Our Monthly Round-up of the key pieces in Marketing for March – we’ve chosen five key articles and a podcast this month. Curated specifically for your sector, all our monthly reviews are now available on our website. http://haiconsulting.com/category/views/

Our March highlights:

1. Our top pick is a brilliant Field Guide on AI, written by Zoe Scaman, sent to us by start-up agency – Narratory Capital in New York. It is an interesting thought leadership guide and an authoritative read for any AI novice. Zoe specifically looks at using AI for strategy development. It’s down to earth, it’s 82 pages, and highly recommended explaining absolutely everything AI.

Here is the link: https://www.canva.com/design/DAF_JFMQSX0/a_RRBMuSZ3Z9w-sKGgZe9g/view

2. Secondly, – we have picked a podcast from Mckinsey this month, titled ‘Analyzing the CEO-CMO relationship and its effect on growth.’ CEO’s acknowledge the expertise and importance of chief marketing officers and their role in helping the company grow, yet there’s still a strategic disconnect in the C-suite. Here’s how to close the gap.

Here is the link: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/analyzing-the-ceo-cmo-relationship-and-its-effect-on-growth?cid=eml-web

3. Thirdly, – we pick a piece from the Harvard Business Review on Growth titled ‘Put Marketing at the Core of Your Growth Strategy’. Companies that make the decision to put marketing at the core of their growth strategy outperform the competition, according to McKinsey research. Specifically, both B2C and B2B companies who view branding and advertising as a top two growth strategy are twice as likely to see revenue growth of 5% or more than those that don’t (67% to 33%).

Here is the link: https://hbr.org/2024/03/put-marketing-at-the-core-of-your-growth-strategy

4. Fourthly, – it has to be procurement. ‘Marketing procurement seeks better metrics.’ WFA research shows that teams are looking at creative and production as well as media in their bid to identify savings for 2024. Many company target setters fail to understand marketing, increasing barriers between procurement, marketing and the rest of the organisation.

Here is the link: https://wfanet.org/knowledge/item/2024/03/28/Marketing-procurement-seeks-better-smarter-metrics-in-2024

5. Fifthly, – we attended a webinar this month by Mckinsey on: ‘What matters most and it includes eight CEO priorities for 2024’. A good read and the report can be downloaded.

Here is the link: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-live/webinars/what-matters-most-eight-ceo-priorities-for-2024

6. Sixthly, – we just had to pick a piece from the Rishad Tobaccowala’s series – ‘the Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past.’ This month it’s edition 190, – it’s his free Sunday thought letter – and it’s on ‘Squeezing Time’.

Here is the link: https://rishad.substack.com/p/squeezing-time

Retail: There were some big stories in retail this week – how retailers are navigating sluggish demand, how AO and Currys are beginning to defy their critics, but we also came across this Linked In thread by Richard Lim (sent to us by MovingTribes.com): What’s happened in retail this week’ he posts on Linkedin, which is definitely worth watching out for. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/richard-lim-42527726_whats-been-happening-in-retail-this-week-activity-7180266201741193216-11M1?

Marketing Risk: Les Binet, head of effectiveness at A&E/DDB has delivered a huge amount of work on creative & media effectiveness. In his latest You tube series he looks at risk and what marketers can do about it. https://youtube.com/watch?v=oW2QdcU3fno&si=dvjrWDTqJHzpGJbB

Time for the Work: It’s congratulations to British Airways and Uncommon London this month for an iconic OOH campaign. British Airways colleagues feature at the forefront of the campaign, in both the TV advert and the out of home imagery, from

flight crew, cabin crew, engagement centres to the airline’s head office. The campaign simply goes from strength to strength. https://mediacentre.britishairways.com/pressrelease/details/19269 And here is the System One report. https://testyourad.system1group.com/report/f833f7a0-abe8-4cba-ade4-38a9bb16213e

Back to Henley: Spring is in the air – the river is subsiding – the regatta tents are beginning to emerge. 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 month to interview Steve O’Connor – the Director of the River & Rowing Museum in Henley. https://www.henleystandard.co.uk/news/business/188290/lgdtb28324.html

We are here to help you with your agency ecosystem, growth plans, resourcing structures, and benchmarking to improve your marketing performance – do give us a call with any questions we can help you with.

Kind regards,

Will