January 2009
Non-profit group, the Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG) has released its findings for marketing trends in 2009.
Surveying its approximately 2000 members of senior-level marketing roles from various industries and marketing disciplines, the organization completed its second annual survey.
Anderson Analytics, conducting the survey between November 15 and December 2 of 2008 used text-mining software to code open-ended form text answers to questions in order to arrive at the results that were top-of-mind among MENG members.
The 643 responses yield overall statistics with a confidence interval of +/-3.86% at the 95% confidence level. The focus was on top marketing concepts, buzz words, global areas of opportunity, targeted customer demographics, as well as books and thought leaders that marketers look to for inspiration and opportunity.
One key finding from this survey is that 72% of respondents indicated that innovation efforts would stay the same or increase. This is significant given that most marketing experts agree it is imperative to innovate during a recession and further exemplifies that MENG members are leaders in their respective industries.
It is also no surprise the economic climate showed greater interest in the survey as more marketers expressed concern on how a recession would impact priorities moving forward. For example, half of executives believe their marketing budgets will be decreased in 2009. However, 56% of marketers indicated their staffing plans will either stay the same or increase.
Top 5 Trends Identified:
Insight and innovation viewed as keys to combat downturn with marketers indicating their research and development efforts would either maintain or increase in 2009.
Customer satisfaction and customer retention stay at the top of the list of marketing strategies followed by ROI, brand loyalty and segmentation; all of which indicate a return to the basics of marketing. Of 62 identified marketing concepts, faith-based marketing, six sigma, game theory, anti-Americanism and immigration were viewed the least important.
Global warming dropped the most in importance among marketers (by 14 places in rankings); green marketing dropped as well, by 5 per cent.
Twice as many marketers (as compared to last year’s survey) are sick of buzzwords “Web 2.0”, “blogs”, “social networking”. But while that is, they admit still knowing little, or not enough, about them. This was evident in the results of a MENG social media study released on November 6, 2008, showing 67% of executive marketers consider themselves beginners when it comes to using social media for marketing purposes.
In spite of China’s much publicized issues with quality last year, marketers with international responsibility still identify it as the greatest area of opportunity. India, however, was a distant second with just 17% of respondents indicating its potential.
Of the top five, what is also interesting to note is that, offshoring has significantly diminished in favor as significantly more executives this year (58% vs. 49% in 2008) agreed that offshoring 'is not as profitable as others think, and is fraught with risk'. Marketing executives also still feel Boomers represent the best opportunity for customer targeting. However, the perceived importance of Generation X and Generation Y grew significantly compared to 2008.
Top Marketing Books & Resources:
The main sources of marketing inspiration remained practically the same this year. Good to Great remained the most widely read and most recommended book. However, several new books appeared on the reading list this year including: Groundswell, Hot Flat and Crowded, The Black Swan, Predictably Irrational, Mavericks at Work, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, The Art of the Start, Purple Cow, Go Put Your Strengths to Work, and Our Iceberg is Melting.
Similarly to the books, the number one business Guru last year, Seth Godin, remained the favorite marketing guru for 2009. However, Warren Buffet and Malcolm Gladwell increased significantly in popularity and now occupy second and third place, respectively. Jim Stengel also made the Marketing Guru list for the first time this year.
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