Our Monthly Round-up of the key pieces in Marketing for May – we’ve chosen four key articles and two podcasts this month – if you missed any of them, have some time they are well worth a catchup. Thank you for those that gave us feedback last month, the Adforum highlights certainly sparked some debate. All our monthly reviews are available on our website. http://haiconsulting.com/category/views/

Our May highlights:

1. Our top pick this month is a piece from this month’s Harvard Business Review on how ‘Building Brand Building and Performance Marketing can work together’. With the right metrics, you can increase the return on both, written by Jim Stengel et al. Marketers often worry that performance marketing and its focus on short-term sales is crowding out brand-building activities aimed at enhancing customer perceptions of their brand—and is sometimes working against brand strategy.

Here is the link: https://hbr.org/2023/05/how-brand-building-and-performance-marketing-can-work-together

2. Secondly, we have picked a piece from McKinsey on Ecosystem Strategies and building resilience with diversification into new value pools. Effective ecosystem strategies can deliver valuable near-term benefits as well as generate long-term growth and resilience. Leaders are finding significant benefits already.

Here is the link: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/growth-and-resilience-through-ecosystem-building.

3. Thirdly, we’ve picked a piece from Stratechery.com – a blog that we have been following for some time. Apple Vision is one of the best product names in Apple history and whilst the headset won’t be ready until next year – this blog is a must read this month.

Here is the link: https://stratechery.com/2023/apple-vision/

4. Fourthly, we pick a piece on how consistency in brand message is underrated. Speaking at Marketing Week’s Leadership Summit, Natwest’s CMO – Margaret Jobling details how she overhauled NatWest’s marketing function and her personal growth lessons.

Here is the link: https://www.marketingweek.com/natwest-cmo-margaret-jobling-consistency-underrated/

5. Fifthly, this deserves a shoutout, and its thanks to Isabel Perry and our good friends at DEPT, they have produced the Machine Learning Guide. It’s brilliant, and super informative – we call it “the Couch to 10K” guide to AI, it’s accessible via Spotify. The fundamentals are just as important as ever, even though there are new methods.

Here is the link: https://open.spotify.com/show/5M9yZpSyF1jc7uFp2MlhP9?si=c6c94dfaea524d84

6. Sixthly, there has been an awful lot of conversation about AI taking over Marketing and Advertising and deskilling jobs. There are also fears that the guardrails are not in place which this week has been the topic of concern for World Leaders. Ian Hogarth has invested in more than 50 artificial intelligence companies and is co-author of the annual State of AI report. He’s worried, not only about the disruptive consequences of machine learning for human employment, but about the potential rise of an ‘AGI’: artificial general intelligence. A great podcast.

Here is the link: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/novara-media/id1001507547?i=1000613992655

Media: Simon Andrews produces an excellent ‘Fix Lite’ Content Blog on a Monday, and here is his latest edition. He calls himself a veteran of advertising and digital, we just think he’s just super smart. https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=80025f160be434835759d292b&id=35147b44d8

Time for the Work: A hard choice this month – but we have gone for the new Cadbury work and ‘Speakerphone’ – Congrats go to VCCP this month. This campaign just goes from strength to strength, the glass and a half in everyone campaign is a big brand idea that serves as a platform for powerful stories. ‘Speakerphone’ brings a fresh perspective, coupled with Fathers day this weekend – it explores the bond between father and son. https://www.moreaboutadvertising.com/2023/06/vccp-turns-the-tables-on-fathers-day-in-new-cadbury-work/

Cannes: Anyone heading to Cannes? – the hotels certainly seem pretty booked. We are planning to be on La Croisette on the Monday & Tuesday, before heading home to Royal Ascot for Wednesday & Thursday. It will be a busy week, but it will be great to catch-up.

Back to Henley: The booms are going up, it’s almost time for Regatta. 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 Edward Hopkins of Dark Green PR. https://www.henleystandard.co.uk/news/business/180434/letsgetdowntobusinesshopkins.html

We are here to help you with your agency resourcing structures, agency reviews, and benchmarking to improve your marketing performance, do call us with anything we can help you with.

Kind regards,

Will