What’s On Brands Minds Today  

Insight  ⇒ Learning from the Recent ANA Brand Conference

Digiday did a nice recap of what was top-of-mind for brands at the conference.  Insights are both external and internal viewpoints and not totally unexpected.  Nonetheless, it’s always good to be dialed in and here are the five key trends:

•  Programmatic
  • The hottest topic for digital and beginning to encroach on the TV marketplace as well
  • Three basic variations in play 
    • Unilever-WPP model where Unilever licenses the ad buying and data management technology directly from vendors with Mindshare running the operations.  Unilever gains full transparency and owns all the data
    • The Netflix, Kellogg, Allstate model which brings programmatic totally in-house
    • The agency model where brands rely on agencies and their programmatic arms to purchase for them
  • Biggest issue – trust.  Several agency holding company trading desks have been under fire for lack of transparency for sometime now.

• Clients Care About Business Gains … Not Clio Awards
  • Only 12% of marketers rate agency contributions as extremely valuable 
  • 66% plan to make changes to their agency rosters in 2015
  • Brands emphatically want agencies to care more about the business and less about creative

•  Diversity & Inclusiveness in Advertising
  • Brands want everyone involved at the start to ensure ads are inclusive with different ethnicities and age groups.
  • A total market approach that reflects the changing diversity of society and focuses on applying a single brand message to all segments is the growing trend

• Brands With a Purpose
  • Brands are starting to embrace the idea of social responsibility along with being more sustainable and human 
  • Why?  Because Millennials embrace brands with a purpose
    • 47% of online shopper consciously buy from brands that support causes
    • Target reuses materials from TV shoots or gives them to charity …  because it’s the right thing to do
    • When brands establish an eco-centric culture … agencies and production companies will follow

• Marketers Fear They Aren’t Agile Enough
  • Marketers aspirations are outstripping marketing operations
    • A recent McKinsey study found brands know what they want to do, but have trouble figuring out the processes … both internally and externally 
    • They fear that they are too slow and plodding to make the necessary changes … company wide, not just the marketing department 

Bottom Line ⇒  The Marketing World is Changing Dramatically … Brands Are Trying to Adjust to a Different Reality

• Brands are now fully cognizant that digital is infused in the lives of their customers and are trying to figure out the right roadmap 
• Marketplace dynamics, population shifts and the reality of digital means change is coming … for brands, agencies and media vendors
• In the morass of chaos, the bottom line still rules and marketers will figure out how to merge marketing and technology.

Zig is a highly specialized Social/Mobile/Video agency driving brand engagement by creating interactive user experiences.  We programmatically reach in-market buyers, at the lowest cost, and move them to conversion.  You can see our work by clicking on the link ⇒ http://www.zigmarketing.com.