In a recent article published by Mediaweek, author Denise Lee Yohn postulated that the drive toward social media and analytics by CMOs was causing marketing to lose its creativity. Lee Lohn wrote:
All this focus on social media and analytics seems to be sucking the creativity out of marketing. Time was, brands developed big ideas and delivered and communicated them in unique and creative ways. Now it seems marketers are only interested in tactics and metrics…Certainly media and communications have changed, so a big TV spot or newspaper campaign probably isn’t the right approach for transformational marketing. But lately it seems the pursuit of breakthrough marketing creativity has taken a backseat to work on more predictable and achievable efforts.
While there is no question to Lee Lohn’s notion that creativity plays a vital role in the effectiveness of marketing, the concerning part about Lee Lohn’s article is that it positions creativity as the finality of the marketing process. Continue reading 'Marketing Losing Its Mojo? Not So Fast'»
As a follow up on our recent post about standardized marketing metrics, we explore the conversation as it progresses within the marketing community. Marketing NPV published an interesting article furthering the case for (and against) a standardized set of marketing metrics. In particular, they argue that CMOs should be spending more time asking a set of difficult, yet critical, questions about their marketing strategies and efforts then working to develop a standardized set of marketing metrics. Continue reading 'More on Standardized Marketing Metrics'»
Last week, Marketing Profs published an insightful article by Banks and Nahama calling for the standardization of marketing metrics. Banks and Nahama wrote the following:
We are chagrined to see marketers still putting forth hundreds, even thousands, of disparate measures for their specialized fields, with most of them stopping short of linking to financial return.
It saps years of progress from the marketing discipline to hear marketing specialists, many at the top of their field, still make passionate arguments that it’s all about viewers or listeners or impressions or eyeballs or click-through or brand or awareness or pass-along or engagement, etc.
That trend seems only to be accelerating in the age of digital and social marketing.
These thousands of measurements may have use for daily activity, but when they attract such, well, un-standardized attention, they hurt marketing and they distract CMOs from their main tasks. Continue reading 'Standardized Marketing Metrics'»
In a previous article, I explored the difference between marketing tools and marketing strategy and described Tier I marketing in detail. This post continues in that vein by exploring the next step in an organization’s marketing sophistication, what we refer to as Tier II marketing. Where organizations engaging in Tier I marketing are tactically driven, Tier II marketing is driven by strategic goals and insights. The strategy drives the tactics. The characteristics of a Tier II marketing organization include the following:
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branding, CMOs, creativity, marketing accountability, marketing analytics, marketing metrics, marketing performance analysis, marketing ROI, marketing strategy, Mediaweek, Mktg Performance Management, quiznos, Social Media, unbounded creativity 