We can't believe a quarter of the year has already flown by! As #BrandManagerMonth comes to an end on Biz, I chatted to Nomu director Paul Raphaely about the essence of good design and how to better market brands through all the advertising clutter. Keeping things brand relevant, Michael Bornheim of Oracle shares why an integrated data platform is the key to aligning marketing, sales and service. This is especially true when you step out of your brand manager shoes and into your own customer persona to realise that whether you're watching an advert, engaging with a social community manager or trying to resolve a service issue, customers expect brands to know their history and preferences. Pippa Naudé rounds out Scan Display's EuroShop 2017 coverage with an overview of the top five exquisite exhibit trends according to MD Justin Hawes. Click through to our Scan Display at EuroShop special section for more of Scan Display's feedback if you missed it, as EuroShop only takes place every three years in Düsseldorf, Germany, so the next trade fair will only run from 16 to 20 February 2020. Grey Africa's Fran Luckin leaves us something to mull over with a lesson from 2016 to take forward into the coming months as she was in Cannes last year when Brexit happened and how advertising folk, whose jobs depend on the ability to understand people's motivations, desires and dreams could have missed such an enormous shift. I also continue my short digital download interviews with the winners of this year's IAB Bookmark Awards. If you've only got time for one, click through to my interview with Johan Walters, head of C2C Labs, as he explains how the Blippar augmented reality app took things to another level for IAB Digital Summit attendees earlier that day. Ample examples of why you need to keep ahead of trends and always innovate...
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