"Adaptive Brand Marketing: Rethinking Your Approach to
Branding in the Digital Age" also suggests marketers adopt on-the-fly budgeting and media plans that can adapt quickly to changing conditions. It also recommends a more prominent role for "consumer
intelligence" -- market research and analytics -- as well as for "predictive modeling."
As for agencies, forget about long-term partnerships. The report favors ad hoc alliances and
bringing some functions in-house. Radical as it may seem, executives at Procter & Gamble and Unilever say that they're already doing much of what Forrester recommends.
"However well traditional advertising agencies read the signals and recognize the need for radical change in their capabilities," writes Unilever CEO Paul Polman in an e-mail, "few agencies can address all the communications needs of a brand." He compares his company's global brand directors more to orchestra directors than traditional managers.
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