Essential Reading for Marketing & Business ProfessionalsTuesday June 17th 2008Insights in this issue:
* Marketers Remain Upbeat Despite Economic Slowdown
* MDM - Is it yet another meaningless acronym?
* Do European Consumers bow to on-line influence?

The latest CIM survey says we marketers
are an upbeat lot - we expect our companies
to do better than the norm and our budgets to
edge up in 2008 as we take advantage of the
travails of others! Do you agree? It is
certainly true that the best companies
continue to invest in marketing during a
downturn, knowing that they'll get more "bang
for their buck" because of the diminution of
competitve pressures.

Also this week we take a look at another
acronym - MDM (don't ask!) and another piece
of what we consider to be "spresearch"
(Spurious PR research) - that
is PR, thinly disguised as research. Take a
look, see what you think!

James Pearson - Editor

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Marketers Remain Upbeat Despite Economic Slowdown

The Chartered Institute of Marketing's latest
Marketing Trends Survey (Spring 2008) reveals
that marketers remain surprisingly upbeat
about their own organisations' prospects -
even if they are increasingly gloomy about
the UK's economic outlook.

The survey, completed for The Institute by
Ipsos MORI, reveals that more than a third of
marketers believe the UK will be in recession
in 2008, and the number of marketers who
expect general economic conditions to worsen
over the next 12 months has risen
substantially since the previous survey in
September 2007(from 40 per cent to 57 per
cent).

However, marketers remain stubbornly
optimistic about their own organisation's
performance, with a surprisingly high 39 per
cent of marketers confident that business for
their organisation will improve over the next
12 months, with 41 per cent saying that it
will stay the same, and only 17 per cent
believing conditions will worsen for their
business.

Commenting on the findings, David Thorp,
Director of Research and Information at The
Chartered Institute of Marketing said,
"Marketers remain confident about their own
prospects, despite the end of the 'nice'
decade. This may be because today's
professional marketers know that they can
help their organisations' exploit the
opportunities an economic downturn brings. By
focusing on changing customer needs more
precisely, in these challenging times, they
can help their organisations to not only
survive but thrive."

As if to confirm marketers' optimism, The
Institute's survey shows that spending on
marketing continues to rise, accounting for
an average of 7.7 per cent of an
organisation's turnover (up from 6.6 per cent
in September 2007). Amongst small businesses
the figure is even higher at 8.6 per cent for
those with turnover under £1 million, and 8.8
per cent for those with turnover between £1
million and £10 million.

Such confidence in their own prospects is
also reflected in marketers' expectations
about staffing levels over the current sales
year. 30 per cent of marketers expect to be
adding staff, with only 10 per cent expecting
a decrease in the size of their
organisation's marketing function.

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MDM - Is it yet another meaningless acronym?

MDM - Is it yet another meaningless acronym?
First there was CRM (Customer Relationship
Management), then came SCV (Single Customer
View) and now we have MDM (Master Data
Management) or MRM (Master Record
Management). Now anyone who has looked at the
tools that exist in the marketplace (and
there are many) will notice that they all
have certain things in common. Firstly, they
tend to be fairly pricey. Secondly, they are
highly complex and therefore come with an
army of consultants (also pricey) and thirdly
they require you to be able to sort the wheat
from the chaff in your databases in the first
place.

Should you be concerned about MDM? Well yes.
Firstly because many people are touting it as
a "silver bullet" (it isn't) and secondly you
are dangerously likely to find chunks of your
precious marketing budget diverted to fund an
unnecessary and ultimately futile piece of
technology. MDM has its place, marketing
databases isn't it. To find out why and to
judge the argument for yourself, click on the
link below to read the article in full.

Click here to read the full article

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Do European Consumers bow to on-line influence?

A new study to track and measure the impact
of the internet on consumer behaviour in
three key European countries - the UK,
Germany and France - claims the web has
roughly double the influence of television -
the second strongest medium - and around
eight times that of traditional print media.
Unfortunately, all is not what it seems on
the surface.
When you look in more detail at the results
you find, surprise, surprise, that consumers
are more likely to seek opinions through
social media and product-rating sites when it
came to making decisions with personal impact
- healthcare options or major electronics
purchases, for example. And when they're
looking to make transactional decisions -
such as booking a flight - they'll also use
the web. Now call me Mr. Stupid, but neither
TV nor Press could EVER be any good at
accepting orders or telling me what my mates
think! All they have discovered is that
people LIKE comparative product listings and
trust the views of their friends. Hardly a
surprise, is it?
The study, undertaken by PR firm
Fleischman-Hillard, looks to us for all the
world like a spurious piece of research
designed to peddle the agenda of a particular
client. Unfortunately, it is being picked up
by a wide range of marketing media and given
far more credibility than it deserves in our
view.

When you look in more detail at the results
you find, surprise, surprise, that consumers
are more likely to seek opinions through
social media and product-rating sites when it
came to making decisions with personal impact
- healthcare options or major electronics
purchases, for example. And when they're
looking to make transactional decisions -
such as booking a flight - they'll also use
the web. Now call me Mr. Stupid, but neither
TV nor Press could EVER be any good at
accepting orders or telling me what my mates
think! All they have discovered is that
people LIKE comparative product listings and
trust the views of their friends. Hardly a
surprise, is it?
The study, undertaken by PR firm
Fleischman-Hillard, looks to us for all the
world like a spurious piece of research
designed to peddle the agenda of a particular
client. Unfortunately, it is being picked up
by a wide range of marketing media and given
far more credibility than it deserves in our
view.

The study, undertaken by PR firm
Fleischman-Hillard, looks to us for all the
world like a spurious piece of research
designed to peddle the agenda of a particular
client. Unfortunately, it is being picked up
by a wide range of marketing media and given
far more credibility than it deserves in our
view.