Planning, tracking, and optimising advertising and trade spend has become table stakes for marketers at many consumer-goods companies. Despite those advances, consumer promotions and engagement (CPE) remains something of a forgotten area of marketing spend.  CPE, which includes in-store consumer activation and out-of-store engagement efforts, has too often been overlooked and undermanaged.  However, optimising CPE can, in fact, help businesses...

Brands versus retailers – a battle that has rumbled on throughout the ages. They’ve competed for our attention, money and loyalty from the High Street boom of the 1860s through to the golden age of the 1960s. The contest is even more magnified now in the digital age with the internet playing host to online discount retailers as consumers look for the cheapest bargains, fuelled by the rise of price comparison sites.

Retailers embrace shopping...

Earlier this year, broadcast giant Sky declared it is yet to resume spending with YouTube after stopping advertising on the site 18 months ago. This delivers a clear message: while the dust may have settled on those infamous ad misplacements, brand safety remains paramount for the big spenders. Moreover, protecting brands is still...

There’s no denying that the digital world has changed the outside face of marketing. While many of the inner-face principles of marketing have (and always will) remain the same in terms of audience segmentation, targeting and positioning, the way brands now engage with their customers has changed faster in the past 10 years than throughout the rest of history put together.

Now, having a digital presence for large...

The rise of online communities, peer review sites and social media has forever changed the impact of the customer voice. Customer feedback has evolved from something owned and managed by customer service teams to a force that influences every department across an organisation: product, HR, finance, IT, and marketing.

Marketing agencies are experiencing this shift more acutely than most as often, in these types of companies,...

Forget the products and services you’re offering for a minute; your brand’s visual presence is arguably the most powerful way to resonate with your audience.

But don’t think a visual identity is about colour palettes and kerning. In a crowded and noisy digital marketing landscape, brands have to consider frequency, volume and variety across an ever-growing range of customer touchpoints, often spanning multiple markets.

Grant Munro is the senior VP of Shutterstock Custom, and an expert in changing the way...

Most loyalty programs fail to make the mark as they lack value proposition. According to a recent study, 71% of consumers claim loyalty incentive programs don’t make them loyal. That happens because brands fail to adapt to the rapidly changing digital landscape.

That’s why the next generation of consumers is more interested in relevance. It will be the...

Historically trends have been set and followed by public opinion and perception - the, ‘I want one of those’ movements - all driven by a the boom in mass communications from the early origins of the TV and radio, right through to our devices today. A nostalgic look back at old pictures or images is usually enough to make us a cringe just a little. As opinions change, so do trends. And vice versa. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle of movement that rarely operates at one speed and is almost...

Low download numbers are a problem for any app – it means that users either aren’t seeing the app, or they’re seeing it and not liking it. Fortunately, it’s not an insurmountable issue – there are many factors that could lead to low download numbers, and each of them can be addressed.

These are some of the biggest issues that can prevent users from downloading an app, as well as solutions to each...

Most marketers today are well-versed in digital tactics, but when it comes to connecting those tactics to broader brand strategy, many are a bit lost. Fortunately, ensuring digital activation is consistent with the brand strategy it's intended to serve is a simple – but important – task.

In a