Blog
Our shared observations and opinions on a host of topics
Why Companies Should Strive to Create a ‘Learning-Centric’ Culture
By Talonya Geary, Manager, Training & Development (Read the original article on Advertising Week HERE) Organizations are being challenged to manage a slew of workplace complexities they wouldn’t have imagined a few years ago, testing their strength and agility to evolve with the times. From onboarding first-time employees remotely, to navigating the diverse needs of up to five generations, companies have no choice but to think holistically about how...
The ROI on Corporate Real Estate
The real estate market is in flux. From brick-and-mortar retail falling out of favor, to the future of offices up in the air, many companies have had a hard time pinpointing smart commitments in physical spaces. Whether a company is in the restaurant game, the retail business or any other space occupier, many are locked into physical spaces that are no longer serving them efficiently. These financial commitments in real estate can be daunting when they’re not...
Media Buying Briefing: As 2022 ushers in a new era of democratization, how will media agencies react?
JANUARY 3, 2022 by MICHAEL BÜRGI Read on Digiday's website here. Here we are in 2022, brimming with hope and expectation of all the new things the media and marketing community will create and innovate. But there’s also fear and uncertainty, whether brought on by this lingering COVID pandemic, or looming privacy changes or even supply-chain issues. Perhaps the industry needs to think more about how a subtle shift in power is being enabled by blockchain ...
With an Eye on the Future, How A Smart Media Investment Can Solve Your Business’s Supply Chain Problem
The volatility of the supply chain has wreaked havoc on most retailers over the past few months. The issue facing many businesses is that there is a greater volume of goods than the supply chain pipeline can adequately handle. The existing infrastructure does not have enough ships, containers, trains, trucks, or even dockworkers to process all the incoming goods. As a result, companies are being forced to pay significant premiums for the limited space that...
From Optimizer to Innovator: How Trust Empowers Smart Risk
Risk. The word immediately conjures conflicting emotions and responses for most people. It can stress you out, or it can get your blood pumping. It can put you on edge knowing you are venturing into the unknown, with equal possibility of great reward or potential disaster down the road. Many people think of themselves as risk-takers until it comes time to take the “leap of faith.” There is a reason people often say, “There is no reward without risk....
‘Throwing spaghetti against the wall’: Why marketers are expanding experimental budget testing
View the original DIGIDAY article by Kimeko McCoy here.
Embracing the Change that a Changed World Demands
It comes as no shock to anyone that many aspects of the country’s economy have changed rapidly and dramatically over the last year as the world adjusted to a COVID-altered landscape. That is equally true within the communications world, as major advertisers adapted to consumers taking a digital-first, virtual approach to shopping, creative and media agencies struggle to become nimbler and more responsive, and any publisher or content provider that is not Face...
Why reimagining your corporate real estate strategy makes sense, especially now.
Defining trends and forces. If there’s a positive personal trend that's emerged in recent months, it’s enhanced worker flexibility with the ability for more employees to work remotely. Global Workplace Analytics estimates that nearly 80% of the workforce wants to continue to work from home, at least partially, when Covid-19 dissipates and roughly 30% of employees will be working via a hybrid work model by the end of 2021. Technology companies like Facebo...
A CMO's Vision. A CFO's Dream.
Although it’s been written many times before it’s probably more true now than ever that successful organizations must adjust to an ever-evolving world. You can no longer rely on careful planning alone to enable your success. The annual budgets and strategic plans that once governed the business are temporarily suspended. You are venturing into a murky and unknown next few years. And the unknown will continue into the foreseeable future. Society has changed an...
The effects of COVID-19 on the US grocery business
US Consumers have certainly taken notice of the gravity of the situation and changed attitudes and behaviors accordingly. The first major increase in credit card spending (a 26% increase over the week prior) happened on February 27th, the day of US confirmed its first case of unknown transmission, driven by a 130% increase in Grocery and a 238% in Big Box spending. On March 1st Governor Ron Desantis declared a public health emergency in the...
The current reaction of the media marketplace to COVID-19
Sports world upheaval The biggest factor in the TV/Video marketplace at the moment is the impact of the cancellation of the NCAA tournament and the postponement of all other sports such as the NBA, MLB, NHL and Premiere League. This turns back a reported $1.5B in ad spend back to marketers. Some of that will not return to the marketplace, but much of it will. Samsung, P&G and CPG’s in general are looking to place dollars back in market f...
The current impact of COVID-19 on US ad spending
We all know that the Coronavirus is impacting US advertising, but the questions all of us within the ad industry should be asking is, how and for how long? Fortunately, the smart folks at the Interactive Advertising Bureau have been researching this and have come up with some interesting statistics. One bottom-line conclusion uncovered from their research is that as of today, 74% of buy-side decision-makers think the Coronavirus will have a greater imp...
Social Media Marketing for Hospitality Companies: Your Competitive Edge
The hospitality industry is inherently social. It’s all about people and interactions. The most beautifully appointed hotel in the world can be a terrible experience if the customer service is bad. People travel with or to see their loved ones. They travel for networking. They share their trips on social media. So, it’s no surprise that social media marketing is especially important for hospitality companies. The problem is figuring out how to sta...
Implementing Voice-Enabled Ads in 2020
What Are Voice-Enabled Ads? Voice ads have begun to usher in a new dimension of advertising that more thoroughly integrates consumers in the marketing experience. Traditional ads have merely passed information along to customers in what marketers hope is an engaging way. A voice ad takes the concept of information exchange further to request verbal responses from the consumers. For marketing teams, the most attractive feature of voice advertising is the imme...
How to Optimize Your Marketing Supply Chain
In an economic environment rife with uncertainty, globalized competition, and disruption lurking at every turn, it’s no longer enough to simply keep your business under control and hope that your suppliers will do the same. The demand for excellent and expeditious customer service, value, and competitive pricing is higher than ever, and the health of any organization with customers relies on their ability to meet that demand. This cannot be done by internal b...
Transform Your Omnichannel Retail Efforts with AI
The age of Amazon and e-tailers has devastated many traditional retail establishments and changed the face of retail forever. The lines between the virtual and physical worlds are becoming increasingly blurred. Retailers who want to survive and thrive in this new world order need to not only reach their customers in both worlds, they also need to provide a seamless shopping experience whether the customer is shopping online, from desktop or mobile, by telepho...
The Rise and Economics of the Virtual Restaurant
From the fully automated diner and instantly hydrating pizza in Back to the Future Part 2 to the flying noodle restaurant at Bruce Willis’ apartment window in The Fifth Element, we’ve long been imagining the ways technology might change the way we eat. The movie that got closest to reality was probably 1995’s The Net when Sandra Bullock orders a pizza from her PC over a dial-up internet connection. The idea of ordering food via a keyboard, without speaking t...
The future of sourcing
Sourcing vs Procurement The terms Sourcing and Procurement are often used interchangeably, but they are two distinct (though inextricably linked) processes. Sourcing is all about supplier relationships and mitigating risk; procurement is all about purchasing and acquisition. In the most basic terms, sourcing is the process of identifying, vetting, negotiating, and securing contracts with suppliers. The sourcing process precedes procurement and makes it poss...
Three Keys to Restaurant Profitability – A Guide for CFOs
Traditionally, the role of a Chief Financial Officer has been largely isolated to numbers. In today’s rapidly changing economic landscape, with restaurant sales slowing, a restaurant CFO’s purview has expanded to touch on everything from labor retention, vendor management, and pricing, to company culture, staffing, and customer behavior. In addition to budgets and reporting, restaurant CFOs are expected to be innovators and problem-solvers, making stra...
Podcast with Brad Adgate
Brade Adgate is a smart and engaging personality in the world of media. He's spent a career and earned a national reputation working on both the agency and vendor side of the media business. CNN, FOX, Forbes, and others consider him to be an authority for his opinions and prognostications on topics such as media measurement, strategy, and research. But it was for his keen knowledge of politics and political media that we recorded a podcast. With 2020 ahead...
Chris Voss and the Art of Negotiating
I recently heard expert hostage negotiator Chris Voss speak on the topic of negotiation and thought it was worth highlighting some of his important points. Each of us negotiates all day long, sometimes without even knowing it. The better skilled we are at it, the better will be our outcomes. Chris Voss is a former FBI hostage negotiator, the CEO of The Black Swan Group Ltd, and co-author of the book, Never Split the Difference. Prior to founding Black Swan Gr...
Mobile Ads: Benefits Vs. Privacy
Have you ever had an ad show up on your Facebook or Instagram feed that was so perfectly tailored to you, it made you wonder if your phone’s microphone has been listening to your conversations? How often do you spend a few minutes perusing a product listing then have that exact product show up in an ad a few minutes later? When you walk into a Target or a Kroger, do you get a push notification reminding you to check their app for coupons? For most regular sm...
The State of Digital Place-Based Media
The digitization and media saturation of the world has turned quite a few industries on their proverbial heads. The advertising industry, in particular, has found itself in a unique position. On the one hand, their old reliable advertising channels like newspapers and television are becoming less and less relevant. On the other hand, they are faced with a problem of overabundance. Advertisers have more avenues to reach consumers than ever before. It sounds gr...
Podcast with Tim Pulido
With the Restaurant Finance & Development Conference coming up next month in Las Vegas, we wanted to produce a podcast with a restaurant industry expert. The first name to come to mind was long-time industry expert Tim Pulido. Tim began his career in brand marketing, moving up quickly to general management and concept leadership in the restaurant space. He spent 20 years at PepsiCo, then McDonalds, and several other notable chains. Tim presently is the...
Aligning your media buying with business results
Our latest white paper tackles the subject of the transition of media buying from being evaluated using the traditional metrics of rating points, demographics, reach, etc. with sell-through, new customers, inventory levels and profit. Clients are demanding tangible results and there is a move underfoot for CMOs to deliver on business goals, not just on media KPIs. It’s a challenging and expensive task, but clients and brands are demanding accountability and ...
How CMOs Can Partner with CFOs
Traditionally, the Chief Marketing Officer and the Chief Financial Officer have been the frenemies of the C-Suite. They’re on the same team, but their departmental culture, viewpoints, processes, tools, and KPIs are often wildly different. The time has come, however, to bury the hatchet and join forces. As Brand Quarterly points out, “In today’s increasingly digital economy, a strong partnership between finance and marketing can spell the difference between a...
Can Traditional Retail Thrive with AI and Automation?
In the last fifty years, we’ve seen retail move from main street to the mall and from niche shops to superstores. There have been massive shifts and waves in the industry but until the early part of the last decade, the basic logistics have been the same: A customer in 1908, 1980, or 2008 wanted to buy something, traveled to the store, browsed the available inventory, paid for their purchase, and took it home. Even considering factors like special orders or l...
Make the Last Mile of Analytics Your First Priority
"Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done." - James Ling Any runner will tell you, the last mile in any marathon is the hardest. The same holds true for analytics. Seventy percent of enterprises recognize that smart use of analytics is a critical strategic priority, but only 10% believe they’re even coming close to achieving the full potential of analytics. The reason for that huge gap can be found in that all-important, ever-challengi...
Adopting a Value-First Advertising Strategy
Advertising has come a long way from Madison Avenue’s much-celebrated heyday. Advertising has undergone massive disruption in the last twenty years, more so than most industries. Even so, many website banner ads, pop-ups, and Instagram ads that the Mad Men of yore never dreamed of still follow somewhat traditional, straightforward formulas. Traditional advertising uses campaigns to create impressions for brand awareness, recall of a product, message, or promo...
Our Predictions for Mobile Advertising in 2020
As mobile technology becomes increasingly ubiquitous, the best place for brands to connect with consumers is literally in the palms of their hands. Advertising on mobile platforms will undoubtedly continue to grow by leaps and bounds through 2020 and beyond. Investment in mobile advertising hasn’t just gone through the proverbial roof in recent years; it’s shattered it. WARC reports that mobile ad spend reached $137.9 billion worldwide in 2018. The inc...
How CMO's Can Achieve Longevity in Tenure
Marketing in 2019 and beyond is virtually unrecognizable from marketing as recently as 15 years ago. The rapid pace of changes in technology, practices, and culture has drastically changed the marketing landscape even more so than many other fields. In addition, marketing is a complex discipline with a lot of moving parts, and many CEOs have a hard time understanding the challenges faced by their CMO. To make matters worse, marketing departments in many com...
Five lessons learned from Gene McCarthy's 40 years at the helm of business
I had the pleasure recently of sitting down with Gene McCarthy and asking him to share some insights he’s gathered over the past 40 years from being part of and leading some of the most iconic brands of the footwear and outdoor industries. Gene is extraordinarily passionate about how brands interact and communicate with the world, so his learned insight should be of interest to anyone aspiring to grow a brand in today’s diverse and hyper-connected world. Her...
Digital Innovation Opportunities for the C-Suite
Embracing digital innovations is no longer an option for the C-Suite. Digital disruption is a fact of life. Period. Full stop. Material disruption is no longer limited to entertainment or transportation; the fact is, digital innovations will disrupt every industry. The decision that you as a C-level executive have to make is, will you be doing the disrupting, or waiting for another company to come along and disrupt you. Awareness and willingness to act are ...
Maximizing the Influence & Power of the Corporate Brand
Whether in B2B or B2C markets, good economic times or bad, large businesses or small, brand matters. It’s far more than just a design aesthetic; it is a core part of a business’s value. You know this, of course (though you might be surprised by just how much brand matters – it’s estimated that brand represents around 30% of S&P 500 companies’ market value). The question instead is – given that importance – how can you make the most of your brand in the m...
Where your TV ad audience went and how to get them back
According to Nielsen, prime-time ratings for all cable networks declined by 27% since 2016. We know why. Linear TV has taken a back seat to the new consumption of content on a variety of devices and set top boxes. It’s been difficult to track viewership and, therefore, to feed commercials to this audience. You can’t just buy more GRPs because with ratings down, there just isn’t enough supply to match the growing demand. And even if you can get the points you...
Building a Corporate Culture That Gets Results
Returns to shareholders 60% higher than the median. Responsible for up to half the difference in operating profit between organizations. A 20% increase in scores from employees rating their employer. Viewed by 82% of CEOs and HR leaders as a potential competitive advantage. If we told you there was an employee, consultant, or piece of tech that could have this sort of impact, what lengths would you go to get them? How much time and money would you commit...
How Five Cutting Edge Brick and Mortar Retailers are Doing 21st Century Retail Right
Evergreen Trading recently sat down with Board of Advisory member Rich Last to get his perspective on retail. This article is the result of that conversation. Rich has enjoyed a 25-year career in digital retailing including his launch and leadership of the Digital Retailing degree program within the University of North Texas. Under his early leadership at JCPenney, the chain began selling merchandise via the Web in October 1994, becoming the first Departmen...
Technology Brings New Life To The Out Of Home Industry
Out-of-home advertising is the world's oldest form of advertising, and until recently hasn't become nearly as easy to implement well as other ad forms. This traditionally manual medium has required knowing the owner of the sign, working out an agreement, printing the ad, and having it installed. If you need to change your creative, you'll have to redesign, reprint, and reinstall. But the conversion of more and more out-of-home advertising from static boards ...
Protecting Yourself From Mounting Ad Fraud in OTT
Connected TV is quickly becoming more mainstream, and in this year’s fourth quarter, some big players will be launching offerings that will get people questioning their cost of cable TV. As the tide of money flows to OTT/Connected TV, a growing amount of ad fraud is hitting that space. Unfortunately, the perception is that because OTT is not cookie-based it is immune to fraud. Not true. It’s been reported that a network of internet-connected devices running...
Media Buying - Clarity Within Metrics and Performance
State of the Industry Media buying used to be a much simpler process. Companies took their ad to the newspaper and it was printed. But as technology progressed, so, too, did media buying opportunities. Today the complex process includes print, television, outdoor, and digital media to get the right message to the right audience at the right time. The new paradigm of media buying offers many opportunities to companies who know how to effectively deliver their...
Impact Over Impressions: What Matters to Your CEO
For years there has been concern over the relationship between the CEO and Marketing. You’ve likely read this stat before, but we are going to cite it again because for anyone who hasn’t it's telling. A 2012 study by Fournaise showed that 80% of CEOs do not trust and are not impressed by their marketing teams. And in 2016-2017, Gartner found that marketing budgets began to fall. They have since recovered, but these statistics illustrate the trepidation felt b...
Media Buying in 2020: A Look Ahead at The Evolution and Trends
Simply put, if you are currently wondering how “digital” might change your media buying, you’re probably already behind the curve. Data and personalization have fundamentally and irreversibly changed the media buying landscape. The saying that “there’s no longer any such thing as ‘digital marketing’, only ‘marketing’” may be well-worn, but it has considerable truth. The media buying strategies that will lead the way in 2020 and beyond won’t take a part...
Marketing Metrics: The New Rules For CMOs
As a marketing professional, you know that the marketing world is constantly morphing into something new, requiring the best marketers to be up-to-date on the state of strategies, influencers, and techniques. You need to stay current to produce at a high level. But the sheer number of data points and massive volume of statistics can be overwhelming. That volume of data can be beneficial or misleading for professionals trying to keep abreast of the myri...
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We’ve helped some of the world’s top brands get more value out of their media buys and we can do the same for you. Ready to work with us? Still unsure? We’d love to hear from you.