Dive Brief:

• The CMO Council released its “The Age of the Adaptive Marketer” study in partnership with HH Global that found major challenges in localizing content, with a mere 33% of respondents reporting their companies were advanced or doing well in adapting brand content for different markets, partners and geographies, per a joint press release. Thirty-four percent of respondents said they were at least improving in this area.
• Along with adapting brand content, speed of execution was also cited as an issue with less than half of respondents reporting being able to deploy localized content across physical and digital channels within weeks of a campaign launch. Only 20% are satisfied with their creative delivery process and marketing supply.
• The top five challenges uncovered by the study include: shortening turnaround times, ensuring quality and uniformity with brand guidelines, end-to-end workflow management, delivering creative on time and measuring the creative appeal and impact of content.

Dive Insight:

Marketing messaging and content is trending toward more personalization and customization based on audience segments and location, suggesting the CMO Council's survey of 150 senior marketing executives uncovers a significant challenge. The survey results indicate most execs polled feel their teams are still creating more generic content assets and then working to localize those assets as campaigns launch rather than take a personalized/localized approach to content from the start.

Customers have “higher expectation than ever” for relevant and personalized content, said Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council, in the press release. He added that marketers need to “step up their game” in adapting content for geographic, cultural, customer and other differences while pointing out past research has shown this type of content adaptation “can be a major enabler of sales and brand success.”

One problem outlined by the CMO Council was marketers not taking advantage of processes and tools to improve the process. Only 18% of respondents reported completing a formal assessment of their creative delivery process and marketing supply chain effectiveness, and just 20% use online approval and proofing systems to accelerate content adaptation. Almost half reported spending less than 5% of their marketing budget on creative adaptation and cross-cultural localization.