by Allison Schiff, Alison Weissbrot, Sarah Sluis, James Hercher and Ryan Joe Getting a big brand to shift its marketing approach is about as easy as moving a planet out of orbit. Yet, many see the writing on the wall: If they don’t change, consumers will leave them behind. As such, big marketers have to […]
The world’s largest consumer product brands are struggling to grow their US businesses. While some of the challenges are macro-economic, like increased transportation costs, the biggest factor is the growth of retail private-label brands, which can’t be acquired or stamped out like startup competitors. Large CPGs are also adjusting to new direct-to-consumer and ad-heavy startup […]
In an early draft of his prepared remarks at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting on Monday, Unilever CMO Keith Weed threatened to stop advertising on digital platforms that “do not make a positive contribution to society.” But when he actually took the stage in Palm Desert, Calif., a few hours later, Weed struck a softer […]
The largest advertisers in the world are still dead set on cutting advertising costs and reducing agency fees. On earnings call after earnings call in the past week, consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies sent a clear message to the ad industry: The belt is tightening. On Thursday, Procter & Gamble CEO Jon Moeller told investors […]
As agencies struggle to transform under continued fee pressure from clients, executives are reassessing whether descending on the French Riviera for a week of endless rosé and parties on yachts sends the right message about the state of the industry. “If clients are using zero-based budgeting, let’s use it for Cannes,” WPP CEO Sir Martin […]
The in-housing trend continues to reshape agency and ad tech relationships. CPG giant Unilever announced on Wednesday that along with WPP it will invest $15 million in mobile creative management platform Celtra. The move aligns with Unilever CMO Keith Weed’s rather blunt approach to marketing strategy. “Get out of marketing if you’re not going to […]
Before he tried on agency life, Babs Rangaiah was a bit of a star on the CPG circuit. After more than a decade driving media innovation for global CPG Unilever, a shakeup in Unilever’s marketing org last spring led Rangaiah agency-side. Now, as a partner leading global marketing solutions for IBM’s in-house agency, Interactive Experience […]
T.O by Lipton, Unilever’s Keurig-like tea brewer in France, was struggling to turn analytics from its ecommerce platform into actionable insights. “With [tools like] Google Analytics, I could know what consumers were doing, but I had difficulty knowing why they were dropping off or why they weren’t buying our machines,” said Mathieu Bernard, ecommerce lead […]
by Allison Schiff, Alison Weissbrot, Sarah Sluis, James Hercher, Kelly Liyakasa and Ryan Joe Programmatic advertising comes in many flavors. A handful of brands load up to take their buying fully in-house. Many give their agency partners carte blanche. Other brands take ownership of the tech contracts and segmentation, while letting their agencies pull the […]
Billboards are lighting up with the promise of programmatic. Out-of-home (OOH) is projected to grow almost 12% in spend by 2020 – faster than any other traditional media – thanks to opportunities in digital, according to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. Digital OOH accounted for $2.7 billion in ad spend in the US […]
