iaa summit briefing

C o n f e r e n C e b r i e f i n g s

GLOBAL MARKETING SUMMIT

2007

ThE 2007 IAA GLOBAL MARKETING SUMMIT was a true meeting of the marketing minds,

as the leaders of top advertising agencies,

interactive agencies, client marketing teams,

and marketing consultancies gathered at the

Roosevelt Hotel, New York to talk shop.

Behind the scenes, the Condé Nast Portfolio

Business & Consumer Insights team went

one-on-one with featured speakers to dig

deeper into their current branding strategies.

What follows are the exclusive insights gained

from their responses to four key questions.

e X C L U s i V e i n s i g H T s

The internet has exploded consumers’ opportunity to do research on companies. what a company is presenting to a consumer has to be deeper than just a logo. Branding must be backed up with reliability and credibility. And we need to look for innovative ways to push those attributes out to the consumer.

Kit Haines-BornHeimer

Advertising, Enterprise Markets, AT&T

it’s all about connecting. We have to do a better job of connecting with consumers through online panels, focus groups, and intercepts at the retail/store/hotel level. Just listening and following trends is the best way to connect.

JoHn Lee VP, Brand Marketing & Communications, Embassy Suites

even as consumers become more active and vocal, the world is not going to change significantly because you still need reach. Look at the Hillary Clinton Apple ad spoof. The reason it made it to the forefront is because someone in the media decided it should. We wouldn’t have heard about it otherwise.

KeitH Ferrazzi

CEO, FerrazziGreenlight, and bestselling author


As consumers become more active and vocal in marketing and media, how is the role of branding changing?

Branding can no longer rely on the traditional ‘sell & tell’ interruptive model or on conventional approaches of marketer-generated persuasion. the role of branding changes fundamentally from one of values communication through image to one of brand behavior and consumer experiences. Branding needs to become more participatory and involve consumers proactively throughout their journey through the purchase funnel.

nicK Brien

CEO, Universal McCann

I don’t think the role of branding is changing. Brands have always been about having two-way conversations. It’s only in the last 30 years that technology allowed marketers to talk down to consumers through TV and radio. Consumers are now saying “Hey, I have a voice!” and marketers need to respect that. in some ways it makes marketing easier because you have better access to what consumers want through dialogue on blogs and posts. We’re going back to what we should have been doing all along.

andrew swinand

President, Chief Client Officer, Starcom Worldwide

11


When you recommend and/or employ an innovative marketing solution, how do you temper the inherent risks of the unknown?

You try to research as best as you can, but a great idea is difficult to research. Especially for guerilla marketing techniques, testing isn’t the answer. we have to rely on instinct. It’s a combination of the tried and true with a little bit of the intuitive.

cHucK Brymer CEO, DDB Worldwide

we try things one step at a time. When it works, we do a little more. Our brand is evolving, not reinventing, so the steps are iterative and cumulative rather than revolutionary. One internal challenge is leveraging our IT assets for marketing purposes. There’s an inherent reluctance to allow too many unproven new things that haven’t been tested. We spend more time than ever talking to our internal partners to make sure we can work together —another sign of the convergence of media, marketing and technology.

Larry BLoomenKranz

VP, Brand Management & Advertising, UPS

You can never be concerned with the inherent risks of the unknown; you have to be more concerned with the inherent risks of not moving forward. There’s always someone out there trying to kick your ass. And if you don’t put yourself in a position to preempt them, then you stand to lose far more than by taking a risk on something new and different. You can always out-market your last failed campaign. As long as you recognize that there’s always something to follow a New Coke, you can overcome it.

marK cuBan Co-Founder HDNet

Mindset, yours and your organization’s, is the critical factor. Embracing change is a prerequisite. If you’re in an organization that is uncomfortable changing the way you do business, innovation won’t find a home. If change becomes the expected, then there’s an understanding that you have to try a lot of things. so if you’re ready for risk, set your expectations that 20% are going to be awful, 70% won’t be as good as you’d hoped, and 10% will surprise you. you can build a business around that 10%.

cHucK Fruit Senior Advisor, Marketing, Strategy & Innovation, Coca-Cola

it’s important to do testing regularly and over time, with similar questions asked in similar forums of people within a target group, so we can see whether attributes are gaining or slipping, and what might be the cause.

Kit Haines-BornHeimer

Advertising, Enterprise Markets, AT&T

there’s always going to be some risk with a good marketing program. It comes with the territory. But if the due diligence is done at the front end, and we know the target audience, and what resonates with that audience, then I think we’re in good shape.

JoHn Lee VP, Brand Marketing & Communications, Embassy Suites

2

In a media environment that’s so fragmented, how is the strategy and activation of branding changing?


3

There’s the theory and the reality. In theory, fragmentation is good since consumers fragment because they find something that is more interesting or relevant to them than the mass pieces. This presents an opportunity for marketers to interact with consumers in environments or platforms that are more or appealing. The reality is that to do that effectively, your message and your interaction has to be contextually relevant, requiring nimbleness, efficiency, and consumer insights about what the real passion points are. I don’t think we’re there yet as marketers. The opportunity is there; how to capitalize on that opportunity is a work in progress.


Fragmentation is another way of saying that it’s become more complicated and expensive to drive brand awareness. Many brands have had to rethink their strategy and marketing, and make more strategic choices about where they communicate. We have the line at our agency: “fewer. bigger. better.” It sums up what a lot of our clients are looking for—fewer media opportunities, and bigger ideas that offer better communication.

antony young CEO, Optimedia US

Media has been fragmenting for the 25 years that I’ve been involved in advertising. And we as marketers have always found a way to utilize the media that are available to reach who we need to reach. No question it’s more complicated, difficult and expensive, but it’s also an opportunity. As people have more power to choose when and where they want to be interacted with, their engagement with targeted media is potentially more significant than with mass media. increased engagement offsets fragmentation. But you have to figure out how to use each media channel and vehicle selectively, leveraging what it does best and not asking every media channel to do the same thing for you.

Larry BLoomenKranz


dramatically. The idea of producing TV commercials that could reach 90% of the population on three networks has moved into a world where television no longer has the same dominance. in a recent survey, 18-30 year olds were asked whether they’d rather give up their internet or their television. the answer was television. Reaching consumers is becoming more difficult, and we’re crafting new strategies to reach them.

cHucK Brymer CEO, DDB Worldwide


Fragmentation used to pose a big dilemma when technology was static. fragmentation today is easier to cope with because technology is so robust that it allows us to tap into niches, target more appropriately, and actually engage directly with consumers, creating a beneficial model for both consumers and marketers.

nasreen madHany CEO, Neo@Ogilvy

Marketers talk about ROI—return on investment. your audience thinks about roa—return on their attention. you better be engaging. Engagement isn’t just about dialogue, but it’s also having advertising that people like to watch. My daughter is eight, and when she watches Cartoon Network, and the commercials come on, she leans forward. She loves the ads. Why? They’re relevant, targeted, and akin to the programming, so they feel like they’re a part of the entertainment experience. This is a model we should all use. There will be a positive creative revolution as people realize the quality of their advertising is really important.

marK d’arcy Chief Creative Officer, Time Warner Global Media

what you need is integrated marketing communications. You want to have one concept that underlies multiple executions across different media. It’s not just mass media advertising, and PR, and putting your ad on YouTube. It’s really much more—including the product design, packaging and making a splash in the market by doing something truly unusual, like an event sponsorship. That’s creating an experience for the customer.

ProFessor Bernd scHmitt Columbia Business School

brand strategy must become more straightforward, not more complex. It would be a huge mistake for us to create a more fractured and elaborate marketing communications process in the face of a massively changing digital media environment. But change we must. Our greatest challenge is to effectively integrate the areas of marketer-generated persuasion and user-generated influence. Influencers today have far greater impact on all categories, and these consumer voices will become louder and more influential each day.

nicK Brien


Today there are two content creation models: The new approach of consumer-generated and the traditional, rigid model of agency-created. The biggest challenge is how to make those two worlds exist in a way that’s beneficial to both the consumer and the marketers. the agency has more responsibility than ever to play an active role in not just facilitating content creation, but leading their clients, their consumers, and themselves through the process.


You need to be asked in. everyone’s on the go – millennials, gen-x, boomers – and we need to figure out how to give them relevant content when they need it, where they need it. So we need to be thinking about “digitivity” –where digital meets connectivity – and also about mobility.

ann macK

Director of Trendspotting, JWT Worldwide

Many marketers think more about communications than strategy. My counsel is to vertically integrate your thinking and your strategy. you really need to work on differentiation of product; that’s how you stand out, not just in the media strategy, but in the strategy strategy.

KeitH Ferrazzi CEO, FerrazziGreenlight, and bestselling author

The challenges for brand strategy today aren’t much different than they’ve been historically. it’s all about being clear on what your brand stands for, and how it’s different, better, and more special than any competitor’s. it’s the ability to communicate that idea to your organization, big or small.The fundamentals are the fundamentals. Yes, the environment in which we work is different today than it was 5, 10, or 15 years ago, but the principles that create strong brands are enduring.


With any strategy position, the biggest challenge right now is keeping ahead of the curve. You need to understand your client’s business, which is changing rapidly, as well as the consumer and the media environment. The pace of change is accelerated and to truly embrace strategy, to make the complex simple, you need to offer your client focused solutions. As a result, the role of the strategist is shifting to focus on facilitating and assimilating information. the skill set becomes creating linkages and connections where they didn’t previously exist.

andrew swinand


As a brand strategist, what are the biggest challenges facing you today?


4

to remain relevant with changing consumer tastes is the biggest challenge. Consumers are jumping from brand to brand, category to category. A second challenge is making sure that everyone within your organization gets it. It’s not just about external communications and external image projection. It’s also about making sure that internally you have the right talent and skills.


integration between digital and traditional media is a big challenge, whichever side of the equation you’re on – client, agency, or media host. Where we’ve traditionally had separate digital departments or divisions, we’re trying to bring it all together. It’s the biggest issue marketers are grappling with.

antony young CEO, Optimedia US


should brands lead or follow? i’m more of a believer that brands should follow. Your brand is created by the interactions between your company and your consumers and prospects, and how those interactions define the perception of your brand. It’s your job to make sure that you’re creating a positive interaction. Your branding enhances what that experience is, which in turn helps define it. The brand then becomes the amplified perception of how consumers deal with your product.

marK cuBan

Co- Founder, HDNet

During panel and keynote discussions ranging from consumer behavior to global

branding and communications technologies, two constant themes emerged:

KNOW Thy CONSUMERWhether you’re marketing domestically or globally, you need to know your target audience. And with the ever increasing number of ways in which consumers can interact with and influence brands, brand relationships need to adapt: from product-and-customer to brand-and-partner experiences.

BUT IT’S DIffICULT TO KNOW Thy CONSUMERThe classic demographic categories of age, gender, ethnicity, and geography no longer strictly apply. Today’s consumers align their identities on the basis of interests and pursuits. And with media fragmentation, consumers are moving targets with ever more pathways with which to interact with brands—one moment they’re one place, the next another.

But the challenge of getting to know and reach target audiences isn’t seen as insurmountable. Instead, it is a wake up call for marketers to shed old habits and connect with consumers beyond a hit-and-run branding message. It’s also an inspiration to create more engaging, two-way communication models that turn brands and buying into experiences.

ConferenCe sUMMArY

RELATIONShIPS fUEL BUSINESSKeitH Ferrazzi

CEO, FerrazziGreenlight, and author of “Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time”

keith ferrazzi, founder and CEO of FerrazziGreenlight consulting and bestselling author, gave a rousing speech that woke everyone up to the enormous power of personal relationships in building a business and a successful career. In today’s marketplace, a product may encounter difficulty standing out, but the personality of the person selling it can be a differentiating factor. Ferrazzi coached participants in letting down their guard on sales calls to establish a true human connection. “Business relationships are personal relationships. We draw a line in the sand between the two, but we shouldn’t.”

To erase the line, people need to adopt two mindset principles. The first is to invite intimacy by opening

Business relationships are personal relationships. We draw a line in the

sand between the two, but we shouldn’t.

“”

up to the people around you. The second is to practice generosity, through gestures as small as recommending a great book, or as big as helping a client fill an open position on their team. Always ask yourself what you can do for your clients, and they’ll see that you’re personally invested in their success. In return, they’ll become invested in yours. In many ways, Ferrazzi’s speech turned the phrase “It’s not who you know, it’s what you know” on its head. It’s who you know, very well, that will help fuel success.

b r e A k fA s T k e Y n o T e

moderator Bernd scHmitt Professor of International Business and Director of the Center on Global Brand Leadership, Columbia Business School

panelists Kit Haines-BornHeimer Advertising, Enterprise Markets, AT&T

ann macK Director of Trendspotting, JWT Worldwide

JoHn Lee

VP, Brand Marketing & Communications, Embassy Suites

marK d’arcy Chief Creative Officer, Time Warner Global Media Group

who is the new consumer? Given the varied backgrounds of the panelists, there was no one answer. For Kit Hanes-Bornheimer of AT&T, her new consumer is the CTO and CIO who are increasingly wielding more power in their corporate operations. For John Lee of Embassy Suites, it’s The Millennials who are on the rise as his new frequent guests. For trend-spotter Ann Mack of JWT Worldwide, a new consumer is someone who’s not so much a reflection of their generation as their own interests.

What all the panelists could agree on was that consumers across the spectrum wield more power than ever before. Mark D’Arcy of Time Warner saw this in the way a fragmented media marketplace lets consumers pick and choose when and how

they’ll receive product or brand messages. Because of this power, all the panelists agreed that whether your new consumer is an age group, an interest group, a national population, or an ethnic group, marketers need to get to know them better, learn their media habits, and raise them from the status of brand users to brand partners. For the panelists, that’s meant moving away from “How do you like us?” focus groups to “What can we do for you?” communications that won’t just change marketing tactics, but actual product offerings. Clearly, today’s marketing strategies have to acknowledge that the customer is, indeed, king.

PA n e L o n e

We need to ask, What can we do for you?“ ”

ChANGING CONSUMER BEhAvIORS: MARKETING TO ThE NEW CONSUMER

moderator

FranK cutitta CEO, The Center for Global Branding General Manager, IDG Content

panelists Larry BLoomenKranz


JoHn JacoBs

CMO, NASDAQ

cHucK Fruit

Senior Advisor, Marketing, Strategy & Innovation, Coca-Cola

cHucK Brymer

CEO, DDB Worldwide

when it comes to marketing across borders and cultures, it’s not such a small world after all.

For panelists Chuck Fruit of Coca-Cola, Larry Bloomenkranz of UPS, John Jacobs of NASDAQ, and Chuck Brymer of DDB Worldwide, managing global brands is clearly a balancing act of integrating the brand into the fabric of multiple cultures, while trying to keep a universal brand voice. Catering to cultural differences has helped both Coca-Cola and UPS overcome the baggage associated with being an American brand; yet, each maintains their signature logos and brand essence across the globe. And uniting creative teams from its international offices has enabled DDB Worldwide to access a broader pool of

talent, and keep everyone on the same page. This ‘open-source creativity’ led to the McDonald’s “I’m loving it” campaign, which originated in Germany and was adopted across Europe, Asia, North and South America.

In terms of reaching their international audiences, these marketers encounter the same challenges as their domestic-focused counterparts. Media fragmentation everywhere makes consumers a constantly moving target. Everyone agreed that experiential marketing was the best approach in cutting through the media clutter and making a customer connection. As John Jacobs noted, “It’s not all ‘air cover’ now. Marketers need to reach people.”

Perhaps, the most entertaining moment of the panel was the discussion of multicultural marketing blunders. When Chuck Fruit was with Anheuser-Busch, a miscue in translation turned the “King of Beers” into the “Queen of Beers.” UPS had to initially lighten the shade of their signature brown in India so as not to be confused with caretakers. The lessons learned: You have to know your audience. You have to speak their language. You have to know their culture. You have to adjust quickly.

It’s not all ‘air cover’ now.

Marketers need to reach people.

“”

PA n e L T w o

BEyOND AMERICANIzATION: hOW TO EffECTIvELy BECOME A GLOBAL BRAND

hD MEDIA IS ThE MESSAGEmarK cuBan

Co-Founder, HDNet

i t c o m e s a s n o s u r p r i s e , that Mark Cuban, founder of HDNet, sees high definition televisions as the must-have technology of today, with 23” LCDs as the new PC screens and 103” TV’s providing mesmerizing viewing experiences. But HDTV applications as the future of marketing? As a proud evangelist, Cuban sees HD TV sets - not the PC or PDA - as the screen of the future. “Until broadband connection speeds reach 100mb+, we won’t see any great high-end internet applications.” Citing the recent advances in TV technology, Cuban predicts that PDAs will become increasingly “TV aware” with their role growing to encompass that of a TV remote. We’re not going to watch TV on our PDAs as a replacement for the big screen, but PDA watching will grow as “a replacement for boredom.”

What else excites him right now? Hard drive storage, he says, is changing dramatically. With Netflix-like

Until broadband connection speeds reach 100mb+, we won’t see any great

high-end internet applications.

“

”

efficiency, entire movie libraries can be stored on portable hard drives, personalized, (snail) mailed to viewers, and plugged into (HD) TVs. For advertisers, anything they might want to deliver to consumers could be pre-loaded, including personalized local ads and ads triggered by content.

What’s Cuban’s take on copyright infringement? It’s a moot issue; high resolution’s bigger file sizes make video files increasingly difficult to steal. “Security by obesity,” he calls it. Cuban’s own Magnolia videos are not-copyright protected.

His call to action is clear: Now is the time to develop applications and ads for this dynamic medium. For advertisers, he chides, continuing to create non-HDTV ads shows a lack of interest in engaging the most technologically savvy segment of consumers.

L U n C H e o n k e Y n o T e

moderator aLison FaHey Editor, Adweek

panelists nicK Brien


antony young

CEO, Optimedia US

nasreen madHany

CEO, Neo@Ogilvy

Penry Price

Director, North American Sales, Google

andrew swinand


from the outset of their discussion, all panelists agreed: Changing communication models can’t be analyzed without talking about technology. And, as Andrew Swinand of Starcom Worldwide added, this ought to be better addressed in agencies’ strategies. Too many agencies are adhering to a process that starts with establishing awareness and moves consumers to product consideration. But today’s technology grants consumers unprecedented access to information, and they can skip right to consideration. It’s become more important than ever to mine consumer data to better understand motivations and actions.

There is such a thing as too much information, noted Nasreen Madhany of Neo@Ogilvy. The amount of available data can be overwhelming, and agencies need to create value for their clients through analysis and synthesis of this data. Media companies are potentially in the best position to provide and analyze audience data and work with agencies and clients to develop actionable insights. As Penry Price noted, Google is currently leveraging their understanding of consumer habits to create better engagement models.

Agencies also need to move away from the legacy business model based on the interruption approach, added Nick Brien of Universal McCann, toward measuring message effectiveness and marketing innovation.

Another point of complete agreement: While consumers are more involved than ever in brand messaging, the ultimate responsibility for brand management still lies with the agency and the client. As Antony Young of Optimedia US noted, the consumer has always been in control; the role of the agency and client is to manage the messaging to the consumer. But instead of relying on traditional seller-buyer roles, Swinand believes there’s an opportunity for agencies to redefine this relationship on the basis of collaboration rather than transaction. Moving away from commoditized offerings to measuring engagement opportunities will bring more value to clients.

The consumer has always been

in control.“

”

PA n e L T H r e e

ThE fUTURE Of MARKETING: ChANGING COMMUNICATIONS MODELS

To learn more about the Business & Consumer Insights services of

Condé Nast Portfolio, please contact:

For more information on the International Advertising Association’s

New York Chapter, please contact:

C o n T A C T

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Director of Business & Consumer Insights

[email protected]

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Executive Director

[email protected]

212.338.0222

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Chairman, IAA Global Marketing Summit

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Fragmentation used to pose a big dilemma when technology was static. fragmentation today is easier to cope with because technology is so robust that it allows us to tap into niches, target more appropriately, and actually engage directly with consumers, creating a beneficial model for both consumers and marketers.


what you need is integrated marketing communications. You want to have one concept that underlies multiple executions across different media. It’s not just mass media advertising, and PR, and putting your ad on YouTube. It’s really much more—including the product design, packaging and making a splash in the market by doing something truly unusual, like an event sponsorship. That’s creating an experience for the customer.


brand strategy must become more straightforward, not more complex. It would be a huge mistake for us to create a more fractured and elaborate marketing communications

process in the face of a massively changing digital media environment. But change we must. Our greatest challenge is to effectively integrate the areas of marketer-generated persuasion and user-generated influence. Influencers today have far greater impact on all categories, and these consumer voices will

become louder and more influential each day.

nicK Brien CEO, Universal McCann

Marketers talk about ROI—return on investment. your audience thinks about roa—return on their attention. you better be engaging. Engagement isn’t just about dialogue, but it’s also having advertising that people like to watch. My daughter is eight, and when she watches Cartoon Network, and the commercials come on, she leans forward. She loves the ads. Why? They’re relevant, targeted, and akin to the programming, so they feel like they’re a part of the entertainment experience. This is a model we should all use. There will be a positive creative revolution as people realize the quality of their advertising is really important.

marK d’arcy Chief Creative Officer, Time Warner Global Media

3 In a media environment that’s so fragmented, how is the strategy and activation of branding changing?

iaa summit briefing

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