We are deep into my favorite time of the year – the NCAA tournament – “March Madness.”  Every year we’re treated to the drama of David vs. Goliath matchups and the promise of an upset around every turn (sorry Kansas…).  While I’m eagerly awaiting my beloved Syracuse to steamroll their way to a championship – I also enjoy the egalitarian nature of the tournament that gives all of its entrants the chance to walk away with the trophy at the end.

What do these teams have in common?  Thousands of hours of practice and significant investments from many different sources that got them to the tournament in the first place.  Coaches, families, schools, and the drive of the athletes themselves, are all integral parts  of getting a team to the level needed to compete in the NCAA tournament.  Malcolm Gladwell puts the number of hours training to reach a level of mastery at 10,000.  In real terms, that’s about 10 years of practice. Read More »

Note to self: Scandinavia is cold in March. But my visit there this past week will be memorable for more than chills. One member visit stands out against the rest for the remarkable shift the marketing function has made in the last few years.

Four years ago, this Council member was spending 100% of its marketing resource in a traditional “fire and forget” manner—campaign-driven with traditional media featuring heavily. Today, that mix has shifted to three-quarters digital and emerging media.

The speed and magnitude of the shift is remarkable in its own right, but more interesting has been the shift in the operating mentality of the marketing team. Fully half of the marketing team’s resources, time and energy is managed in an “Always On” mode, not on a fire-and-forget basis. This Always On mentality, more than anything else, has poised the company to see great success with digital media and social networking in the coming years. Read More »

Einstein proffered that doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results is the very definition of insanity.

Then I must ask the rhetorical question: how close do marketers come to that definition when it comes to marketing planning? The search term ‘marketing planning’ has appeared in the top five search terms on the MLC website for 24 months running. Our annual executive survey has reported ‘planning’ as a top-five area of improvement nearly every year since the poll’s inception.

Sincerely now, what do marketers keep doing year after year that keeps yielding the same underwhelming results?

Read More »

Let’s face it – as the frontline for cutbacks in consumer spending, traditional retail has suffered through a miserable two years. Abercrombie & Fitch gambled that higher prices would keep its panache and lost terribly. Sears Holdings’ stores had their best quarter since 2005 – with a 2.3% year-on-year same store sales decline. Even the McDonald’s ‘I’m lovin’ it’ juggernaut stumbled to a 0.7% same store sales decrease this January. Does the rest of 2010 provide any hope for recovery? And if so, can retailers take advantage of it? Read More »

Those who live and breathe marketing have a problem: we can never fully unplug. Marketing follows us wherever we go. The TV ads, the social media forums, the direct e-mail – there’s a constant wondering of the strategic idea behind a campaign, whether the target audience was properly selected, and whether the channel mix works. Or perhaps this is just me and I’m projecting. Let’s move on.

Following my last post on globalization and its ramifications for the structure of global marketing functions, I spent a week trying to unplug in Italy (thank you, Starwood points). What spurred the above introduction was the amazing difference in marketing communications techniques required in the Italian market versus the United States – both industrialized Western countries with heavy penetration of traditional and digital media. Similar on paper, far different in practice. Read More »

By Laura Morris

Whether you want to get smart or sound cool, here’s what ten commonly used social media buzzwords mean in layman’s terms.  What other jargon is your digital agency (or, more likely, your 14 year-old) throwing your way?

1.  Social Graph: A visual representation of the different connections that an individual has within a larger social network.    Click here to learn more.

2. Social CRM: A process to monitor, engage and manage conversations and relationships with existing and prospective customers and influencers across the internet, social networks, and digital channels.  Click here to learn more.

3. Geo targeting: In geomarketing and internet marketing, the method of determining the physical location of a website visitor and delivering different content to that visitor based on his or her location.   Click here to learn more. Read More »

A few weeks ago, I pulled 10 nuggets from The Economist’s special report on social media. Fittingly, The Economist followed that this week with a special report on managing information.

Managing and making best use of all the data trails that consumers create via digital and social media is critical for marketers (see this prior post on managing information richness). This capability is one of a few that will separate winning marketing functions (and even enterprises) from losing ones in the next 3-5 years.

So, without further delay, here are 10 of my favorite takeaways from the report. Read More »

Perhaps you’ve seen episodes of Name That Tune on the Game Show Network (or maybe you’re old enough to remember when it was a hit in the 1970s).  Regardless, contestants competed to identify a song by listening to as few notes as possible.  I was reminded of that show while watching commercials during the Olympics last week.  Within the first few seconds of seeing a new ad, I knew it was for McDonald’s.  There were no golden arches or kids eating French fries to help me; there was just a vibe, an emotional connection that immediately made me recognize the ad as McDonald’s.

In an age when brands are identified by an icon like a duck or gecko, a recognizable sound like the deep voiceover of Morgan Freeman, or a celebrity spokesperson, I found it refreshing to see an ad that relied on none of those but still made a lasting and memorable impression. Read More »

By Laura Morris

Let’s face it: some brands have it easier than others when it comes to social media.

But while the Harley Davidsons and Coca-Colas of the world have a leg up, companies in “unsocial” industries (pharma, financial services, manufacturing, I’m talking to you) can still take advantage of the opportunity that social media offers.

Matthew Lehman, the Web Experience Director at Progressive Insurance, has some great suggestions for how companies in “unsocial” (and yes, sometimes downright unpopular) industries can use social media to boost customer satisfaction. Read More »

If your company is like mine, the beginning of the fiscal year (now, for most of us) is when we’re thinking about project portfolios and operating plans – and, it’s the one time we managers have to focus on our direct reports’ development plans.  Setting development goals for staff while creating these “IDPs” (as we call them: “individual development plans”) is easy for some functions. Sales has revenue goals. Procurement has cost-cutting goals. But for marketing, setting development goals – and understanding the underlying functional competencies marketing staffers need to develop (and then creating action plans that line up to their current projects) – can be a little tricky. Why? Read More »