Marketing Budget

Planning is all about reducing risks. Traditionally, marketers plan annually, aligned with the cycle of TV and print media buying. The planning timeframe would typically address only the following year. The key stakeholders form an executive committee where the marketer makes recommendations based on insights and analytics of historical spend data and aggregations of consumer data, which becomes foundational to the plan. 

With the proliferation of emerging media channels, consumers are no longer consuming information from single sources but from multiple channels, and often times, simultaneously, making it more difficult to reach and engage them in a meaningful way. 

The 42nd annual World Series of Poker has come to a close after several weeks of events and nearly $192 million in prize money distributed.  For those of you who follow it, you already know it is not a game of chance, but a game of skill. Navigating one’s way through a multi-day poker tournament involves careful observation of opponents’ tendencies, changing strategies, and leveraging information learned in the early stages of the tournament when opportunities arise later. Reflecting on this, I thought to myself - - the skills necessary to win a poker tournament parallel the skills a brand manager needs to manage her business.