This is the week that was: Getting inside the minds of CMOs

As we brush off the dust from the winter coats and ponder the annual question of why there are Christmas adverts on the TV already, there is another week of news to digest. There was one more addition to the history books as Col. Gaddafi left us for the next life. At the same time the UK government debated leaving the EU, and the city of Manchester was split down the middle after the football shock of the season.

And as BlackBerry grovelled to their customers with app handouts; the business, tech and marketing world rumbled on. Here are the highlights. If you don’t want to know the score… look away now.

European marketing advice of the week:

Planning, developing and rolling out a marketing campaign in the UK can be a stressful, costly and time consuming task – let alone the difficulty in guaranteeing leads and a healthy ROI from the money you put in. When these campaigns are expanded to Europe and beyond the issues are multiplied. One of the most costly, and often difficult stages in any campaign comes right at the start when collating and gathering the prospect data. This week Marketing Profs looked at 6 rules for marketing to Europe, surrounding data in reflection of the new e-privacy directive – from ensuring data is lawfully and fairly processed to data not being kept longer than necessary. Important advice to take on board.

Advertising shift of the week:

First it was TV and print advertising that controlled the pockets of the media spenders and then came along online advertising – proving extremely successful for businesses looking to push their products – not to mention very lucrative for the likes of Google delivering ads to the unsuspecting public. However, with the rise of the smartphone, mobile advertising is now ruling the waves with ad awareness over three times more than online and purchase intent quadrupled. A shift CMOs should be keeping a beady eye on to ensure their ads are not as useless as a 96 sheet at the British museum tube station.

Tech battle overview of the week:

As well as a flooding of praise for Steve Jobs across the blogosphere after his death, there were also a number of honest articles about his ruthlessness in business. Of course, for Apple to make it to the top of the tree they had to battle their enemies, just take a look at the latest battle with Samsung. However it is not just Apple on the war path, the other tech and online giants including Amazon, Facebook and Google are drawing the battle lines every day. This is a great overview of who will come out on top and why.

Social spending patterns of the week:

According to Forrester three-quarters of interactive marketers in Europe use social media or plan to use it by the end of 2011. Despite this, spending is still low with organisations spending an average of just under 30,000 Euros per year on the activity. This blog from Forrester takes a look at the social spending patterns across Europe and how they are set to change in the future.

Paper of the week:

Getting inside the head of a CMO is always useful, taking note and learning from how different organisations are doing things across the globe. Last week IBM released their global CMO study. Questioning over 1,000 CMOs across a number of industries around the world, the study looks at trends that affect them revealing how they are responding to the evolving scope and needs of marketing. You can download the study here.

Twitter slip up of the week:

This week the award sadly goes to us, after a direct message was sent out to all of our followers claiming we had seen a blog bad mouthing them. Apologies to anybody who was affected. The sad truth is, as great as Twitter and the likes are, there are still people out there looking to ruin it. Hopefully we will make up for it with many more great Tweets for you to enjoy. Our advice – if it looks like a dodgy link don’t click on it.

Infographic of the week:

According to the Dachis Group a ‘social business’ is one that is alive with energy and big ideas – collaborative, authentic, customer-centric, trusted, open and real-time. This infographic developed by their partners at Xplane gives a great visual overview of the attributes of a socially optimised business. Thanks to the Thunderhead clan for sharing this with us.

Another dollop of insight to brighten up a rainy day (although it may well be sunny where you are). We hope you had a great week.