20:20 hindsight

In the spring of 2009, Andrew Marsden predicted 10 things marketers would need to know in 2013. We asked him to mark his own homework for spring 2014.

How did he do?

1. Think global
My first observation was that marketing would need to move from thinking global and acting local, to acting global too. The shift of economic growth from west to east was already evident, as was the lack of growth in Europe. The BRIC nations, with resources in either oil or gas and vast populations of potential middle-class consumers, were growing aggressively. I suggested senior marketers would increasingly be concentrated in the global centres of the multinationals – with teams with limited ability to change things doing the local implementation. Where then, I asked, would our future local marketers learn their trade?

The consequent lack of strategic brand understanding and the often dreadful quality of local briefings from clients is evidence of this problem and is the subject of much debate in the agency world, while marketing directors are expending ever greater effort to persuade young talent to move around the globe to develop their skill and experience. Further consequences of this trend are the massive brand investments in the BRIC countries and away from Europe and, conversely, the purchasing of European agencies by Japanese and Korean businesses to access talent.

2. The streets are paved with gold
I said that as by 2015 the majority of the world’s population would live in cities, there were significant opportunities for metro marketing. Given this cultural diversity, effective marketing would need to balance both these collective and individual identities simultaneously.

This is still an emerging trend. Yes, there are Sharia-compliant finance products, ethnic cosmetics and innumerable food and drink formats emerging, but metro marketing in the urban landscape is still in its infancy.

3. From young to old
My third observation was that marketing had always concentrated on youth, but in the future the elderly will become a key audience. This would require marketers to understand the values of different generations and find ways to reach those who are young in years and those who can only claim to be young at heart.

We have definitely seen this trend develop across a huge range of sectors from travel to health, insurance products to care homes. With significant declines in youth employment across the developed world, chasing disposable income is very evident: high net worth individuals are the new focus for the financial world.

4. Personal and planet health
I suggested that marketing would need to absorb and act on the growing concern for both personal health and planet health. I forecast that the ageing population would place pressure on both pensions and health care. The increase in obesity, cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes would require an increase in governments’ involvement in food and beverage packaging and communications. This intervention is certainly now a key part of the lives of food and beverage marketers.

I also suggested that the health of the planet would be of equal concern. I took the view that weather instability, and the carbon-intensive nature of meat production would have significant consequences for many markets. Majoring on environmental credentials, provenance and local production is now such a part of the DNA of companies and brands that frankly it doesn’t seem such a radical prediction now.

5. The era of cheap food, energy and finance is over
I described how the battle for resources would transform how we design, transport and price products, and forecast that short-term pressure would come from the triumvirate of packaging reduction, increased recycling and reducing transport impacts.

This has certainly developed on a wide scale, with everything from local bottling of  bulk-shipped wine, the drive for local provenance of food, huge domestic energy price rises and the struggle for businesses to obtain the cheap finance that is theoretically available for investments.

6. Marketing is the way to manage emerging transparent company models
I believed at the time that this future scenario was a real opportunity and responsibility for the profession. With the needs of many stakeholders to be considered, I suggested the need to move to faster and more flexible structures and the concomitant need to operate as networks, not silos. These networks – based on cooperation and with core ideas that are truly valued – need to be at the heart of more transparent companies. I still believe this. The past few years have seen lots of beta structures tried to increase flexibility and speed of an integrated response, but no preferred model has yet emerged.

7. Understanding generational differences
I suggested marketers would need to understand the generational differences that drive the needs of both our staff and customers. Work is now less central to the identity of younger generations (X and Y) than it was for the boomer generation. There are no jobs for life and so they are more transactional about work and want to build their own skill base. They expect the company to engage them (not vice versa). Both customers and staff expect to be treated as equals and demand greater openness and honesty before they are prepared to trust companies and brands.

This has changed management styles. Marketing has become more cooperative and interactive, with higher levels of consultation and feedback, both internally and with consumers.

8. New media
I suggested in 2009 that marketers needed to get real about new media. I pointed out that the ‘new media’ was not new nor a media. The greatest use was search and, though a powerful medium, wouldn’t replace traditional advertising media in the foreseeable future. I observed that while the internet is powerful in the private ‘dream’ world where everything is free, it is less so in the ‘public’ paid-for world. Here it is primarily a medium of information rather than one of entertainment and advertising. This is still substantially true.

Social networks were growing in 2009, but 42% of internet users didn’t know what social networking was. A total of 84% of British people owned a mobile phone but use of the then new features remained limited. Only 31% had taken photos and only 5% had used the internet on their mobile. Today most high-volume websites remain transactional retail ecommerce sites based on ‘best’ price. Most brand sites are largely undifferentiated ‘brand immersion’ PR sites with brands spending lots of money trying to engage consumers using branded entertainment content. Most entertainment sites are still based on a straight advertising model, with few subscription models in evidence.

Even more money is being spent in social media yet the best academics are struggling to find a direct link between ‘likes’, ‘followers’ and direct shopper purchases. The challenge remains for brand marketers to measure the financial benefit.

9. Brand communications in 2013
I suggested that brand communications would increasingly be about the three Cs – creation, content and cooperation – but observed that people watch programmes, not channels. Given the then explosion of new channels, with no real increase in advertising budgets, I observed that channels would need content as well as ads and wondered if brands would go back to bartering content for airtime. This has happened, encouraged by the relaxation of the sponsorship rules.

UGC (user-generated content) was the buzzword in 2009, but I wondered if it would ever make money. While technology has released a passion for creating content, I asked which of this content would be of interest to anyone other than the creator. Were blogs and citizen journalism, YouTube and Flickr about creativity, or merely driven by a desire for celebrity? Five years after the floodgates opened, the marketing value of much of this ‘stuff’ is questionable. Nonetheless, the production of branded content, together with talent management, has become a necessary marketing skill.

10. New marketing needs new agency models
I suggested that many clients believed the conventional agency model to be broken. Today, most agency networks are still being built through acquisition rather than organic growth. The promised consistency and integration is being lost in internal P&L competition. Many agencies have effectively industrialised creativity and centralised media buying. Agency margins rely on building factories for generating ideas, and many are burdened with high corporate overheads. Despite some nascent models to try to own the IP they have traditionally given away, most agencies are trying to grow through widening the range of disciplines they offer rather than address this issue. This is still a work in progress.

How did my predictions pan out? You decide. As for what’s next, my views for 2019? I venture to suggest that there will have been a dynamic move into an era of marketing based on the core values of the brand. Marketing activity will concentrate on the points of influence along known shopper purchasing journeys, striving for big insights from big data – where we have to once again teach our troops to write brilliant briefs in order to release brilliant creativity. There, said it.

Andrew Marsden is an international brand consultant and former president of the Marketing Society [email protected]

This article was taken from the March 2014 issue of Market Leader. Browse the archive here.