Blurring the Marketing Line

Marketing used to be easy: you spent most of your communications budget on above-the-line media, and the rest on below-the-line activities. Not any more. The line has gotten blurred - though it still helps as a very broad categorisation of an increasingly complex and diverse marketing landscape.

The chart is from an excellent new report by the Boston Consulting Group on the theme of The CMO's Dilemma (pdf). One interesting forecast from BCG: this year could see below-the-line spending take a majority share of US marcomm budgets for the first time ever. Driven partly by the internet, but also by the collapse in spending on traditional media.

We're still a long way away from that scenario in Ireland. But perhaps not for much longer ...

The Baby Season

Every business is cyclical - and most are seasonal. Even the baby business it seems! A number of Amárach's clients provide goods and services to young families, including those with babies and toddlers. So we recently analysed monthly data for births (kindly supplied by the National Maternity and Rotunda Hospitals in Dublin) to get a better understanding of the seasonality of the 'baby market'.

The chart shows the combined total number of births in the two hospitals (which together accounted for 85% of births in Dublin in 2006 by our calculation, using data from the CSO). A clear seasonal pattern is evident, as summarised in the table below which indexes each month's births against the average across all months (2006-2009):

	Births as % of Monthly Average
January	94.7%
February	86.8%
March	99.5%
April	95.4%
May	102.2%
June	101.4%
July	106.0%
August	108.5%
September	104.4%
October	106.1%
November	100.1%
December	102.1%

Births in February are over 13% below the monthly average, those in August nearly 9% above the average. Clearly in the case of the former the onset of spring nine months earlier seems to have the opposite effect of those normally attributed to the season! Whereas the shorter days/longer nights of October/November play their part in the birth peak nine months later ...

Measuring Recovery

Everyone you meet asks the same question: "how's business?" It's our way of finding out if the economic cycle is turning.

We've gone and asked sort of the same question of 1,000 adults every month since April. We have created the Economic Recovery Index to guage where we are in the cycle. And hopefully to see the recovery before it shows up (belatedly) in the official statistics.

Download the latest report here - we hope you find it 'hopeful'!

DIY Futures

With the collapse in the housing market, more people are 'making do' with the homes they've got. That means a lot more DIY going on. And it isn't just our homes that are benefiting: DIY is reaching out to other sectors including entertainment, food, beauty and fashion. Learn more about the future of DIY over at JWT's Anxiety Index.

And to see just what the future of more 'traditional' DIY looks like, check out IKEA's bedroom secrets (ht PSFK).

Set your Sales Target for 2006

The latest forecasts from the OECD for Ireland (pdf) give us some clues as to what to expect in Irish consumer markets over the next eighteen months.

The chart shows the value and volume of consumer spending, in 2005 prices. So if you are preparing your marketing plan for 2010 you should assume sales volumes closer to 2005 levels, and sales values closer to 2006 levels.

Next year's levels will be lower than this year as it happens: but the overall OECD outlook suggests a much improving trend for Ireland from this time next year onwards.

Energise Your Brand

Is your brand running out of energy? In the current economic climate that is hardly surprising. But it doesn't have to be that way. That's according to an insightful study reported in this month's Strategy+Business.

The authors note that, even though stock markets have put greater value on brands since the 1990s, consumers in the UK and USA are placing less trust in brands and are proving less loyalty. We have seen much the same thing in our research in Ireland - both qualitative and quantitative.

But those brands that have concentrated on raising their energy levels (the top right hand box in the graph from the study) have demonstrated that brands can still differentiate positively for both consumers and brand owners. And doing so in a recession just might be the thing that ensures your survival through to the recovery.

It's the Exports, Stupid

When you're a small island economy then your options for growth are somewhat limited. Which is why exports matter so much to the Irish economy.

The Irish Exporters Association today published a brochure entitled "It’s Europe, It’s Exports" - which included specially commissioned research by Amárach among IEA members.

Among the findings were that 96% of them believed that membership of the EU was important to their business. In the same survey members said they relied on exports for 70% of their turnover in the past 12 months and had relied on European customers alone for over 40% of their turnover.

More details at the IEA website.