Hello Marketers,
Happy Friday. This week, a number of well-known, established brands revealed various growing pains.
Weight Watchers—excuse me, WW—revealed that its rebrand hadn’t been as impactful as it hoped. J.C. Penney said it would be shuttering its clothing subscription service, bucking industry trends. Gap Inc. is spinning Old Navy off into a separate company to give its brands the ability to thrive. (FWIW, Old Navy has been a juggernaut, bringing in $8 billion in revenue a year.)
It’s no surprise then, that in the current uncertain economic climate that marketers’ optimism is at a seven-year low, as a recent CMO Survey from the American Marketing Association, Deloitte and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business revealed. With marketers’ jobs dependent on brand growth and a gloomy market, it’s understandable to feel that way. What are some ways you’re working to grow your brand in this climate? Let us know—we’d love to find out: Kristina.Monllos@adweek.com
Quote of the Week: Anheuser-Busch’s U.S. CMO Marcel Marcondes revealed that in the last year the company has made a massive shift in how the company runs its brand teams. “Our brand teams are working in a completely different way,” said Marcondes. “We work under the system of the newsroom. Instead of having long briefs that take one month to get defined, then you brief the agency, they take four weeks to bring together and then we do a call, we do newsroom meetings every day. … Then we present what people are talking about, what the opportunities [align] with what our brands stand for. … It’s a big change in the way we listen to consumers and in the way we develop our brand content.”
Say What? Marketers are relying less on social media. Per Diana Pearl’s reporting: “Spending on that category dropped to just 11.4 percent of budgets," according to the CMO Survey.
Thanks for reading!
Have a great week,
Kristina Monllos
Brands Editor
