Branding

A global shift in marketing budgets from traditional to digital media has been well documented of late, and new survey results from Martini Media suggest that UK marketers are hopping aboard the digital marketing train. 95% of brand advertisers and agencies responding to the survey said they will increase their digital marketing spending this year, with fully 48% of total budgets going to digital media. In particular, 63% will increase their social media investments, 57% their mobile investments, 40% their video investments, and 36% their rich media investments. Read more »

Music fans not only appreciate artists, but also the brands that sponsor their events, according to [download page] a report from Nielsen. The "US Entertainment Consumer Report" reveals that 43% of music fans notice when a brand or product sponsors an artist or brand. Reaching these fans is an important endeavor: while they represent only 40% of music consumers overall, they account for 75% of spending on music. Separate results suggest that some of these fans will be persuaded to try a product by the brands' promotional activities. Read more »

The average consumer is a member in more than 7 loyalty programs, and many have room for more, details Maritz Loyalty Marketing [download page] in a new report. While respondents reported being active in slightly less than two-thirds of their programs, their responses tended to show that the programs do have an influence on their behavior. That is, roughly 6 in 10 agreed that they modify when and where they buy in order to maximize their benefits, and close to half agreed that they modify what brands they buy to maximize their benefits. Read more »

A study pitting native ads against banner ads has found the former attracting more attention and generating more lift. The study, conducted by IPG Media Lab and Sharethrough, leveraged both eye tracking technology and surveys to come to its conclusions, using leading brands across travel, CPG and entertainment verticals as test cases. Among the findings, consumers were 25% more likely to see native ads than banner ads (25% vs. 20%), looking at the native ads 52% more frequently (4.1 times per session, compared to 2.7). Notably, consumers looked at native ads at a slightly higher rate than the original editorial content, spending almost the same amount of time doing so. Read more »

41% of marketers say that inbound marketing demonstrates ROI for their company, compared to 9% who believe it doesn't, according to HubSpot's newly-released "State of Inbound Marketing 2013" report. But another one-third cannot (or do not) calculate ROI. A difficulty in tracking reliable metrics may be why despite healthy inbound implementation rates and projected spending increases, a leading 25% of inbound marketers say that proving ROI is their top challenge. Read more »

In 2011-2012, only about 1 in every 10 new CPG brands - of which there were almost 1,900 - managed to to meet the "stringent, industry-recognized benchmarks of exceptional first-year sales success required to achieve 2012 New Product Pacesetter status," reveals Information Resources, Inc. (IRI) in a recent study. Those 200 top-selling launches each achieved more than $13 million in first-year sales, with an individual average of $39.5 million. Among food and beverage brands, Dannon Oikos topped the list with almost $284 million in total year-one multi-outlet dollar sales. Read more »

94% of Americans say they will remain cautious and keep their food, beverage and household goods spending at current levels even if the economy improves, according to results from Deloitte's "2013 American Pantry Study." The survey results indicate that consumers' recession-sparked frugality has endured, as 70% agree that even though they're spending less on products now, it doesn't feel like they're sacrificing much. Those attitudes translate to their brand loyalty, too: just 27% of respondents interviewed last year said they intend to purchase more national brands instead of store brands as the economy improves. Read more »

The CMO Council and Exhibit & Event Marketers Association (E2MA) have released a new report [download page] examining events and trade shows and their contributions to customer engagement. Among the key findings, 31% of respondents believe that trade shows, conferences, conventions, and channel events are essential to doing business in their target customer markets, while another 42% believe them to still be very valuable. Read more »

Marketers plan to split their online advertising between direct response and brand advertising initiatives, with 18% of marketers focused on each, and the remaining 64% employing a mix, according to [download page] results from the "2013 Online Advertising Performance Outlook," a survey fielded by the CMO Council, with findings developed by Vizu. But those advertising dollars look like they're shifting from direct response to branding initiatives: 61% said they are re-allocating budgets away from direct response to brand advertising initiatives. Read more »

A research study [pdf] conducted in the UK between October 2011 and November 2012 by Tremor Video and the IAB UK has found that video-on-demand (VOD) campaigns can serve as an effective complement to TV advertising, increasing both brand awareness and message association, particularly among light TV viewers. In one campaign, 29% of survey respondents in the UK who watched TV and VOD ads correctly associated the brand with its messages prior to the brand's campaign, with that figure rising to 48% after the brand's 2-month TV and VOD campaign, higher than the 43.6% among those only exposed to the TV ads. Read more »