None of the big boys of Madison Avenue made to the top of “Advertising Age’s Top 100 US Agency Brands for 2010” list. Acxiom Corp., an Arkansas-based database marketing company has been topping this list for the last two years. Only eight leading advertising agencies could make it to top 20, with digital and PR agencies filling the rest of the positions.

Tim Williams wowed the audience with this fact as he opened the seminar organized by International  Advertising Association in New Delhi that I attended a couple of weeks ago. Tim is a thought leader in the advertising and marketing business, and also the author of the bestselling “Take a Stand for Your Brand.” Here, he was speaking about “How Agencies are Transforming for the Future.”

He explained how the advertising landscape has changed over the years. Many CMOs are shunning “agency of record” relationships. A number of them are bypassing agencies to work directly with media companies, production companies, and even directly with creative talent via crowdsourcing. Tim called this trend of bypassing as “disintermediation” of agencies.

So, what has caused this disintermediation, and the blurring of roles between agencies and media companies? What are marketers’ expectations from their agencies? Read More »

The mortgage mess and resulting global financial crisis put big banks, insurance companies and finance organizations at the top of many Americans’ “Most Hated Companies” list – a position once reserved mainly for airlines and cable companies.  According to a Gallup tracking poll, in 2011, less than one quarter of Americans say they have “a great deal” or “a lot” of confidence in banks – good news only in that it is higher than the 18% who said the same in 2010.  There seems to be a constant barrage of criticism from Washington, from the media, and, perhaps of greatest concern in today’s viral world, from consumers themselves.  Talk about taking it to the streets, I drove by this truck parked outside Citibank’s McLean, VA office every day for two years on my way to my previous job.  Not limited to just passersby, it also has its own Facebook page.

So what are beleaguered marketers at these once revered institutions to do?  In addition to the critical fundamental changes banks are making to correct the fissures in their underlying structures, marketers can take action to repair and rebuild trust.  The first step is to have a plan – a real, written, institutionally-approved plan – for dealing with reputational challenges. Read More »

By Ana Lapter

We recently surveyed over 1900 customers to uncover insight regarding B2B purchasing behavior.  The survey results were surprising:  On average (and with little variation among industries) customers will contact a Sales rep when they independently completed about 60% of the purchasing decision process.

What does this figure mean for Marketing? Read More »

Marketing’s a complicated business, and, as such, it’s easy to tell ourselves lies – whether we know it or not. We talk to marketers every day, and here are some of the biggest, most persuasive whoppers in the bunch. Got more? Let us know in comments! Read More »

57% of MLC members think strategic planning is the marketing activity with the greatest chance for improvement.  It’s no secret why: marketing planning is notoriously siloed, confusing, and difficult to evaluate. And it’s harder than ever in today’s volatile environment.

MLC’s collection of best practices in marketing planning all have one thing in common: reducing complexity.  These best practices all involve stakeholders from outside Marketing, keep detail to a minimum, and make evaluation metrics explicit.

For more, check out our insights on Avoiding the Pitfalls of Marketing Planning. Read More »

As you may have heard, there was a little dust-up today on the East Coast. MLC headquarters, located in lovely Arlington, VA, was the scene of several overturned trash cans and a mildly anxious evacuation (yes, West Coast folks, we know it wasn’t that bad – but we don’t gloat when you complain about the humidity). After safely making it to the bottom floor of our building, the team, taking advantage of the resulting structural check, decamped to the nearest watering hole – where we found the scene to your right. At 2:00 PM.

Having worked in the restaurant industry, I can tell you that most bars and restaurants have a staffing plan that basically calls for more staff when there’s more likelihood of high demand. Depending on the place, restaurants staff up for weekends, happy hours, Mother’s Day, Christmas – the list goes on. But I doubt there’s a single restaurant on earth ready for that kind of foot traffic at 2:00 PM on a Tuesday.

Now, we can’t fault a restaurant for not guessing – or even having the capacity to handle – the inevitable surge of office workers evacuated after the second-strongest earthquake in the history of the East Coast. After all, with limited resources and the vanishingly-tiny likelihood of an unexpected surge in customers at that hour of the day, it would be uneconomic to have extra bartenders and waiters on hand.

But the bigger your organization is, the more products you sell, and the larger your geographic footprint is, the greater the likelihood of some kind of unexpected exogenous shock – whether the literal one we experienced in the DC area today, or something as innocuous as a rap lyric that mentions your product – can present an opportunity to serve more customers, strengthen your brand, or gain market share. And here’s the thing about shocks: they very often present an opportunity for breakout growth, as opposed to the more mundane linear variety – just look at the interest in Moscato before and after the rap lyric that brought it to renewed fame.

To me, shocks help explain why a lot of what marketers go through in the planning process is silly, wasteful and even dangerous. Geologists can’t predict earthquakes, weathermen don’t do terribly well with the weather, and marketers and executives aren’t going to be able to truly, repeatably identify and prepare for the kinds of shocks that can deliver huge returns to a brand – and that makes planning, at least as its traditionally done, an exercise out of touch with the real, unpredictable world.

So what can you do to prepare for earthquakes, literal and metaphorical? First, build agility into your organization and processes – my colleague Ana actually wrote about that very thing this week. Invest in staff – like our New Media Ringmaster – with proven records of accelerating organizational responsiveness; they won’t help you predict the future, but they’ll make you a whole lot better at reacting to the present as it happens. Consider strengthening your social listening capabilities; these can help you pick up on trends before they hit the mainstream. As you plan, keep it simple: members love Mastercard’s Plan on a Page for a reason. Most of all, stay loose and ready to tackle opportunities as they come – even if they aren’t “in the plan”.

MLC members, for more on marketing planning, please visit our topic center, and consider registering for our upcoming webinar on Agent-Based Modeling – one tool that can help remove some of the uncertainty around the future.

By Ana Lapter

Dealing with the future is a difficult task by nature, but this year’s planning process is further complicated by the tremendously uncertain global economy.  Recession fears, slow economic growth, lower consumer spending, feeble employment rates and depressed housing markets across much of the developed world are some of the factors that are weighing on executives, adding a new layer of volatility to any strategic planning exercise.

Uncertainty was the main modus operandi for marketers during the 2007-2009 recession. But even though the recession is technically over, recent stock market swings exemplify the uncertainty that is quickly becoming part of the new norm. From a strategic planning perspective, dealing with uncertainty means allocating resources for two critical human capital capabilities: organizational flexibility to cope with unexpected challenges and opportunities, and change management.

To cope with uncertainty, a great human capital strategy should consider the following ten principles: Read More »

The past few years tested the mettle of many B2B marketers.  Economic woes brought buying to a grinding halt.  While we no longer seem to be in a “No Buy Zone,” customers have not fully returned to their pre-recession selves.  They have held onto the savvy buying behavior they acquired out of necessity when times were tough.  Due diligence requirements are still extremely high but, thanks to the democratization of the information channels suppliers used to control, figuring out what customers are up to is increasingly tough.

With that in mind, the MLC B2B team decided to probe into the customer decision process earlier this year provide some guidance to marketers trying to regain influence.  Among the key findings we uncovered in our quantitative survey of 1,900 B2B customers is the fact that, on average, customers are 57% of the way through the purchase process before they allow Sales to play a real part in their purchase decision. Read More »

When it comes to selling, industrial manufacturers appear to have an edge over service providers – their offering is tangible, labeled and goes wrong less often. As anyone who has ever wondered where all the familiar buttons went after a software upgrade will agree. Our B2B Purchase Decision Data, collected from over 1500 customers for this year’s research, affirms this seeming advantage for manufacturers:  their customers are more likely to say they’ll recommend, repurchase, consider new offerings and prefer a specific supplier. But the victory rings empty, as you’ve just been running a race with the wrong set of companies.

Indeed, given the inherent industry advantage, many manufacturers may feel entitled to think themselves relatively secure. But when customers are asked questions that entail comparison between manufacturers of the same industry, they become indecisive, delay contacting suppliers and are swayed by details that suppliers overlook. From a competitive angle, here’s how things shape up: Read More »

Summer, for most of us, is a time to recharge our batteries, to relax, to enjoy some calm before the demands of life pick up again.  Unfortunately, investors have made that a good deal harder recently as they collectively removed over a trillion dollars in value from financial markets over the course of a few days.

Why the sudden volatility?  Consumers haven’t suddenly changed spending behaviors, nor have business customers. And suppliers look healthier than in some time, beating earnings estimates and sitting on plenty of cash. Credit availability has drastically improved. Inflation is hardly threatening.

The answer seems to lie in the health of developed economies. While many appeared to be on the mend for the past year (albeit slowly), it’s become clear the recovery is far more fragile than was thought, especially in the US.  We’re not in a recession, but we’re also not in a recovery that is self-sustaining.

In such an unstable place, most signals (economic data) are too weak or confusing for investors to proceed with confidence.  Even small pieces of information have outsized impact and prices gyrate.  Markets, after all, are just groups of people trying to discern future value and in this case they are struggling.

So, what are executives doing in the face of this volatility?  Some are being tougher on discretionary spending.  Many are revisiting assumptions for 2012 planning.  But the executives we’ve spoken with are not deviating from the strategies and tactics they put in place following the recession.

There is one thing all executives should be doing right now – getting used to operating in an uncertain environment.  Fortunately, that doesn’t require telling the future.  It does require, however, a structured exploration of what could be, and flexibility to respond regardless what becomes.

Most companies can stand to improve in this area.  Want to learn more? Join your peers in our upcoming webinar, Taming Uncertainty, on 25 August at 11:00 am EDT.  We’ll clarify why volatility has become “normal” and how the best companies are working around it.