Word Inflation, Thought Recession, Marketing & Advertising News, ET Brand Equity

Just as jargon entered the marketing lexicon during the era of radio, or the era of print advertising before that, marketing terminology entered the era of television. Naturally, with the advent of digital media, there's a lot of jargon thrown around like performance marketing, retention marketing, and more.

Digital redefines market boundaries. The canvas is much wider thanks to digital interfaces and we need to be aware of that. But Shiv Shivakumar, managing partner at Advent International and a marketing veteran at PepsiCo, Nokia and Unilever, has a warning for marketers. “I think most marketers and CEOs are in what I would call an inflation, an ideological recession. They have stopped thinking deeply about their brands. They have stopped thinking deeply about their consumers. I lost it,” he says.

Performance marketing is here (and likely here to stay). Make price cuts and bundle offers and see how they perform. You'll have your answer virtually within 24 or 48 hours. In contrast, brand building requires far more trust. “Brand building is about the future. So instead of performance marketing driving brand building, performance marketing drives the results of the day,” he says.

Brand building is very important and everything marketers are doing today (in the name of performance marketing) should not hurt the brand's future, Shivakumar stresses.

Marketers are seduced by all kinds of likes, comments, followers, and more. “One of the mistakes marketers consistently make, he says, is trying to ride the wave by logging onto a trend or trying to ride a trend.”

Shivakumar added that if your brand, and your brand promise, is not at the center of the wave, there is little to be gained. He cited the example of Bud Light, which took a transgender route and saw sales drop by more than 20 percent within a week.

He added: “Digital marketing gives you 365 ideas, but you have to be very clear. Is this idea at the heart of my brand? Is it worth it? Or is it just a trend? Are we just riding on this? From a brand perspective, don't be seduced by something temporary that won't connect with consumers.”