The Marketing Architects

The battle over whether marketers should focus on sales or brand results has raged for years now. But while many marketers are now embracing both, this philosophy of “bothism” has only recently been applied to TV advertising. This week, VP Client Growth Devan Futterer joins Elena and Angela to talk about ways they’ve seen brands set up TV campaigns to drive both long- and short-term results. It st...

Targeting the right customer at the right time is a marketer’s dream—but only if the price is right. This is the second of three episodes reviewing a report released by Marketing Architects called “Reach, Revenue and ROI: 3 Principles for Effective TV Advertising.” This week, Elena and Rob are joined by VP of Analytics Matt Hultgren to talk about the tradeoffs between targeting and cost, the impor...

Why would anyone market to those who aren’t likely to buy right away or who don’t fit perfectly within your ICP? Actually, there are multiple reasons. This is the first of three episodes reviewing a report released by Marketing Architects called “Reach, Revenue and ROI: 3 Principles for Effective TV Advertising.” This week, Elena, Angela, and Rob are joined by Chief Client Officer Whitney Stratten...

Awareness vs affinity. Reach vs resonance. Even customer acquisition vs loyalty. The debate has many names, and it’s clearly not going anywhere. But what if everyone’s right? This week, Elena, Angela, and Rob are joined by SVP Brand Strategy Catrina McAuliffe to break down the purpose of both brand awareness and affinity. Because one thing is very clear: this is far from a simple debate. They’re t...

Earned media is a small part of marketers’ budgets, but it’s a growing focus for brands across all categories. Still, is it really a winning marketing strategy on its own? Deciding how to prioritize marketing investments across earned, owned, and paid media has been a long-debated topic. Even the definitions of those three categories are contested. This week, Elena, Rob and Angela are diving into...

75% of marketers struggle to link creative activities to commercial returns. And 79% say they have inadequate training to connect creative impact and business outcomes. Are we in the middle of a creative effectiveness crisis? In this episode, Elena and Rob explore what creative effectiveness really means, how to measure it, and why award shows are so bad at identifying it. They even explore a fram...

Google announced they would disable cookies for 1% of Chrome users at the beginning of 2024. Now, the pressure is on advertisers looking for targeting alternatives that don’t need cookies. Like contextual targeting. In this episode, Elena, Angela and Rob are joined by SVP Technology Aaron Lange to discuss what contextual targeting is, why it’s seeing renewed interest across the advertising industr...

Following AI news has been quite the rollercoaster ride lately. The technology’s potential is incredible for a wide range of fields. But especially for creative work like copywriting, design, and video editing. In this episode, Elena and Rob are joined by Marketing Content Designer Greg Brannen to talk about the way AI is transforming creative work and how creatives should feel about that shift. T...

1,100 marketers were asked if they’d recommend working in their own marketing department to a friend or colleague. The results were a definitive "no.” Clearly, marketing teams need a rebrand. Results were better among the 11% of companies the researchers identified as “winning marketing organizations” based on sales and profit growth, implying a relationship between a healthy workplace and teams t...

For years, Tesla has been the poster child for why not every brand needs advertising. With word-of-mouth alone they became one of the most valuable companies in the world. So why is Tesla now shifting gears into advertising? CEO Elon Musk publicly claimed to hate advertising, preferring to invest in research and development. But in a recent shareholder meeting, he changed his tune, suggesting adve...

The “dark funnel” gained attention when marketers realized prospects were beginning the customer journey sooner than they’d thought. And they weren’t measuring it. The earliest stages of the buyer journey happen before marketers can identify prospects engagement or without those consumers providing any personal information. These dark funnel touchpoints take place through off-site channels like wo...

The top 100 B2B brands across the globe are worth a staggering $2 trillion collectively. But they have $1 trillion in untapped brand potential. Talk about missed opportunity, right? Historically, B2B marketing has been highly rational, focused on features and benefits. But this has come at the price of undervaluing brand-building and awareness. Now, that’s starting to change. In this episode, Ange...

Reaching large audiences is powerful. But they still need to be the right large audiences. Because even the biggest brands can't afford to skip targeting. Even on mass-reach marketing channels like TV, radio and print. In this episode, Elena, Angela and Rob are joined by VP of Strategy Dan Cleveland to discuss the MarketingWeek article “ Even sophisticated mass marketers need targeting. ” The team...

Airbnb is the only public VC-backed company founded in the US in the last 15 years that is meaningfully profitable. How did they do it? They dramatically changed their approach to marketing. Two years ago, Airbnb started prioritizing brand-building while limiting their previous focus on search advertising. In this episode, Elena, Angela and Rob discuss the Airbnb success story, why finding a balan...

Brand is far more measurable today than even five years ago. So why are we still questioning brand’s value? Maybe because it’s tough to know exactly how to grow brand—and defend its importance to the business. In this episode, Elena, Angela and Rob tackle brand misconceptions from a performance marketer’s perspective. They discuss what it means to build brand awareness and drive tangible business...

Behavioral targeting has undeniably changed marketing and advertising, fueling the online advertising industry’s growth to $540 billion globally. But what’s the real impact... for marketers and for consumers? In this episode, Elena, Angela, and Rob discuss a recent article featured in The New York Times that digs into what it means to target (and be targeted) online. They explain the different typ...

TikTok has over 100 million American users, and US marketers will spend more than $11 billion on the app by the end of 2023. So what happens if the app is banned? In this episode, we’re reviewing everything from the earliest rumors of a ban to the latest court hearings. Elena, Angela, and Rob delve into the discussion around banning TikTok, what it means for marketers, and why even the threat of a...

AI is probably the hottest topic in business right now. And while the core technology is far from new, the launch of ChatGPT has kickstarted a fresh frenzy around AI’s implications for marketers especially. In fact, marketing might be the category of work most impacted by artificial intelligence. In this episode, Elena is joined by Marketing Architects founder Chuck Hengel to discuss how marketers...

There are more than 130 marketing metrics. But how many really determine marketing effectiveness? Especially for brand-building channels like TV, radio, and print advertising? Unfortunately, there’s no silver bullet when it comes to marketing measurement. But there are ways to design your campaign to be as measurable as possible. And to be more confident in your results. VP of Analytics Matt Hultg...

Budget cuts. Layoffs. Rethinking your entire marketing strategy? The economy can be confusing. How marketers should respond to economic downturns can be equally difficult to navigate. Research shows brands that maintain or increase ad spend during an economic downturn perform better long term. Of course, that’s easier said than done. Angela, Rob, and Elena share advice on how marketers can use eco...

How do you balance broad reach and highly targeted marketing efforts? Angela and Elena are joined by Chief Creative Officer Rob DeMars to talk about the challenges and opportunities marketers face in finding the right balance for their businesses. Learn how the HurryCane became the best-selling cane in the US only after reaching broad audiences, the history of performance marketing, and the team’s...

As a marketer, what is the danger of relying too heavily on digital advertising? Angela Voss, Rob DeMars, and Elena Hengel tackle this question in the first-ever episode of The Marketing Architects. Too many businesses are facing the consequences of an overreliance on digital advertising, from ad fraud to limited growth potential. Hear how brands like Airbnb have side-stepped these digital downsid...

Remember when Clubhouse was the future of audio and marketers had to get on-board? What about when headlines announced the death of traditional marketing channels? Or that everyone would be taking meetings in the metaverse by 2022? There are a lot of marketing opinions out there. It can be tough to know what’s real and what’s hype that’ll blow over next month. Which is why we created The Marketing...