Marketing

The new agenda for the global marketer

Posted on: May 10th, 2011 by admin No Comments

Improve performance and demonstrate business value

The playing field for the global marketer is changing rapidly. And a new efficiency mind-set is needed to handle:

Globalisation, digitisation and evolving customer sophistication
New technology, channels and media
Procurement and financial constraints

Drive efficiency and show business value

To address these and align with CEOs and CFOs, it is important for global CMOs to focus on how to demonstrate business value and ROI to secure a strategic role.

This requires a systematic link of marketing investments to business value outcomes. And an understanding of how the business creates value, as well as how to drive efficiencies within an organisation and with external partners.

Because of this, the CMO has to respond to short-term demands to drive revenue, still keeping the lens on strategic customer segments and growth opportunities while maintaining a focus on brand promise.

Generate business impact

Historically there has been too much focus on qualitative outcomes. To earn a seat at the table, CMOs are expected to talk less about the “soft things” and more about how marketing investments directly impact the pipeline and the P&L.

Marketing data can be much more than a tool for developing budgets and tracking campaigns. Relevant performance data provides the C-suite with the confidence to invest in marketing and thus in the strategic growth of the company.

The issue is not just about making the most efficient use of resources. It’s also about speeding up the process of finding what works in one place and make it work everywhere

Expectations from the CEO

Based on research findings, CEOs expects their CMOs to address the following:

77% find that CMOs keep talking about brand, brand values, brand equity etc. rather than revenue, sales, EBIT and so on
74% find that CMOs focus too much on the latest marketing trends without demonstrating how these trends can generate more business
73% find that when CMOs are asked to increase marketing ROI they understand this as a cost-cutting process with third parties instead of top-line growth generation
72% find that CMOs are always asking for more money, but can rarely explain how much incremental business this money will generate
70% find that they bombard their stakeholders with marketing data without relating it to the company’s P&L

Source: The FournaiseTrack June 2011

From these findings it is clear that there is a new agenda for the contemporary global CMO, and their focus should be around:

How to drive growth (revenue and profit) and create visible results
Creating a leaner organisation and reducing chain of command
Optimising processes and the marketing mix to improve ROI
Improving market impact and performance documentation

All in all, more focus on the P&L language and tracking of business effectiveness.

AdPeople solutions

AdPeople has for a decade worked with these issues and we have developed solutions to help solve these challenges – namely:

A centralised setup and process
Generation of global creative ideas
Localisation model for multiple markets
Workflow transparency for monitoring and auditing
Standardisation and automation of repetitive processes
Documentation and performance measurement of all activities

Selecting the right setup for the global marketer

Posted on: May 8th, 2011 by admin No Comments

One size fits all – but every organisation is unique

A major task of any global marketing organisation is to manage and optimise the marketing process and the consistency of the brand experience. By collaborating with the right marketing service partner and by implementing an efficient infrastructure, marketing organisations can improve performance both externally and internally. Making them an asset and not a cost centre for a company.

To make this happen, there should be an alignment of external marketing activities, and an integration and optimisation of different marketing efforts within an organisation. This will help optimise resource allocation and improve efficiency, both in terms of cost reduction and more consistent quality throughout all marketing efforts. To achieve these improvement goals, marketing organisations have to work with some degree of centralised setup.

But one size doesn’t fit all. That is why there needs to be a thorough understanding of organisation–specific needs and structures to create and develop the right setup and an efficient infrastructure.

Integrated tools

AdPeople delivers marketing service infrastructures based on a palette of fully integrated tools. These tools are developed in–house to meet the specific needs of the marketing industry – not a standardised BPR program that has to be adapted to industry needs. Our more than 10 years of experience in developing tools and solutions has given us an in-depth understanding of best practices and the needs of global marketers.

To be efficient, it is vital that tools work seamlessly around the world – with no manual work required and an ability to share work with agency partners based on distinct user rights and complete tracking capabilities. Tools should also be able to perform a number of tasks: reuse of assets, self–service production and detailed reporting on production, vehicle performance and more. Based on this insight, AdPeople has developed a truly global setup for the global marketer. This includes the flexibility to handle different degrees of centralisation vs. decentralisation, which allows us to support many different organisational needs.

Driven by technology

We also constantly monitor new technologies, leaner processes or other innovations to improve our marketing service solutions for our clients. This involves tracking, measuring and documenting the performance of what we develop and deliver. We have our own R&D team dedicated to this important task.

From our experience, we have learned that using technology-driven processes can help smooth the transition into a more efficient model and organisational setup – by projecting and enforcing new work processes to improve performance on crucial parameters.

When the right setup is developed and implemented, the reduction in chain of command is one of the major benefits. Delivering a powerful management tool – for control and monitoring – to handle today’s dynamic business environment. This benefit will leverage the strategic position of the marketing department within the company’s organisation.

Lean agency

AdPeople constantly tries to be as lean as possible. One example is that we are organised with central hubs, with all resources in-house – not a complex network of regional or local offices around the world.

Together with our tools, this enables us to assist our clients to activate and deliver their marketing communication more efficiently to all of their markets.

All on the same page

Posted on: May 8th, 2011 by admin No Comments

The client - Copenhagen Airport - Scandinavia’s main airport

Copenhagen airport (CPH) is the transfer hub for air traffic between Scandinavian national and regional airports, Baltic States and the rest of the world. There are about 22,000 employees providing the services that have made CPH one of the highest ranking airports in the world.

The challenge - maintaining a high profile

With increased competition from other major international airports, CPH realized that to maintain its high profile status among passengers and airlines, a new, consistent brand platform was required; a platform that was as emotional as it was rational in its motivational power.

The solution - flying begins on the ground

To achieve CPH’s future goals we needed more people to fly via CPH more often. By creating a passionate manifesto empowering every member of CPH, from security guards to flight controllers, we created an environment in which the common goal was to make flying CPH more attractive both to passengers and partners.

To launch the project we created a broadsheet manifesto based on a single idea that united all the various facets of the airport’s business areas under one common banner: Fly CPH.