28 Marketing Trends found for Agencies / Creative

... secondary concern when it comes to adopting AI.  

When the first scalable artificial intelligence marketing solutions came to market in 2016, brands adopted them more quickly than agencies.

However, neither brands nor ad agencies rushed to embrace AI because of its shiny packaging.

A meagre 11% response to peer pressure of brand respondents, plus just 8% of ad agencies, explored AI because they wanted to try the latest new marketing tool or exotic technology.

Be that as it may, seven out of ten respondents [brands and agencies] cited “increasing the value of our marketing investment” as a key motivating factor for adopting AI.

Brands, which have greater impetus to control costs [they can’t be passed along to clients] were especially keen on this reason: 83% of respondents, compared with just 58% of agencies, cited cost containment as an important factor.

For agencies, increasing campaign productivity [making themselves look good to clients] moved the needle, while 33% investigated AI systems because their current manual and/or technology-aided efforts had flatlined.

Read the original unabridged MediaPost.com article.

All data sources are attributed with links to the original insight. The insight is then summarised and, where appropriate, enhanced with additional information.

... the way in which the Ad, TV, and Video trades produce, distribute and traffics that content.

The consequences of this trend have created confusion, inefficiency and challenging new kinds of workflow among advertisers, agencies and the media.

In the first industry-wide initiative to tackle technical standards and formats associated with this rapidly changing marketplace, a joint venture of the Association of National Advertisers [ANA]and its agency counterpart, the 4As, has spearheaded a coalition of the advertising, TV and digital media industry’s leading technical groups to create standards and best practices for managing video assets in a non-linear world.

The effort - which is supported by nine trade groups, including the ANA, the 4As and the Interactive Advertising Bureau - is the brainchild of Harold Geller, chief growth officer of Ad-ID, the ANA/4As joint venture that created an indelible digital code enabling advertisers, agencies, producers and the media to traffic vital metadata associated with TV and video ad campaigns regardless of whichever platform they ultimately end up on.

Read the original unabridged MediaPost.com article.

All data sources are attributed with links to the original insight. The insight is then summarised and, where appropriate, enhanced with additional information.

... a taskforce launched in September 2015.

Enthuses Yasuyuki Katagi, president/ceo of McCann Japan: "The whole company is 100 percent on board to support the development of our A.I. employee."

"Artificial intelligence is already being used to create a wide variety of entertainment, including music, movies, and TV drama, so we're very enthusiastic about the potential of AI-CD ß for the future of ad creation."

Whilst developing AI-CD β, the McCann team deconstructed, analysed and tagged TV commercials, including the winners of the All Japan Radio & Television Commercial Confederation's annual CM Festival awards for the past ten years. AI-CD beta was designed to mine the database and creatively direct the optimal commercial for any given product or message.

The McCann Japan team claims it now has sufficient data to take on a creative brief from a client. One of McCann Japan's multinational clients, as yet unnamed, has agreed to work with AI-CD beta on an upcoming campaign.

Read the original unabridged MediaPost.com article.

All data sources are attributed with links to the original insight. The insight is then summarised and, where appropriate, enhanced with additional information.

... big budget multimedia campaigns.

The Boston-based In-House Agency Forum [IHAF] serves the needs of this growing community of marketers via the delivery of thought leadership, industry insights and networking opportunities.

By 2014 IHAF's membership swelled from 150 to 250 companies and now includes heavy hitters such as American Express, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Boeing, Coca-Cola, HP, Lego, McDonald's, Nestlé and Raytheon.

One of the biggest advantages in having an in-house agency is its unlimited opportunity to learn from within - something external agencies are hard-pressed to do. Being part of the same company, marketers live and breathe the culture and the brand. The client's products are your products.

According to Marta Stiglin, a long-time member of IHAF's board of directors and its former chairman, one of the biggest misconceptions is that IHAF cannot attract and retain the same calibre of strategic and creative talent that external agencies can.

Says Ms Stiglin: "That simply isn't true. What's essential when staffing any type of organisation, internal or external, is that you hire the best and brightest people you can. If you hire "B players," you'll end up with a "B team."

Read the original unabridged AdWeek.com article.

All data sources are attributed with links to the original insight. The insight is then summarised and, where appropriate, enhanced with additional information.

... print and an array of other media. 

According to Nathan Iverson, evp and design director at Deutsch LA it's having the same impact on brands.

"We kind of call it 'perfectly imperfect", says Iverson. "People will call you out pretty easily if your food looks overly propped or overly perfect because  (inreal life) that's not how it is."

The discussion of the so-called Instagram effect comes up often around the Deutsch office, says Iverson. The agency's designers, many of whom are millennials, have used Instagram for years but weren't around when photographers first experimented with visual techniques by hand.

But according to another adland advocate, Alex Nassour, an art director at Durham, North Carolina-based advertising agency McKinney, Instagram isn't just inspiring new looks for design and photography - it's also accelerating how quickly trends catch on.

Following designers, illustrators and photographers from around the world allows other designers to gain the upper hand when it comes to embracing hot styles before they wear out their welcome.

Read the original unabridged AdWeek.com article.

All data sources are attributed with links to the original insight. The insight is then summarised and, where appropriate, enhanced with additional information.

... facing the most profound, rapid changes they've ever known, despite which their agencies are blithely ignoring clients' needs and relying on their past performance.

However, not all media shops are similarly blinkered.

According to one senior media agency executive: "Our role as media agencies should become more ambitious - to move from helping our clients buy media to helping them solve business problems; to shift from facing the industry to facing real people; to become stewards through the uncertainty; to know what is changing and what is staying the same; and to unleash the power of new technology to transform our clients' businesses."

"Things have never been so fast before, but will never be so slow again -- from changing TV viewing habits, to apps that explode and die in weeks, to real-time marketing."

"Clients want to know what's next, what is dead, what is changing, and even more importantly, what isn't and how can they test and learn to maximise what they have learned and reduce risk.

"This calls for agencies to operate in a fundamentally different way - to keep their finger on the pulse, be agile and ready to change. Agencies need to be structured differently, to operate with an entrepreneurial culture and to employ new talent to keep a view on what lies ahead."

Which, of course, harks back in time to the Don Draper era when ad agencies handled every aspect of their client's accounts, from strategy planning and creative through to media evaluation and buying. 

Read the original unabridged AdAge.com article.

All data sources are attributed with links to the original insight. The insight is then summarised and, where appropriate, enhanced with additional information.

... outside firms to promote its myriad consumer products.

The latter range from from Gillette razors, to Tide detergent, to Pantene hair care and Bounty paper towels.

The overall picture is likely to engender an attack of nervous tics within those ad agencies serving P&G and other major global advertisers, who between them wield nearly $20bn in media buying power.

Agencies are worried, not only by the pressure exerted by P&G; they are facing similar demands from the likes of Unilever, L’Oréal, Coca-Cola, S C Johnson and Visa, to name but a few.

Failure to do so leaves uncompliant agences at risk of losing clients' business entirely.

P&G's CFO Jon Moeller recently revealed his company plans to “significantly simplify and reduce” the number of agencies it works with on ads, media buying, public relations, package design and instore marketing.

For some agencies the gravy train is about to grind to a halt.

Read the original unabridged WSJ.com article.

All data sources are attributed with links to the original insight. The insight is then summarised and, where appropriate, enhanced with additional information.

Prominent among the jobs deemed to be creative are those of artists, architects, web designers and IT specialists. Top among such occupations are ...

1. Translators and interpreters (5.8%)
2. Performing artists (7%)
3. Radio broadcasters (7.7%)
4. Film and TV producers (8%)
5. R&D on natural sciences (10.9%)

While the following five job functions, according to the report, have a "very high" probability of computerisation:

1. Peat extractors (100%)
2. Motion picture projectionists (97%)
3. Copper producers (70.7%)
4. Mailing list publishers (69%)
5. Bartenders (67.5%)

The survey results also suggest a pervasive restructuring of labour markets over the decades to come. The report urges governments to assist workers made redundant through job automation by retraining them for the new creative professions.

Read the original unabridged WSJ.com article.

All data sources are attributed with links to the original insight. The insight is then summarised and, where appropriate, enhanced with additional information.

... lack of innovation, turnover, arrogance, complacency, organisational silos and more.

Moreover, the client-agency divide is not confined to US shores and is replicated in the UK and elsewhere in an ever-shrinking world.

In short, many brand marketers believe agencies talk a big game but fail to deliver deep insights, while another preceived problem is the overlapping area of tech, data and social media.

The complaint that creative-focused agencies downplay data isn't exactly new, while agency leaders accuse marketers of being their own worst enemies by refusing to pay for the level of depth they demand.

Meanwhile, according to agency leaders, marketers are increasingly slashing the fees they pay agencies, thereby making it more difficult for agencies to invest in senior talent that could make them smarter.

Agency bosses also accuse marketers of being less patient and becoming more furtive, making some agencies less inclined to spend ahead of revenue. Agencies argue that they add value to brands and should be seen as an investment, not just another line item expense.

Argues Carter Murray, global ceo of multinational agency FCB: "If clients are making unreasonable demands, we need to stand our ground and get paid fairly for what our teams do."

Read the original unabridged AdWeek.com article.

All data sources are attributed with links to the original insight. The insight is then summarised and, where appropriate, enhanced with additional information.

... a link from him via email, mobile phone, text or QR code according to your choice.

The link takes you to a swanky card with Alma's name and "Have Soul" motto at the top (Alma is Spanish for soul). The background is a bright purple, Alma's signature color.

Six buttons offer various options to contact Mr Mizrahi at the office or on his cellphone or by email. The card also links to his Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, plus an office location map. The card can also be shared.

Mr. Mizrahi said everyone at his Miami agency has a profile and photo, with some sixty-five staffers using the new cards.

He reckons he distributes the card electronically five or six times a week, even to unsuspecting folk he meets on a plane en route home from a business meeting.

In January 2014 the Miami shop was named Ad Age's Multicultural Agency of the Year.

Read the original unabridged AdAge.com article.

All data sources are attributed with links to the original insight. The insight is then summarised and, where appropriate, enhanced with additional information.