Here’s the look ahead at the month of October 2018 and some of the events, anniversaries and occasions that savvy marketers can use as the basis and reason for an event-driven promotion…

…to create your own marketing calendar for October 2018.

Of course, the stand out occasion, beloved by many marketers, is “Halloween” on October 31.

The origins of Halloween seem to be a mixture of pagan festivals marking the end of summer…

…combined with the idea that at this time of the year the spirit-world comes close to our world…

…adopted by the Christian religion as the eve of “All Souls Day”.

Whatever, it’s the traditional occasion to acknowledge the after-life and the supernatural.

So, an opportunity to use themes in your promotions like…

“It’s Scary What You Are Missing!”

“Now a spooktacular, very limited time, opportunity”

“Terrifyingly scary profits coming your way…”

…and so on.

The theme of FEAR (of loss, for example) can also be used…

…but don’t get too scary about it!

Apart from Halloween October has plenty of different events and occasions… [Read more…]

A warm welcome to the “Looking Ahead” feature where we consider the coming month…

…and the events, occasions, anniversaries and holidays that smart direct response marketers can use as the foundation for event-driven marketing promotions in a marketing calendar for September 2018.

After the lull of the last month or so…

…it’s a time of a change of seasons. The September Equinox falls on September 23 at 01.54 UT (that’s 02.54 UK time…check for your particular location).

It’s Autumn in the north and Spring in the south…

…and these can be used as broad themes for a promotion.

Tied in with these, in the northern hemisphere it’s “Back to School” or “Back to Work” and the start of the run-in to the end of the year.

In the southern hemisphere, “Spring Time” or “Spring Cleaning” can be used as a theme.

Looking at some specific occasions… [Read more…]

NOTE: For readers not familiar with corporate jargon…

ROI stands for “Return on Investment”

CMO stands for “Chief Marketing Officer”

CFO stands for “Chief Financial Officer”

EBITDA stands for “Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortization”

*****

The great Tom Fishburne has produced another great cartoon that draws attention to an issue in the world of mainstream marketing.

CMOs and CFOs often speak completely different languages. This can create a lack of understanding and appreciation for the role and impact of marketing on the business.

Mastercard CMO Raja Rajamannar calls this the “existential crisis of the CMO.” He says it’s essential for marketers to think and talk more like business managers than communications experts. As Raja says,

“Because many CMOs have risen through the creative route, much more than the financial route, they are like a rabbit caught in the headlights. They talk about jargon and marketing KPIs, which the CFO and CEO could care less about – they are looking for financial results. Is customer growth happening, is my profitability increasing, what is marketing doing to my EBITDA?

“In that scenario, some companies are losing patience and replacing CMOs with a chief revenue or chief growth officer. Some are not even from a marketing background. When that happens at several companies, that is an existential crisis.”

Original post at “the roi of marketing”.

My goodness…management at some companies are demanding to know if advertising and marketing is actually making money!

Of course, direct response marketers will either be scratching their heads wondering what the fuss is about OR… [Read more…]

Welcome to this month’s “Looking Ahead” feature. Here we’ll review events, occasions, holidays and anniversaries that you can use to build your event-driven marketing calendar August 2018.

There are no major holidays this month. In the northern hemisphere it’s the dog days of summer. In the south it’s the last blast of winter. These “seasonal” themes are available to you if there’s nothing else that’s suitable.

August is also a “Back To School” month for many northern hemisphere countries…

…and remember major sporting events such as the US Open Tennis (starts 27 August) and the start of the football (soccer) season in the UK (Premier League starts the weekend of August 10-12).

It’s also “Elvis Week”, August 9-18. Elvis Presley moved on to the “great gig in the sky” 41 years ago on 16 August, 1977.

Other events… [Read more…]

Seen this ad at the movies a few times recently.  I confess it had me wondering what it was all about…

https://youtu.be/079qcLQkq1M

When I first saw this, my initial thoughts were that it was a trailer for some kind of “Villagers abducted by aliens” type of show. Or…perhaps creepy pagan ritual going on in remote village, something like that.

But no! It’s all about that nice Lloyds Bank…who presumably sponsor some sort of “Running of the horses” festival each year!

What this appears to be about is Lloyds wanting to make customers feel all warm and fuzzy about them, strengthen their relationship and…presumably…build trust.

So, this editorial from the 15 June 2018 issue of “MoneyWeek” may come as a bit of a shock… [Read more…]