The consultants at McKinsey are super-smart too, although they do keep being slapped with pesky lawsuits about things like opioid marketing. So when they decided to report on successful B2B marketing, they didn’t just find one or two key factors. No sir. They reported that the winners do everything well, from tech to organization to social media, and do more of it. You can’t get more obvious than that.
Never underestimate the clever folks at Luma Partners. You might think they’d report that martech valuations are down, and they do mention that my favorite measure, Quarterly Average EV/ LTM Revenue Multiples, has fallen from 17.2 to 4.7. But they lead with news that things are changing quickly, the consequences are vast and – wait for it – every company needs to radically rethink everything. I am beyond impressed.
The 2023 edition of Gartner’s closely-watched CMO Spend and Strategy Survey hasn’t been released to non-clients, but the press release compares CMOs who increase martech spend to “gamblers looking to write-off their losses with the next bet.” Ouch. Simpler Media’s CMO survey isn’t as hostile but does find the most technically advanced organizations are the most concerned about focusing too much on tech and the least concerned about creating robust data strategies, understanding data integration, and using analytics for decisions. Apparently they feel they’ve mastered this whole technology thing.
It’s tough to get brand safety right, but the industry keeps trying. IPG Mediabrands announced a new set of tools to find and block inappropriate ad placements, while IAS expanded its suitability measurements to include standards from the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM). Meanwhile, DoubleVerify admitted a mistake made brand safety on X/Twitter look worse than it really was in October 2023 and March 2024.