Marketing Inspiration #23

Your monthly dose of inspo to boost your marketing mojo.

—

Here are some brand new insights from Automated Creative’s Shiny New Object podcast, where senior brand leaders share their vision for the future of marketing.

"Focus on your consumers' problems with communication - by building trust, you'll get a long-term relationship and loyalty." - Nina Ntatidou , Global Lead Management, PayPal

You may think focusing on consumers' pain points is very obvious, essential advice, but Nina thinks you'd be surprised by how few companies actually do this effectively. It's all about connecting with the audience: open your ears, listen to them, and come up with a plan to suggest solutions. Of course, your offering may not be 100% the one consumers are looking for every time, but by showing that you're listening, adjusting your marketing strategy, and developing a long-term conversation, you can build trust and a loyal partnership.

“Paying attention to diversity in marketing gives brands access to a huge slice of revenue.’” - Azeem Ahmad , Digital Marketing Lead, ASSA ABLOY Group

Focusing on diversity and inclusion doesn't need to stop at internal initiatives by brands, says Azeem. In fact, only 7% of adverts across the UK have people of colour as the sole or main protagonist. Yet, research shows that 84% of consumers think it's important for brands to promote diversity. Moreover, the disposable income of people from minority ethnic groups us currently valued at c. ￡252 billion - so why wouldn't brands want to focus on securing a part of that for themselves?

On the podcast, Azeem gave us actionable tips about how to start focusing on more diverse marketing. Listen to them here.

“There is so much to learn about AI... It can be a powerful tool, so start learning now, rather than wait for it to affect you.” - Amit Thard , Director of Omnichannel Strategy, GE Healthcare

Whenever a new trend, tool, or technology emerges, self-appointed experts jump in to claim to know how best to leverage it. However, when it comes to AI, Amit thinks there's so much still to learn, especially as the technology evolves through machine learning. Instead of waiting for it to impact your business, you should start experimenting with it and learning about it, turning it into a powerful tool to support marketing strategies for your brand.

One of the ways Amit is already doing this is by leveraging the huge computing capacity of AI to identify patterns and process vast amounts of data points to help find marketing opportunities. Harnessing it to work much faster and more effectively than the human brain can is a big win for marketers. Learn more about how to do this here.

--

Automated Creative Case Study - Polident

We worked with Polident in the Philippines to map the consumer landscape and uncover the creative that would drive the highest quality awareness for the brand. Find out how we increased creative effectiveness and delivered ads that beat all key benchmarks:

Read more about this project here.

--

Media Roundup: What Our Team's Been Saying in the Press

It feels like Cannes 2023 was only yesterday, and our MD for North America, Dan Moseley, was bang on the money in Performance Marketing World when he predicted AI as a major buzzword. Dan wanted to see AI conversations in Cannes go deeper than AI doing a funny creative thing, and driving real industry change. Safe to say Tom and Amy from our team were on site spreading that message.

--

This month’s ‘Best Marketing Tip’?

"Diversity is a core mechanism for driving innovation" - Thiago Gomes , Product Marketing Lead - EMEA, Meta

Interviewed before Azeem Ahmad on the Shiny New Object Podcast, Thiago also focused on the importance of diversity and inclusion in marketing. His angle honed in on how diverse teams drive innovation and a better understanding of end consumers for brands. Coupled with understanding the diversity of target audiences, this only serves to underscore how diversity can be a game changer for companies who choose to embrace it. Listen to this episode of the podcast here.

--

Round-up of a Busy MAD//Fest 2023

We hit every corner of this year's festival, with talks including live recordings of #AdvertisersWatchingAds and the #ShinyNewObjectPodcast. We took part in exciting talks, such as Amy Wright 's chat about creating connections in the world of AI with Cecilia Dones (Head, Data Sciences at Mo?t Hennessy), and heard from our brilliant clients like 玛氏食品 ' Lindsay Barrett and Brown-Forman 's Laura McCarthy .

On AWA, Diageo 's Joseph Harper , 欧莱雅 's Alex Taborda , and Expedia Group 's Nikita Longdon debated the top 3 ads of the year. 宝洁 's Gerry D'Angelo was our guest on the podcast for the second time.

To keep the ideas and energy to a maximum, AC even hosted an AI-themed Prompt Battle Afterparty that gave the ultimate twist to your good old pub quiz: including a brief for advertising “Nivea’s new BBQ scented hand-cream”, creating an image of the worst advertising conference ever, and guessing the AI generated baby celeb.

Stay tuned for lots of details coming soon from all these exciting events.

--

And there is more Marketing Inspiration this past month on Advertisers Watching Ads - our show where brands watch other brands’ ads and discuss their merits and failings, in partnership with Contagious.

Will being hungry make you see Doritos UK in every triangle? Maybe not, but this case study looked at how making spotting triangles into a game worked for the brand:

And, on the topic of food, when fish fall from the sky, how can a small community turn this into commercial gain? We reviewed Regal Springs ' Heaven Fish ad and discussed its sustainable marketing angle:

Finally, in a bid to attract more young viewers, Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios France launched a dubbing challenge, but does it work as advertising?

Many thanks to all of our guests this month:?

Diksha Idnani (Marketing Leader), Kate Mackie (Global Integrated GTM Director at EY), David Esrati (Chief Creative Officer at The Next Wave), Danielle Sims (Senior Client Lead at Automated Creative), Rory McEntee (Brand and Marketing Director at Gymbox), David Byrne (Brand Lead at Wealthify), Duarte Garrido (Global Head of Social Omnichannel Activation at Standard Chartered), Philip Lloyd (Chief Marketing Officer at Purplebricks), and Lequita Sharrock (CEO of Sharrock Media Group).

Do you want to share your thoughts about these ads or suggest a new one for us to debate? Email us on [email protected].

--

How to Make it in Marketing?

After hundreds of interviews with the best and brightest leaders of the advertising and marketing world, Automated Creative distilled their top tips for newcomers into the book, "How to Make it in Marketing Vol. 1."

"Broaden your skills as early as possible." - Martin Leguay , CMO at Touchnote (formerly VP of Marketing at PeoplePerHour)

There's an ongoing debate about whether newcomers to marketing should specialise or broaden their skills. But it's also a huge industry to join, with so many different activities you could be doing. That's why it's good to try lots of new things and get an understanding of what opportunities exist in the industry. For Martin, learning about working with data was a great new skill to add to his toolkit even as an experienced marketer. Being a successful CMO means "understanding 5 to 10 to 15 different channels or verticals," so don't be afraid to ask questions, find out what everyone else in your organisation is doing, and keep broadening your knowledge.

This is just one tip among the 45 different pieces of advice waiting for you in our FREE e-book. Download it here now.?

--

Finally, here are some ads you should have seen - via our friends at Contagious :

• Corona / Natural Bar Case Study;
• Julie / Your Friends With Benefits;
• Yabie / Last Call.