What's on a marketer's mind?
The ANA have just released their 2007 "top marketer issues" and the comparisons to 2006 are quite interesting:
Top Marketer Issues (Ranked By Importance) | ||
|
2007 |
2006 |
Integrated marketing communications |
1 |
4 |
Accountability |
2 |
1 |
Aligning marketing organization with innovation |
3 |
2 |
Building strong brands |
4 |
3 |
Media proliferation |
5 |
5 |
Consumer control over what/how they view advertising |
6 |
8 |
Globalization of marketing efforts |
7 |
10 |
Growth of multicultural consumer |
8 |
6 |
Advertising creative that achieves business results |
9 |
9 |
Attracting and retaining top talent |
10 |
7 |
Source: Association of National Advertisers survey of more than 100 senior marketers. | ||
The 3 biggest climbers are "integration", "consumer control" (and how it relates to advertising) and globalization. Dropping down are multicultural and talent.
My thoughts:
- I'm happy to see marketers revisiting integration. To be sure, 99% of what they're being sold currently is NOT integration. It's imitation or duplication. Looking, feeling, tasting the same is tantemount to a better white noise mousetrap. Those of you who have read Chapter 10 of my book would have the little doodle I constructed (I've since updated it in my recent presentations) about what I call REAL integration
- I'm a little relieved to see the accountability obsession, as well as building strong brands dropping a notch. Don't get me wrong, they're both clearly important, however there are so many other key initiatives to balance and factor in the equation, for example "innovation"
- I hope innovation rises next year. I believe this is the number one issue and so with it falling, I get a little concerned.
- Other than that, it's downright alarming that multicultural and talent are not holding their ground and/or rising in terms of importance. I'm wondering if the people who completed this survey have been living underneath a rock for the past 12 months.
To summarize, this ranking (and comparison with last year) seems to fall neatly into 2 categories. For the most part, items that are past of the traditional methodology (brands, creative, etc) are either holding or falling, whereas initiatives that relate to change (new marketing) are holding or tending to rise.
Via MediaPost and Hat Tip to Jen
