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The Drum - How is marketing performance going to evolve in 2017?

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The Drum - How is marketing performance going to evolve in 2017?

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Marketers now face an increasingly diverse set of challenges. On one hand, they are pushing out messages at a breakneck pace to a continually fragmenting number of digital channels. At the same time, they have never had more pressure to be accountable in pursuit of return of investment (ROI). It is no wonder that so much attention is now being paid to how marketing activities, channels and messages perform – and how it is all measured.

OG Comments:

As more publications are starting to publish their 2017 predictions, now is a good time to start considering and finalising our own ahead of the Christmas break.

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Marketers now face an increasingly diverse set of challenges. On one hand, they are pushing out messages at a breakneck pace to a continually fragmenting number of digital channels. At the same time, they have never had more pressure to be accountable in pursuit of return of investment (ROI). It is no wonder that so much attention is now being paid to how marketing activities, channels and messages perform - and how it is all measured.

In 2017, there will be a bigger spotlight on marketing performance and measurement. We predict:
Trust will deteriorate
The quality of the data that is used to determine the performance of marketing activities came under the microscope in 2016. The publication of the Association of National Advertisers' (ANA) initial Media Transparency Report shed some light on this issue with regards to agencies and their clients. Facebook admitted to a series of mistakes that it found with metric calculations.

Since the quality of the data has important implications, brands should take a 'zero trust' approach to the performance data they see. They should no longer assume that the data is right. They should put systems, processes and people in place to verify the performance data on their own.
Video and mobile will exacerbate measurement challenges
The digital video marketing ecosystem is going through a significant transformation. Brands are now posting videos natively on social channels like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. Videos can now be inexpensive to produce, particularly live videos. And, most significantly, recent research from the Advertising Research Foundation has shown that advertisers are experiencing a video advertising ROI on mobile devices that is more than two times that on desktop devices - resulting in dramatic increases in spend for mobile video advertising.

While the aggressive growth of digital video content and ads is generally good for marketers, it also creates a new set of challenges. Having more services and publishers to deal with makes managing the execution and measurement of video marketing activities more difficult and open to ambiguous insights, which is not good when trying to justify spend. The industry will need to adopt new ways to standardise digital video measurement beyond the traditional approach born in the 30-second TV spot era.
Attribution will no longer be a shiny object
Attribution solutions are not a silver bullet to understanding channel performance. Many have even started to question whether accurate attribution can ever be attained, and those in pursuit of making it happen recognise that it isn't easy. Recent research by IDG shows that organisations are facing major challenges when trying to implement attribution solutions - from data collection/centralisation and reporting accountability/accuracy, to process assessment and deciphering actionable insights.

In 2017, organisations will realise that attribution is not the panacea to their measurement problems. Attribution needs to be a part of a broader marketing measurement initiative to make a meaningful impact. Before getting started on implementing an attribution solution, organisations need to first establish a data foundation and measurement framework that addresses the challenges being faced.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning usage will proliferate
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have already had an impact in different areas of marketing technology. They are used to automate certain high-volume decisions and actions, like programmatic media buys and e-commerce personalization recommendations.

In 2017, AI and ML will play an increasing role in marketing performance measurement in two specific areas. First, they will be used to help process all of the marketing signals that brands receive on a daily basis across a variety of channels - minimising the manual work required to transform all of the data into a cleansed, normalised, useful format. Second, AI and ML will help automate the formulation of insights and recommendations to accelerate the cycle between an event and an appropriate action being taken. Marketers will stop letting so many opportunities and threats fall through the cracks.

2017 promises to be quite a year in marketing performance and measurement, as brands continue to grapple with the tension between trying different ways to reach their audiences and justifying the resources spent on such endeavours.
Opher Kahane, CEO and co-founder, Origami Logic
Tel: (650) 394-5355

Email: info@origamilogic.com

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How is marketing performance going to evolve in 2017?

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Marketers now face an increasingly diverse set of challenges. On one hand, they are pushing out messages at a breakneck pace to a continually fragmenting number of digital channels. At the same time, they have never had more pressure to be accountable in pursuit of return of investment (ROI).

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Marketing Week - Marketers failing to ‘deal intelligently’ with data

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Marketing Week - Marketers failing to ‘deal intelligently’ with data

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There might not be a shortage of data, but marketers are still struggling to “deal intelligently” with all the information at their disposal. A new study from IBM carried out by Econsultancy found that just 3% of marketers would label their ability to act on insights derived from customer data as ‘excellent’, with more than half (54%) labelling it either ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’.

OG Comments:

This presents a good opportunity for Mapp to provide a comment about social marketing.

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There might not be a shortage of data, but marketers are still struggling to "deal intelligently" with all the information at their disposal.

A new study from IBM carried out by Econsultancy found that just 3% of marketers would label their ability to act on insights derived from customer data as 'excellent', with more than half (54%) labelling it either 'poor' or 'very poor'.

And the issue seems to be moving to a multichannel mindset. Some 59% of those questioned said siloed organisational structures are the key sticking point, while a third (32%) said the competition between channels is "actively blocking their view of the customer journey".

Just 7% said they have an 'advanced' understanding of the customer journey across channels, with 36% calling their understanding 'intermediate' and 57% saying it is either 'beginner' or 'non-existent'.

Marketers' methodologies are still forcing everything through the same outdated, siloed processes.

Even among those marketers that think their companies are 'intermediate' or 'advanced' at using data, just 5% think they are fully integrated across channels, with 39% saying they have little integration. A further 42% say they are integrated but admit to still being channel focused.

"There can be no doubt that marketers are keen to embrace new platforms and technologies to help them drive growth. Sadly, it would appear that there is still a gap between those goals and the methods they have at their disposal to achieve them," says the report.

"The challenge is that while new technologies and the data that underpins them have the potential to create a truly omnichannel customer experience, marketers' methodologies are still forcing everything through the same outdated, siloed processes."

The data shows brands are still struggling to link the offline and online worlds. And to do so they are having to rely on tactics that have been around "for some time" such as tracking coupons. What that shows, says the report, is that marketers are still making a financial trade-off to get hold of data as codes tend to involve discounting.

"It's a perennial problem for marketers to make sure that such discounts are only used by new customers. Otherwise customers are effectively paying to retain customers and, worse still, paying to gather data they more than likely already possess," explains the report.

The report suggests that there is an opportunity to create customer journey leadership. At the moment that responsibility tends to fall under a range of different people, with 42% of 'advanced' companies saying a mixture of different departments 'own' the customer journey and 12% citing the whole organisation. Some 8% say no one has responsibility.

Instead, it recommends appointing someone with a strategic agenda to implement this who reports straight into the CEO. Yet it admits that this "simply isn't an option today for the vast majority of organisations".

The study was carried out among 1,000 brand side marketers. Econsultancy is one of Marketing Week's sister publications. To see the full report, head here.

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Marketers failing to 'deal intelligently' with data

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There might not be a shortage of data, but marketers are still struggling to "deal intelligently" with all the information at their disposal. A new study from IBM carried out by Econsultancy found that just 3% of marketers would label their ability to act on insights derived from customer data as 'excellent', with more than half (54%) labelling it either 'poor' or 'very poor'.

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Econsultancy - Three factors driving the future of customer engagement

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Econsultancy - Three factors driving the future of customer engagement

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While many marketing functions are now being assisted by algorithms, one area seems to be immune to automation - customer engagement centres.According to recent reports, contact centres currently employ millions of people globally and are set to grow by 10% annually until 2019 at least.

OG Comments:

This could be a good opportunity for Mapp to provide comment with reference to the Digital Customer Engagement Index.

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While many marketing functions are now being assisted by algorithms, one area seems to be immune to automation - customer engagement centres.
According to recent reports, contact centres currently employ millions of people globally and are set to grow by 10% annually until 2019 at least.

This seems counterintuitive. First off, marketers are frequently asked to do 'more with less' and keep headcount growth to a minimum.

Also, technology is emerging which could automate a large part of what these contact centres do. Online chat on websites and bot interfaces for messaging apps could be used to answer most customer queries using artificial intelligence.

So, why are customer engagement centres set to grow by so much? Why are they not feeling the same pressures to reduce size and headcount as other areas of marketing? And will 'thinking' marketing systems, or cognitive marketing, ever replace humans for ongoing customer engagement?

To find out, Econsultancy recently hosted a roundtable workshop with IBM Watson Marketing in Mumbai, India. Senior client-side marketers from a wide variety of industries were invited and discussed contact centres and cognitive marketing.

Here are three factors delegates said were critical to the future of customer engagement.

1. Privacy concerns

Today, marketers understand their customers by analysing their online behavior. They look at what their customers click on, what they do on the brand website, and what they buy.

According to recent research by Pew Research Centre, consumers appear to be quite comfortable with marketers using this data. The study found that only 8% of consumers surveyed considered purchasing habits as 'very sensitive' data.

To gather the data necessary to automate contact centres, however, companies will have to start analysing much more customer engagement data. They will need to digitally capture emails, texts, and phone calls to train the customer service algorithms.

Looking back at the study, we see that these data sources are considered 'very sensitive' by far higher percentage of consumers.

Because of this greater sensitivity, brands are holding off on using this data now. Participants felt that their companies do not want to have pushback from their customers when asking permission to use email and voice data to train an automated contact centre system.

Participants noted that these sensitivities may change, but for now privacy concerns are one reason why brands have been slow to automate their contact centres and use more customer data for cognitive marketing.

2. Technology issues

Another barrier to adopting automation for customer engagement is the fact that many attendees felt that the technology is not yet ready.

There was concern among attendees that customer engagement data 'has not proved itself to be statistically correct'. Using the combination of incorrect data and automated customer service could potentially cause a major mistake and harm the brand, they asserted.

Instead, participants felt that companies will move toward automation incrementally. That is, they will instead use new technology to change customer engagement programmes piece by piece and avoid trying to automate customer service all at one time.

For example, brands which have a lot of social media inquiries may start by delivering automated responses on social platforms. These could tell customers when, exactly, they will get a more comprehensive, manual response from a customer service agent.

Watch this short clip where Sriman Kota from IBM Commerce explains more about how marketers will be using new technology such as the internet of things (IoT), image processing, and natural language to enhance their customer engagement.

3. Unanswered questions

Finally, attendees pointed out that there are big questions about customer engagement for which companies do yet have good answers.

These include:

Is it possible for us to sort our customers' questions and issues into well-defined categories?

Do we understand our customers' problems well enough to respond to them automatically?

Can we predict that future prospects will have the same questions and same issues?

When marketers can answer 'yes' to these questions, then customer engagement automation will happen very quickly, participants argued. While there is still some uncertainty about what customers need, however, then companies will struggle to automate customer engagement, even if technology issues and privacy concerns are overcome.

To move more towards automation, therefore, brands should focus on understanding their customers better by methodically tracking customer questions and other issues which they face.

Attendees were unsure about exactly when customer engagement automation will happen, but some felt that it is imminent. A recent report by Gartner backs up this notion, indicating that by 2020 85% of customer interactions with brands will not involve a human being on the other side.

Marketers, it seems, have a lot of work to do to make cognitive marketing a reality.

A word of thanks

Econsultancy would like to thank all the marketers who participated on the day, subject matter expert Antonia Edmunds (Business Leader of IBM Watson Marketing in Asia Pacific), and our keynote speaker Sriman Kota (Cognitive Engagement Executive in Asia Pacific for IBM Commerce).

We hope to see you all at future Mumbai Econsultancy events!

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Three factors driving the future of customer engagement

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While many marketing functions are now being assisted by algorithms, one area seems to be immune to automation - customer engagement centres. According to recent reports, contact centres currently employ millions of people globally and are set to grow by 10% annually until 2019 at least. This seems counterintuitive.

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Net Imperative - Customer engagement in a post channel world: how AI will revolutionise customer experience

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Net Imperative - Customer engagement in a post channel world: how AI will revolutionise customer experience

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We are fast moving towards a future where traditional channels across multiple devices will be a thing of the past. Instead, we will live in a world where a single device will deliver everything we need into the palm of our hand or the shell of our ear.

OG Comments:

We wanted to flag this as an FYI, as it is interesting to see AI starting to be discussed within the context of customer engagement. This is something for us to consider discussing into 2017 as a key trend.

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Netimperative - latest digital marketing news

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The rise of AI opens up a whole new range of possibilities for digital self-serve. Rick Sturge, EVP Business Development at Firstsource Solutions looks at how brands can prepare for the move towards AI, particularly on mobile.

We are fast moving towards a future where traditional channels across multiple devices will be a thing of the past. Instead, we will live in a world where a single device will deliver everything we need into the palm of our hand or the shell of our ear.

This means that the days of brands thinking in multi-channel, cross-device terms when it comes to communicating with their customers are numbered. For seamless interactions in a post-channel world, all roads will lead to the smartphone. This little gadget has become the centre of the universe for consumers, and brands are now scrambling to find the best way to place themselves into the increasingly intimate relationship between us and our phones.
The AI opportunity
The supremacy of the smartphone and the rise of the always-on consumer represents a huge opportunity for brands to tap into emerging AI technology to better connect with their customers.

With businesses waking up to this, the craze for artificial intelligence is no longer limited to the Silicon Valley pioneers. Companies are now falling over themselves to jump on the 'bot bandwagon. Recently, the marketing and advertising giant Ogilvy announced it's 'Bots by Ogilvy' venture, betting heavily on the huge potential for chat-bots to reshape the relationship between brand and consumers.

The combined power of smart phones and AI is undoubtedly set to revolutionise our everyday digital interactions and, for customer experience in particular, this opens up a new world of possibilities for digital self serve.

AI: a 'no-brainer'?

On the face of it, AI should - quite literally - be a no-brainer. Given the choice between long hold times, repetitive phone calls and human error, or artificial intelligence programmed to get it right every time, the decision for the customer is easy.

At least, that's the theory. However, the reality is that AI is still a long way from being able to replicate human to human engagement and, often, limitations in the technology are more likely to frustrate than placate. The very public fails of tech trailblazers whose bots have backfired are proof enough of the risks of getting AI wrong.
Man vs machine
A recent survey from ICD and Opinium shows that consumers remain wary of automated customer engagement, with four out of five saying they would prefer that human interactions remain a part of the customer service mix.

For brands, this suggests that the most effective way to deliver the very best customer experience is to ensure that the human element of customer contact works in harmony with the latest technology.

Voice remains an important means of engagement, particularly for complex or non linear interactions. Humans want to speak to humans and there will always be circumstances where a level of emotional intelligence is required that a machine cannot deliver.

In sectors such as financial services and banking, where building long term trust is crucial, AI can never be the complete solution. Whilst standard transactional processes might lend themselves to automation, other less linear customer journeys, where brands need to offer help and clarity, require a human touch instead.
The future of CX
Looking ahead, rapid developments in AI and the continued supremacy of the smartphone means there will inevitably be a move away from traditional voice, and a growing role for intelligent bots to take on the mundane, linear engagements that are not high value add or high risk.

The key for brands will be understanding the nuances between different customer journeys and how best to assign them to the most appropriate channels. Knowing when AI will improve customer experience and when it risks compromising it should be the first consideration when building any customer engagement strategy.

Listening to consumers is also essential. Using data to track engagements and learn how customers prefer to interact will help brands to personalise their approach by matching the channel to the customer's individual preferences.

The future of customer experience will never be about universal automation. Instead, it will focus on using new technologies appropriately to increase consumer choice and more effectively engage with customers on their own terms. There is no doubt that artificial intelligence will be a transformative force, but the key to success lies in finding the right balance between the humans and the robots.
By Rick Sturge
EVP Business Development
Firstsource Solutions

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Customer engagement in a post channel world: how AI will revolutionise customer experience | Netimperative - latest digital marketing news

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The rise of AI opens up a whole new range of possibilities for digital self-serve. Rick Sturge, EVP Business Development at Firstsource Solutions looks at how brands can prepare for the move towards AI, particularly on mobile. We are fast moving towards a future where traditional channels across multiple devices will be a thing of ...

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Marketing Tech - Is there really a skills gap in digital marketing?

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Marketing Tech - Is there really a skills gap in digital marketing?

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The UK Digital Skills Gap remains a blistering topic, this crisis affects organisations across all sectors – no one is safe, including marketing, and yet many sectors are unconscious to the issue, because these ‘digital skills’ sometimes come in the shape of periphery tactics, such as website monitoring, CRM management and search knowledge.

OG Comments:

We wanted to flag this as an FYI as it explores one of the key themes we would like to discuss moving forward; the digital marketing skills gap.

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The UK Digital Skills Gap remains a blistering topic, this crisis affects organisations across all sectors - no one is safe, including marketing, and yet many sectors are unconscious to the issue, because these 'digital skills' sometimes come in the shape of periphery tactics, such as website monitoring, CRM management and search knowledge.

Despite people thinking that digital marketing would be the industry that remedied this skills gap a long time ago, sadly figures show that only 8% of current marketers in the UK possess entry level digital skills, a shockingly low number, we can all agree.

Digital skills refer to digital literacy and the ability to confidently use the internet and information technologies, which are vital responsibilities for any digital marketer.
The only true way to address the situation is by education and skills development
Considering the UK was responsible for the earliest known recording of digital music played out by the computer in 1951 by the BBC at the University of Manchester, on paper we should be ahead of the game when it comes to our global counterparts.

Marketing has thus far been complacent when it comes to plugging the skills gap; perhaps because digital technology has grown organically and rapidly for the past ten years, it was assumed that skills would too adapt naturally - but analysis shows the shocking truth.

Digital marketing is a dynamic sector that's constantly responding to changing consumer habits.

As technology becomes more sophisticated, companies must invest in new ways (social engagement, interactive video and virtual reality to name a few) to better understand and communicate with their clients - and without the skills available, this will undoubtedly mean that the industry falls behind, and so will commercial profit margins.

Is digital marketing a dying trade?

In 2014 The Guardian published the UK digital marketing manager's census showing that digital marketing professionals feel overwhelmed and isolated by the complexity of their work.

It's clear that many digital marketers were feeling frustrated and unmotivated through the lack of recognition from management and other departments.

Despite this, the number of people looking to work in digital marketing has grown exponentially over the past few years.

It warned that the digital and creative sector workforce needs to keep pace with advancements - especially with digital technology employment predicted to increase by 6% by 2020

Has digital understanding shifted?

The total population who are active savvy internet users is a sizable 89%. The share of web page views on laptops and desktops comes in at 58% with web page views on phones coming in 2nd at 27%, despite 58% of the UK population being mobile internet users.

Over 59% have active social media accounts and operate day-today using an array of digital technologies, so people know how important digital is, don't they?

While the industry and technology has most certainly moved forward - the simple fact is that the skills of people within those sectors has not been provided for.

The only true way to address the situation is by education and skills development.

While it's not necessary to have a specific degree in Marketing, Advertising or PR for a role in digital marketing, it certainly wouldn't hurt.

The Digital Marketing Institute's Missing the Mark report has revealed that 'digital talent crisis' is a global problem, with more than half (59%) of the marketers questioning the need to improve their digital marketing skills for career progression.

Indeed, the government's own digital skills assessment emphasises the need for academic development as well as on-hand skills based training, but as of yet no qualification has been specifically driven towards the digital skills agenda, until now that is.

The future is digital

In order to succeed, our thinking and skillset needs to be too, failing to do so will result in an even larger skills gap then what currently exists.

This will not only affect organisations who need to adapt their marketing to new innovative audience engagement strategies, but also decrease the opportunities for people looking to advance or enter a career in marketing.

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Is there really a skills gap in digital marketing?

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The UK Digital Skills Gap remains a blistering topic, this crisis affects organisations across all sectors - no one is safe, including marketing, and yet many sectors are unconscious to the issue, because these 'digital skills' sometimes come in the shape of periphery tactics, such as website monitoring, CRM management and search knowledge.

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Enterprise Times - Black Friday emails treated as spam

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Enterprise Times - Black Friday emails treated as spam

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Email intelligence company Return Path has unveiled some worrying stats for retailers around Black Friday. Despite 12.5% of marketing emails sent in November focused on the sales event users were unimpressed. The rate of emails marked as Spam was up significantly. Complaints about spam were up 13% and email marked as spam in user inboxes was up 8%.

OG Comments:

This could be a good opportunity for Mapp to comment, and perhaps provide a short best-practice comment on how to 'avoid the dreaded spam folder'

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Email intelligence company Return Path has unveiled some worrying stats for retailers around Black Friday. Despite 12.5% of marketing emails sent in November focused on the sales event users were unimpressed. The rate of emails marked as Spam was up significantly. Complaints about spam were up 13% and email marked as spam in user inboxes was up 8%. Compounding this were the fact that 24% of retailers couldn't even manage to send their marketing emails until after Black Friday.

According to Guy Hanson, senior director, professional services international at Return Path: "Black Friday has fast become a shopping phenomenon in Europe, however, as these results show, it can pose a number of challenges for email marketers. Firstly, it's important to get the right balance between neglecting and spamming your customers.
"Timing is everything. This year, any emails sent more than a week before the day performed badly, generating read rates that were on average a fifth lower than on the day, while emails closer to the day delivered email read rates that were a fifth higher, suggesting greater relevance as the day got closer. While it's tempting to start promoting Black Friday deals in the weeks leading up to the big day - after all, you want to make sure your customers are fully aware of all of your deals - this can lead to subscriber fatigue."
What next for retail marketing?

Hanson is right. This is not good news for marketers. They have long relied on filling users inboxes with sales offers in the hope it will spark increased sales. This shows that users are finally getting tired of the continuous bombardment of supposed targeted email. The reality for most users is that very little of the email is targeted. Even the "best" retail systems can come up with ridiculous offers that make little sense, as anyone who uses Amazon will know. The whole "people like you also looked at" emails constantly miss the mark.

So what is the next step for retail marketing? That's a good question. Hanson says: "Marketing emails are crucial in the lead up to and during an event like Black Friday. Indeed, they are more often than not the primary point of contact with customers and the biggest factor in driving online sales. Given estimates show that £1.23bn was spent online this year, retailers are undoubtedly under pressure to stand out from their competitors and implement an optimal email marketing program."

What Hanson has not provided is evidence of how much of that spend is related to email marketing. The truth is that unless there is a code in the email it is hard to make that correlation. As such, users can look forward to a constant increase in misplaced marketing that will increasingly be marked as spam.

Not all retailers use email campaigns

Perhaps the most interesting thing in the Return Path analysis is that not all retailers took part in overt Black Friday emails. Hanson commented: "What's also interesting is how those brands that chose not to actively participate in Black Friday deals performed compared to those that did. ASOS, Asda, M&S and Secret Escapes are all examples of those that chose not to jump on the Black Friday bandwagon - however, this doesn't mean they weren't active on the day.
"They were and their email read rates were actually 5% higher than those that were promoting it. Furthermore, there were brands that alluded to the event without specifically calling it 'Black Friday', which also appeared to work in their favour. Morrisons, for example, led with the slogan 'Save more with Black Five Days at Morrisons' which saw a 37% higher read rate than the average benchmark. Approaches like this will often help emails to stand out more distinctly in congested inboxes."
Does this mean that the phenomena know as Black Friday has run its course. Probably not, but marketers will evaluate the success of their messaging for next year and it will certainly evolve.

Conclusion

There is an increasing tiredness among consumers around the amount of marketing emails they receive. Most see these as more spam than anything useful. The danger for retailers whose emails were marked as spam is that future emails will not be seen by the user. This means that they will begin to see diminishing returns for their marketing effort.

It would be interesting to compare email campaigns with offers sent to mobile apps. The bigger retailers already have their own apps and use them to connect with users. It is likely that users are more likely to be receptive to those mobile apps offers as they on their phones when they go into store. Will this report mark a change in behaviour for marketers? It's highly unlikely but it could just lead to some reviewing how to make emails more relevant.

Ian has been a journalist, editor and analyst for over 30 years. While technology remains the core focus of Ian's writings he also covers science fiction, children toys, field hockey and progressive rock. As an analyst, Ian is the Cyber Security and Infrastructure Practice Leader for Creative Intellect Consulting Ltd. A keen hockey goalkeeper, Ian coaches and plays for a number of clubs including Guildford Hockey Club, Alton Hockey Club, Royal Navy, Combined Services, UK Armed Forces and several touring sides. His ambition is to one day represent England. Ian has also been selected to be the goalkeeping coach for Hockey for Heroes, a UK charity supporting the UK Armed Forces.

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Black Friday emails treated as spam - Enterprise Times

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Email intelligence company Return Path has unveiled some worrying stats for retailers around Black Friday. Despite 12.5% of marketing emails sent in November focused on the sales event users were unimpressed. The rate of emails marked as Spam was up significantly. Complaints about spam were up 13% and email marked as spam in user inboxes was up 8%.

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Marketing Tech - How to succeed on new platforms like Instagram Stories

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Marketing Tech - How to succeed on new platforms like Instagram Stories

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From VR and augmented reality content to influencer marketing, new inventions and practices in media are allowing brands to tell their stories in new ways. These tools are making marketing professionals more creative and strategic, and branding experts are getting excited about them.

OG Comments:

We wanted to flag this as an FYI, as it's an interesting piece that looks at the use of alternative marketing platforms.

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From VR and augmented reality content to influencer marketing, new inventions and practices in media are allowing brands to tell their stories in new ways.

These tools are making marketing professionals more creative and strategic, and branding experts are getting excited about them.

Now that Instagram has announced that its Explore tab will also feature 'stories'; rolling posts that disappear 24 hours after they are posted, brands are interested in how they can use this to engage new audiences.

The Explore tab provides users with content from Instagrammers that they don't already follow. No other social platform makes discovering new content this easy and, in theory, it opens up huge opportunities for brands to engage new customers and widen their pool of influence.

However, new opportunities also present risks, particularly if brands haven't effectively prepared or don't properly manage the digital assets they will use with a new marketing channel or tool.

Too much content, too many channels

The reason the risk is large is the sheer number of channels and amount of content that marketers need to work with today. For example, research shows that 50% of marketers have more digital content than they can effectively manage at the moment.

In addition, the pace at which media moves is increasing rapidly and brands need to be on the pulse of real time conversations.

So, while we are more connected than ever, there's more chance of inconsistency or error in communicating your brand and its value if you're working across hundreds of touchpoints at speed.
Whilst dictating what content can and can't be created may make marketers sound like brand police, this isn't the case
Solving this problem is all about digital asset management and that starts with communication and collaboration. In the past, a company's branding was represented solely by their logo and tagline.

However now brands need to be able to work together across the whole marketing ecosystem, and from offices around the globe. The media world no longer sleeps - there's an opportunity 24/7 and global teams need to be ready to seize it without asking for 'final approval'.

Being able to communicate about projects and agree approvals in the cloud allows brands to align their marketing content with the entire global brand experience and ensures that the strategy is not diluted when content is distributed across different channels and markets.

Collaborative, cohesive campaigns

To ensure that branding is cohesive, marketers cannot treat Snapchat Stories as an 'add on' to their current campaign.

Brands need to be agile to integrate new tools into wider strategies.

Having strict brand guidelines and an agreed strategy in place ensures that businesses can be consistent and authentic in their communications and respond to breaking news and trending topics quickly.

Another challenge to consider on Explore is that up until now, brands have been highly targeted with their content on Instagram, speaking to those who are following them directly and who are already fans of the brand.

Now that brands can be found organically, they will need to appeal to a mass audience whilst keeping their brand personality and producing content in line with their guidelines.

This means that everyone in the organisation needs to have an understanding of what the brand stands for so that all assets remain on brand, even for real time when fast turnaround content is required.

Ultimately, in order to make the most of Instagram stories, brands need to ensure that they have processes in place that make using a real time platform effective and safe.

Whilst dictating what content can and can't be created may make marketers sound like brand police, this isn't the case.

They can be brand heroes when they empower the communications team around them to use marketing channels that offer new opportunities in ways that protect brand integrity.

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How to succeed on new platforms like Instagram Stories

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From VR and augmented reality content to influencer marketing, new inventions and practices in media are allowing brands to tell their stories in new ways. These tools are making marketing professionals more creative and strategic, and branding experts are getting excited about them.

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The Drum - Savvy Snapchatters need not apply? The skills marketers are really looking for

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The Drum - Savvy Snapchatters need not apply? The skills marketers are really looking for

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It’s hard to keep up, and the continuous evolution of technologies, platforms and digital channels is creating a nationwide skills gap in marketing. Nothing new so far. What is becoming increasingly clear, however, is that employers are addressing the issue by targeting more junior professionals with specific technical skills.

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We wanted to flag this piece as an FYI.

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Do you know your Snapchat from your Salesforce Engage? Can you make a VR compatible ad?

It's hard to keep up, and the continuous evolution of technologies, platforms and digital channels is creating a nationwide skills gap in marketing. Nothing new so far.

What is becoming increasingly clear, however, is that employers are addressing the issue by targeting more junior professionals with specific technical skills. The downside of this approach is that core marketing skills, such as analytical and project management skills, have been neglected, impacting their ability to embrace the very opportunities they had their eyes on.

This skills imbalance is already affecting the industry and teeing up even more problems for marketing employers in the future.
Where has all the creativity gone?
The big question on the lips of employers is: what is the right mix of core and technical skills my company needs to succeed?

As you can imagine there is no one size fits all answer. What is common, however, is a recognition that your technical wizards are impotent without a solid foundation of core marketing skills. At the same time, digital needs to be treated as a standard operating model, not an optional bolt on extra.

This view was backed up by recent Hays Marketing research conducted amongst 300 marketing professionals. We asked what their most sought after core skills are, and it was no surprise that analytical and data interpretation topped the table. The ability to effectively demonstrate ROI, secure budgets and identify business opportunities, in an environment in which it's hard to keep up with the proliferation of channels, is clearly essential.

Creativity's placing at number three on the list certainly raised my eyebrows. You can know everything about your target customer and reach them on every channel all the time. Yet without creativity you are unlikely to delight, inspire or engage them.

According to Specsavers' deputy chief creative officer Stephen Reed, demand for in-house creative teams is only set to grow and there certainly appears to be a creative battle brewing for both brands and agencies. An inside-out knowledge of Instagram is useless if your content simply isn't compelling.
Where are the leaders of tomorrow?
Most worryingly, some of the most significant core skills gaps are in the middle and at the top of marketing organisations and departments. 14% of respondents identified analytical skills as a significant skills gap within middle management, the widest gap for this skill across all seniority levels.

Meanwhile, nearly a quarter (21%) of respondents said the biggest skills gaps for senior managers are strategic-thinking followed by creativity (16%), without which an organisation may struggle to apply their team's technical skills in the most effective way and fully deliver on marketing campaigns.

These skills now lie at the heart of today's marketing campaigns and this research points to a potential immediate shortage of leadership with the right skills. But the long term impact is even more concerning - it appears as though our future leaders are not receiving training in the skills they need to succeed. As Hannah Mirza, global head of media partnerships at MediaCom, recently wrote in a post on LinkedIn: "While agencies focused on educating offline experts about digital, they overlooked the fact that many digital natives have a limited knowledge of marketing overall."
Start from within
The focus on technical skills is really just a plaster over the bigger, long term problem. Brands and agencies need to start by first having an honest look at where the problems are and build development plans and training to address them. When hiring they should look to test not only core skills but their application to digital, using behavioral questioning techniques and practical assessments.

Candidates taking the lead on identifying their own gaps and addressing them will increase their chances of getting a job, command higher salaries and broaden their career options.

It's all too easy to be bowled over by a candidate's mastery of the latest hot platform - particularly as upper management are becoming increasingly bamboozled by the sheer breadth of channels now on offer. Management without the time to upskill themselves believe they can plug this specific knowledge gap with a new hire. Your team may gain an immediate advantage by improving your Periscope content, but does your latest addition arrive armed with the full marketing skills toolkit and can you see yourself eventually trusting them to manage?

The organisations set to prosper will be those that tackle this issue head on, are honest about their short and long term gaps, and are brave enough to action change. If the only thing that gets you excited about a new candidate is that they're a Snapchat wizard, it may be time to get back to the drawing board.
Clare Kemsley is a director at Hays Marketing

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Savvy Snapchatters need not apply? The skills marketers are really looking for

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Do you know your Snapchat from your Salesforce Engage? Can you make a VR compatible ad? It's hard to keep up, and the continuous evolution of technologies, platforms and digital channels is creating a nationwide skills gap in marketing. Nothing new so far.