry: Lead with online, open stores.6. Lead with stores; then localise online.

Clarks case study : Going Global with e-commerce

Head of E-commerce for Europe at Clarks, Dave Elston shared his experience on Clark's global e-commerce strategy and…

Reaching global customers through your Wordpress blog or company site

Wordpress is a popular blogging and content management tool now used by many businesses for their blog or main site. It's now used by over 60 million websites worldwide according to Forbes, including up to 15% of Alexa’s 'Top 1 million sites'. Builtwith.com, a competitor analysis and business intelligence tool providing technology adoption and usage analytics for the internet, has reported that Wordpress usage has continued to increase in the past year.

Further analysis of the top 100,000 Wordpress sites by builtwith.com shows that while the platform is being used for almost every type of internet activity, Wordpress is an extremely popular tool for business – accounting for around 17% of distribution.

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Global Advertising Trends by sector

Value/Importance: [rating=3] Recommended link: Nielsen Adspend by Sector Quarterly survey Nielsen have published their quarterly survey results this month, to share their global findings on 'ad spend' by sector. You can download the full report at their site. We thought we'd alert you to these, since they help show the significant changes in media spend by sector. Naturally regional changes in ad spend occur based on the economic prosperity of different regions. There was a 14% increase in Middle East and Africa. yet it's decreased in Europe as we would expect. This chart showing change in media spend by region with year on year trends, is just one of their findings.

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How today's Global Digital Marketing Leaders can get closer to their customers

There’s really no better way for global digital marketing leaders to learn about marketing to a new international market, or emerging market than by living in one, or two, or by visiting. I noticed that Marc Benioff of Salesforce has recently kicked of a Company Customer Tour and last year visited hundreds of customers worldwide Although The Internet, makes doing business in an international context far easier than ever before there is still a need for close customer understanding from personal contact. Having recently moved from Egypt, Cairo, to Qatar, Doha, previously having lived in the UK and working virtually with counties in Latin America, Russia, Central Eastern Europe and Asia, as part of a multinational marketing team, I have a few year’s experience of…

Examples show why advertising still has its place

I am a dinosaur because I believe in advertising!. When I wrote my book, ‘Brilliant Marketing’ I spent little time writing on digital but when, three years later it went to a second edition I’d come to realise that digital and social media occupied a rather more important role in marketing than before.

But does this mean advertising is dead?

Maurice Saatchi of M&C Saatchi had a slightly morbid view himself when he wrote: ‘Sometimes I feel as though I am standing at the graveside of a well-loved friend called advertising. The funeral rites have been observed. The gravediggers have done their work. The mourners are assembled. Most of them are embarrassed to say they ever knew the deceased. ‘Advertising?’ they say. ‘I’m not in that business.’ At the age of 50, advertising was cut down in its prime.’ But he was wrong. The media spend on pure…

4 key issues to consider in raising your profile through your online content marketing

The pitch process has changed out of all recognition. The days of agencies pitching for each project and clients constantly searching for new agencies are (thankfully) a thing of the past. Clients are looking for longer term partnerships with fewer agencies. That is a great thing for client retention and agency financial planning. But, it is potentially bad news for the new business development team. With fewer pitches, the game has changed. The role of business development is to build long term relationships with the Marketing Directors and Procurement teams who manage the tenders, so that they are on the next long list to be considered for the pitch. These relationships are ideally built on personal interactions, but inevitably they will start…