Masters of Marketing

ORLANDO—Johnson & Johnson believes its marketers need to be better scientists, storytellers, strategists and socializers, according to Head of Marketing Excellence Denis Sison. “Talent is critical to the journey of transformation for marketing these days. As we all know, many of our organizations have been disrupted and are all undergoing transformation to drive growth,” Sison […]

ORLANDO—Although the U.S. Navy isn’t your typical consumer brand, it’s in the lead generation business nonetheless. And because its target audience consists mainly of the Centennial Generation, 70% of its media is spent in the digital realm. That age cohort, consisting of those born between roughly 1995 and 2008, has been the subject of focus […]

ORLANDO—The latest report on marketers taking certain activities in-house as opposed to using agencies comes as both sides need to produce more growth and profits. “Everybody’s under pressure at the same time,” observes MediaLink Chairman and CEO Michael Kassan. Noting margin inadequacies at agencies and profit-and-loss challenges at marketers, it’s logical to take a close […]

ORLANDO—Burger King has more than 17,000 restaurants around the world. “So imagine each of them is kind of like a small company” guided by three principles: getting the basics right, ensuring guest friendliness and using technology to help people engage with the brand, says Global CMO Fernando Machado. “We put a lot of effort on […]

ORLANDO—Given the huge increase in customer-retailer interaction sparked in large part by technology, it’s not enough to be Chief Marketing Officer at Sam’s Club. “Marketing’s just a piece of it,” says the company’s Chief Member Officer, Tony Rogers. “The nature of the relationship between consumers and retailers has changed so dramatically over the years.” Whereas […]

ORLANDO—For marketers looking to take back control amid a tsunami of change, it all starts with attracting the right talent. “Talent is the most important asset that we all have, including American Express. And it’s precious,” says Elizabeth Rutledge, CMO of the financial services provider. “You need to nurture it and you need to sort […]

ORLANDO—It’s not just advertisers that are in the business of balance as they try to figure out where to allocate their media spending. Consumers are seeking the right mix of ad-free and ad-supported video—an exercise that could get even trickier if, or more likely when, more providers adopt the latter option, according to A+E Networks’ […]

ORLANDO—The latest Association of National Advertisers survey regarding in-house agencies at marketers shows they have grown in use to 78% of ANA members in 2018 versus 42% in 2008. To the president and CEO of the 4A’s, which represents outside agencies, numbers don’t represent the entire range of attributes that agencies bring to the table […]

ORLANDO—With 1,800 stores, Target’s biggest challenges don’t include size. “We’re big. We have scale,” says CMO Rick Gomez. The trick is to seem small as the chain expands and tries to provide a singularly unique shopper experience on the ground and online. It’s a situation that many retailers would love to find themselves in, Gomez […]

ORLANDO—Trying to guess what Progressive’s chameleon-like character Flo might morph into next is harder than winning the Power Ball lottery. It’s all about taking marketing risks because Progressive is “not like your father’s insurance company,” says CMO Jeff Charney. Suitably, Charney’s presentation at the recent Association of National Advertisers Masters of Marketing conference was titled […]

ORLANDO—Lack of scale has been a common excuse to avoid trying to reach TV viewers using dynamic devices to view content on the big screen in their living room. But with set-top box VOD and OTT viewing soaring, it’s time for advertisers to “catch up to that viewership,” says FreeWheel’s James Rothwell. “I think we’re […]

ORLANDO—For brands trying to engage with consumers, “making less matter more” is a much better business strategy than simply creating tons of content and not being channel-specific in the process, says IBM Chief Content Officer George Hammer. “I don’t think we should try to mimic business models that aren’t necessarily thriving,” Hammer adds in this […]

ORLANDO—Marketers need to find the nexus of performance marketing—“a bunch of clicks and data and sets”—and the big, thematic and typically slow-moving ideas that have long characterized brand marketing, according to the CMO of Clorox. “I’m going to suggest that we have to figure out how to pull them both together around one consumer in […]

ORLANDO – We hear so much about the consumer journey and how brands need to follow it carefully. But what if it’s the brand’s journey that is the dominant marketing narrative? In the case of the Chicago Cubs baseball team, you take it one season at a time, be honest and transparent with fans and […]

ORLANDO – While there’s been no shortage of issues—from transparency to artificial intelligence to brand purpose—at the Masters of Marketing gathering, there’s also a galvanizing effect. “Today I think was a renewed call to action for the community,” says Art Zambianchi, Managing Director of WPP’s MediaCom agency in Chicago. “One of the refreshing parts of […]

ORLANDO – Some customer journeys are longer than others. Consider the plight of Chicago Cubs fans who “stayed with us for 100 years without a title,” says the team’s President of Business Operations, Crane Kenney. That ended with the World Series in 2016, triggering a change in communications strategies for the venerable Midwest sports franchise. […]

ORLANDO – It might be hard to believe in this Age of Amazon, but not everything can be purchased with one click. For Dell, this means using dynamic creative optimization (DCO) in different ways depending on whether it’s trying to lure consumers or businesses. “The strategy that we employ for DCO is very different on […]

ORLANDO – When it comes to selling beer, there is no “linear funnel” as has been standard marketing textbook fare for decades. MillerCoors has a three-pronged approach to understanding to whom, where and when to distribute its messages. “I think a lot of marketers today start with a creative brief and the idea, ‘Here’s my […]

ORLANDO – It should come as no big shock that millennials cite Facebook and Netflix as the top brands in positive word-of-mouth sentiment among their peers. That specialty size apparel retailer Lane Bryant would rank as the most improved brand in 2017 is a testament to the company’s efforts to improve the way that the […]

ORLANDO – To reach households with addressable ads on a one-to-one basis at scale, advertisers and agencies need to do it on a one-to-many basis. This is due to the technology and infrastructure variations between multichannel video programming distributor (MVPDs) and smart TV manufacturers. Last spring, one2one Media set out to leverage an integrated set […]