Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

...Marketing automation platforms save time, improve efficiency, increase productivity, and help manage big data. They give companies unprecedented abilities to understand buyers, identify opportunities, track campaign performance, and link marketing activities to business outcomes.

But they do not provide insight into the billions of bits of data being created as consumers move from screen to screen and interact online and offline with brands. According to IBM, 90 percent of all data in the world is less than two years old. Humans are not programmed to keep up. And yet, turning data into intelligence, intelligence into strategy, and strategy into action remains largely human powered. 

What inevitably comes next are marketing intelligence engines that process data and recommend actions to improve performance based on probabilities of success. Think about it. Are we really that far off from an automated marketing strategy in which the marketer's primary role is to curate and enhance algorithm-based recommendations rather than to devise them?...

We tapped the Economist Intelligence Unit to survey almost 500 high-level marketing executives from around the world to get a real sense of what’s on all of your minds.

The results are insightful, encouraging, and exciting. Why? Because when you step back and look at the overall big picture, it tells me that, more than ever, marketing is in charge and the future is really, really bright for marketers everywhere. We are at the center of business and if we make the right investments we are going to find ourselves setting strategy, driving revenue, and shaping the future of our own organizations. A real “Marketing First” world.

I would strongly recommend you read the report in its entirety. There is a ton of insight in here. But let me give you a few of my highlights....

It’s silly to talk about the death of TV. Around the world, more people are watching more minutes and hours of traditional TV per day than last year.

In the last two years, while the US population as a whole is watching more TV (live and time shifted), 18-24 year olds are watching less.

It’s not a “big shift” as yet…only 5%. And it almost certainly varies by urban vs. rural; gender; and race.

But I have seen this movie before. I remember the newspaper industry in the 1990s. It had always been true that teenagers didn’t subscribe or even read newspapers. That was OK…once they moved out and got a job or went to college they started. Then one day, around about 1995, that changed, and we started seeing (at first) very small annual DECREASES in print newspaper consumption in 18-24 year olds. 20 years later, that trend has been working away, and we now have the situation where (in one UK survey) less than 0.5% of 16-34 year olds listed print newspapers or magazines in their top five media they would miss the most....

Marketers are missing their chance with persuasive technology. Need convincing? Let’s take a step back. Persuasion used to be considered an art in which advertisers were masterful....

... Now in our digital experiences, especially the ones built around our mobile devices, there is a new form of persuasiveness in town. The problem is brands and marketers are undervaluing it. It is persuasive technology. In simplest terms, persuasive technology is any system, app or software that through its function and design can change a user’s attitude or behavior.

For example, persuasive technology would be a healthcare app that encourages exercise and fitness and rewards you as you go. Or financial apps that encourage saving and investing, enabling you to not only track and understand your finances but also provide tips and education about how to be more fiscally responsible. Or Progressive Insurance’s “Snapshot” usage-based program that monitors your driving data via your car’s data port. The safer you drive, the more you save. Through the use of these systems, your attitude and behaviors are changed far beyond what a convincing bit of copy or picture can do. They become part of your daily life....