Industry Insights

Google delayed its third-party cookie deprecation — again. If you’re breathing a sigh of relief, please don’t. There’s still a gaping hole in today’s marketing plans. It’s getting deeper, and as companies look to shore up their financials against a tidal wave of economic uncertainty, the need for a plan to fill that hole has never been more urgent.

As emerging media and marketing channels continue to explode, it is paramount for brands to curate authentic and engaging ways to connect with audiences. Observing audience behavior and cultural trends demands more agile marketing and begs the question: How can marketers ensure their brands are showing up at the right time, in the right place, and on-tone in this evolving climate?

Forget baseball. These days, the national pastime might better be identified as gaming. As a 2022 dentsu consumer sentiment study put it, “Gaming’s growth has been exponential and it is expected to continue,” elaborating that “almost 9 in 10 U.S. consumers game.”

For marketing agencies interested in using the latest technology to drive growth, empower the workforce, and expand capabilities for clients, artificial intelligence (AI) offers the opportunity for greater executional efficiency, better distribution of valued resources, and more insightful data to deliver desired outcomes.

Like most industries, the national broadcasting sector has had to adapt to tremendous change in recent years. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen the rise of streaming giants, seismic shifts in how media is being consumed, including an upheaval around measurement, privacy, and identity. This is not to mention additional factors such as platform fatigue, audience saturation, and inventory scarcity. In order to keep up with this rapidly evolving media ecosystem, broadcasters need to figure out how to make significant changes to stay relevant.

During uncertain economic times, the financial and banking industry can provide important information to marketers. How the financial industry adapts their advertising and addresses a recessionary economy can supply helpful strategies and tools for general marketers across categories.

ANA events bring together some of the smartest and most-talented marketers in the industry to share insights and best practices that help ANA members get the most out of their own marketing efforts.

It is common practice for marketers and business leaders to slash marketing spend during a recession. With customer spending and revenue likely to dip, organizations rush to cut expenses to preserve margins. Marketing is often the first budget to tighten, something many organizations will consider if a recession strikes in the coming months.

ANA recently released the report, “Procurement 2022: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” The work measures the perception of marketing procurement among three constituents: procurement, marketing, and agencies.

Say you dutifully got your organization in good compliance with the GDPR, and then did the same for CCPA, and perhaps even for the state laws that followed from Virginia, Nevada, Colorado, Connecticut, and Utah. Great.

There is solid research that tells advertisers to spend during a recession. Whether advertisers can take that advice or not, one thing is for certain, if we are entering a down market, there will be extra scrutiny on every media dollar spent.

In today’s call-out culture, cries of “purpose washing” are becoming commonplace. To help ensure purpose is authentically embedded into every part of an organization, the ANA Center for Brand Purpose collaborated with industry experts to develop “6 Principles for Avoiding Purpose Washing.”

Advertising Week is a time for the industry to explore the shifting possibilities of advertising and serves as the ultimate networking opportunity. The U.S. event will be held in New York City, offering a collection of seminars and workshops where competitors can come together for debate and discussion alongside cultural icons to re-inspire the industry.

In its new report, “Digital Performance in Luxury,” R3 observes that “luxury marketers have to balance their traditional foundations with new market dynamics that reward mass relevance and immediacy.”

In recent years, consumer privacy has garnered a lot of attention and scrutiny from legislators and regulators. The latest alarm has been sounded by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regarding business practices involving anonymized data.

Paul Flaharty, executive director of the marketing and creative practice area at Robert Half, spoke to ANA recently about the latest hiring and retention trends. The company released finding from a recent survey it conducted (How Remote Work Is Impacting Productivity: 5 Trends For Dispersed Teams - Jul 6, 2022 (roberthalf.com).

Brian Rappaport, CEO of Quan Media Group, spoke to the ANA about how OOH (out of home advertising) is a critical way for these brands to reach their target audiences, raise their brand awareness and make a big impact, often at a lower cost. Quan, which is an OOH agency, has worked with DTC brands like Casper, Zelle, Capsule, OpenTable, and FreshDirect.

The Consumer Data Trust Index issued by Jebbit for the first half of 2022 highlights several factors that are contributing to upheavals in how consumers allocate their trust among businesses. These factors included the following:

The Inflation Reduction Act, recently signed into law, will reshape many aspects of the health care industry, and should heighten the sector’s focus on access, innovation and virtual care.

No doubt we’ve all grown weary from reading endless articles about the current talent drain in agencies. It is tiring, and quite frankly, depressing to constantly read about broken agency models. Staff turnover. The great resignation.