Insights Blog

In our daily conversations with marketing leaders, it’s amazing how often we’ve found this simple two by two matrix useful. Obviously, marketing budgets are allocated to help companies meet their revenue plans, but all too often the two fail to match up. This tool makes it easy to see whether your marketing investment truly makes sense.

By filling in details about your marketing budget and anticipated revenue in each of these four areas, you can quickly establish a clear picture of how well your investment is aligned with your business objectives. We have used this tool with clients at many levels, from the corporate entity to the business unit to the brand or product level. In most cases, companies have the information, but they have never connected the financial forecast to the marketing plan at this level.

As we approach this year’s Super Bowl, I’ve been thinking about the anticipation that will reach a crescendo just before game time. Of course, in addition to the game itself, the commercials have become an event to observe in their own right. Due to the enormous volume of eyeballs that will be glued to their screens, advertisers are seduced by the opportunity to expose their brand to consumers in creative new ways.

Some companies spend their entire year’s television advertising budget on the Super Bowl (think Tabasco’s exploding mosquito or Groupon’s controversial Tibetan commercial). For these companies, this single day is critical because it represents an enormous proportion of consumer exposure to their messaging.

Emerging markets clearly offer the best opportunity for growth in most business sectors. Since the 1990s, IMF estimated rates of real GDP growth have trended upward in emerging and developing economies while declining in advanced economies. Emerging markets are expected to be responsible for 76% of projected growth in global GDP between 2009 and 2025. However, most marketers lack experience executing in immature markets. This month, we discuss the common challenges we've seen and outline our proven strategies for overcoming them.

In many organizations, marketing faces a moment of truth. Dramatic cuts in marketing spending and personnel are a common response to the recent recession(s), but business leaders need to look beyond these short-term reactions. In order to achieve success, companies need to find new ways to drive organic growth sustainably and profitably.

Growth. It seems these days that everyone is trying to find some. How can we drive growth? Can we grow the category at a faster rate by increasing usage occasions? Can we find new customers for our product? Should we acquire a competitor?

We recommend this short interview with Mike Kitz, an instructor at Notre Dame and the former CMO of OfficeMax: "Why Are Firms Failing To Transform Marketing?" He highlights the issues involved in marketing-led transformations and the challenges faced in becoming a change agent.

At EMM Group, we have seen this up-close at many organizations. While change is hard, growth is getting pretty hard in today’s world too. So many companies are realizing that if they want to get growing, they must get really good at the growth drivers like marketing and innovation. Any leader that embarks on such a journey may want to keep a few things in mind:

The digital marketing game is always changing, but some trends are unmistakable. This month, we offer a quick round up of the major shifts we’ve noticed, all of which add up to ever-increasing levels of sophistication and unprecedented results.

1. From Customer Loyalty to Customer Advocacy

Xerox’s photocopiers. GE’s electric light bulb. These are famous examples of the “first mover advantage,” in which companies or brands are able to retain a dominant position in the market largely due to the fact that their innovation was a first of its kind.

In their 1987 research paper, Marvin Lieberman and David Montgomery of Stanford Business School discuss three basic reasons for the first mover advantage:

1. Technological advantage – Patents, unique understanding of the learning curve, or other proprietary R&D.
2. Preemption of assets – Access to critical assets required for production.
3. Buyer switching costs – Monetary or non-monetary inhibitors that discourage buyers from changing from one brand to another.

One of the biggest challenges CMOs face is a lack of necessary capabilities within their teams to deliver on their plans. They simply can’t get the right work done effectively. While we recognize that the CMO role is also expanding, social and digital strategies are making the job more complex, and budgets are constrained, this continues to be a common challenge.

James E. Burke, the former chairman and CEO of Johnson and Johnson, passed away last week. By all accounts, Mr. Burke was an exceptional leader and American. While his contributions to public service and business are many, he is probably best remembered for his handling of the cyanide-laced Tylenol tampering tragedy in Chicago in 1982.