What's Changing? - Marketing

 

Please see below selected marketing-related change.

 

December 2015

 

• In Global Marketing 2.0: A Richer, More Connected World, Percolate claimed to have brought together some of the sharpest minds in business, academia, and technology to explore what it means to be living in a world that is getting richer, more connected, and increasingly run on software. For marketers, this means listening closely to emerging markets and understanding the consumers within them, whether that’s achieved by investing in local expertise or a mobile-first mentality when building software.

 

• Unified marketing impact analytics (UMIA) promises to apportion credit to all marketing activities, claimed Forrester. Marketers, under pressure to be more accountable for the financial returns of their efforts, embrace this technique, but they often find it difficult to persuade management to make what can be a significant upfront investment. Forrester aims to help customer insights professionals build the business case for UMIA by benchmarking the return on investment (ROI) it provides and outlining the costs, benefits, and risks involved to ensure a successful implementation.

 

 

November 2015

 

• The job of top marketers has grown exponentially bigger and harder given today’s digital reality, warned The Boston Consulting Group. Traditional skills such as creativity and brand building, although still important, no longer suffice. Mandates have broadened. And marketing has become much more of a science, requiring technical, data-crunching abilities. With digital channels and tools constantly emerging, marketing organisations must become (to borrow a term from the world of software development) more agile, iterating much more quickly to adapt to rapidly changing conditions.

 

 

• Marketing measurement has evolved, claimed Forrester, with more and more marketers and customer insights professionals embracing advanced measurement methodologies, such as cross-channel attribution and marketing mix modelling, to determine the true impact of all interactions across all devices, channels, and campaign tactics.

 

 

 

• KPMG Australia appointed Ken Reid as National Managing Partner for Brand & Innovation, with an expanded remit to also included disruption. He succeeds Martin Sheppard, who is leaving to begin his new role as CEO of Spotless. Reid has been with KPMG for 17 years, working in its UK and Australian practices.

 

 

 

October 2015

 

 

• Measurement remains social marketers' no. 1 challenge, argued Forrester and, too often, the metrics that marketers use harm their understanding of performance rather than help it. Forrester explained the two "simple steps" for successfully measuring social marketing: first, identify which stage of the customer life cycle your social marketing programme serves, and second, measure whether your social marketing efforts have moved your customers to the next stage.

 

 

• Over 2,600 brands from 35 countries were nominated for the 2015-2016 World Branding Awards, and more than 65,000 consumers from around the world participated in the voting. A total of 118 brands from 30 countries were honored at World Branding Awards, organised by the World Branding Forum (WBF), a global non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing branding standards for the good of the branding community as well as consumers. Global brand winners this year included: Apple, Cartier, Coca-Cola, Facebook, Google, Guinness, HSBC, IKEA, Johnnie Walker, Kleenex, Lego, Louis Vuitton, McDonald's, Mercedes Benz, Nescafe, Nike, Rolex, Shell, Starbucks and VISA.

 

 

 

September 2015

 

 

• In 'The Reclamation of Strategy', strategy+business warned that using big data to improve a business means more than just collecting the information, or even analysing it - companies must develop a strategy for how to use the information to build their brands. Unfortunately, many firms are using big data tactically, rather than strategically. Marketers, in particular, are not realising the full potential of big data - they’re mainly using it to drive programmatic advertising. However there are opportunities; because personal attributes can be identified from data trails, marketing messages can now be much more effective. And as data analytics show us which trends are in decline and which are in ascendance, brands can put their best foot forward, anticipating consumers rather than reacting to them.

　 

 

• From “shared value” to “brand purpose” to “social responsibility,” the business world has no shortage of concepts, guidelines, and frameworks for how to prosper while doing good. Companies today are quick to promote their own uniquely benevolent vision. But for Philip Kotler, professor of marketing at the Kellogg School since 1962, making a difference in customers’ lives is not a new proposition. In fact, this is the primary goal of marketing, a field he helped to shape - and one that still has a critical role to play in changing our world for the better.

 

 

 

July 2015

 

 

• Respondents to an EIU survey of European marketers identified five key transformations that will redefine the future of marketing: 1. European marketers understand the need to overhaul their organisational structure to meet changing business needs; 2. Customer retention, loyalty and advocacy will be among the main responsibilities of marketers in the next three-five years; 3. European marketers will have greater influence as they are increasingly seen as revenue drivers and are shaping company strategy; 4. Managing the shift to digital marketing and engagement will be among their biggest challenges and 5. Marketers expect to gather unprecedented quantities of data to enhance the customer experience via mobile technology and the Internet of Things.

 

 

• Accenture increased its strength in Asia Pacific with the acquisition of PacificLink Group, an independent set of full service digital agencies in Hong Kong. The acquisition significantly expands the ability of Accenture Interactive, part of Accenture Digital, to bring its unique blend of digital design, marketing, content and commerce services to clients in the rapidly expanding Greater China market. PacificLink employs approximately 240 professionals in Hong Kong and includes a number of multi-award winning agencies that specialise in creating and delivering an integrated and connected set of differentiated marketing solutions for brands across a full spectrum of online and offline platforms. The move strengthens Accenture Interactive’s ability to help CMOs and CIOs bridge the gap between marketing and digital technologies.

 

 

 

June 2015

 

 

• Forbes analysis behind the headlines of a recent survey revealing that 61% of sales and marketing departments are still not aligned around a customer engagement strategy also yielded the finding that, while nearly 80% of respondents value customer data from other departments, the type of data they refer to is mostly statistical information including payment history, technical and website metrics and there is little in-depth collaboration around customer engagement and the joint customer strategy which could greatly improve the sales and marketing pipeline. However, another result showed that 100% f respondents agree it is important or very important to communicate with other departments about customer engagement as part of the lead-to-revenue process.

 

 

• Accenture announced the acquisition of Brightstep - a provider of digital content and commerce solutions. The move is part of Accenture's efforts to enhance its digital marketing capabilities. However, the company has not disclosed the terms of the deal. Based in Stockholm, Brightstep was formed in 2001 and provides brand e-commerce and digital marketing services, plus technology development, and design and usability services. It also provides services to improve the brand identity of its clients on digital platforms and enhance their online presence.

 

 

• EY announced the acquisition of Inwave, a Brazilian company founded by Fabricio Cardoso in 2013 and which provides marketing and technology consulting services and creates custom multichannel campaigns that allow interactions with customers via email, web, social, mobile, and advertising content channels at each point in the chain. The new practice will be allocated to Advisory.

 

 

• According to Harvard Business Review, we will soon see a comprehensive array of marketing functions transformed by programmatic techniques, enabled by enterprise software. What Salesforce.com did for sales management and NetSuite did for financial management, software-as-a-service providers will do for marketing, by automating much of what marketers do every day. Such solutions are already known as mar-tech - or marketing technology- and they are just starting to take hold. When this happens, CMOs and CFOs will join forces as never before. Together, they will enable a new marketing model that blends art and science—the power of human creativity married with the split-second precision, and profit potential, of marketing automation. This will signal a brave new world for marketers—at least, for those who face the fact that it’s do or die.

 

 

• Marketing executives expect their profession to undergo radical transformation in the coming years. According to The Economist Intelligence Unit's survey of 262 high-level markers from Western Europe, sponsored by Marketo, 87% agreed that their function must change to meet the needs of the business within 3-5 years. As part of this shift, European marketers are beginning to take greater ownership of the customer experience and are leading the way with aggressive adoption of digital engagement and innovative technologies.

 

 

• Alan Schulman was named National Director of Content Marketing & Creative Experience to oversee Deloitte’s recently established New York content design and production studio. He was previously regional Chief Creative Officer of SapientNitro New York. Prior to SapientNitro, Schulman served in a variety of capacities within the Interpublic Group including creative leadership roles at McCann-Erickson, FutureBrand Worldwide and Foote, Cone & Belding - details.

 

 

 

May 2015

 

 

• In Dimensional marketing, New rules for the digital age, Deloitte argued that the modern era for marketing is being formed around four new dimensions: customer engagement, connectivity, information, and next-generation technology. Deloitte believes that marketing has evolved significantly in the last half-decade. The evolution of digitally connected customers lies at the core, reflecting the dramatic change in the dynamic between relationships and transactions. 

 

 

• Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) must innovate or risk missing out on the next category-killing product or falling hopelessly behind their competitors. Forrester argued that CMOs who lack the people or processes to drive innovation internally often turn to agencies and innovation consultancies for capability and an outside perspective. But if the CMO's team isn't prepared to ask for and incorporate the right innovation, an agency partner's chances of successfully delivering what the company needs are slim.

 

 

 

April 2015

 

 

• Advertising and marketing are undergoing revolutionary changes that are shaking up existing industry models and career paths as digitisation and use of big data help to target consumers more accurately, according to a new Financial Times special report on The Connected Business.

 

• IDC predicted that chief marketing officers will boost the amount they spend on marketing technology to $32.4bn in 2018 from $20.2bn in 2014. Indeed, nearly half of marketers surveyed recently by Forrester plan to increase their digital budgets this year. 40% said they would spend more on data analytics.

 

• The Future Foundation's The Future of Marketing and Agencies 2025 report looked at consumer engagement trends over the coming decade.

 

• A recovering economy is fuelling increases in marketing budgets, argued Forrester, while shifting consumer behaviours - particularly the embrace of digital and mobile tools - feed these increases into the digital marketing budget. Further, B2C marketers believe that digital will drive future growth and have come to realise that the distinction between digital and traditional media is no longer relevant.

 

• John Harmeling joined Grant Thornton LLP as chief marketing officer, based in the firm’s Charlotte office. Harmeling will be responsible for all aspects of the marketing strategy, including brand management, integrated and content marketing, digital marketing and advertising, and sponsorships.

 

 

 

March 2015

　 

 

• APQC's new Sales and Marketing assessment claimed to provide insight into organisations' own and/or their clients' sales and marketing processes, and help identify performance gaps. Performance will be compared with other organisations in the APQC database on sales and marketing key performance indicators including wallet share, customer retention rate, percentage of marketing spending through various channels, and average return on investment for marketing spend through those differing channels.

 

• Trust Me, PR is Dead claimed to be a book about a whole lot more than Public Relations. The death of PR is used to symbolise the inevitable demise of many traditional, disrupted industries and disciplines - from media to publishing, law to diplomacy, internal comms. to leadership itself. PR is hardly alone in sleepwalking over the cliff. The book charts the rise of individual empowerment - the continued shift from state to citizen, employer to employee, corporation to citizen-consumer - that has made power and influence activist, atomised and asymmetrical. It claims to place radical honesty and radical transparency at the heart of business today and argues that the age of command-and-control hierarchies and carefully manicured, happy endings is over.

 

• According to The Next Marketing Era: Marketing's Digital Command Centre, today, marketing is more responsible for revenue growth than ever before. With 60 percent of all buying decisions happening before potential clients even contact vendors, marketing must be more effective in leading conversations. The challenge is that those conversations happen over multiple channels, including web, mobile, events and others.

 

• INSEAD argued that, without a strong brand-building philosophy, many developing companies may never truly emerge to global prominence.

 

• Altimeter, in the Customer Experience in the Internet of Things: Five Ways Brands Can Use Sensors to Build Better Customer Relationships, argued that, with every consumer expected to own up to 20 or more connected devices by the year 2020, the Internet of Things is a channel for engagement that brands can’t afford to ignore. However, many companies are still mystified by IoT, and how it fits in with their digital strategy.

 

 

 

February 2015

 

• In Marketing is Dead, and Loyalty Killed It,  Harvard Business Review argued provocatively that "you’ve worked your way up the corporate ladder to become Chief Marketing Officer. Pat yourself on the back – you deserve it! All done? Good. Now, please accept my condolences. Your job is obsolete, and unless you turn yourself into a Chief Loyalty Officer, you’re sure to eventually be replaced by one".

 

• In its Big Rethink 2015 event, the Economist is positing the argument that to win at marketing today requires the mentality of a lean start-up, flexible organisational structures and a keen understanding of cutting-edge technology.

 

• Capgemini argued that ultimately, whether marketing departments fully realise the benefit of digital or not will depend on how well they embrace the plethora of technology components involved. A collaborative working set up, built on inter-departmental trust, an agile technology implementation environment and technology aware users who understand the power and limitations of every digital investment being made is absolutely critical to solving the complex jigsaw puzzle. The world of marketing is changing, but CMOs will have to drive an inclusive change to ensure the benefits match the rhetoric.

 

• 2015 will be a year of significant change for marketers. According to Experian: 2015 will be the year many companies choose to consolidate marketing, data and their organisational assets; It will see the rise of roles such a Directors of Insight, Digital Directors and Chief Data Officers; brands will continue to refine their understanding of target audiences; decisions need to be made where to invest across the growing number of available channels; programmatic marketing will become the norm and attribution will continue to be key and data quality will be an essential element in getting your interactions with the consumer right.

 

• According to McKinsey, in The dawn of marketing’s new golden age, marketers are boosting their precision, broadening their scope, moving more quickly and telling better stories.

 

• Accountingtomorrow identified five accounting-related marketing trends for 2015: the face of advertising changes, writers are in the spotlight; design rules; relationship marketing takes precedence and there is a deepening of industry niche knowledge.

 

• CMO noted that, three years ago, Gartner made headlines projecting that the Chief Marketing Officer would outspend the CIO on technology by 2017. So far, the magazine concludes, there has been little reason to doubt that bold prediction will come to pass, as, more recently, CEOs have said that digital marketing will be their biggest technology-enabled business investment over the next five years, according to a 2014 Gartner survey, and marketing IT budgets continue to climb even as other marketing spending stays flat.

 

 

January 2015

 

• In How marketers will win, six marketing visionaries described to the EIU how in five years marketing will be transformed. The article claimed that marketing is on the ascent. It has frequently led at big consumer products companies. Now its influence is growing everywhere: at B2B companies, professional services firms, companies dominated by engineering or logistics. One  can see marketing's rise on business bestseller lists, on YouTube playlists, in the new brands that have broken away and differentiated themselves, and in the explosion of marketing start-ups (and what investors are paying for them). 

 

• In Saving the CMO, Content Loop said that if you want make a room full of B2B executives uncomfortable, you should start a conversation on whether the Chief Marketing Officer CMO role is dead or alive. The topic heats up every year as it has been simmering under the surface for years.

 

• While 70% of marketers monitor social media, few turn it into actionable customer intelligence, argued Forrester, explaining how to surface meaningful insights from social activity.

 

• 6 Ways Big Data Will Shape Online Marketing in 2015 argued that analytics are now being built into almost every application, however, making the technology accessible to businesses of all sizes. As businesses realise the power of information to create successful marketing campaigns and see real-time results, data is becoming an integral part of marketing.

 

December 2014

 

• Forrester believes that chief marketing officers (CMOs) find themselves in the middle of a dilemma. The CMO role has yet to fully emerge from its historical communications, promotion, and lead management functions, but the pressures on organisations to become customer-centric have never been greater, creating an unprecedented need to understand customers much better than before. Forrester believes that in 2015, CMOs will have to take on a more significant role on the executive team and collaborate with chief information officers (CIOs) more fully.

 

• CMOs and CIOs should collaborate on a business technology agenda, but only half do, according to Forrester. Most CMOs and CIOs meet with each other regularly and have built mutual trust. But only 51% of marketing and tech execs say they select and deploy technologies jointly, even though aligning agile processes and business strategy can boost business velocity.

 

• Further selected recent marketing-related intelligence: Content Marketing is a strategic solution to a strategic problem; How marketers will win: six marketing visionaries describe how in five years  marketing will be transformed; 17 content marketing predictions for 2015; 10 online marketing trends and predictions for 2015; The future of marketing depends on ideas, not tinkering with technology; Seven shifts that will change marketing in 2015 and beyond; and The key 2015 trends that marketers can act on right now and Foretelling the future of digital marketing.

 

November 2014

 

• Forrester claimed that the Chief Marketing Officer should go beyond marketing, by taking the lead on all customer initiatives. While technology powers this goal, only 27% of CMOs
  realise that technology awareness is central to their success. Forrester also claimed that there is a mobile data "gold rush", but 73% of marketers haven not yet mined it. To tap this
  resource, organisations should start with company-wide mobile data and privacy  plans. Yet only 35% of marketers say that their mobile budget is sufficient, even though mobile is disrupting industries like healthcare,  banking, and travel.  Think beyond apps; target all your customers’ mobile moments., Forrester cautioned.

 

• Meanwhile, Forbes discussed why marketers tend to struggle to understand digital analytics.

 

• Put the “and” back in “Sales and Marketing”, cautioned Harvard Business Review (HBR), while also identifying seven marketing technologies "every company must use". On a similar theme, the future of marketing belongs to geeks and freaks, claimed FastCompany.

 

October 2014

 

• Yahoo's Does the Future of Marketing Mean the Death of Marketing Departments? laid out some predictions: “marketing” as a business term may be quickly morphing into something entirely different, but people will expect more personalisation, meaning that marketing to humans, by humans, will remain paramount in the digital age.

 

• In The Future Of Marketing Combines Big Data With Human Intuition, Capgemini also argued that, in the coming era of data driven marketing, humans should remain at the centre. Big data makes it cheaper and easier to test concepts, but marketing is still about coming up with the big idea. "Algorithms are great at optimisation, but terrible at imagination."

 

• "Content Marketing is About Trust, Not Just Reach" was a new INSEAD article which argued, inter alia, that when it comes to purchasing for the first time, audiences are naturally apprehensive. They don’t know you. They don’t trust you. So you have to gain their trust.

 

• HBR argued that many marketers don't think of recruiting as a marketing challenge - they leave it up to HR - but acquiring and retaining talent is no different than acquiring and retaining customers, which makes marketers uniquely qualified to help bring in new employees.

 

September 2014

 

• According to EY, sales and marketing are the flamboyant double act on the corporate stage. One provokes interest, the other closes the deal; one creates the brand, the other executes it; one looks to the long term, the other to the monthly figures. But this double act often overlooks another crucial player - the customer. In theory, “the customer is king” but, in reality, sales and marketing often think they run the show. When it comes to what customers want, how they are treated and how much they might be told, sales and marketing professionals frequently act as if they are in charge of the script. This attitude must change, warned EY.

 

• A new infographic contrasted "marketing artists" and "marketing scientists". The accompanying commentary argued that, as technology provides marketers with more reach, more control, and more information, marketing departments are becoming increasingly technical and data driven. As a result, marketing operations are absorbing more responsibilities and control from their creative counterparts.

 

• A new Forrester brief outlined how marketers and customer insights professionals must align their marketing technology investment choices with their customers' priorities as well as their organisations' business technology agenda. Meanwhile, another Forrester brief outlined how analytics can makes marketing resource management more customer obsessed.

 

• In Bridging the Digital Divide, Deloitte examined how Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) can rise to meet five expanding expectations. CMOs are going through a rapid transformation, being asked to be more than proficient marketers, but also to act as the stewards of the customer within their organisations, building bridges across functions to enable customer engagement. It’s the CMO’s job to lead the dismantling of silos that separate web, call centres, mobile and in-store channels to create the consistent, personalised experience that today’s technology empowered customers demand. The report outlined five expectations that today’s CMOs should meet as they build customer centric organisations.

 

• A new article argued that marketing automation is a rapidly growing, multibillion-dollar industry, but also that it is still in the very early stages, with relatively low adoption rates among businesses in every industry. However, venture funding and M&A are fuelling innovation and advances in the space, opening up significant opportunities for marketers who integrate  automation tools.

 

August 2014

 

• Marketing was once largely the preserve of creative, right-brain types, but the function needs - and is getting - a much larger mixture of data and analytics, claimed the HBR. Sometimes, though, there’s a danger of relying too heavily on analytics. What’s needed is the right balance, what we call a “both-brain” approach. Pockets of this “both-brain” approach have existed in marketing for a while, but it’s now gathering speed and will become essential to future marketing success.

 

• "The role of the marketing director is not dead – quite the contrary," insisted a professor of management and marketing at London Business School.

 

• In The Fighting CMO, a new blog series, Wharton Magazine argued that, with the next generation of marketing already here, the time and place is now for honest dialogue about the discipline's direction. Topics that the blog will cover include: how to win a budget gunfight; new rules of lead generation; is social media worth the effort? and how to choose your next marketing gig.

 

• HBR's 5 things Digital CMOs Do Better are: 1. Shift from finding customers to getting found; 2. Shelve the commercial pitch in favour of authentic storytelling 3. Break through silos to erase seams between channels and experiences 4. Use data to target precisely and measure relentlessly and 5. Experiment aggressively, and challenge business model assumptions.

 

• Moving beyond marketing: Generating social business value across the enterprise is a MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte global survey which found clear evidence that companies across industries are creating value with social business. A key finding is that social business value is a function of what they call "social business maturity" -  the breadth and sophistication of initiatives.

 

July 2014

 

• Accountancy firms continue to fall short in their marketing activities, with large numbers failing to monitor activities, according to research from Wolters Kluwer. While the survey found increased uptake of online marketing, including social media, firms remain reliant on face-to-face interactions and client referrals for business. Despite this, one quarter (24.8%) keep no list of prospective clients. A majority the 137 respondents also failed to monitor the effectiveness of their marketing. Just under half (47.7%) recorded the conversion rate of leads to new business; this dropped to 37% when asked if they monitored return on marketing investment.

 

• Harvard Business Review (HBR) discussed how,. with the possible exception of IT, HBR can’t think of another discipline that has evolved so quickly as marketing. Tools and strategies that were cutting-edge just a few years ago are fast becoming obsolete, and new approaches are appearing every day. Yet in most companies the organisational structure of the marketing function hasn’t changed since the practice of brand management emerged, more than 40 years ago. HBR also argued that marketing organisations need an overhaul.

 

• In A Method for Better Marketing Decisions, HBR also argued that marketing must increasingly work across boundaries with other functions such as IT, sales, and finance to execute shared decisions, but as it is at these very seams that communication often breaks down and processes stall, the key to effective collaboration is to define clear roles/processes for shared decision making.

 

• Meanwhile, The FT published a new viewpoint from Deloitte on the growing symbiosis between marketing and technology.

 

• In The Future Of Marketing Combines Big Data With Human Intuition, Capgemini argued that in the coming era of data driven marketing, humans should remains at the centre. Big data makes it cheaper and easier to test concepts, but marketing is still about coming up with the big idea. Algorithms are great at optimisation, but terrible at imagination.
• According to strategy+business, advertising through mobile devices could be the way of the future, but so far marketers have been largely frustrated in their efforts to take advantage of the medium. Some types of products may be more suited to mobile ads than others, and their appeal rests on an unconventional approach that contrasts with traditional advertising methods.
• An HBR blog noted that marketers today are often working with data that is hard to parse. There’s been a lot of hype has been about “Mad Men” becoming “Math Men.” But this is the opposite of how we should be thinking about it. We need to help marketers use data to do their job better, not ask them to change jobs. In fact, the more precise the targeting algorithm, the more a campaign requires brilliant creative.
• A Bain partner believe CMOs can make better technology sourcing decisions by asking fundamental questions.
• Does the Future of Marketing Mean the Death of Marketing Departments?
• laid out some predictions for the future of marketing: “marketing” as a business term may be quickly morphing into something entirely differentl people will expect more personalisation and marketing to humans, by humans, will remain paramount in the digital age.
• "Content Marketing is About Trust, Not Just Reach" is a new INSEAD article, which argues, inter alia, that when it comes to purchasing for the first time, audiences are naturally apprehensive. They don’t know you. They don’t trust you. So you have to gain their trust.
• HBR argued that many marketers don't think of recruiting as a marketing challenge - they leave it up to HR - but acquiring and retaining talent is no different than acquiring and retaining customers, which makes marketers uniquely qualified to help bring in new employees.
• According to EY, sales and marketing are the flamboyant double act on the corporate stage. One provokes interest, the other closes the deal; one creates the brand, the other executes it; one looks to the long term, the other to the monthly figures. But this double act often overlooks another crucial player — the customer.
• A new infographic contrasted "marketing artists" and "marketing scientists". The accompanying commentary argues that, as technology provides marketers with more reach, more control, and more information, marketing departments are becoming increasingly technical and data-driven. As a result, marketing operations are absorbing more responsibilities and control from their creative counterparts.
• In Bridging the Digital Divide, Deloitte examined how Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) can rise to meet five expanding expectations. CMOs are going through a rapid transformation. Increasingly, CMOs are asked to be more than proficient marketers, but also to act as the stewards of the customer within their organisations, building bridges across functions to enable customer engagement.
• A new article argued that marketing automation is a rapidly growing, multibillion-dollar industry, but it is still in the very early stages, with relatively low adoption rates among businesses in every industry.

• Marketing was once largely the preserve of creative, right-brain types, but the function needs - and is getting - a much larger mixture of data and analytics, claimed the HBR. Sometimes, though, there’s a danger of relying too heavily on analytics. What’s needed is the right balance, what we call a “both-brain” approach. Pockets of this “both-brain” approach have existed in marketing for a while, but it’s now gathering speed and will become essential to future marketing success.

• "The role of the marketing director is not dead – quite the contrary," insisted a professor of management and marketing at London Business School.

• In The Fighting CMO, a new blog series, Wharton Magazine argued that, with the next generation of marketing already here, the time and place is now for honest dialogue about the discipline's direction. Topics that the blog will cover include: how to win a budget gunfight; new rules of lead generation; is social media worth the effort? and how to choose your next marketing gig.

• HBR's 5 things Digital CMOs Do Better are: 1. Shift from finding customers to getting found; 2. Shelve the commercial pitch in favour of authentic storytelling 3. Break through silos to erase seams between channels and experiences 4. Use data to target precisely and measure relentlessly and 5. Experiment aggressively, and challenge business model assumptions.

• Moving beyond marketing: Generating social business value across the enterprise is a MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte global survey which found clear evidence that companies across industries are creating value with social business. A key finding is that social business value is a function of what they call "social business maturity" - the breadth and sophistication of initiatives.

• A new viewpoint from Deloitte on the growing symbiosis between marketing and technology.

• In A Method for Better Marketing Decisions, HBR argued that marketing increasingly must work across boundaries with other functions such as IT, sales, and finance to execute shared decisions. But it is at these seams that communication most often breaks down and processes stall. They key to effective collaboration is to define clear roles and processes for shared decision making. 

• Accountancy firms continue to fall short in their marketing activities, with large numbers failing to monitor activities. Research from Wolters Kluwer found fewer than a third (29.9%) of firms have dedicated marketing or business development staff, but only 31.2% outsource some promotion responsibilities.

• The July-August edition of Harvard Business Review discussed how, in the past decade, what marketers do to engage customers has changed almost beyond recognition. With the possible exception of IT, HBR can’t think of another discipline that has evolved so quickly. Tools and strategies that were cutting-edge just a few years ago are fast becoming obsolete, and new approaches are appearing every day. Yet in most companies the organisational structure of the marketing function hasn’t changed since the practice of brand management emerged, more than 40 years ago. HBR also argued that marketing organisations need an overhaul.

• On how the increasing number of web-integrated devices may eventually see control of enterprise technology - particularly big data and analytical tools - shift away from the CIO and towards the chief marketing officer.