Last week I had the pleasure of going to the Association of National Advertisers Masters of Marketing conference. The ANA-Masters (as it is affectionately known) is the ANA’s signature event, where chief marketing officers and leaders from the advertising and media worlds come together to discuss how they are building their brands and improving the quality of marketing in their organizations. The conference was inspiring, thought-provoking and energizing, and I thought for this week’s blog post I would pass on a few of the key recurring themes that were presented by the marketing leadership of some of the biggest brands out there, such as P&G, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Sharpie and Allstate.
Purposeful Brands. In almost every conversation, marketers talked about the need for a brand to have purpose. It seems the days of betting on that one key benefit are gone, and marketers are now looking for a more emotional and meaningful umbrella to play under. In fact, Johnson & Johnson has rewritten their 4Ps so that one of them speaks to PURPOSE (the other three are presence, proximity and partnership), and Sharpie attributes all of their recent success to their strategic shift from a pragmatic approach (being the world’s preferred marker) to one that is purpose based (helping people uncap their creativity).
Partnership. Marketers seemed to be really clear that the days of owning the brand are over and now successful marketers must partner with their audiences if they want to build and grow their brands. Marketers spoke to the importance of listening to your audience, curating content from them and giving voice to the people who cherish your brand (versus impersonating them). The CMO of Pop Chips attributed the success of their brand awareness to their ability to find brand evangelists and empower them with the tools to spread the word.
Interactive Media. Every marketer had examples to show how they were leveraging digital and social media to drive their brands to new heights. It was clear that interactive media was enabling marketers (who were thinking beyond banners) to have a major impact on their brands. Key to being successful in these mediums was the ability to develop branded content that was buzz- and share-worthy. The CMO of Ford didn’t show one commercial and instead talked about how they leveraged interactive media to prelaunch their brands (sometimes a year in advance), giving them the opportunity to build advocates and sales long before the vehicle launched.
Real-Time Marketing (RTM). RTM was a continued topic of discussion. While planning and big campaign launches are still critical, marketers see a real need to develop an additional capability that allows them to be more agile, flexible and responsive to things that are happening in the moment. For example, the folks from Tide were able to generate hundreds of millions of impressions by taking advantage of a moment where Tide was used to clean up an incredibly massive spill during a NASCAR race. Within minutes they were capitalizing on the event in social media; within days they had an ad running that featured scenes from the cleanup, and within a week that had leveraged the platform to encourage those who were watching to give back to their communities.
While the most of the “masters” did a fantastic job giving conference-goers new things to noodle on, I was extremely disappointed that no one touched on the fact that marketing must change because we are all now engaging and marketing to a multicultural nation. I know from my conversations with top marketers across the nation that the failure to breech this topic in a meaningful way can’t be because folks don’t see that the world is changing. I assume it’s probably because this is one of those areas that has yet to be “mastered,” even by some of the best in the game. Can’t wait until next year.
By Detavio Samuels, EVP, Director of Client Services, GlobalHue