Our Monthly Round-up of the key pieces in Marketing for October – we’ve chosen six key articles, and a podcast. Additionally, this month, we bring you ‘Our Eight Observations from last week’s Adforum Summit’ which took place in Paris. Curated for you – to enhance your marketing performance – all our monthly reviews are available on our website. www.haiconsulting.com 

Our October highlights:

1. Our top pick this month is a compelling and concise report on ‘How to Grow your Brand’. It’s an Intuit Mailchimp report of 47 pages, well chaptered, that can be downloaded here. With multiple authors, this is a must read for mid-market companies.

Here is the link: https://downloads.ctfassets.net/yzco4xsimv0y/4YncvZliOguzZGlrnh5DdB/6235e72c372b9257b366f957a9569075/TL_How_to_Grow_Your_Brand.pdf

2. Secondly, we have picked Mark Ritson’s piece this month on brand consistency. Mark has written a number of articles this month, we picked his best. Consistency is the Marketer’s secret weapon.

Here is the link: https://www.marketingweek.com/ritson-consistency-secret-weapon/

3. Thirdly, we pick an article from the magazine version of Harvard Business Review – on ‘Is there a better way to link sales and marketing’. For companies that are inhibited by siloed customer data – digital customer hubs can help.

Here is the link: https://hbr.org/2024/11/a-better-way-to-link-sales-and-marketing

4. Fourthly, we like what Charles Vallance, one of the founders of VCCP has to say in ‘the longer and the shorter of it’, he talks about the industry meeting the plateau of productivity, yet we are just about to see the next AI shift in advertising development.

Here is the link: https://www.vccp.com/news/2024/oct/charles-vallance-in-campaign-the-longer-and-the-shorter-of-it

5. Fifthly, there is a good report out on Advertising Production this month entitled – What Clients Want From Advertising Production Today, by the APA, it covers how clients should engage production and why.

Here is the link: https://www.a-p-a.net/2024/10/news/apa-in-house-report/

6. Sixthly, whilst the Guinness Rugby is now in full flow. There are many that are opting for a lighter tipple. I am actually a fan of the Guinness 0.0 as a rugby session drink, but is there a rise in the non-alcoholic drinking culture.

Here is the link: https://creative.salon/articles/features/the-rise-of-non-alcoholic-drinking-culture

Media: 

We attended a McCann Central/UM seminar this month which included a presentation by Richard Shotton on Applying Behavioural Science. He has an excellent book out called ‘The Illusion of Choice’. A really good session and a good read for your next long flight. https://ss-usa.s3.amazonaws.com/c/308496593/media/1943670fc5841654e87598582545248/1356867_Media_Event_EAST.pdf

Podcast: Whilst we may all be time constrained – with post-election overload – this Podcast is definitely worth a listen – with Nils Leonard – on the task of building brands that people actually wished existed. https://open.spotify.com/episode/2ioO3tPqTRlJKDcHEoZxfK?si=798f9c5dabf94bef&nd=1&dlsi=5db68da037c447fc

Time for the Work:  It’s congrats to McCain’s and AdamandEve/DDB this month. The IPA Effectiveness Awards winner is a case study in the marketing fundamentals that most brands ignore or forget – and it’s brilliant because of it. https://www.marketingweek.com/ritson-mccains-teach-nothing-new/

Back to Henley:

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 Louise Jackson from the Highwayman. https://www.henleystandard.co.uk/news/community-news–all-districts-/192877/lets-get-down-to-business.html

 Our Eight Observations from the Adforum Summit in Paris:

An amazing Adforum week – meeting with key European agencies in Paris – leading consultants were brought together from the UK, US, Europe, Latam, South Africa and Australia, to hear from the leaders of the holding companies, global networks, branding, design, luxury and comms agencies.

1. There is a paradigm shift, in the economics & effectiveness of advertising – new orchestrators of marketing growth are being driven by AI, machine learning and human input. We saw an abundance of new digital transformation technologies.

2. Fast and first, – innovation and speed is being led by digital transformation AI enablers who are showing how AI is wrapped into everything. Holding companies are not moving fast enough when it comes to AI.

3. Ideation is key, AI ideas are more important than agency fee efficiency at the moment. AI gets you to a good creative starting point, but creativity still needs a human touch. The robots are not taking over everything.

4. Advertising creative work would appear to have become functional rather than blockbuster. Ideas need to exist in more than 50 channels, 9/10 people see social media as multi channel – it’s a mindset. There continues to be a drive on ROI.

5. Agencies are building internal management systems to ‘weaponise’ agency deliverables and marketing effectiveness – including the AI tools to share work and function better internally together.

6. No more WFH – four day weeks – or hybrid work – winning agencies are leaning hard into pitching: investing – inputing – prompting – sharing – and delivering outstandingly in multi channels.

7. The best way to be different is to be yourself, there are choices that fit different client aspirations between holding company operating models.

8. Holding companies are financially shaping for the future, some media transparency issues remain.

With an ‘Adforum Intermediary’ running a ‘perfect pitch process’ we can be the orchestrators of change. We are here to help you, or quite simply help answer any of your questions.

Kind regards,

Will