Jon Holloway

As the thermostat creeps up across the Middle East, there's a temptation to retreat indoors, crank up the air conditioning, binge watch Netflix and tough it out until September. However, there are more sustainable ways to spend your summer. You can read more in my latest article up on The Ethicalist Magazine now. (Link is below in the comments) Especially for all my UAE friends. Do you think about sustainability when planning activities for your kids? #Sustainability #SummerActivities #EcoArticles #ClimateWriter

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This is a tough one. The incentives models are misaligned. The brand is built to scale, while the agency is built to monetise time. Early stage brands struggle with getting best in class agency partners because they find the costs prohibitive while all agencies want to work with larger brands because they want to monetise their resource time. Maybe the answer is tech enabled agencies, leveraging emergent AI technologies to deliver services at scale with limited resources. But, i don't really have an answer at the moment, just some vague thoughts. #d2cbrands #performancemarketing #brandbuilding #agencylife #growth #scale

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AI is getting crazier every single day!🤯 Technology that animates paintings with AI at the Dubai Art Museum! It's amazing how #AI keeps finding new ways to be creative & innovative! ——— Follow for more Rinor Restelica I share about Tech and AI, I also help CEOs and founders build their online presence/ personal brand. DM me 📩 #startups #marketing #GenerativeAI #AITools

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I had the honour of judging the IPA Effectiveness Awards last week, 3 surprising things I learnt: 1. Distinctively Dull Some of the best cases proved that dull but distinctive creative can be highly effective. Previous analysis of IPA winning papers has shown campaigns that get talked about, so called fame campaigns, do significantly better. But this isn't the only way. Being distinctively dull can clearly work. Byron Sharp and Ehrenberg-Bass Institute should be proud, distinctive assets really do matter. It's hard not to be swayed by more interesting creative work but as Simon Broadbent who founded the awards once wrote "these are effectiveness awards not creative awards". 2. Hidden Performance You could read a lot of the papers and think performance marketing didn't exist. In a few papers it seemed to be omitted from the paper to make the story about the brand investment appear stronger. In reality, this meant that the judges were left wondering what was missing, which undermined the impact of the papers. To misquote Simon Broadbent these are effectiveness awards not brand awards. Some papers, however, were based purely on performance marketing and a few of them were brilliant in proving its potential effectiveness. 3. Learning Learning Most MMM analysis was not backed up with experimentation. Regional hold-outs and incrementality testing were rare. A surprise given this is a cross section of the most effective work. Often the measurement in the papers appeared to be used for validating impact rather than illuminating learning. Simon Broadbent said papers should use evaluation to help dictate future actions. The rare papers that did so really stood out. It was an absolute honour to read about some seriously effective work, thanks to my fellow judges for some great debate, Charlie Ebdy and Jo Arden for the invite and Alexandra Green for hosting! Also, big shout out to Sarah Newman from the APG for recently posting the 1982 guide by Simon Broadbent on how to win an IPA Effectiveness award, it's amazing how relevant and helpful it was for judging today. My favourite tip from Simon: "Successful advertising is not easy to make and the papers should not make it seem as such". Bravo!

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Deconstructing the anatomy of content strategy with Clearleft Co founder Richard Rutter and Head of Experience Design Chris How. We are increasingly finding that without a robust and clearly understood content strategy, clients are struggling to deliver optimal outcomes for their users. This seems especially pertinent for the b2b manufacturing, biopharma and education sectors. Is this your experience? Keen to find out if content strategy ( and use of emerging tools) is becoming more of a priority in other sectors?

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There is so much conversation at the moment in marketing around AI and how brands are adopting it, but it's equally as important and gaining a lot of traction in the sales space. Our recent Sales in Focus '24 study showed that AI is a big trend yet there is still quite a bit of resistance and hesitancy by Sales leaders with many reporting they are not sure of its application. Our upcoming mini conference (fully virtual) will showcase how AI is being used by brands and how sales professionals are thinking about it featuring some great speakers. 🎟️FIND OUT MORE / REGISTER -> https://lnkd.in/gi49D9s9 🗎 DOWNLOAD THE FULL FREE SALES IN FOCUS REPORT -> https://lnkd.in/e3y7ka2g #sales #ai #genai #b2b #digital #marketing #webinar #liveevent #advisory #learningevent Arktic Fox Teresa Sperti (GAICD)

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People do judge books (and tech businesses) by their cover... If your technology brand doesn't LOOK mature, people who see your brand will think that what you sell isn't mature either. This is a problem because if something appears immature it also appears risky.... ....and technology buyers don't like risk. 😰 When these things look cheap, it sends a signal to everyone around that your offerings and team are also cheap (and a risky investment) too: Your brand looks too risky if... ❌ If your UX UI looks really thrown together with poor hierarchy ❌ If your brand identity is inconsistent, outdated, or doesn't match the quality you want to associate with your business ❌ If your website and marketing materials look cheap, poorly designed, and thrown together. Before we started Forrest I built a really great business just helping firms de-risk by showing up with the same level of perceived value their solutions and teams have. This is called, "Imputing," and it's a principal that Steve Jobs used when starting apple. When it comes to marketing you must visually impute the desired qualities you want people to experience from what you're selling. Sometimes it's not your marketing technology, your sales team, or your campaign strategy that's broken. Sometimes it's simply that your tech brand looks and feels like a cheap, risky, investment. It's never been easier for your technology firm to look and feel as awesome as the solutions or offerings your'e selling. .... #humanitysells #humancentered #b2bmarketing #b2bbranding #brandstrategy #design

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Brands and Prof G Jon Evans spent some quality time with Prof G, and it was a good show. Scott is entertaining, smart, and pulls no punches when conveying his beliefs, especially regarding social media. He clearly believes in brands- he’s a brand himself, values the importance of storytelling, and understands that products and experience are key to brand success. He challenges that brand advertising is how to build brands in 2024 because people have better ways of getting information. He doesn’t acknowledge that advertising has helped many brands grow in many categories. For many others, it has transformed their businesses. He also doesn’t get that the big agencies do far more today than make ads- he’s stuck in Don Draper’s Mad Ave. Those points aside, he’s a compelling listen. It’s just that brands aren’t dead—far from it.

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Electric cars meet electric ideas ⚡️ YOUR ideas. Develop record-breaking innovations for FIA Formula E with Google Cloud's generative AI in our London Hackathon. Sharpen your skills and innovate at the speed of AI →

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WHAT ELSE HAS NO PLACE IN AN AGENCY? Sir John Hegarty argues that brainstorming is a waste of time in an agency setting - I couldn't agree more. It got me thinking, what else should be banned? 1. Pitching - a ridiculous charade that costs agencies so much and is about a level playing field as Mansfield Town's One Call stadium. 2. Open plan offices - especially for the creatives. Management who came up with this were obviously in bad marriages. 3. Most awards - sorry, but they impress no-one but the people in the bootlicking industry. 4. Team-building exercises - just no. Except Go Ape - I quite liked that. 5. Most meetings over 15 minutes - don't you realise we switch off after 15 minutes and are probably thinking about last night's VAR disgrace. 6. Collaboration - many would prefer to boil their own head than talk to others. 7. Most people - BS coming out the mouths of mistaken non-entities covers an area greater than the major oceans of this world. 8. Requesting employees to Like the agency’s LI posts. 9. The use of words like ‘brave’, ‘different’ or ‘maverick’ in their agency’s mantra. Nope, I had a peek at your work and it’s about as unusual as a winter scene in a snow globe. 10. ‘Expert’ talks on advertising given by people who are not Hegarty or Sutherland. Have i forgotten anything?

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This should be already common knowledge… obviously it’s not looking at what’s happening on the CZ media around the IIHF World Championship … loaaaaaad of money spent on media and close to nothing on creative & production leading to dullness spam, not triggering emotional response, not building mental availability leading us back to the other elephant in the marketing industry room: campaign budget split: media / creative / production It’s not rocket science, and if done consciously and with common sense, one could already do good by considering those few factors: campaign type, campaign objectives, current brand awareness Now, the problem occurres on the other side of the spectrum too, with brands aiming at the roof with penny money to be spent in media… when we meet those cases, we do recommend those brands to spend more in media. now in wonder if media houses recommend the brands they work with to spend more in creative & production to make the most of every penny spent in media🤔

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This is an intriguing feature by Sophie Ozoux for Fast Company examining the Chief Marketing Officer role and how the position is undergoing significant changes across the landscape of business, with tenures becoming shorter and some companies questioning the necessity of the position altogether. Many of us have read news over the years of major brands like Starbucks, Johnson & Johnson, and AB InBev rethinking their approach to the CMO role. While consumers might not immediately see the importance of CMOs, their role in driving a company's social impact is crucial. These leaders are often pivotal in implementing sustainability, diversity, and equity initiatives, which in turn reflect a company’s relationship with society. The article provides great examples: Marc S. Pritchard at Procter & Gamble, Jackie Jantos and Josh Penny at Hinge, and Chris Brandt at Chipotle Mexican Grill have all spearheaded campaigns to demonstrate a commitment to making the world a better place. Younger generations have demonstrated that they prefer brands that mirror these values. When businesses undermine the role of the CMO, they lose a crucial voice in effectively communicating these values to their customers. Historically, CMOs have been extremely important in long-term growth and cultural impact initiatives, and the article highlights Google’s Travel Impact Model and Uber’s efforts to aid victims of the crisis in Ukraine. Campaigns by Unilever and Intuit Mailchimp have also shown how marketing can drive social change. The Brownestone Group discusses the power of marketing daily in conversations with our network—and how important the function is for brand building, innovation, and customer service. The insights Chief Marketing Officers can provide on customer data and trends are vital for driving business success. We’re happy to share this thought piece from Fast Company reinforcing how this role remains critical for ensuring long-term, purpose-driven progress within companies. #brandbuilding #business #chiefmarketingofficer #marketing #leadership #socialimpact

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A lot of industry talks seems to be going on at the moment about how marketing should work to reduce carbon footprint in digital advertising campaigns 🌳 📣 🌍     At the same time there seems to be a gap between this stated will and actual actions taken by most advertisers. Despite saying quality and green aspects are important in the media buying, I most often see brands end up prioritizing quantity over quality. That being more reach and cheap impressions and ad contacts over sustainable campaigning. You can actually take some easy actions to reduce carbon footprint in digital advertising. Here’s a guiding top 10 list of actions to look into:    1. Demand use of local server distribution of ad impressions 2. Demand “green ad hosting” in general. Pay a little extra and feel good.  3. Leverage programmatic and geo-contextual opportunities to minimize unnecessary data transmission instead of hammering everybody  4. Invest in optimizing landing pages more  5. Run fewer campaigns and leverage owned and earned media opportunities more  6. Invest in green sustainability projects to compensate for your digital CO2 emissions  7. Reduce ad frequency. Spam and hyper-frequency are not God (and users hate it btw) 8. Use super light ad formats based on WebGL instead of HTML (less load on transmission) 9. Compress images, videos and multimedia to hit technical and visual sweet spot 10. Run campaigns with 25% fewer impressions but with better creatives that deliver +25% better performance (and better memorability)    Actions 1 to 7 is on you. We at I Love Mobile can help you on 8 to 10. And it is very easy to make it happen. We actually provide a calculated number for how much CO2 you have saved on your campaign, when running NEXD formats vs. standard ads.   What are you doing to “become more green” in your own or your clients digital media campaigns?    I’m curious to find out how much the green topic is actually reflected in the media buying. Is it just talks and hot air, or is the mentality changing out there? Thoughts? #advertising #sustainability #digitalmarketing 

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This week Apple finally unveiled its response to the generative AI explosion kicked off by ChatGPT in November 2022. After its recent misstep with the ‘Crush!’ iPad ad creative, it’s a reminder that when Apple brings its product, comms and marketing A-game, nobody does it better. Here are 5 ways in which it nailed it on Monday: 1.) Appropriating the initialism Having hitherto shunned the AI label, Apple has now boldly appropriated it, replacing the word ‘Artificial’ (which gives many people the heebie jeebies) with ‘Apple’ (one of the world’s most valuable brands). There was just two mentions of ‘artificial intelligence’ (no caps) in the keynote: one making it clear Apple have “been using artificial intelligence for years” and one positioning Apple’s approach as “beyond artificial intelligence”. 2.) Positioning for the mainstream A classic market positioning move but executed with aplomb, the strapline for Apple Intelligence - ‘AI for the rest of us’ - simultaneously paints current AI services as for a niche and exclusionary group and Apple’s as for the mainstream (never mind that you’ll need an £1,000+ A17 Pro iPhone or a £500+ Apple silicon iPad/Mac to access it). 3.) Differentiating on personal utility Whilst Monday’s demos lacked any jaw-on-the-floor moments, there was an accumulation of a large number of useful features. At a time when Microsoft seems to be increasingly prioritising its enterprise customers (e.g. jettisoning GPT Builder for non-enterprise users), Apple is anchoring around the value generative AI can bring to the individual (in the hope it will keep them in/bring them back to the Apple ecosystem, with its hardware replacement cycle, service subscriptions, App Store commission and, increasingly, ad-revenue). 4.) Leveraging control of the OS Many of the AI-powered features Apple demoed we’ve seen in standalone AI products in the last 18 months. Weaving those features throughout Apple’s operating systems and product set (and overlaying them on top of third party apps) is going to expose them to many more people than would find their way to even the most compelling standalone AI product. It’s also going to put a lot of start-ups out of business, as standalone AI products are going to have to be really good to compete with free and more easily accessible. 5.) Differentiating on trust/privacy Using every tap/swipe/keystroke/cursor movement to create more personally relevant on-device AI responses is a high-stakes game and Microsoft showed how not to do it with the rushed unveiling and subsequent rearchitecting of Recall. However, Apple has been investing in ‘trust’ for many years and I would be surprised if they messed up the implementation of this. This is a cut-down version of a longer post. The full post, which include 3 more ways Apple nailed it on Monday, can be found on my blog, Dan’s Media & AI Sandwich (link in comments).

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For those who saw Jon Evans interview with Scott Galloway this is the perfect riposte to his ‘brand is dead’ claim. In addition to this beautifully evidenced point about the inverse relationship between winning tech and levels of adspend, there are other contradictions in Prof. Galloway’s bold claims that brand and advertising are dead. It’s nice that he acknowledges the role of storytelling in his own life journey but: 💡 What’s the point of good storytelling if you don’t get a chance to tell your story, or people don’t know whose story it is? And - 💡 Great products, game-changing logistics, word of mouth – all these things help create great brands. But what evidence is there that brands with these things wouldn’t do even better with advertising? 💡 People are more likely to warm to brands that make big bold statements that everyone knows everyone has seen. Rolex don’t plaster F1 with ads because people attending races don’t know what watch to buy. They do it to assert the status of those who already bought a Rolex. 💡 Brand advertising makes brands more familiar. People like things more that they know, and trust things more that they know – even if those things are not empirically more likeable or trustworthy. This is why brand marketing academic Byron Sharp talks about ‘physical and mental availability’. All things being equal – more people will buy your product if the can buy it more places. And all things being equal – more people will buy your product if they know about it. Distribution gets you front of face, advertising gets you front of mind. And anyway – what is Scott Galloway and his 12-man personal brand promotion team if not a brand. . ?

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JUST HOW DO YOU MITIGATE RISK IN DESIGN? In this ADWEEK article, Simon Preece and I explore the power of neurodesign in business. Helping brands to reduce the risk in their design choices by understanding how the brain works on autopilot mode. Just why are eyes (and animals important) useful assets, what are cusps & curves and how do you use them, why is error so powerful in stopping us in our tracks? Let me know if you are interested in learning more, we've been running Learning & Development programmes for some of the world's leading brands: rtaylor@brandon-consultants.com ADWEEK, as ever, thank you for the support in spreading the word. #brand #marketing #design #neurodesign #neuroscience

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Later today I'm moderating a panel on "Fintech Content Marketing in the Age of AI" with some incredible panelists including: • Geoff Whitehouse from ClearBank • Naomi Prakash from Finimize • David Beach 🏖 from Airwallex Although we'll be touching on all the usual points on how everyone's using AI currently, on our prep call we agreed that what's very interesting is the future of the content marketing role. Questions I'm pondering: • Some current B2B content already looks like it could be written better by AI (sad truth). Will AI force us to create better content to make it stand out more? Will content either be "AI" or "very high quality, human written content"? • Most content marketers start out as writers. But if an AI does most of the writing, how will junior content marketers start their careers? How can we make sure they have the right skillset from the beginning? • What will distribution look like? Can we use AI to help repurpose content and promote via social media? What are the downsides to doing that? So many interesting questions and thoughts which I'm looking forward to diving into tonight. We've had a few last minute cancellations so there's a few tickets left if you want to join us: 📍 Today at 5.30pm, Airwallex's offices, London I've added a link to the event in the comments!

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When your client drops you a line to say that your Meta Ads work has contributed to their brilliant sustainable British vodka achieving its highest ranking on Amazon since launch...cheers to that! 🍸 Me: celebrates, then immediately starts to think about how we can push this product even higher up the ranking and get it to No.1! Brands: keep telling your employees/freelancers/agencies they're doing a good job. Positive feedback keeps a workforce happy and boosts innovation and motivation. It's a win-win. #MetaAds #PaidSocial #PositiveFeedback

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