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Our weekly digest of marketing-related news will keep you up to the mark on everything from FMCG to brand strategy, loyalty programmes to fashion marketing.

  • Why are most start-ups doomed?

    Two-thirds of start-ups never achieve a positive return but why is this? Tom Eisenmann, a professor of entrepreneurship at Harvard, has concluded that failure is attributable either to the founding team or the business idea. He has identified six patterns to failing ventures, two of which are particularly common: “Bad bedfellows”, in which other parties play a part in the firm’s downfall; and “false starts”, where many firms overlook the importance of researching customer needs before testing products.

    Harvard Business Review, Vol 99(3), May-June 2021, pp76-85 (Eisenmann)

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  • The sustainability-marketing gap

    New research from the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), entitled 'Marketing and Sustainability: closing the gaps', reveals that just 10% of marketers claim to be well advanced in the “sustainability maturity journey” compared with 29% of the business as a whole. This is despite 88% of consumers saying that they expect brands to help improve the environment, and 95% of marketers believing the marketing function can make a difference to the sustainability journey.

    marketingweek.com, 23 April 2021

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  • The rise of the gaming grandparent

    Video gaming has become so popular among 55- to 64-year-olds that this is where the sector is seeing most growth (up by 32% since 2018), according to research by GWI which looked at 19,000 individuals across 15 countries. It also noted trends such as the fact that more gamers play to socialise with friends (26%) than to escape reality (22%).

    decisionmarketing.co.uk, 19 April 2021

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  • Marketing strategy for a changing economy

    Major challenges, notably the pandemic, protests such as Black Lives Matter and political frictions around the world, mean that economies are suffering and consumers are spending less. Businesses have to face up to the challenges this presents and marketers must reconsider their strategies to help the business survive. The author describes seven tips for rethinking a marketing strategy.

    business2community.com, 31 March 2021 (Hausman)

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  • Brands must rebuild trust

    Brands are suffering from a lack of trust, according to ‘The Moment for Trust’, new research from Clear Channel and JCDecaux. The research reveals the top three brand qualities for building trust among UK consumers to be: product quality (76%), value for price (72%) and transparency (61%). Rather surprisingly, social responsibility (56%), environmental sustainability (56%) and ethical (55%) do not score as highly.

    clearchannel.co.uk, 22 March 2021

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  • Video viewing and advertising last year

    Thinkbox has produced two charts showing how average daily video viewing time rose to five hours and 16 minutes (4hrs 54mins among 16- 34-year-olds) in 2020. Daily time spent watching video advertising last year reached 19 minutes (12.5mins among 16- to 34-year-olds) but broadcaster TV accounted for by far the greatest proportion of this, at 91.1%. The chart includes YouTube and TikTok.

    thinkbox.tv, 9 March 2021

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