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ANA: Accountability Heads List Of Top Issues

Bob-Liodice--B

While the list of key marketing issues has not changed significantly over the past two years, senior marketers' priority rankings in the latest Association of National Advertisers survey provide some revealing insights about changing business conditions and shifts in emphasis, points out ANA President/CEO Bob Liodice.

In an interview with Marketing Daily, Liodice shared his observations about the differences between the results of this new survey -- which asked marketers to rank their first, second and third priority issues for 2011 from among a list of 12 key areas -- and results of the last ANA top issues survey, conducted in 2008. (These surveys were also conducted in 2005, 2006 and 2007.)

The current top three issues, as ranked by 143 responding client-side senior marketers surveyed in October 2010, came out more or less neck-and-neck: marketing accountability (cited as top priority by 46%), building strong brands (44%) and integrated marketing communications (42%).

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The rest of the top 10, in order, are: aligning the marketing organization with innovation; media proliferation; advertising creative that achieves business results; globalization of marketing efforts; consumer control over what/how they view advertising; multicultural marketing; and attracting/retaining top talent.

In comparison, in 2008, the list of top issues was led by integrated marketing communications, followed by accountability, aligning marketing with innovation, and building strong brands.

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The top three to four concerns have remained the same over the past five years, says Liodice -- who points out that the results are primarily indicative of which areas are viewed as most challenging, rather than necessarily reflecting which are being given the most strategic focus or investment.

In fact, the rankings tend to point out the key issues that have become increasingly challenging or frustrating, in part because marketers lack the resources or know-how to address them adequately, he says. (The survey also collects anecdotal comments from respondents.)

Marketing accountability and integrated communications are prime cases in point. These are "processes that don't get enough attention within organizations," both because senior corporate leaders "are not necessarily champions" of focusing on them and because marketers' primary missions and focus are on increasing sales and building strong brands, observes Liodice.

It's by no means surprising that these two issues have remained among the top three, because they have become increasingly problematic as a result of revolutionary changes in media and other aspects of marketing -- areas that are also reflected in the list of top concerns, he points out.

Case in point: "Media proliferation" runs a close fourth in the rankings list. "The level of media proliferation has taken everyone by storm," Liodice says. "TV and print once accounted for 98% of media planning and activities; now marketers' heads are spinning as they attempt to effectively integrate a plethora of online, social media and other options, such as sponsorships.

"Marketers acknowledge that they don't know enough about making integrated media decisions and allocating media budgets, measuring the results, and blending and leveraging creative optimally across all of these options," he adds. "There are a host of intangibles."

Meanwhile, the rise of "building strong brands" to second-place ranking, from fourth place in 2008 (and as low as ninth place in earlier surveys) reflects a healthy and needed resurgence of focus, says Liodice. "Brand value is obviously a core driver of a company's performance and strong shareholder equity, yet not long ago, brands seemed almost to be falling off the marketing radar screen."

Existing brand valuation methodologies vary, and the ANA has designated working toward consensus and creating standardized metrics a formal goal for 2011, he reports. "This won't happen in one year, but we've made it a priority to move in this direction," he says.

While brand-building bumped "aligning the marketing organization with innovation" down a notch from 2008 to fourth place, innovation alignment is clearly another issue that has become more pressing and more challenging, notes Liodice. Reasons include stepped-up focus on product innovation to offset lagging domestic sales for some core brands.

Growing emphasis on the effectiveness of advertising creative and on marketing globalization is also a healthy sign, he says.

Creative was ranked ninth in 2007, but sixth in 2008, and this new survey reflects increasingly intense competition for consumer "eyeballs" and attention, as well as the challenges posed by digital media, Liodice notes. "There's been criticism of the quality of digital creative, but there is clearly improvement," he says. From a broader perspective, the power of fully leveraging creative -- which was back-burnered during strong economic growth years -- is essential in today's tougher marketing climate, he adds.

Creative is another area of increased ANA emphasis -- the association's first Creativity Conference, held last month, was sold out.

Marketing globalization moved up to seventh place, from ninth in 2008, reflecting the tremendous growth opportunities, now and going forward, in developing markets -- and marketing's critical roles in "breaking down border boundaries," says Liodice.

Multicultural marketing, which was ranked sixth or seventh in the mid-2000s, was in 10th place in 2008 and is now in ninth place. Companies are no less aware of the importance of marketing to rapidly growing multicultural segments. However, after pumping up investment in multicultural agencies and dedicated marketing efforts a few years ago, many are focused on reducing costs in this area by finding ways to more effectively weave multicultural efforts into general market campaigns, according to Liodice. "With reduced staffs, companies are becoming more efficient at multitasking," he notes.

Speaking of staffing, Liodice says the most "disappointing" change is seeing "attracting and retaining top talent" drop to 10th place in the current survey, from eighth place in 2008.

Companies have had to focus on reducing marketing and other staff over the past several years, of course, but it is now critically important that they renew their attention to attracting, developing and retaining the talent needed to drive growth in the years ahead -- including tackling diversity issues, he stresses. Encouraging such renewed attention is also on the ANA's list of priorities for 2011.

2 comments about "ANA: Accountability Heads List Of Top Issues ".
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  1. Mark Hughes from C3 Metrics, January 11, 2011 at 6:11 p.m.

    Amen on #1. How to start a CMO / CFO Love affair here: http://c3metrics.com/media-attribution-how-to-start-a-cmo-cfo-love-affair-10570/

  2. Pam Alvord from Kilgannon, January 12, 2011 at 8:54 a.m.

    The call for accountability seems to result in quantity of data, rather than quality. Better integrated measurement tools are critical, as are clearly articulated strategies http://bit.ly/9qqCkQ

    www.kilgannon.com

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