Marketing And Procurement Make Nice; Health Goes Mobile

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Fixing Procurement

Recent industry meltdowns around brand safety, fraud and agency rebates have put “extra pressure … on the relationship between marketing and procurement,” Marketing Week writes in a new primer on overcoming tensions between the two departments. Marketers often bristle as their procurement peers “put creativity on a chart with a percentage against it,” according to Coca-Cola procurement director Tina Kataria. To reduce strife, many big brands are physically bringing those teams together or hiring marketing veterans into procurement roles to better balance the real-world demands of digital media with the efficiency-driven procurement process. “I could talk about how I understand what the marketing team are trying to do,” Kataria says, “but until someone believes you’ve got their best interests at heart, the trust doesn’t come.” More.

Mobile Clinic

CVS’ $69 billion bid for Aetna, one of the largest insurers in the US, is a potential first-of-its-kind merger of insurance company and retail pharmacy. Doctor’s offices used to hold sole sway over treatment decisions, but nowadays health care “more often reaches consumers over the phone, at a retail clinic or via an app,” writes The New York Times. Digital platforms hope to accelerate this change. Amazon looms large over the industry as it preps a pharmaceutical offering. And Apple is angling for health care dollars by turning its hardware into potential diagnostic and treatment tools. More on that.

API RIP

Facebook is shutting down its Audience Insights API, a crucial data source for social marketing platforms and academic researchers. Marketers relied on third-party vendors with access to Facebook’s firehose of data for marketing insights from behind its walled garden. Now, Facebook wants to supply that data directly to marketers, a situation that gives it more control and may open a new revenue stream. “Most advertisers do see value in the data that Facebook provides, but with all the recent news, it’s been a little bit more challenging to trust it as much as we used to,” said Courtney Blount, associate director at The Media Kitchen. Will marketers go along? Do they have a choice? Adweek has more.

Under The Influence

Influencer marketing may be a billion-dollar business, but growth has been stymied by the inability of brands to ascertain the value of their campaigns. Some influencer tie-ups can generate strong social media traction without necessarily translating to sales, reports Bloomberg. Just as with early coupon delivery services like Groupon, it’s also unclear if influencers deliver loyal customers or just one-off sales. More.

But Wait, There’s More!