Warc, 9 August 2013
NEW YORK: Nearly 90% of brand owners are failing to
consistently invest in marketing innovation, according to a new study by
Forrester.
The insights group polled 45 leading marketers, and found
that only 11% had a dedicated pot of resources earmarked to fund more
experimental communications techniques and strategies.
"Budget is both an indicator of intent and lifeblood
for these programs to succeed," warned Bert DuMars, a principal analyst at
Forrester, in an official blog post.
In further demonstration of this point, fully 95% of firms
that set aside funds for innovation either "mostly" or "partially"
yielded a favourable return on investment from these activities.
The news comes in the same week that Warc launched its
Innovation Casebook, a report and analysis of the latest communications
innovations of the most progressive brands.
One cause of the current wider malaise, suggested Forrester,
could be that only 20% of executives felt they had the backing of senior
executives to try new things. A rather larger 40% were, however, crowdsourcing
ideas from customers.
DuMars divided companies into four clusters. The first was
"risk-averse" firms, which are based on
"command-and-control" models due to heavy regulation or dominating
their sector, and only innovate if there is no other choice.
Secondly, "pragmatists" - some 60% of
organisations - are hesitant and rely on consensus, meaning they typically lack
agility. While their marketing is working at present, they are vulnerable to
smaller, nimble rivals.
A third cohort, the "experimenters", featured
enterprises that are extremely active in testing new models and tactics, but
generally lack a long-term strategy.
The final segment of businesses were
"customer-obsessed", and have an unrelenting focus on the lifestyles,
wants and needs of their target audience, alongside developing a corporate
culture that encourages taking calculated risks.
Just 3% of brand owners fitted this description, including
soft drinks firm Coca-Cola, food group Nestle, restaurant chain Chick-Fil-A and
convenience store network 7-Eleven.
"They have established a foundation through strategy,
organizational development, and budgeting that reflects their commitment and
industry-leading programs," DuMars said.
More specifically, he praised the 70-20-10 rule employed by
Coca-Cola, where the company commits 20% of its marketing budget to
"new" techniques and platforms and 10% to "what's next", or
cutting-edge ideas.
Data sourced from Forrester; additional content by Warc
staff
No comments:
Post a Comment