Webstudiosystem (2026)

24/11/2021

3 Takeaways for Marketing Leaders From a Study of Creative Teams
Emerging creative trends to watch for in 2022 from a design thinking survey of 400 creatives and marketers
As we emerge from the pandemic into the Next Normal, marketers and business leaders are rethinking everything.

That’s a sweeping claim, but I think it’s true.

Many of us are redesigning our offices and work culture. Marketers are redesigning performance marketing models in the face of fast-approaching privacy changes to third-party cookie handling. We are redesigning business models to focus more on tactics like product-led growth—and less on a traditional marketing mix—to drive better outcomes.

When faced with such sweeping changes, Design Thinking—a process that starts with user insights, challenges assumptions and redefines problems—is a powerful tool that every marketing leader should be using.

And if you want to understand Design Thinking, there is no better place to start than by understanding your design and creative teams. How have creative teams evolved during the pandemic, what are they focused on now, and what can we learn from their approaches?

Research shows that creatives are faced with fewer resources and greater demand. They helped their businesses pivot to remote work last year by improving productivity and learning new technical skills. Further, and in contrast to the trend of bringing design talent and work in-house for the past several years, in-house creative teams are more inclined to partner with outside creative agencies and freelancers.

That’s according to key findings in a new report based on a survey of 400 creatives and marketers. The fourth annual Creative Management Report by inMotionNow and InSource, a professional association for creatives, identified industry changes stemming from the pandemic, along with creative trends to watch over the next year.

These findings demonstrate just how much creative teams have evolved. More importantly, it underscores why marketing and business leaders have become increasingly reliant on creatives for that vital Design Thinking—not just for design and deliverables.

Below are three takeaways for marketing leaders.

1. Providing Strategic Value Is Now Table Stakes for Creative Teams — Balanced with Speed, Resource and Volume Constraints
The study identified the top three challenges facing creatives as follows:

The speed at which they are expected to work (73%)
Too few resources to accomplish the work (61%)
High demand for more creative content (59%)
While those are all familiar challenges to most creatives, what they did not identify as a top challenge is of equal interest: Respondents didn’t identify “being seen as a strategic contributor” as among the top three—for the first time in the four-year history of the survey.

“We have a seat at the strategic table, but that’s because we’ve earned it and we continue to earn it every day and raise the bar on what we can contribute,” said Hank Lucas, head of creative services at global life sciences organization MilliporeSigma.

Lucas was one of five outside experts who contributed written analysis about the survey’s findings to the report.

“We’re not just here to make some pretty stuff,” he said. “Tell us what you’re trying to achieve and let us help you move the needle.”

2. Creative Problem-Solving and Adaptability Were Crucial to Remote Work
In subsequent questions, respondents were more precise about the specific resource constraints presented as the pandemic unfolded. While 58% said their workloads had increased, about one-third said their teams experienced layoffs and furloughs. In addition, another 31% faced budget cuts which eliminated some of the technology tools that facilitate the creative process.

Despite the adversity, creatives rose to the occasion and brought their problem-solving talents and adaptability to bear. Most creatives (57%) claimed they “became more productive” despite cuts to budget and staff. Another two-thirds of respondents learned new skills such as video, livestreaming and podcasting, all of which proved pivotal to business continuity during remote work.

The resource constraints may have also prompted creative and marketing leaders to rethink the in-housing trend—that is, bringing design talent and work in-house rather than using external agencies—that’s unfolded in recent years.

While in-house creative teams still manage much of the work, the majority (86%) reported that they currently partner with agencies and freelancers. Further, in 2021 about one-third of teams are planning to increase the work they send to outside resources. This creates new opportunities and demands for tools and processes for collaboration.

When prompted why they hire outside agencies, respondents stated that their top reason was in order to access specialized skills (64%). Subsequent responses were a need for increased capacity (44%), assistance with strategy development (24%) and quicker completion of work (20%).

“The beauty of working with freelancers is that you don’t have to go through this whole hiring and onboarding process,” says April Koenig, founder and CEO of Creatives on Call. “You can find people who have the targeted skill sets that you need and get them in and get the work done quickly.”

She notes that approach may also help with fatigue and burnout, which have become critical leadership issues over the past 12 months. “This really helps alleviate some of the physical and emotional pressure that teams face when the organization is so reliant on them,” she says.

3. Creatives Speak Data as Fluently as Marketers Do, with Powerful Reporting and Metrics
Don’t be surprised if your creative leader starts your next meeting with data. Creatives have steadily turned to analytics and reporting to better understand—and justify to business leaders—their needs to greater resource allocation. Respondents indicated that the focus on metrics had clear objectives, including:

Manage team capacity and resources (57%)
Plan for future needs (51%)
Foster continuous improvement (51%)
Promote the value creative delivers (44%)
Similarly, some of the top metrics creatives are tracking include:

Total projects completed (68%)
Total projects requested by a person or department (42%)
Rounds of review to final approval (39%)
Average time to complete by project type (28%)
“Creative teams should focus on intelligent use of data to find real insights. Getting to those insights is not separate from the creative process, it is intrinsic to it,” Alex Blum, founder of Blum Consulting Partners, Inc., reported in his commentary. “Use the raw data and metrics to generate insights to develop a virtuous cycle that leads to more creative solutions. Building on that cycle over time is how you get to interesting and creative work.”

Indeed, we believe the next step is to expand creative metrics from measuring outputs to measuring outcomes. In other words, adding the efficacy of creative content in market in addition to measuring the efficiency of the creative process.

The New Creative Organization
Individually, each of these three takeaways are interesting for creative and marketing leaders. Collectively, they point to a transformation that’s underway in many creative organizations in terms of what they produce and how they produce it. They underscore how marketing leaders can learn from their creative teams in applying design thinking to the challenges we face.

As Matthew Rayback, creative director at Adobe, wrote in the report, “The creativity that was needed in the past is not the creativity that is needed today.”

Using a car factory as a metaphor, he describes how “creatives used to be the assembly line to make a single car. But now we’re asking creatives to produce huge volumes of cars, and we need them all personalized, and we need to keep iterating on the car, constantly making tweaks and adjustments. The assembly line we built can’t accommodate that speed or volume.”

As a results, he notes, creative organizations are evolving. “We need to ideate and get stuff out there fast, test it, and do it again,” he wrote. “We’re not designing cars, we’re designing a factory that can make multiple different kinds of cars, at any given time.”

24/11/2021

Marketer Confidence Rebounds to Pre-Pandemic Levels

The latest edition of the Marketers’ Confidence Index shows renewed optimism in consumer spending, marketing budget outlook and investment climate
Marketer optimism has reached its highest level in the past five years. The Marketers’ Confidence Index has risen significantly since early 2021 and indicates that most marketers have shed all caution for the near future, with media, innovation and creative expected to see the biggest budget increases.

marketer confidence index
For the past five years, the American Marketing Association and Kantar have measured marketing leaders’ confidence in spending, their organizations’ budget efforts and the strength of the U.S. economy. In mid-2020, the MCI reached its lowest point yet: 82. Since then, marketers have exhibited cautious optimism, until this edition’s improved score of 129, the index’s highest mark since July 2018. The July 2021 index surveyed 245 marketing professionals encompassing all levels of their organizations, across multiple industries.

Marketers’ confidence has clearly rebounded despite the U.S. still being steeped in the pandemic, but how does this break down into the different areas that compose the index? The survey is constructed of questions on:

Perceptions of past and future six-month consumer spending
Perceptions of the current investment climate
Past and expected future six-month changes in marketing budgets
Consumer Spending
past customer spending
future customer spending
Perceptions of the past six months, as expected, have not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels—marketers have still perceived decreases in spending, despite a high increase mark (49%). Regardless, the outlook for the next six months is as optimistic as it has been in the past five years.

Investment Climate
investment climate
Marketers are generally very optimistic about whether additional large-scale investments are the right choice for their organization, and their sentiment has only further improved, putting it generally in line with pre-pandemic levels.

Marketing Budgets
past marketing budget
future marketing budget
During the height of the pandemic, marketing budgets were cut by a majority of organizations while major events or initiatives were postponed or canceled. In January, there was already evidence of marketers’ current and anticipated budgets rebounding, and that development has continued. The degree of optimism for future budget increases is at the highest level we’ve seen in the past five years.

If budgets are indeed increased, the additional money will most likely end up on the media placement, innovation or new product development, and creative side. However, it doesn’t appear that any catch-up for postponed or canceled sponsorships or collaborations will materialize.

Results from the question, “If your organization’s marketing budget were suddenly increased by 10%, where would you allocate the additional budget?” (Percentages shown are the relative amount each of these would receive.)
Summary
Data from the Marketers’ Confidence Index survey shows that marketers are very optimistic for the near future and more so than ever expect to see higher marketing budgets in the near future, with additional budget most likely spent on media, innovation and creative.

24/11/2021

What Are Promotional Products? Plus, How to Use Them
Take a look around, and you are likely to see a promotional product—or several—within close proximity. These marketing products are extremely common in modern society, providing brands with an opportunity to gain valuable impressions at a relatively reasonable cost. These promotional items are often extremely effective, at least partly because there is no cost to the consumer or similar recipient.

The commercial history of promotional products in the United States dates back to the late 1800s. That is when the first company to manufacture these products opened the door to leveraging promotional products as a marketing and advertising tool.

Fast forward to present, and the promotional products industry has grown exponentially. At this point, this industry rakes in more than $23 billion in annual sales, according to Promotional Products Association International (PPAI). Modern businesses and other organizations have discovered how to use promotional items effectively to realize significant gains in marketing, sales and retention.

What Are Promotional Products?
Promotional products are essentially customized items that companies can brand and offer to customers and other parties. From apparel to office products and kitchenware, promotional items have become a staple in modern business. These products can help provide latent impressions over time, familiarizing potential customers with a company’s brand and offerings.

Examples of them exist just about everywhere in today’s society. At live events for sports or entertainment, t-shirt cannons propel marketing products to the audience. New employees will sometimes receive a “swag bag” with company-branded items like a notebook, water bottle or hat. Trade-show sponsors may provide attendees with a drawstring bag or a USB charger. Prospective students on a campus visit may receive a t-shirt or writing instrument with the institution’s brand.

Taken as a whole, there are countless examples of how organizations can leverage promotional and marketing products. Furthermore, businesses have a high degree of control over how to employ promotional items as a strategy for corporate growth.

How Do Organizations Obtain Promotional Products?
Encompassing thousands of suppliers and distributors, the promotional products industry serves companies of all shapes and sizes. Within the promotional products industry, there are essentially two different players:

Suppliers — These companies manufacture and customize promotional products, based on customer needs and wants received from distributors.
Distributors — These companies advertise and distribute promotional products, transmitting customer needs and wants to the distributors.
Companies seeking to purchase promotional products typically engage with a distributor at the onset. After deciding on the type of product and degree of customization, companies place an order with the distributor. Once the supplier creates the products in question, the distributor then sends the finished product to the customer. And then the customer can offer promotional products to increase brand awareness and drive sales revenue.

What Are the Most Popular Promotional Products?
They come in many different forms. Depending on the organization’s needs, industry and customer base, certain promotional items may be more useful than others. But in terms of overall popularity and effectiveness, there are certain promotional products that rise above the rest.

Promotional products are typically measured through impressions over the lifetime of the item. In other words, impressions attempt to measure the number of times someone will view or be exposed to the promotional product and its branding. The lifetime of a promotional product is often tied to its usefulness and longevity—ending when the item deteriorates or is discarded.

According to PPAI, the following promotional products are the most popular and effective, based on estimated lifetime impressions:

Outerwear — Jackets, rain slickers, and windbreakers can achieve an estimated 6,100 lifetime impressions.
T-Shirts — Items like t-shirts can achieve an estimated 3,400 lifetime impressions.
Headwear — Marketing products like hats, visors, and similar headgear achieve an estimated 3,400 lifetime impressions.
Bags — Backpacks, tote bags, and drawstring bags can achieve an estimated 3,300 lifetime impressions.
Writing Instruments — Marketing products like pens, notebooks and pencils can achieve an estimated 3,000 lifetime impressions.
Polo Shirts — Promotional items like polo shirts can achieve an estimated 2,300 lifetime impressions.
Desk Accessories — Trays, bookends and organizers can achieve an estimated 1,450 lifetime impressions.
Drinkware — Marketing products like coffee mugs, water bottles and glassware can achieve an estimated 1,400 lifetime impressions.
Umbrellas — Promotional items like umbrellas can achieve an estimated 1,100 lifetime impressions.
Power Banks — Power banks for charging electronic devices can achieve an estimated 900 lifetime impressions.
Calendars — Promotional products like calendars can achieve an estimated 850 lifetime impressions.
USB Drives — Marketing products like USB flash drives can achieve an estimated 700 lifetime impressions.
On a related note, personal protective equipment (PPE) is an emerging and extremely popular category of promotional products. Since the COVID-19 pandemic spread throughout the world, branded PPE has become commonplace, including masks, hand sanitizer, bandanas, and face shields.

What Is the Expected Lifetime of Promotional Products?
As noted in the previous section, the effectiveness of promotional products can be traced to the number of lifetime impressions. Accordingly, it is important to evaluate how long promotional and marketing items will last. If a person keeps and continues to use a promotional product for a long time, it can maximize the number of lifetime impressions and potential organizational gains.

According to a PPAI consumer study, promotional or marketing products generally have the following lifetime expectancies:

Less than one year — Approximately 18 percent of consumers keep them for less than one year.
Between one and five years — Approximately 41 percent of consumers keep them for one to five years.
Between six and 10 years — Approximately 22 percent of consumers keep them for six to 10 years.
More than 10 years — Approximately 18 percent of consumers keep them for more than 10 years.
Parsing out the data above, approximately 81 percent of consumers keep promotional products for more than 12 months. This means that promotional items can achieve a long-lasting approach to branding, marketing and advertising, maximizing the number of impressions over the lifetime of the product in question.

How Do Organizations Use Them?
Given the vast array of available options, not to mention to levels of potential customization, there are limitless applications for promotional products. Commercial businesses, nonprofit organizations, academic institutions and government agencies can all leverage the power of promotional and marketing products, externally and internally.

From an external perspective, organizations can employ promotional products to recognize a variety of potential gains. Current and prospective customers may receive marketing products to drive sales and referrals. Businesses may give away promotional items to celebrate a new product launch. Organizations may promote branded items in an effort to incentivize or modify certain behaviors.

From an internal perspective, organizations can leverage marketing products to improve relationships with key stakeholders, such as employees, investors or partners. By demonstrating appreciation through promotional items, organizations can help secure long-time contributions from these actors.

Broadly, organizations most commonly use promotional products for:

Brand Awareness & Recognition
Corporate Culture & Identity
Customer Appreciation & Retention
Employee Appreciation & Retention
Incentive Programs & Behavior Modification
Product Awareness & Recognition
Public & Investor Relations
Sales & Referral Generation
Are Promotional Products an Effective Marketing Tool?
Promotional products can be a highly effective marketing tool. But any organization intending to use promotional products must consider their objectives carefully. When promotional items are beneficial to the user—while also communicating an organization’s brand and message appropriately—it can help an organization achieve numerous goals.

To illustrate the effective of promotional products as a marketing tool, consider the following PPAI statistics:

Almost 100% of consumers indicate a willingness to take action to obtain a promotional product.
Approximately 96% of consumers would like advance notice when an organization is planning to give away promotional items.
Approximately 80% of consumers react immediately to promotional and marketing products, even if they have never heard of the brand.
Approximately 72% of consumers make a connection between a company’s reputation and the quality of its promotional products.
Approximately 70% of brands rank promotional items as a highly effective method for satisfying marketing goals.
In addition, promotional products are ranked as the most effective form of advertising and marketing to spur action across multiple consumer generations. From the Silent Generation to the baby boomers, Gen Xers and millennials, marketing products were the highest rated method to prompt consumer action. Across these vastly different generations, promotional products outranked other marketing and advertising methods, including online, broadcast, print, and mobile. Overall, promotional products are an extremely popular and effective marketing tool. Businesses can broadcast culture, advertising, and other messaging in a way that sticks with customers, prospects and even employees. It is this sense of stickiness that separates promotional products from other marketing and advertising methods.

Which Are Best for My Organization?
The key to choosing the best promotional products rests with the industry, organization, and intended recipient. Entities of all shapes and sizes should strive to align promotional marketing products with their strategy, brand, and commercial approach. It is vital to remember that well-executed promotional products can leave an impression for a long time after the consumer receives the item in question.

As noted above, apparel and other wearables make up the majority of extremely popular and effective promotional products. Part of the appeal likely stems from the fact that any business, in any industry, can benefit from these promotional items. Anything that a consumer can wear—from backpacks and bags to headgear and apparel, such as hats, t-shirts and jackets—tends to perform highly from a lifetime impressions standpoint.

Beyond a far-reaching category like apparel and wearables, there are practically unlimited promotional items that organizations can consider using. In order to choose the best option for a particular organization, it can be helpful to evaluate the factors below:

Mission/Vision — The mission or vision of an organization can help dictate the usefulness of promotional items. For example, a sustainability focused company will likely avoid marketing products that could hurt the environment or contribute to undue waste.
Existing Offerings — Organizations should consider their existing product or service offerings before choosing promotional or marketing products. To maintain product awareness and recognition, it is generally advisable to avoid cross-pollination between actual product or service offerings and promotional items.
Brand/Strategy — The established brand or intended strategy of an organization can also shed light on the potential effectiveness of various marketing products. At a minimum promotional items should align with and reflect the organization’s brand or strategy.
To speed up the evaluation process for promotional products, organizations can lean on surveys to provide valuable insights. By surveying the group of recipients intended to receive a marketing product, organizations might be able to avoid pitfalls and deliver useful promotional items.

Want to Learn More About Promotional Products and Marketing Strategy?
If you are interested in sharpening your skills in using promotional products or other marketing strategies, it can be exceedingly helpful to become a member of the American Marketing Association (AMA). The AMA provides its community with countless membership benefits, including marketing certifications and publications as well as networking opportunities. If this sounds beneficial to you, join AMA today!

24/11/2021

Marketing Job Titles
A rundown of the general duties and responsibilities associated with the most common marketing job titles
If you search employment websites for the term “marketing,” the screen fills with every imaginable variation of the career.

The following sample job descriptions were provided by ZipRecruiter, an online employment marketplace. These five are based on some of the top Google search terms related to marketing jobs.

Marketing Assistant
Duties and responsibilities:

Track existing marketing campaigns to completion and report on results.
Develop strategies to improve existing and past marketing efforts.
Coordinate market research studies via multiple methods, including phone surveys and online applications.
Analyze data compiled from questionnaires and other market research.
Assemble and present reports that collect and analyze market research data by consolidating, summarizing and formatting information into formats that optimize readability.
Analyze data to uncover industry trends.
Compile and distribute relevant financial and statistical information.
Requirements and qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree in marketing, business or statistics.
Previous experience in sales and marketing preferred.
Commercial awareness of the industry and current developments.
Receptive to opportunities for continuing education and professional development.
Marketing Coordinator
Duties and responsibilities:

Conduct research and analyze customer behavior.
Creatively envision macro and micro needs to design and implement successful marketing campaigns.
Manage effective tracking systems for online marketing activities.
Identify and analyze competitors.
Prepare reports via the collection and analysis of sales data.
Collaborate with the design department.
Requirements and qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree in marketing or relevant field.
Proven success and significant work experience as a marketing coordinator or similar role.
Solid working knowledge of traditional and digital marketing tools.
Experience with multiple research methods and use of data analytics software.
Expertise with SEO/SEM campaigns.
Familiarity with necessary CRM and content management system software.

Marketing Associate
Duties and responsibilities:

Develop and implement strategies with marketing team.
Gather and analyze consumer behavior data in web traffic and rankings.
Generate reports on marketing and sales metrics; compile forecasting reports.
Improve reach to customers through SEO campaigns.
Requirements and qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree in marketing, business, statistics or relevant field preferred.
Two years’ experience as a marketing associate, marketing assistant or related position.
Significant experience with SEO/SEM campaigns and digital tools.
Superior computer skills, including marketing technology applications.
Digital Marketing Manager
Duties and responsibilities:

Manage company website.
Oversee management of all digital channels.
Manage day-to-day messaging; update and manage company blog, e-newsletter and social media.
Conduct and report analysis of site and social traffic.
Establish and monitor ROI and KPIs.
Create, maintain and implement digital marketing and editorial calendars.
Requirements and qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications or related field.
Five to seven years’ experience in marketing; three-plus years of digital marketing experience.
Understanding of e-commerce, pay-per-click, SEO and SEM.
Knowledge of media-editing software; working knowledge of web design principles, best practices and content management platforms.
Familiarity with analytical tools such as Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools.
Are you a marketing job-seeker or marketing professional looking for the next great hire? Check out our Job Board!

Brand Ambassador
Duties and responsibilities:

Skilled in social media and able to communicate information about products and services online effectively.
Generate, share and reply to online reviews in a positive and open manner.
Work trade shows as a spokesperson for the company.
Network and gain the trust of potential customers and partners.
Understand our products and services; fully inform potential customers.
Use word-of-mouth marketing techniques, such as referral incentive programs.
Provide feedback to the marketing and product departments regarding customer insights and questions.
Track and generate reports on competitors’ marketing activities.
Requirements and qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications or relevant field.
Previous work experience as a brand ambassador, promoter, influencer or another similar role.
Solid social media presence on multiple platforms, with above-average followers.
Documented success in creating targeted SEO-friendly online content.
Strong working knowledge of scheduling tools for social media such as Hootsuite.
ZipRecruiter also compiled a list of the top marketing jobs ranked by job volume on its website, from January through April.

Marketing Assistant
Marketing Coordinator
Marketing Manager
Marketing Associate
Marketing Representative
Marketing Specialist
Entry Level Sales Marketing
Entry Level Marketing Assistant
Event Marketing
Marketing Advertising
Marketing Intern
Digital Marketing Manager
Junior Marketing Associate
Sales and Marketing Representative
Marketing Internship
Entry Level Marketing Representative
Product Marketing Manager
Brand Ambassador
Digital Marketing Specialist
Marketing Director
Sales and Marketing Associate
Marketing Sales Representative
Director of Marketing
Marketing Management
Marketing Analyst
Julia Pollak, a labor economist at ZipRecruiter, shared insights on marketing jobs.

What trends related to marketing jobs have you seen in the last few years? Are titles getting more or less specific? Are there more or fewer marketing jobs in general?

We saw strong growth in marketing jobs in 2018, which makes sense given that consumer confidence continues to be relatively high. Confident consumers spend more, which creates increased demand for marketers to help companies compete for their dollars. As far as job titles go, we are still seeing large numbers of general titles, with some notable new additions in experiential marketing roles like in-store demonstrators, food demonstrators and field marketers. Social media marketing roles have also increased, as the rise of influencer marketing has led to triple-digit growth in related jobs year over year.

What do the common skills required tell us about marketing job qualifications?

As always, marketing jobs today require strong soft skills, such as communication skills and customer service skills. Demand for those baseline skills remains constant year over year, with more specific skills breaking down along channel lines. For social media managers, for example, experience with Instagram and social listening tools are key requirements, but communication skills are constantly in demand no matter the role.

How do marketing career trends compare with job trends in general?

There are over 1 million more open jobs than there are job seekers. It’s a great time to be a job seeker, and that’s true for marketing professionals as well.

Any other insights on marketing career trends?

The rise of marketing automation tools is driving a marked increase in marketing jobs that require [artificial intelligence] skills. From 2017 to 2018, ZipRecruiter job postings that referenced AI and machine learning skills increased by more than 500%, a trend that included content marketing, product marketing and marketing analyst roles.

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24/11/2021

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