Industry Insights

Chances are you’ve had a late night moment of despair when you realize just how big your company’s carbon footprint really is — and how little you may think you can do about it.

When it comes to technology and data, and how it’s used, companies have historically controlled the levers. However, with all the recent and upcoming industry changes, there are cultural changes afoot. Many industry leaders believe consumers will be in more powerful positions than in the past, having more control over their data and their purchases.

The ANA previously announced the co-chairs for the 2023 ANA Advertising Financial Management Conference, which includes Simona Rabsatt Butler, senior director of media, events, and sponsorship at Visa.

In the same way that short-form content on platforms like YouTube captivated users over a decade ago, free ad-supported television (FAST) channels can lead their viewers down even deeper rabbit holes with long form content. The ability for FAST channels to truly engage audiences and take them on a journey makes ad-supported streaming an increasingly efficient way for advertisers to reach audiences, at scale and in a contextual and targeted way.

In a world that is often youth-obsessed, and chasing younger generations’ attention spans and interests, older people are overlooked. Even worse, they are cast off as unimportant. And yet, 35 percent of the U.S. population is 50 or older, according AARP, illustrating that much of the population is being left out of crucial moments in media, advertising, and product development.

Legacy media businesses have been under increasing pressure since the advent of the modern internet in the 1990s. Once secure with healthy margins on their advertising inventory, media companies have since been forced to adapt to an audience that has fractured across a proliferation of channels and advertisers that are no longer content to spend money without some form of guaranteed return on investment.

According to Harvard Business Review, and a lot of anecdotal evidence that we can all point to, companies cut marketing budgets in a recession. Not only that, retail brand budgets can be the first to get slashed as they are the hardest to connect to sales numbers. For the brand budgets that are left, advertisers worry how they can drive any meaningful value if they can’t get the reach or impact that they might feel they need.

There are four core motivations people can have for engaging with the various platforms. These may or may not be conducive to them noticing a brand's content while on a given platform.

Andrew Fried, SVP of Mint Mobile, is presenting a session entitled “Mint Mobile: Stretching the Limits of Media for Hypergrowth” at the ANA 2023 Brand Masters Conference April 26-28 in Bonita Springs, Fla. ANA’s Mike Kaufman, SVP of brand and media, recently interviewed him for a pre-conference discussion.

According to Harvard Business Review, and a lot of anecdotal evidence that we can all point to, companies cut marketing budgets in a recession. Not only that, retail brand budgets can be the first to get slashed as they are the hardest to connect to sales numbers. For the brand budgets that are left, advertisers worry how they can drive any meaningful value if they can’t get the reach or impact that they might feel they need.

On the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Uber partnered with UNITED24, President Zelenskyy’s global donations platform, to launch a new cartop advertising campaign to raise funds to send life-saving ambulances to Ukraine.

AI is taking over the internet, and what feels like the world lately. While generative AI tools like ChatGPT and DALL-E continue to grasp consumers’ attention, AI has been used for many business applications in digital media and marketing. With 83 percent of companies claiming that AI is a top priority in their business plans, business leaders must not forget the most important part to integrating training and enhancing the output of AI tools: the human element. If business leaders fail to recognize its significance, they run the risk of losing consumer interest.

No matter how pretty your analytics are, if marketing does not contribute to an organization’s bottom line, leadership will never fully recognize the value it provides. At the end of the day, it does not matter if your marketing dashboard is in the green if the business is in the red.

With the advent of AI and synthetic media across the marketing ecosystem, ethics may not always be factored in and may instead become an afterthought. This can lead to risk for brands.

The identity landscape is in a dramatic state of upheaval right now, and today’s changes have massive implications for the reality that advertisers and publishers will be operating within the next one to three years. Suffice to say, things are going to look different.

The advertising industry is under a microscope. With the economic uncertainty facing the industry, every ad dollar counts. Marketers are facing the challenge of having to prove that each dollar spent is getting a return and that campaigns are performing to their maximum potential.

More than one hundred years have passed since Mr. Wanamaker shared this perspective on his firm’s advertising investment and his words are as true today as they were when he uttered them in 1919. One could rightly argue that the accelerating rate of change, the dizzying array of message delivery choices, advances in technology, the growth in ad fraud, and an increase in regulatory oversight have only further complicated the challenge of optimizing marketing and advertising spend.

Kevin Miller, Chief Marketing Officer, The Fresh Market, is presenting a session entitled “The Fresh Market Turnaround Story – The Power of Love” at the ANA 2023 Brand Masters Conference April 26-28 in Bonita Springs, Fla. ANA’s Mike Kaufman, Senior Vice-President, Brand & Media, recently interviewed him for a pre-conference discussion.

According to Bombora Company Surge, during the last 90 days, interest in ABX (Account-Based Experiences) increased 53 percent while interest in ABM (Account-Based Marketing) decreased by 55 percent.

The power of Big Tech’s influence skyrocketed to astronomical heights in recent years, with more than 50 percent of digital ad spend filtering through Meta and Google alone, as reported by Harvard Business Review. Despite those numbers, there’s a narrative circulating the publishing industry that’s long been overplayed, and that is: Publishers are losing their power and need to “fight back.” With the question too often being: How can they do that?