Instagram, Vine and Snapchat, with their growing popularity, are enabling brands to use short-form video to engage consumers, but there are pitfalls to be wary of in the trend for instant marketing. Snapchat, Instagram video and Vine let people create video to share short snippets of their lives with friends and followers. But when brands become involved it could open them up to both risks and rewards. Although marketers are used to short advertising spots on TV, is this new trend towards instant marketing - content lasting less than 15 seconds delivered via social media and mobile - worth it to get the message across?Snapchat has been surrounded by negative press as people have used it to send explicit imagery. Users send pictures via mobile that can appear from between one to 10 seconds then disappear from the recipients’ phones once opened, although people can screen grab images if they are fast enough.Lynx[1], MTV UK and Doritos are just some of the first brands to try out the apps as a marketing tool, sharing short videos and exclusive pictures to drum up interest around products, launch events and the brand in general. “We are fully aware that Snapchat is popular but it does have a slightly seedy ‘sexting’ reputation for some,” says David Titman, senior brand manager at Lynx, which tested the app last month. “Being aware of this means you know what you might be getting yourself into.” When devising strategies, we listen to our social audience first. Before using Snapchat, we interacted with fans on social to gauge relevanceWorking with its digital creative agency, TMW, Lynx trialled Snapchat[2] by sending core fans exclusive content about a secret Lynx launch party, including behind-the-scenes pictures of host and television presenter Charlie Webster on a photo shoot and photographs of her…

Visionary marketers are challenging, risk-taking, determined and receptive and these are all traits that can be nurtured and developed. Here, learn how members of Marketing Week’s Vision 100 transformed themselves into top-class practitioners essential to their brand’s success. Businesses look towards their marketing teams for the most innovative, creative and, above all, visionary thinkers to solve their problems and drive growth. From the executives on the board to grass-roots staff, companies need marketers who have visionary abilities to spot opportunities and ‘join the dots’ invisible to others.The inaugural Marketing Week Vision 100[1] , in association with Adobe, celebrates the most visionary people working in marketing today, including those at the cutting edge of technology and marketers who have created genuine change at their brand. Marketing Week selected the list on the basis of seven criteria (see below[2]) and conducted interviews with all of the featured marketers to gain deeper insights into the principles that guide their work, their sources of inspiration and the defining ‘light-bulb’ moments of their careers.Visionary people are the product of both nature and nurture combined, according to psychologist, author and Marketing Week columnist Nathalie Nahai (see below[3]). She notes that while biology is an important determinant of a person’s creativity, there are also behaviours that marketers can adopt to become more inspirational and visionary in their outlook. The views of the Vision 100 and the different approaches to their craft provide a guide for all marketers seeking to fine-tune their creative and strategic abilities.Trust your gut… to an extentA common theme among the Vision 100 marketers is the importance of putting faith in ‘gut instinct’. The proliferation of ‘big data’ and consumer insight, as well as the need to factor in risk and return on investment, means marketers often plan their campaigns with high levels of…

Brands are failing to connect with mothers as marketing communications see them as mums first rather than women with children, a tactic that does not resonate with them. There are five myths of marketing to mums, detailed below, that marketers must wake up to and overcome if they are to reach this group effectively. Research from Saatchi & Saatchi, seen by Marketing Week, surveyed 865 mothers across the UK. It found that only 23 per cent are happy with anyone other than their families calling them ‘mum’, and three out of 10 agree they are ‘me first and then a mum’. ITV director of commercial marketing and research Sarah Speake says: “As a rule, mums tend to be lumped together as one homogeneous group, which inevitably doesn’t resonate with us all. Whether a stay-at-home mum, single mum, working mum, married mum, mum of younger or older children, we all have fundamentally different requirements to make our lives easier and enable a connection or relationship. “Brands that acknowledge these differences resonate better – where both the commonality of adoration of our children and our differences as individuals are recognised.”Speake and Marketing Week editor Ruth Mortimer discussed the findings at this week’s Mumstock event, organised by Mumsnet in association with Saatchi & Saatchi.It is easy to see why brands want to target mothers. According to Boston Consulting Group, women control as much as 70 per cent of household purchases and $20tr of consumer spending worldwide.Boston Consulting also says women will be responsible for $5tr of incremental spending over the next several years – providing a greater commercial potential than the consumer economies of India and China.Saatchi & Saatchi director of strategy Richard Huntington agrees that treating mothers as one group is unhelpful for both brands and their audience.“Mum is a word that…