Remember “The Sims”? My personal favorite game in college, it asks players to control a virtual human being. These “Sims”, as they’re called, are plopped into a virtual neighborhood with certain rules (such as gravity, aging, and an economy) and are left to their own devices to interact with the objects in their world and one another. The result is a functioning model of a human suburban neighborhood – one that undersimplifies things a bit, but is recognizably human. But what if marketers had a version of the Sims especially for them – one where they could put a marketing message into the environment, and watch how the “Sims” interacted with it?

One of the coolest parts of this year’s research into consumer process was getting to speak with a number of vendors and companies that do just that, using a process called agent-based modeling. Agent-based models are mathematically-created worlds populated by mathematically-created people, who are then exposed to a certain stimulus. In marketing, that stimulus is usually a message or marcom effort; other disciplines use diseases or changes in the economy.

The end result is a plausible estimate of the effects of a marketing campaign on a customer base – something that can be used to test proposed marketing plans to see which delivers the highest returns. For B2Cs, the “agents” can be consumers, for B2Bs, agent-based models can estimate the effect of marketing campaigns on corporate buying centers and within broad discipline areas.

MLC members, to learn how agent-based modeling works in marketing planning, please visit the members-only insight page we’ve put together on the subject, and register for our September 15 webinar, featuring MLC researchers and ThinkVine, a vendor in the modeling space.

It’s that time of year again, when many marketers are making the strategic choices that will carry them through the coming fiscal year. That’s right, it’s planning season. (Members: it’s not too late to register for the August 3^rd webinar, “Avoiding Pitfalls in Marketing Planning.” If you’re reading this after the 3^rd, the registration link will take you to the replay.) Inevitably, some planning discussions will result in decisions to bring a new brand to market, strengthen a brand’s current positioning, or redefine what a brand stands for.

In the highly matrixed, geographically dispersed marketing world that many of us operate in, ensuring that a brand’s positioning is consistent across a multitude of stakeholders and geographies is a significant challenge. Too often the positioning suffers from a “lost in translation” problem as it transitions from one functional owner to the next (e.g., from product development to communications) or between global and local marketing teams. As in the classic “telephone game,” multiple handoffs over time result in a fractured brand positioning that bear little resemblance to the original.

Volvo faced the same hurdle when it was looking to evolve its brand positioning to represent attributes desired by consumers: “excitement” and “desirability.” After initial attempts failed to influence consumer perceptions, Volvo realized that marketing stakeholders were unintentionally altering the brand’s positioning by overlooking important details and misinterpreting others. A more robust approach to protecting the brand’s positioning was needed.

To prevent distortion of the brand’s positioning as it made its way around the organization, the brand team at Volvo decided to introduce the following simple, but highly effective, tools to be used by all internal stakeholders at key moments in the product and communications development processes: Read More »

The worldwide recession has changed the value set for a significant portion of your customer base.  By the day, we’re hearing of more members recasting their segmentation models to reflect new realities.  But updating segments is only half the battle.  To see frontline impact with new segmentation, marketers must get the new segments to “stick” with internal stakeholders.

Not long ago, LG Mobile developed a new segmentation model.  Marketing leaders at LG Mobile quickly realized that to engage consumer segments more effectively, they needed to embed these segments into everything that LG’s employees do. Marketing leaders began by asking themselves the question- Is the segmentation understandable, relatable and relevant? Taking this as a starting point, LG worked to sell the segmentation internally. LG followed a 5-step process to create an internal buy-in of the segmentation. Read More »

What can moscato teach us about marketing planning and skillsets of socially-savvy marketers?   More than you might imagine.

This sweet wine sourced from the Muscat grape was a rounding error on annual wine sales in the US.

Until Drake came along. Read More »

As economies went into freefall roughly two years ago, executives across different functional areas converged on a short set of priorities.  In fact, you might say just one priority – survival.  That meant shedding costs and doing anything possible to drive cash flow, quickly.  But as markets pulled back from the brink, functional heads returned to a (more normal) pursuit of their individual agendas, from social media adoption to staff development.

As we talk to heads of Sales, Marketing and Communications about 2011, I see a swing back to handling a common enemy – this time, ongoing uncertainty.  Uncertainty isn’t terribly attractive to most, but executives seem to be accepting it as part of the new normal and are trying to figure out ways to live alongside it.  That presents a little differently depending on your role in the organization. Read More »

Do you feel like the biggest change to your 2011 marketing plan is changing the title from “Marketing Plan – 2010” to “Marketing Plan – 2011”?

While you might not exactly be “carbon copying” your previous plan, determining which elements to include in your plan, as well as how to ensure you’re planning around your customer, your products, and your partners requires huge effort and a significant amount of experience and knowledge. Each step of the process requires a comprehensive understanding of various marketing concepts and tools to ensure the strongest possible marketing plan. Read More »

Across the last six weeks, Wide Angle has shared a variety of perspectives on marketing planning. As (hopefully!) the season draws to a close for most of our members, let’s take a step back and look at the ground we’ve covered:

As planning season got started, Anna shared thoughts on how to justify spend increases in a down economy, courtesy of Pat LaPointe of Marketing NPV. The takeaway here? Squeeze every drop from your current spend, make your priorities clear, and actively manage risk. Your CFO will thank you! Read More »

By Whitney Satin

Labor Day marked the unofficial close of summer.  And sadly, it also marks the unofficial end to reasonable procrastination when it comes to planning for 2011.

We’ve done our best at Wide Angle to provide inspiration across the dog days of summer, highlighting best practices to link marketing activity to strategic priorities, select meaningful metrics, and make the case for additional marketing dollars.  You’re out of the woods … almost. Read More »

“The single biggest reason companies fail is that they overinvest in what is, as opposed to what might be.”

–Gary Hamel, Author and Professor, London Business School

Professor Hamel puts his finger on one of the most important undercurrents facing marketing leaders in large enterprises today.  As products, channels, and geographic markets proliferate, marketers will overweight to the familiar (that which “is” today), and fail to account for the size of future opportunity (that which “might be”).  Why?

They certainly won’t do so intentionally.  Rather, the sheer complexity of resource allocation decisions across geographies, products and channels will lead many marketers to settle for incremental changes to last year’s budget allocation.  In the face of overwhelming complexity, this will feel like the safe, smart choice. Read More »

(Note: This is Part 4 of our 6-part series on marketing planning. Part 1, “Making the Case for Higher Spend“,  can be found here. Part 2, “Selecting Metrics“, can be found here. Part 3, “Marketers Squeezing Productivity“, can be found here. Check back here every Wednesday in August and September for a new installment!)

As you’re preparing for another year of marketing planning, ask yourself these three questions:

• Do our marketing plans reflect our company’s overall strategic objectives?
• Are our marketing plans based primarily on incremental changes to last year’s activities?
• Even if we know that marketing is making progress, can we tie our activities to business objectives?

We all know what the answers here should be, but how many of us actually get it right? Read More »