Forward

The functions of the left and right sides of the brain help shape how people see the world around them and have specific implications for marketers. Appealing to one side of the brain or the other can sculpt consumer impressions, improve recall, and drive conversion.

Scoping season is all about collaboration. Each stage is a chapter of this partnership story. This journey is about creating something effective together, where each plan, discussion, and decision matters. Here's how to do it.

By embracing AI, brand teams can free up valuable time and focus on strategic thinking, innovation, and creativity. There are a number of ways marketers will need to prepare.

Despite a troubled economic environment, consumer concerns over inflation, the ongoing threat of another health crisis, the rapid influx of advancing technology, and the multiplicity of events in 2023, one thing has remained stable, efficient, results-driven, and a trusted partner to marketers. Radio.

The living room has always been a coveted space for marketers to reach their audience. It's where families gather, friends socialize, and individuals unwind. However, the rise of streaming services, smart devices, and changing consumer behaviors have shifted the dynamics of living room advertising.

As connected TV advertising technology grows more sophisticated, it's not only making TV more affordable for more brands, it's also unlocking a coveted space for brands of all shapes and sizes: the lower half of the marketing funnel.

Converged TV advertising — especially via CTV and digital video — offers brand and agency professionals an unparalleled opportunity to quickly measure and understand their campaign performance. But, too many advertisers spend more time measuring campaigns and less time optimizing them — a phenomenon dubbed the "converged TV disconnect."

Conventional sports sponsorships are reaching a point of saturation that's leaving brands searching for additional opportunities. The growing popularity of women's sports, new rules for NCAA athletes, and a resurgence in youth sports is open several paths for brands that want to score big with sports fans.

The introduction of data-driven targeting and creative capabilities within DOOH has transformed the medium into a full-funnel growth engine for retail brands. Marketers now have the ability to segment and target specific audiences, deploy highly flexible creative, and surround specific locations with their messaging.

While publishers have legitimate reasons to obfuscate data, a lack of transparency has left the door wide open for bad actors to thrive. The rapid growth in demand for CTV and its nuances provide ample opportunities for deceptive practices to go undetected. Marketers need to know what questions to ask in order to see their way through.

There are two schools of thought around advertising in cable news: going all in and avoid it altogether. But there are three powerful benefits to advertising in news content as part of a balanced audience-buying: scale, brand-building, and engagement.

The digital era was expected to provide marketers with an abundance of data about consumer behavior, preferences, and interactions. Instead, digital marketing has become wasteful and anything but efficient — a new ANA reports says the $88 billion programmatic media ecosystem is riddled with as much as $20 billion in waste. How did the industry get to this point — and what's the solution to fixing it?

To gain better insight into how small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) across different industries are using omnichannel marketing to drive engagement, the United States Postal Service commissioned a study from Summit Research that surveyed marketers at SMBs across various industries.

TV viewers are likely united in at least one thing: they have endured a bad ad experience marred by either too many repeat ads, irrelevant ads, or, gasp, an empty ad slot. To make a better customer experience, marketers need to understand that linear and CTV don't always work perfectly together, and a true cross-channel plan requires a bit of extra work.

The future of customer experience (CX) is promising, and its impact on in-house marketing and creative teams in Fortune 500 companies is set to be transformative. As businesses recognize the importance of CX in driving customer loyalty, differentiation, and revenue growth, these teams will evolve into vital contributors to a company's success in the CX era.

Brands can prepare for a cookieless future by prioritizing first-party data collection and using it with second- and third-party data to derive deep insights about consumers. Doing so requires building trust, providing value, and prioritizing transparency.

Most of the streaming video world is happening in "walled gardens," proprietary media and ad delivery platforms that work either somewhat or entirely independently from one another. As marketers wade into the future of television, they'll need a cross-platform approach that works for the brand and the viewer.

With its unique memorability and digital capabilities, direct mail has seemingly endless creative potential to enhance the effectiveness of a brand's omnichannel campaigns. AI can work with these elements to make mail marketing even more powerful.

As constant access to smartphones, laptops, and tablets makes it increasingly difficult to avoid digital overload, customers may be ignoring — or even actively avoiding — much of the marketing they're exposed to. Direct mail can provide customers with a break from the onslaught of digital ads and connect them with a brand on a more tangible, personal level.

Marketers' initial approach to implementing martech software can make or break its future as a viable tool in their marketing stack. Its implementation is best conducted in four phases to align internally and with the martech provider on the goals of the initiative.