The aim of the evening wasn’t to look at art whilst consuming champagne and canapés. That was just a nice side benefit. We wanted to take a temperature check amongst senior marketers on what are the key issues “keeping them awake at night.” The debate was very sparky and surfaced four to five key themes, which we will now use to power some more substantive quantitative research amongst the marketing community and publish over the coming months

As a chippy Northerner, I have to concede that I went to the event with some preconceptions about what we would be talking about, and these were loosely based around some enduring themes, like how marketing is subservient to sales, how recessionary pressures have accentuated this preoccupation with short-term, measurable demand generation. However, it was refreshing and genuinely uplifting to hear that quite the opposite is the case. In fact, the vast majority of our participants had a dual role covering both marketing and sales rather than a reporting line into a sales function.

The view was that of course we do demand generation, of course we do sales collateral, of course we do marketing communications. They are all part of the day-to-day operational mechanics of any marketing function; however, our principal remit is to drive business strategy—to ensure that businesses are producing the products and services that match their customers’ needs, not just today but next year, and in the next 10 years. One of the attendees, who is a good friend of mine, said, “Our business has been trading for 137 years, and it’s our responsibility to ensure it’s doing so for another 137 years.”

The rate of change, the rapidly changing influence of technology, the upward spiral of competition and continued recessionary pressure have not eroded the role of marketing but elevated it—and restored it to its rightful place in business. We are seeing now after three years of the new world order, equilibrium being established. Businesses are recognizing that they can’t continue to disinvest their brands (as one attendee said, “You have to, at some stage, sharpen your ax.”), and that with hypercompetition, it’s brands that make businesses relevant, differentiated and sustainable. They are what prevent that famed “race to the bottom.”

As brand custodians, our attendees agreed that their biggest challenge is making sure their businesses deliver their brand promises, which means their remits are driving into areas often owned by human resources.

As a lifelong marketer and someone who was brought up with the concept of marketing’s remit being at the heart of business strategy, it’s encouraging to see that marketing’s role is still at the top of the marketing continuum in forward thinking, successful businesses. And thankfully, it’s not about what one of our guests described as “coloring in and chardonnay.”

Danny Turnbull is Managing Director of gyro Manchester

Follow Danny on Twitter @turnbulldanny

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

Communication is no longer about just businesses talking to anyone; it’s about people talking to people. Forget who’s on the end of the conversation. This is about where it all starts. The future of communications is C2C, or consumer2consumer or people2people.

Individuals, whether buying for business or themselves, are talking to and listening to other consumers. They are setting the agenda, leading the conversation, sharing their views, recommending the best products and deciding whether brands are successful or not.

No longer are consumers just taking in information corporations and brands are spewing at them. Now they question and make brands earn their loyalty. Because of social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, consumers are now quick to ask brands: What can you do for me?

Case in point: Take the fatal example of Netflix. When Netflix raised prices last summer, customers became infuriated, took to their blogs and Twitter accounts, and raised hell. Netflix was humiliated and has yet to fully recover from the CRM crisis that has plagued it ever since. Instead of being accountable to its customers, Netflix let Facebook comments go unanswered, and the company’s president responded with an answer about profits rather than speak to its customers directly in a level manner. Millions of customers felt betrayed and gave Netflix quite a scare by cutting service, resulting in its stock prices taking a 60 percent nosedive.

So, our challenge is getting people talking about brands in a positive way, not getting brands to talk to people. With so many touch points, brands must move away from the traditional 1960s formula of one-sided information and start having conversations with consumers. Consumers want brands to be authentic and have a real human voice they can speak with when something goes wrong (or right).

Advertisers are in complete denial if they think they can continue with the same tired, one-sided formula. Brands need to have authentic conversations with consumers if they want to survive. Consumers are talking to each other, so why aren’t brands following?

Fiona Menzies is managing director at gyro Dubai.

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

In the summer of 2010, gyro, a global B2C and B2B ideas shop, assembled a group at Hyper Island, the world-famous digital training center in Karlskrone, Sweden, for what we call the gyro Academy, an intense professional development program for our up-and-comer colleagues. We exposed these students to our techniques and tools for ideation and collaboration. The group was asked to select a challenge against which they could practice these tools. They chose “work-life balance.”

Alas, I am not among our youngest colleagues. So, when I came to the session as a mentor, I was gruff and dismissive. “Quit whining! People have been complaining to me for 30 years about the long and daunting hours of the ad agency business. Do you want a job, or do you want a career? This is no business for clock-watchers. It’s a fact of life in the agency business. There’s nothing new about this work-life balance issue,” I said.

Then one of them said, “Oh, yes, there is,” and she reached in her jeans pocket and set her iPhone on the table. “This has changed. It’s attached to me. I cannot disconnect from it.”

It was for us a moment of epiphany; of sudden revelation and insight. It was not as if we had been oblivious to the spread of networked communications and handheld devices, or even how important it was to deliver new forms of communication to reach people with these media. But as people engaged in perfecting marketing communications, it struck us like a lightning bolt.

Work has changed—and people at work have changed profoundly.

Oh, we had understood for many years that it was technically easier than ever to identify targets, locate them, reach them, engage them and transact with them; even to spur them to exchange messages among themselves. We understood clearly how technology had changed, but we confess we neglected just how much it had changed them: the people to whom we were marketing.

Being at work is a state of mind; no longer a place or even a fixed period of the day.

The Internet, mobile telecom, social networking and a 24/7 global economy have eliminated the boundaries of time and space that once defined the workplace. Technology has caused work to expand to longer hours of the day and has attached work to people wherever they are.

Productivity-enhancing technology has not served to increase the amount of leisure time we enjoy—quite the contrary. It’s caused work to spill over its banks, flooding more hours of the day and more days of the week—curiously, as a matter of people’s own behavior and choices. Work goes home. Home goes to work. People are constantly toggling between working and “home-ing,”making decisions, personal and professional, at all hours of the day. They master time, rather than the other way around.

People in an @Work State of Mind today are exposed to a constant, multi-point flow of communications from not just customers, suppliers and co-workers, but also from family, friends, would-be friends and network members. They are not only engaged in considering brand messages while at work, but also championing them to their social networks. People in the @Work State of Mind represent a powerful theater for brand communications; perhaps the most powerful. They exert double purchasing power on both their own needs and those of their companies.

Their eyes are on screens: small, medium and large.

They are already in engagement mode.

They are considering solutions carefully.

They are making decisions.

And this @Work State of Mind is a shared state of mind. People today are connected to and communicating with others in the same state of mind. This makes them a switching station of enthusiasm and endorsement channeled toward decision makers and influencers, immediately.

Mining opportunity from the rich vein of the @Work State of Mind requires new methods and models. The model must be much more real-time, agile and even uncontrolled.

It is an approach that must be anchored in anthropology and behavioral science, relying more heavily than ever on understanding human-scale motives and at striking responsive chords of emotion—particularly if people are to be compelled to act and advocate spontaneously on a brand’s behalf.

Mastering the @Work State of Mind promises breakthrough success for marketers, exchanging the mediocre performance of conventional methods for the high performance of programs radically reset to the way people really live, work, dream and prosper.

Gyro is delighted to have at its disposal the amazing resources of Forbes Insights in the ongoing investigation of this profoundly important area of inquiry. This report is but the first of several products to emanate from “The @Work State of Mind Project,” a collaborative marketing R&D project led by gyro that includes participants from business, government, the arts, healthcare, NGOs, academia and entertainment. If you have an interest in sharing in this discovery, we hope you will join us.

Follow Rick on Twitter at @MrBtoB

To read more about the @Work State of Mind, here are two related articles: Who Has Control Over Your Time? and The Boardroom has Been Replaced by the Kitchen Table.

We know executives are busy. That’s not news. But, we didn’t know how and where decision-makers are receiving information. How is it influencing their decisions, and how do they feel about it?

If you are a brand looking to communicate with these people, these are the questions that you need answered. These are insights that are necessary to be humanly relevant in an age of constant information.

That’s why gyro partnered with Forbes Insights to interview 543 top executives. We wanted to understand decision-makers better.

Along the way a clear picture developed. It was a picture that we did not expect.

Contrary to the negative perceptions about being “always on,” this new reality is having a positive effect on people’s work and personal lives.

Ninety-eight percent of executives send work-related e-mails outside of the typical “9-to-5 work week.” Despite this, they said that they feel in control and able to enjoy their personal time.

Only 15 percent said that they struggle to separate work from valuable personal/family time; and 84 percent feel empowered and well prepared to make business decisions.

People no longer feel rushed to make business decisions, instead valuing the freedom and flexibility that this “@Work State of Mind” allows.

We also found that people’s private lives are playing a much bigger role in business decisions. The study shows that more than three-quarters (77 percent) cite personal values as very or critically important to their decision-making.

gyro’s pursuit, as a B2C and B2B global ideas shop, is to understand this @Work State of Mind better than anyone else in the world, so that we can best ignite emotions.

These findings show how today’s independently minded and highly connected executive looks, thinks and feels. See the full study at www.gyro.com/atwork.

We hope this deeper understanding of the @Work State of Mind will inspire you.

What a time to be alive!

Christoph Becker is ceo+cco of gyro, the global ideas shop.

A keen understanding from every b2b agency into how these devices are used across the business world will pay dividends in audience engagement and client ROI. We have been researching the effect that such mobilisation of technology has had on the business world in our recent @Work State of Mind report, and the findings highlight an appetite to use mobile tech to its fullest among key business decision makers. 84% of those polled felt better prepared to make decisions because of the freedom it gives them to work anywhere and at anytime.

Every creative agency should look to utilise this willingness to blur the line between personal and professional to develop campaigns solely built for mobile and social communication platforms. Not only will this strategy grow engagement in a world increasingly hostile to brand messaging, but it will help push the boundaries in the global b2b industry and establish each b2b agency as a leading force in the sector.

At the Financial Communications Society summit in New York City on April 11, a group of experts discussed the topic: “Baby Boomer…or Bust: How to Market to and Influence the 50+ Consumer.” Participants included the Lincoln Financial Group, BlackRock and J.P. Morgan. They asked the question: “Why is it that some marketers have such a hard time talking to the boomer generation?”

Boomers have protested, broken glass ceilings, and have worked their tails off for decades: yet, many marketers are saddled with incorrect stereotypes about what it means to be over the age of 50. According to the panelists, here are the five most common misconceptions that marketers have of baby boomers:

-They aren’t tech-savvy. False. This generation buys more Apple products than any other age group (because they can afford them). Boomers go online just as much as 18- to 39-year-olds, and are early adopters of new technology. They have Facebook accounts, go online shopping, blog, and own smart phones—especially women. (The next time you walk into a Brookstone, look around; you’ll see the majority of customers are over 50.)

-Older people aren’t cool. Can you say Anna Wintour, Madonna, and Bono? They define cool and make today’s younger “it” girls and boys look pathetic.

-They don’t spend. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Unlike their parents who survived the Depression and saved every penny, baby boomers are spending big. On average people buy 13 cars over a lifetime; about seven of those are purchased after the age of 50. The average age of an American Express card member is 57 years. After years of working and putting kids through school, paying loans, and building their nest eggs, baby boomers want to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Lincoln Financial Group, for example, has figured out that this generation works hard and plays hard. It doesn’t paint retirement as some end-of-life stage, rather it sells products that are relevant for today’s extremely active Boomer generation and gives them control of their future.

-They see their “golden years” as a time of relaxation. False: Eighty percent of people age 50 years and older, say that they plan to work well past their 60s if possible. They know they are going to live longer and have to budget accordingly.

-They are loyal to brands. Wrong again. Boomers are not as loyal as their parents were. After all, they have watched the cereal aisle go from five to 100 brands. Many are risk takers and adapt to change fluently. If the ’60s  taught us anything about this generation it’s that baby boomers like to experiment and question norms.

In many ways, we know this generation better than any. It’s time we start communicating better with them.

Melissa Pitts is a marketing intern at gyro. She blogs regularly at Newstaco.com, FlamingTortillas.com and Americas Quarterly.
Follow her at @mpittsm

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

Women are almost completely responsible for Pinterest’s success—according to Inside Network’s AppData. In fact, 97 percent of the site’s users are women.

Women trust recommendations from Pinterest more than any other platform, per BlogHer’s annual study on women and social media. Eighty-one trust Pinterest versus Facebook (67 percent) and Twitter (73 percent).

Why? Because women trust other women in their circles more than anyone else. As a result, 47 percent of women bought something based off a recommendation from Pinterest where as only 33 percent bought because of a recommendation on Facebook.

It’s no surprise that brands have been jumping on the Pinterest bandwagon in troves and have seen their followers grow over night. Many products are getting more exposure than they ever could on Facebook and Twitter, and it’s relatively easy to see why.

To sum it up, here are four reasons why Pinterest is superior to Facebook when targeting women:

1. It is simple, clean and fuss free. This makes browsing delightful and easy: two main components to marketing success. Because of Pinterest’s visually appealing layout, consumers just see a picture with very little text. Facebook on the other hand is very word heavy and can turn off potential consumers.

2. Marketers have an open window into consumers’ interests. They can easily see a gold mine of information on potential customers. For example, an interior design marketing team can see who is influential in the ‘home decor’ section. They can then start following and see what trends people are repining and liking.

3. It’s relaxing. Pinterest creates a curated experience for its users in a fairly anonymous way. No constant updating of feeds, no overload of people’s lives. On Pinterest it’s about enjoying your hobbies—not having to like someone’s status or wish anyone a Happy Birthday. It lets users share experiences in a negative-free zone, briefly comment and move on without the weight of Facebook etiquette.

4. Brands have found cool ways to use it. Martha Stewart Living and Kate Spade are pinning like crazy with overwhelming response by adding more than 19,000 and 34,000 followers respectively. Kotex even has bragging rights for hosting one of the first Pinterest campaigns. The brand found 50 “inspiring” women in Israel and looked at what they were pinning on Pinterest. Then, Kotex sent the women a virtual gift. If she pinned the gift, she then got a real one in the mail that was based on something she had pinned. The result: success—nearly 100% of the women pinned and commented on their gifts.

All told, Pinterest has brought women together online in a way never seen before and tapped into an extremely influential consumer market without even trying. In many ways, this makes Pinterest genuinely more appealing than Facebook and far more trendy among women consumers who get the picture.

Melissa Pitts is a marketing intern at gyro. She blogs regularly at Newstaco.com, FlamingTortillas.com and Americas Quarterly.
Follow her at @mpittsm

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

After the financial turmoil of the last few years, we learned that Americans yearned to feel in control of their lives again. Lack of trust in institutions and a sense of insecurity about their futures fed this desire. This insight was the seed of our “You’re In Charge” creative platform.

Americans are optimistic by nature, and despite all of the economic turmoil of recent years, 72 percent of Americans are still optimistic about their futures and 68 percent are optimistic about their financial futures, according to our MOOD (Measuring Optimism, Outlook and Direction) of America survey. Whitman Insight Strategies polled 803 adults late last year to uncover these findings, which also revealed that 66 percent of Americans feel in control of their lives.

While others in the category seemed to be drawn to using fear in their advertising, we felt the time was right, given these empowering and inspirational insights, to try a new, more optimistic approach.

On launch day, our new campaign promoted everyone to chief executive officer of his or her own life. Someone we call the “Chief Life Officer.” It recognizes the fact that our lives are in many ways like businesses. We’re in charge of making big decisions, managing finances and keeping employee morale positive. We are chief  401(k) officers, chief turkey-carving officers, chief tuition officers, and chief I really need a vacation officers. Whoever you are, the main message we wanted to get across is that you’re the boss of your life, and Lincoln Financial is here to help you “Take Charge.”

Our Chief Life Officer campaign, created with gyro New York,  is bringing a very different message to consumers because it inspires them by showing them that they are in charge and that they have the tools necessary to build secure financial futures.

Optimists are realists. They take charge of things they can control; they don’t worry about the things they can’t. The Chief Life Officer (You’re In Charge) campaign we created with gyro New York celebrates the richness of life and drives people to take action.

Jamie DePeau, corporate chief marketing officer at Lincoln Financial Group in Radnor, Penn.

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

1. It’s all about the packaging. In his unveiling of Katniss and Peeta to the world, Cinna took a negative and turned it into a positive. Given that they were from District 12 (the poor mining district), Katniss wondered if they were to be dressed as miners or stripped naked and covered in coal dust. Instead, he made Katniss “the girl who was on fire,” right down to the synthetic flame of the headdress. Yes, when you’re competing against 11 other products on the global stage, it helps to be the one that’s on fire.

2. Don’t be afraid to flaunt your talents. Within a company, marketing can get lost in the mix if it isn’t communicated properly to everyone (the CEO, the CFO, IT, everyone). That’s why it’s good to remember that if you’ve got the skills and your peers are ignoring you, make them notice. Or shoot right at their heads just like Katniss, who unleashed an arrow straight at the Gamemakers’ table, skewering an apple that sat before them in a pig’s mouth and pinned it to the wall. Your message needs to be communicated loud and clear, just like hers.

3. Don’t be afraid to make your own rules. Today it’s Pinterest. Yesterday it was Facebook. Who knows what the next hot marketing channel will be. Marketers have more opportunity than ever to share their brand with the world. This means taking risks, experimenting and making up new rules as they go. (SPOILER ALERT) Like Katniss and Peeta, who threatened the Gamemakers with their poison berries, marketers need to consider drastic measures as the media mix continues to evolve daily.

4. You’ll never survive without your sponsors. Let’s call this one the homage to Rush Limbaugh. It’s one thing to be edgy and a challenger brand, but you still need to be likable enough to have supporters (or, in his case, sponsors). Otherwise, you will end up like Rush or Belvedere vodka—left trying to explain and coping with lost revenue. Katniss and Peeta received several gifts from their sponsors just in the nick of time. None was more important than the medicine Katniss received to save Peeta and herself.

5. Make sure your message is humanly relevant. Katniss deliberated with Haymitch as to how she should handle her debut interview. How would she portray herself to the world? She opted to tell the truth about her family and her sister Prim, whom she loved dearly. Today more than ever, it’s important to be humanly relevant. It’s too easy to be numb with all of the messaging thrown our way. Consumers want to feel emotion. They also want someone or something to root for— make that your brand.

Kenneth Hein is director of North American marketing for gyro, the global ideas shop

Follow him @KennethHein

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

Advertising was based on a simple funnel concept called the Hierarchy of Effects. The funnel said, push messaging out using these three networks and some print and radio, and people will become aware, form an opinion, make a commitment to buy, and then stay loyal to the brand–the traditional push/pull advertising model. Then the model broke—actually, it shattered into thousands of fragments.

After Al Gore re-invented the Internet (wink), everything changed and the funnel was turned on its head.  Now, people started to form opinions based on well, other people. Networks and communities arose, and some voices were stronger than others. And the others followed.

Social media went from an interesting idea to one of the most powerful tools in the toolbox. Why? Because advocacy started to help form people’s opinions before branding. This is the polar opposite of the shotgun approach of many forms of traditional media.

So where does this leave us? What is media? The answer: It is a series of connections. Today’s media mix is about finding the best ways to connect with the consumer or decision maker.

It is about finding the best ways to connect with the target, with our planning, account and creative peers, and with the ever-increasing world of vendors who bring new ideas to the table every day. Together, we have the opportunity to become an incubator of media firsts via all of the emerging outlets as well as the tried-and-true.

In fact, sometimes the best route is still the traditional route. That aspect of the mix isn’t broken. There is nothing to fix. We just need to connect the old with the new. Awareness building and advocacy are far stronger together than separately.

There is more creativity and excitement around developing media plans than ever before. And the way we connect with our audiences will only continue to become deeper, richer and more engaging. For folks involved in media planning, or better yet, connections planning (such as myself) there has never been a better time to be alive.

Richard Lefkowitz is Connections Planning Director of gyro North America

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network