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Since 2012, we have studied trust in depth, conducting the BrandSpark Canadian Trust Survey™ to recognize brands that consumers trust most which are announced as the BrandSpark Most Trusted® Awards winners. This year, the annual study gathered data from over 32,000 consumers across 292 categories, asking which brands they trust, why they trust them, and […]

Women’s History Month is an opportunity to continue to amplify women’s voices, and to recognize their precious past and current contributions. Taking the time to acknowledge our predecessors and their accomplishments is a highly motivating factor when trying to shape the future.

Setting your brand up for success during a recession means going against what’s intuitive and requires you to trust the process. Increasing ad spend when the economy is facing uncertain times is counterintuitive, but the evidence shows that this is the smart thing to do. The success of your brand after a recession depends largely on what you do before and during.

Are you a marketer that wants to squeeze more from your agency? Do you feel like they should be doing more? Delivering better results? Turning things around faster?

All sound like good ideas, right?

What’s surprising in our experience is that while most marketers aspire to have their agencies deliver more, better and faster, their approach almost always ends up having the opposite effect. Particularly now.

Hit hard by the great resignation, agencies are already scrambling to retain employees and fill gaps left by those who’ve already left. And if you’re already feeling the effects as a client, stepping up the pressure and asking for more will likely only make a bad situation worse.

“Depending how hard agencies have already been squeezed, marketers could face rate hikes of up to twenty percent.”

I recently attended a ‘global digital summit’ for marketers that was an eye-opener. Aside from the usual tech glitches, the artificial environment of having “roundtables” with no tables and trying to meet other professionals without being able to break bread together – there was a theme that ran through the conference that excited and inspired me: Purpose.

All through the three days, the “P” word was used again and again, by agency leaders, senior marketers and consultants. As though they had all caught the bug, as it were, and were spreading it around. Why? Because many at the conference recognized that today, consumers and employees alike (especially those in Gen Y and Z) expect brands to be purposeful. It is now the requirement to remain relevant in this era of social change and heightened consciousness.

Marketing experts understand that influencing is as much art as it is science; what many do not know is that there is a process to persuade others successfully. Whether you are writing persuasive copy or influencing someone internally for more support on a marketing initiative, the four steps outlined in my forthcoming book Persuade will make you more successful.

The process is as follows: Build Credibility, Engage Emotion, Demonstrate Logic, and Facilitate Action. Let’s take a closer look at each step.