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By Nick Thakkar, Director, Strategic Sourcing, MDC Partners Inc. I’ve had the great fortune to work with marketers and procurement practitioners in various capacities. My career started in consulting which gave me an “external” view of some great organizations specific to marketing and procurement and how those functions co-exist. Then I was in the industry, […]

By Jessica Yared, ACA Last week the ACA hosted a 3-hour executive forum on digital media transparency, verification and auditing, with an equal mix of marketers, agency and media folks in attendance. That players from all sides attended, illustrates just how important the topic is these days.

Do your customers own your brand?

Not really, but they are increasingly more empowered to influence its destiny.

Do your shareholders own your brand?

Not really, but they can surely influence its value and market capitalization.

Do your agency partners own your brand?

No. They never did, but they certainly influence its success.

As a marketer, you may not personally own your brand but you and you alone must assume sole responsibility for its stewardship and success.

More than ever, clients must take 100 percent ownership of their brands. Sure, once upon a time, they could partner with a major agency that would help steward the brand. I started my career as a client. Our agency was Ogilvy and Mather. They helped us with everything from consumer research, package design, sales promotion, media buying and planning and of course advertising.

We’re all familiar with the philosophical question, “if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Striking parallels to this old adage can be drawn in our industry today, where many are asking a similar question relating to the effectiveness of ads in the digital environment. In light of concerns around ad viewability, brand safety and in-target delivery, many are now asking: “If an ad falls in the wrong place and no one has an opportunity to see it, does it make an impression?”

In other words, what is the value of an ad that doesn’t deliver an opportunity to be seen, or worse, is delivered next to brand unsafe content? How should we value an impression that reaches a consumer outside of the intended target?

By ACA Staff The ACA recently published a report from a survey we conducted on purpose marketing, which explored the importance and success of this form of marketing according to Canadian marketers. Part of the Marketer’s Pulse report series, the survey polled 52 senior Canadian marketers representing a cross section of industry sectors and MarCom […]

I was recruited as a marketing assistant. I was the assistant to the assistant product manager. We helped the product manager research, write and defend marketing plans designed to sell more of our portfolio of products. We worked on frozen foods, Swanson and Pepperidge Farm Dessert brands.

Our focus was on selling product. We were measured on sales and market share gains. Perhaps we inherently knew we were building brands but that was not our focus. Our focus was on selling stuff. Brand value wasn’t discussed.

How the world has changed in the nearly 4 decades since. Lining my bookshelf today, next to the Campbell Soup mug, are some twenty-five books on brands. Over the course of my career product managers were replaced with brand managers.