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By Mo Dezyanian, President of Empathy Inc.

Yesterday a friend came over with home-made yogurt.

It made me think of how my mom used to make yogurt back home – because it wasn’t readily available at stores (and certainly not in the dizzying variety of flavours we have here).

Recent events have made me gain a new  appreciation for the luxuries of the big city in the rich world, the world I live in as an adult. But I don’t mean washers, dryers, or Uber Eats. I mean the real luxuries. One of those is disposable income and the choice to spend it in abundance.

For many, the pandemic has engineered an abundance, lifting the disposable incomes of an entire class of people. Even the rich feel richer than before. Bank of Canada reports that Canadians accumulated on average $5,800 in extra savings by the end of 2020, mostly by high-income households. Household spending on items such as travel and entertainment was down, due to lockdown measures and fear of the virus. And at the same time household income increased, due to government aid.

But that story is changing now. As the economy opens up, “consumer expectations for spending growth remain near a survey high, likely reflecting pent-up demand from  pandemic-related restrictions,” according to a Bank of Canada survey. Inflation is top of mind in the news, affecting categories such as food and gas that touch people’s day-to-day life. Add to this, Bank of Canada has increased interest rates, increasing the cost of borrowing and shelter.

In other words, we’re at the beginning of an inflationary marketing economy.

But an inflationary marketing economy isn’t about actual inflation. It’s a market where perceived discretionary income is falling.

People feel financially crunched. Like they have less and less to spend. Whether that’s actually true or not is close to irrelevant. Whether the current inflation cycle is long term or temporary isn’t relevant either. It’s all about human behaviour.

And we haven’t really been here in recent memory. While we did go through a financial crisis during the great recession, a sharp decline in cost of borrowing and deflationary force countered the temporary rise in unemployment, so that household disposable income remained growing and consumer confidence trended steady. In short, people borrowed more to spend.

What does an inflationary marketing economy mean for marketers?

Most of us don’t know! We haven’t experienced something like this in our careers – since the late ‘80s or ‘90s. It’s new territory. So here are three key factors to look out for:

1. Market segmentation will have to consider financial relationships. After the great recession (2007-2009), Harvard Business Review looked at consumer economic downturns. It  concluded that demographic segmentation is less relevant than segmentation that accounts for “consumers’ emotional reactions to the economic environment.” Subsequently, it  segmented the marketing into four groups. Whether marketers use those old segmentations or other new ones, it would be wise to move away from demographics and build financial segmentations.

1. Your products may inadvertently enter the sub-luxury market. Whether a product is considered a luxury isn’t always determined by the marketer; services and products move into luxury categories because of how folks feel about the economy. What used to be considered a staple or a convenience can suddenly become a treat or a luxury item. For example, our research shows that meal kits, once a convenience product for the busy household, are starting to become a treat that makes people feel better about themselves – marketers are encouraged to consider that and change products and branding accordingly.

1. In the short-term, brands will become less relevant. Brand loyalty will suffer. People are more likely to move away from their favorite brands in favor of cost savings.It’s easy to fall into the trap of chasing revenues at the expense of long-term building: “Saks Fifth Avenue encountered this trap during the 2001 recession, implementing deep price cuts that temporarily boosted revenues but punishingly undercut its luxury status for longtime customers. Nieman Marcus assumed the luxury mantle, and when the economy rebounded, Saks’s sales were slower to recover,”-according to Bain Co.

It’s also easy to say “brand marketing” is the answer. But investing in more advertising that talks about your brand purpose without being able to back it up is a recipe for disaster.

In reality, building brand loyalty is more complicated. The key is to effectively double down on your most loyal customers and find new similar segments, to create incremental revenue. Once again, our research found that in the case of meal kits, the pandemic created a new segment for the product of single folks looking for indoor date ideas – folks concerned about their social status and generally of higher disposable income and less budget conscience. To maintain this new segment, marketers could further position their meal kit products as luxurious … providing a VIP experience or partnering with known chefs to innovate.

In summary  

Some perception patterns will be permanent.

Frugality is a habit that is difficult to shake. Looking at past recessionary markets, we see that once conservative spending habits develop, they are difficult to reverse. At this critical juncture, marketers would do well to look out for the three patterns outlined above. Then, position their products accordingly and market to set themselves up for future success.

Empathy Inc. is a member of the Institute of Canadian Agencies. Report on Marketing is where leading Canadian agencies showcase their insights, cutting-edge research and client successes. The Report on Marketing provides a valuable source of thought leadership for Canadian marketers to draw inspiration from. Find more articles like this at the Report on Marketing.

By Darian Kovacs, Founder, Jelly Digital Marketing & PR

Digital marketing is evolving quickly to become a coveted career-choice for many. Yet, while the interest in roles is certainly there, a recent Canada-wide survey, conducted by Jelly Academy, demonstrates the extent of the skills gap in the industry.

The survey was conducted by gathering insights from hiring professionals in industries such as marketing, service-based businesses, healthcare, hospitality, education, across Canada. And one of the most prominent findings was from those respondents who found digital ads management to be the most difficult role to fill, while also being the most important role to hire for.

The role of rapid reskilling

That difficulty is most likely due to a lack of training within this sector of marketing, as 23.2% of respondents found digital ads management to be a key skill missing from resumes. To address this skills gap, we need to find ways to make digital training more readily available and build awareness about the existing programs and organizations that provide it. As a new wave of marketers enter the industry it is crucial that they have the skills and education that is expected from employers to land jobs and thrive in their roles.

This is where rapid reskilling comes in. This is the process of gaining new, or different, skills to change a current role in quickfire time. It’s ideal for both working professionals who are looking to make pivots or move forward in their career, and for post-secondary students who can’t take on much more in terms of course-load.

It’s the type of training that’s beneficial for digital marketing professionals who can cross-train in different skill sectors in order to fill a gap many companies are looking to fill. Combined with traditional post-secondary education, rapid reskilling through micro-credentials offers a solid foundation and wide breadth of knowledge for students. It can really help people to amplify and hone in on specific skills that apply directly to their roles, such as developing campaigns and strategies, and monitoring results with commonly used tools.

Bridging the skills gap

Following ads management skills, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and social media were identified as the most important skills that respondents are looking for in new hires with 15.16% noting social media and 12.4% SEO. Within these particular sectors of digital marketing, most post-secondary courses cover the subject matter in a very broad sense but in reality, these are the types of skills that need more specific training using industry-accepted platforms and tools.

On top of this, rapid reskilling training is a viable way to bridge the skills gap in digital marketing by quickly training professionals with the in-depth knowledge to either land a new job or amplify their existing role. It’s also beneficial to in-house marketing teams looking to increase morale and simplify the process of hiring additional professionals.

For ads management specifically, it is important to find reskilling courses that use the most prevalent tools today such as Facebook Blueprint, cover a full scope of digital marketing, and dive deep into ads management training.

As the industry continues to grow, it is important that the professionals striving to advance their individual careers are equipped with the training required to fill the gaps. The time is now, more than ever, for rapid reskilling courses to play a large role in addressing both the current skills gap and minimizing future gaps by keeping digital marketers certified and prepared.

Read The Digital Marketing Skills Gap in Canada Survey results.

Jelly Digital Marketing & PR is a member of the Institute of Canadian Agencies. Report on Marketing is where leading Canadian agencies showcase their insights, cutting-edge research and client successes. The Report on Marketing provides a valuable source of thought leadership for Canadian marketers to draw inspiration from. Find more articles like this at the Report on Marketing.

Ageism in Advertising is a series designed to tackle the neglected issue of ageism in Canada’s advertising industry. The vast majority (70%) of people in agencies are aged 40 or younger. Rebalancing this towards a fairer representation of age groups across the board will not only improve creativity and inclusivity but also help to address our talent crisis.

By Patrick Collister, Curator, The Caples Awards, Non-Executive Creative Director, Ad-Lib Digital and Coach, Creative Matters

Azeem Rafiq is a professional cricketer who has sent shockwaves through every sports organization in the UK.

In November, he told a UK parliamentary committee that he had been the victim of racial abuse not just occasionally but throughout his entire career at Yorkshire Cricket Club.

He mentioned that on the day he and three other players of Asian origin stepped out proudly to play for Yorkshire, the captain, Michael Vaughan, said: “There are too many of you lot, we’ll have to do something about it.”

Vaughan has said that there isn’t a racist bone in his body.

And he’s sincere. But that’s because racism has become so commonplace no-one notices any longer. Except the victims.

“You lot” is Vaughan’s idea of banter. It is, in fact, discriminatory and alienating.

I tell this story of opaque prejudice because though I’m white, male and straight (sorry), I’m a casualty of another equally pervasive form of discrimination.

I’m over 60, you see.

When I was at Google, I helped organize a small conference about diversity and inclusivity.

The speakers were black, gay and people with disabilities. In their speeches, every one of them said, “At least I’m not old.” They were being funny. They got laughs.

It was unconscious bias, it was alienating and nobody noticed. Except me.

It prompts an interesting question. How old do you need to be to be a victim of ageism?

Incredibly, there are thirtysomethings in agencies who say they’ve suffered. And in the film “The Internship”, the joke is that Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn are too old to get jobs at Google because they’re in their 40s. For heaven’s sake. In other words, there are so few grey hairs in advertising, “old” means anyone who is dipping a toe into middle age.

It’s an issue that persists across many of the world’s most prominent advertising markets. For instance, ICA Talent Census data in Canada revealed in 2020 that just over 70% of respondents were 40 years old or younger. Only 11% of the workforce was older than 51 – a considerably lower proportion than the broader labour market in which Canadian workers over 50 account for 35.42%.

Meanwhile, 36% of people in the global marketing industry agreed that age can hinder their career at their company. More people in both the US (42%) and Canada (40%) agreed with the statement, according to the report from the World Federation of Advertisers.

And in the UK in 2020, with thanks to the IPA, 78.1% of the industry was under 40, up from 77.9% in 2019. In other words, Covid is allowing adland to jettison even more of its older practitioners.

The irony is that there is a reported “talent crisis” in agencies.

There’s a crisis alright. Just look at any advertising break or peer at the banners on any major website. The ads are awful. So awful that the whole business model that supported broadcast media is now collapsing.

People would rather pay more for streaming than be subjected to 20 minutes of commercials every hour. Commercials which, for the most part, are noisy and unpleasant.

As for online, well, it tells you something that a billion phones and pads now have ad-blockers installed.

It’s not just that the ads are pollutants, people think they are lies. A 2020 survey showed that 30% of Canadians believe newspaper advertising cannot be trusted at all. The presumption is that the people who make them are awful too.

The crazy thing is that the talent exists to make ads that people might actually enjoy watching. That might just save the industry. It’s just that it’s been put out to pasture by managers anxious to protect and preserve their own wage packets.

I can think of one gifted copywriter who now teaches at a provincial university. Another art director has become a wedding photographer. One former executive creative director has been driving the tour bus for a rock band.

Meanwhile, agencies rely on relatively callow young creative teams to solve big problems. And they struggle.

One unpublished report I’ve heard about has found that agency creatives have been more depressed and more troubled during Covid-19 than average. A creative who lives near me says that he hasn’t been working from home but sleeping at work. The pressure is intense but at the ripe old age of 40, he’s the sage of the department. There’s no-one with more experience.

Clients notice. They’re beginning to peer closely at resource plans when agencies pitch for their business.  And they’re moving more and more money to the consultancies and to influencers. As Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer at P&G has observed, ads are all too often “just silly, ridiculous or stupid.”

The interesting thing to me is that many of the young creatives I speak to don’t seem to care if the work is good, bad or indifferent. In 2019, a survey by independent agency Impero suggested that 60% of people under 30 in London agencies were actively looking for jobs outside the industry.

Whereas old weirdos like me are obsessed with it. Still. And there are many of us.

Former creative luminary Andrew Cracknell was going to start an agency called Long Trousers and rope in all his old mates from yesteryear.

And, you know what? It might even have worked. But he thought better of it. Young marketing directors want to work with young creative directors. Reap as ye shall sow, as the good book says.

If anyone’s interested, you can see my reel HERE. I’m fast, I’m good and I’m available. Just invisible.

Patrick Collister is a partner of the Institute of Canadian Agencies. Report on Marketing is where leading Canadian agencies showcase their insights, cutting-edge research and client successes. The Report on Marketing provides a valuable source of thought leadership for Canadian marketers to draw inspiration from. Find more articles like this at the Report on Marketing.

By Ian Darby, Content Editor, ICA

Agency selection needn’t be an opaque process governed by misunderstandings and misjudgements. At the ICA we’ve published 12 firm principles for a great agency search, providing clear, positive ways to run things, including clarity when it comes to budgets and the decision-making process.

What’s certain is that announcing a pitch near the December holiday season isn’t among those principles. Instead, they focus on the guiding idea of Qualification-Based Selection (QBS), a procurement process that concentrates on identifying the most qualified provider of creative professional services, at a fair and negotiated price.

The guiding principles also bust some myths, one of which could easily be “I’ll get the best performance and ideas from agencies if I invite them to compete for my business right before the December holiday period.” Which is just what Coca-Cola did in late 2020, calling a global review of its entire agency roster just before hard-working agency people took a well-deserved vacation.

“Enjoy your holiday season worrying about your biggest account disappearing out of the door,” could sum-up what Coca-Cola chose to say to agencies across the globe, including those in Canada. Clearly time was not of the essence since the pitch wasn’t concluded until November 2021 with a consolidation into WPP, which is creating a bespoke unit for Coke called OpenX.

Coca-Cola’s behaviour isn’t an isolated example – there will certainly be more clients behaving this way in December 2021. And that’s why the ICA called for a “No Pitch December” in Canada last year, and will continue to do the same each year until all clients end this holiday season horror. Come on advertisers, allow your own staff and those at your agency partners to celebrate Christmas, Hannukah and other festivals, before they return refreshed and ready for another year of great ideas and healthy competition during 2022.

The need for “No Pitch December” has grown in the past year because the pressure on people at agencies has risen relentlessly. The return to high levels of pitching in 2021 after the pandemic slowdown of 2020, while welcome in many ways, is also having severe negative impacts. Agencies report being pushed into corners pitching for work on terms that are unfair or less than transparent, being held to ridiculous turnaround times, and forced to plough through hundreds of irrelevant proposal pages from clients. This is already leading to burnout and resulting in talent shortages at some agencies due to high attrition rates among their people. In turn this is contributing to a damaging impact on levels of creativity that selection processes in the holiday season will only exacerbate.

But there’s a chance here for progressive brands, which value ideas, to take the initiative by supporting “No Pitch December” as part of a shift towards better agency selection based on shared values and true partnership. There’s no doubt that achieving this requires bravery on the part of both brands and their agencies – brands to select agencies in a different way and agencies to just say “no” where the conditions aren’t right. But if clients can make a start, sign up to a pledge not to call pitches or hold selection meetings either side of the holidays, then this will make things so much better for everyone.

As an important step towards this, the ICA will soon publish the second edition of our Marketing Relationship Pulse, and we’re looking for both agency and client points of view. Please click here to join us in this important survey as we aim to provide a mutual evaluation of the Canadian agency / client relationship, highlighting the perception gaps that exist in important areas such as leadership, strategy, remuneration and talent.

One thing’s for sure, launching an agency selection process in December is never going to bridge those gaps. Instead, advertisers will win by waiting well into the New Year, when the lens of fatigue has shifted from agency eyes and the ideas are flowing like water.

The Report on Marketing provides a valuable source of thought leadership for Canadian marketers to draw inspiration from. Find more articles like this at the Report on Marketing.

The ICA’s new series, You Will Never, is designed to offer encouragement and inspiration in the face of criticism or adversity in or out of the workplace. In the latest article, Rodrigo Coelho, VP, strategy, Momentum Worldwide, talks about how he discovered a new superpower to overcome language and cultural barriers.

Some 30 months ago I arrived in Canada from Brazil, after securing a new role at Momentum Worldwide that involved building its strategy team in Toronto. I’ll talk here about the culture and language challenges I faced initially, and how I discovered that vulnerability was my main super power in overcoming any barriers that were in my way.

I’ve been at Momentum for almost 12 years and have travelled all over the world, including leading sports sponsorships in London for the 2012 Olympics before returning to Brazil to apply what I’d learned to the 2014 soccer World Cup and 2016 Olympics. After that, I spent two months in Japan running client workshops for Sony and Mastercard ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, where I gained more global perspective and understanding.

Back in Brazil I learned that Momentum was opening up a strategy and creative department in Canada. I applied for the role leading this and they were crazy enough to hire me. I had a vision of how to build the department, and I knew it couldn’t work to just replicate what we did in Brazil.

There were so many obstacles to overcome. One was cultural because, from a strategy perspective, everyday you use and exercise your intuition when it comes to culture. That pushed me far away from my comfort zone because I didn’t have that intuition.

That’s when I learned that vulnerability was my superpower. Because I was new to Canada, I embraced my vulnerability. I realized that I didn’t need to pretend that I knew something. I just admitted I didn’t know and then people jumped in to help and were happy to answer my questions. I had sessions with different people from the agency to talk about politics, music and the arts. I also explored the most pressing human challenges and issues here, for example to gain an understanding of the complex Indigenous conversation.

After all this, my advice to any one experiencing faced with barriers or difficulties is always to recognize that vulnerability is your superpower. Don’t try to be right but try to ask the right questions because you’re better off having the right answers.

And don’t fall in love with the words that you write. For me this was a personal struggle. I was writing things and then other people were coming in and changing them. But then I realised if you’re just open to it then it makes the work itself better. I don’t need to fall in love with the words that I’m saying or writing I just need to be able to nail what I want to express.

This extended to the language itself because, although I had spoken English from time to time when I’d worked in other countries, it was still a barrier. Ahead of client presentations I needed to rehearse everything, writing every word I was going to say. And then, in the meetings, if the client asked a question, I was blank, I couldn’t react immediately because I had to think in English before I responded. It was very hard in the beginning, I was getting home exhausted after putting so much energy into communicating. The positive aspect of this situation was that everyone was so welcoming and eager to help. The high level of co-operation and welcoming someone from a different culture made everything much easier.

On top of recognizing and using my vulnerability, I also immersed myself in the language by watching and listening to shows, or podcasts, reading articles, that used different ways of expressing yourself. One show I watched again and again was Suits, because it’s all about argument, presentation, being powerful with your words. I took notes and started to build a routine to learn more of the language. And I read more about the history and culture of the country, it was a case of full-on learning.

But I had another strategy to address these challenges – and this could be useful to anyone looking to express strategic or creative ideas. The meetings I really had trouble with were the ones about creative briefs because I needed to be very purposeful about what I wanted to express. My way of doing this was to go beyond words – I used videos, images, music, and even sampling. That worked because, as humans, we are multi-sensory beings; we listen to people beyond our ears. Our minds are only half paying attention because we’re half thinking about what to ask next, or what to understand from the conversation. So immersing people in what you’re trying to express takes that multi-sensory experience.

I’d say that’s much harder in a virtual situation but I like to have visuals on the wall, something to write on live. I still find ways to include references and visuals just by plugging things into the chat, showing video, using background sounds to articulate what I want to say. Virtual platforms are less than ideal for inspiration and collaboration, it’s a little transactional and flat, because when you’re in a room you can talk over each other a little, and that chaos pushes us to creativity, but it’s still worth trying the multi-sensory approach.

I’ve realised recently that strategists don’t really need to come up with the final insight, the idea that everyone will follow. That should be an output from collaboration, not from a single person. Just by shifting this perception, you start to have a conversation and people will help you build the exact words to express the big idea.

On the road ahead, as we grow the team, I want to be a facilitator for growth and have realized that keeping people motivated needs inspiration from outside the screen, from experiencing things in the real world. So, as we come back into the office, this is something that I really want to keep pushing – connection with the real world.

And diversity is a big point because in my team we have Brazilian, Chinese, and French people, so we communicate naturally, but differently. That’s such a good thing, diversity is so important because when you add the blocks together you end up with something completely new and exciting.

You will never overcome language and cultural barriers…Rodrigo embraced his vulnerability, immersed himself in Canadian cultural and learned to “kill his darlings.” He shifted viewpoint and is creating a team where a diversity of perspectives is welcomed and encouraged.  

Momentum WW is a member of the Institute of Communication Agencies. Report on Marketing is where leading Canadian agencies showcase their insights, cutting-edge research and client successes. The Report on Marketing provides a valuable source of thought leadership for Canadian marketers to draw inspiration from. Find more articles like this at the Report on Marketing.