Our Monthly Round-up of the key articles in Marketing for January – we’ve chosen six key articles – centred on customers, growth and the future. If you missed any of them – have some time, they are all worth a catchup. http://haiconsulting.com/category/views/
We are on hand to help you design, build, and grow your marketing ecosystem. We really look forward to catching up to see how we may assist you and your teams.
Our January Highlights:
1. Our Top Pick this month is a piece from the Harvard Business Review by Fader, Hardie & Ross on understanding your customers. Most companies analyze financial performance by looking at geographic segments, product lines, or channels. These perspectives overlook the fact that aggregate revenues are dependent on individual customers, and that’s why analyzing the business by looking at its customers can provide managers with useful insights. This process, called a customer-base audit, can be a tool for businesses as they seek to answer five questions: Who are our best and worst customers?
Here is the link: https://hbr.org/2022/12/do-you-really-understand-your-best-and-worst-customers
2. Secondly, we’ve picked a piece by Rishad Tobaccowala on the Triangle of engagement. This is edition 129 from his excellent series The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past. While much of the content of his series has focused on the future, managing change, leading in these times, and learning to remain relevant, a new topic of concern, challenge and uncertainty has arisen regarding employee engagement.How does one engage with teams and with colleagues in meaningful ways in a world of distributed and unbundled work, rapid acceleration of the speed of work, increasing burnout, and a workplace with four different generations each with different mindsets and expectations? It’s a good read.
Here is the link: https://rishad.substack.com/p/the-triangle-of-engagement
3. Thirdly, we pick a piece from the HBR January magazine by Rosen and Seligman on Cultivating the four kinds of creativity. In the decades to come, creativity will be key to doing most jobs well. In this article the authors offer a new typology that breaks creative thinking into four types: integration, or showing that two things that appear different are the same; splitting, or seeing how things that look the same are more usefully divided into parts; figure-ground reversal, or realizing that what is crucial is not in the foreground but in the background; and distal thinking, which involves imagining things that are very different from the here and now.
Here is the link: https://hbr.org/2023/01/cultivating-the-four-kinds-of-creativity
4. Fourthly, we have picked a piece from the Creative salon, on the future of marketing – They interviewed Michael Flatt, director of global integrated marketing at Microsoft XBOX, some great insights here on how complex and intimidating marketing has become. There are some good reads on Creative Salon.
Here is the link: https://creative.salon/articles/features/future-of-marketing/michael-flatt-future-of-marketing
5. Fifthly, we have gone for the Mckinsey Quarterly piece this month titled the CEO Guide to the Metaverse. It’s too big to ignore – yet its future is far from certain. Companies need to dip a toe in the water and plan to take the plunge should developments warrant. This report gives a really good guide to whom is dipping into this universe and embracing this wave of change including highlighting the optimism and success in the metaverse. What is it worth? 5 trillion dollars is a lot of money.
Here is the link: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/a-ceos-guide-to-the-metaverse#/
6. Sixthly, we have chosen the Moonblock State of the Brand NFT 2022 – Report, sent to us by Isabel Perry at Dept. It shows how brands entered the NFT space in 2022 and how the landscape looks like. It’s metaverse rich and something we have been looking at for some time. This is an in-depth PDF report giving perspective on the potential and key trends, 2022 brand NFT launches and revenue potentials.
Here is the link to download the report:
https://moonblock.io/brand-nft-report-2022#download-report
Time for the Work: It’s congrats this month to McDonald’s and agency Leo Burnett London for our Pick of the Work. It’s bold advertising creative to have an ad these days that has no real branding device, food, or restaurants within it. System One would probably have shunned it, but it’s a great ad to kick-off the New Year. https://www.thedrum.com/news/2023/01/13/new-mcdonald-s-ad-doesn-t-show-its-restaurants-or-any-its-food
Media: The very latest on Retail Media, ANA produced the Retail media report yesterday and it shows brands are shifting spend. https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/382020/ana-brands-shifting-shopper-trade-brand-market.html?edition=129107
Podcast: The Pin Drop Podcast this month – Intrepid x Ben Fennell. Ben Fennell is an advertising and branding legend who spent over a decade running advertising agency BBH London as CEO, helping some of the world’s biggest businesses and brands to grow. He has more recently set up ‘The Growth House’, an innovative consultancy that helps high performance teams go faster and further together. https://open.spotify.com/episode/51ThqkpiTm7tvUTcr0H3rB?si=6efacec6c8e74173&nd=1
Photo by Russell Cleaver
Back to Henley: It’s fantastic to see Bremont in Henley – going from strength to strength. https://whitecollarwatchguy.co.uk/2023/01/30/the-top-trends-to-watch-out-for-in-2023/ There’s a brilliant line up for the Henley Festival this year – announcing five nights of entertainment with Nile Rodgers headlining the event. https://henley-festival.co.uk/ And our weekly column in the Henley Standard continues where we interview local entrepreneurs - it’s called Let’s Get Down to Business. We were delighted this week to interview Ian Shepherd, Chairman of Benson for beds, retail expert, author, and CEO of Moving Tribes. https://www.henleystandard.co.uk/news/business/177954/let-s-get-down-to-business.html
We’re here to help you review your marketing ecosystem and to improve marketing performance, so do give us a call, or email us with any questions you may have – we’re here to help you when we can.
Kind regards,
Will