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The man steering American Airlines

Touchdown for world’s biggest airline Next week American Airlines becomes the largest carrier in the world following its merger with US Airways. Director of international marketing Stephen Davis tells how it aims to improve passenger perceptions, show off its new fleet and focus on digital innovation. Stephen Davis has travelled 26,000 miles in the 10 days before meeting Marketing Week , touching down in two US states and three other countries and covering four continents in total. When you are the director of international marketing at American Airlines – which on Monday (9 December) will become the world’s largest carrier – this amount of travelling comes with the territory.After settling a competition-related lawsuit brought by the US Department of Justice last month, the carrier’s parent company, AMR Corporation, is on track to close its merger with US Airways Group with the first changes for customers expected to be implemented in January.“It’s a surprise to us all that it is going to happen so early,” says Davis, “especially with Christmas coming up and Thanksgiving [last week], as so much happens in the US [at this time of year] and it is a very busy few months for passengers too.”Based in the UK, Davis has headed marketing for AA across the EMEA and Pacific regions since mid-2011, before adding Latin America to his remit in August this year. With teams in London, Tokyo, Shanghai, Fort Worth, Bogota, Lima, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Santiago and Rio de Janeiro, it is hardly surprising that he racks up so many air miles, but he genuinely enjoys flying.“Yes, I do a lot of travelling but it’s great fun,” says Davis, who is also a keen sailor. He once raced against four-time British Olympic gold medallist Ben Ainslie as well as competing in the 2009 China Cup…
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Facebook's new cheerleader

Facebook’s new cheerleader In her first major interview since joining Facebook in July, EMEA vice-president Nicola Mendelsohn counters claims that the site is ‘failing marketers’, discusses tax concerns and talks about women in business. Booking a one-hour slot to meet with Nicola Mendelsohn is like trying to go from nought to a million Facebook page likes in 60 minutes – it’s possible but it takes a concerted effort.And it is little wonder. Apart from holding the most senior role at Facebook outside of North America as its EMEA vice-president – and working a five-day week, not four as has been widely reported – she is also co-chair of the Government’s Creative Industries Council, director of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, a ‘champion’ of the White Ribbon Alliance (the global campaign for safe motherhood) and has four children of her own.Many other executives would be forgiven for appearing a bit frazzled, but Mendelsohn, who is wearing a beaming grin and her trademark designer shoes (Gina is her choice for today), takes it all in her stride with an almost infectious energy for the role, constantly motivating herself by packing her schedule with different things because “life’s not a dress rehearsal”.It was this “passion and enthusiasm” that first impressed Carolyn Everson, Facebook’s vice-president of global marketing solutions to consider Mendelsohn for the role while she was executive chairwoman of ad agency Karmarama. Joanna Shields vacated the job in January and went on to lead the Government’s investment group for technology startups – the Tech City Investment Organisation – and Mendelsohn replaced her in July.Everson says of Mendelsohn: “I was looking for someone who would not only be an inspiring people leader but also someone who can operate at chief executive level, advising our clients and agency leaders. “We have a mantra at…
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Profile: Yahoo's Robert Bridge

Yahoo vice president of international marketing Robert Bridge has helped steer the company through a turbulent few years and it is now aiming to turn a corner thanks to a strategy focusing on products, younger users and native advertising. When Yahoo[1]’s Robert Bridge was promoted to vice-president of international marketing, he was soon to discover chief executive Marissa Mayer[2] ’s keen involvement in brand strategy, saying that she is closer to marketing than any other CEO he has known.“I have worked with other CEOs, many of whom are in smaller business and are always very interested in the marketing side of the business, but when you get to some of the bigger businesses it seems to be that you get less time and less interaction.”Following his promotion from director to vice-president last month, Bridge now has access to ‘town hall’ meetings every month when he hears from Mayer directly, giving him and the rest of the team a sense on confidence they have never had before.He explains that she interacts with staff across the board, from PR, product, people to sales staff. He says: “Her ability to understand every aspect of the business and have an opinion on it is just staggering.”Yahoo has had a chequered history of late. Before Mayer joined from Google in July 2012, it had had three CEOs in as many years and was losing out to rival search engines and social networking sites. It had also laid off 2,000 people in an attempt to become a ‘bold, new Yahoo’. Since Mayer started, she has concentrated on its products and has made significant acquisitions including blogging site Tumblr for $1.1bn, as well as redesigning its logo[3] in-house.One of the hardest things has been to continually change mindset and strategy in line with corporate policyBridge, who has…
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Going public - IPOs and the power of the brand

Last week’s Merlin Entertainments flotation and Twitter IPO are the result of strong branding and marketing. Lucy Tesseras looks at how marketers influence brand value ahead of their IPOs and what listing means for companies in the future. Above: Twitter’s IPO is selling 70 million shares, which rose from the initial price of $26 before trading started yesterday to $44.90 (£27.91) when it closed despite the company never turning a profit, and is the largest technology IPO since Facebook. Photo: Aaron Durand (@everydaydude) for Twitter, IncConfidence finally seems to be returning to the market as big name brands are once again floating on the stock exchange. Today [8 November], Alton Towers and Madame Tussauds owner Merlin Entertainments went public with shares priced at 315p valuing the company at £3.2bn, after Twitter[1] ’s first day of trading as a public company yesterday valued it at $31bn (£19bn).Meanwhile, Royal Mail[2] ’s stock market launch last month drew in hundreds of thousands of consumers, all clambering to get in on the action.And with many more brands rumoured to be floating over the next couple of months – House of Fraser, Saga and clothing retailer Bonmarché to name a few – businesses are relying heavily on marketers and the power of their brands to boost their share price. However, all too often companies do not understand the value of their brand when looking for investment, says Millward Brown Optimor vice-president of EMEA Anastasia Kourovskaia.“Marketing and brand have a tremendous role to play in investor relations; in generating interest, eliminating uncertainty and thus driving a higher price,” she says. ”Companies sometimes don’t realise that there is inherent value in their brand and that the brand is as much, if not more, of an asset to the company than the buildings and land that it owns.“Our…
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Pitches under the spotlight

New models of working are changing the way clients and agencies work together, and with the launch of Good Pitch Week, now is the time to put the value back into the relationship. “The client and agency relationship is at its most fundamental level an emotional one. The nature of the product is often intangible and subjective and therefore you are dealing with people’s emotions rather than tangible objective fact,” says RSA’s marketing director Dominic Grounsell, in reference to working with agencies.The pitch, one of the most anxiety-inducing parts of the process, is under scrutiny this week with client-focused trade body ISBA and agency body IPA running the first ever Good Pitch Week – a series of events for clients and agencies that will examine the pitch process and inject new thinking (see below)[1].This is particularly relevant given that the way businesses work with creative services suppliers has been criticised by all sides. Some complain about payment periods of 90 days, others about reverse e-auctions, where agencies bid for work with the price going lower, and also the role of procurement becoming more important. However, the good news is that advertising spend went up 3 per cent in the six months to the end of June to £8.54bn and the Advertising Association forecasts a 3.3 per cent rise for the whole year.Jon White, former chair of ISBA’s executive committee and previously marketing director at Kimberly-Clark, says that there is a place for e-auctions, such as for high-volume projects that involve print or other forms of manufacturing. “When it is used inappropriately, it is a problem,” he says. “When you are trying to build a relationship that is more strategic or creative you can’t do it that way. “You have to eyeball people and know the chemistry is right and build…
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Sensory marketing - could it be worth $100m to brands?

A three-dimensional marketing approach that engages all the senses will not only boost food and drink sales but can translate into various sectors – and could add $100m to a brand’s value. Print Power“Thinking about your brands in terms of pictures, not just words, is really powerful, but why wouldn’t you use all the senses? Three-dimensional marketing is about a more holistic view of what your brand stands for and is about.”That is the view of Diageo global brand director for single malt whiskies Nik Keane. The company is purposefully moving towards creating sensory ‘worlds’ for its brands, rather than simply using words to describe them in communications.The economic effect of sensory marketing has been measured by Unilever’s Dove soap brand. Research consultancy Millward Brown estimates that the smell of the product contributes $63m (£39m) of its annual US revenues, while touch accounts for $34m and sight $14m. The smell has been found to make users feel ‘relaxed, valued and calm’.Millward Brown chief global analyst Nigel Hollis says that maintaining a brand’s formulation, and therefore how it engages four out of five senses, is critical to its success. “Imagine you were considering changing the Dove formulation to a cheaper recipe that would save $5m a year but would negatively affect the user’s experience,” he says in his new book The Meaningful Brand: How Strong Brands Make More Money. Having seen brands change the way they use the senses result in a negative effect, he asks: “Might the suggestion that the decision would affect over $100m in revenues based on the sensory experience give you pause?”Sensory marketing is not only useful in the beauty and food and drink industries, it is also becoming important for products that rely less on the senses, such as travel and insurance (see boxout, below).“We spend…
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