Newspaper Advertising Bureau capitalises on the Advertising & Research Foundation

"Our representative networked with top decision makers and returned with great ideas for our advertisers."

The ARF is recognised as the top professional research and advertising organisation in the disciplines of advertising, marketing and media. ARF's membership includes 325 advertisers, leading advertising agencies, research firms, media companies, educational institutions and international organisations. It leads key industry learning initiatives that maximise the contribution research makes to improved marketing, more effective advertising and profitable growth. ARF provides the forums for industry leaders to debate, challenge, network and collaborate at various conferences.

At the ARF conference, media research leaders, including media guru Erwin Ephron, discussed groundbreaking developments and branding experts shared secrets on improved brand management skills. The delegates debated critical marketing issues, including: Relieving the retailer/manufacturer tension and Reducing advertising waste and fixing broken media models.

Research presentations included case studies illustrating retailers as media channels, and retailers presenting themselves as the customer's champion. Other discussions covered the fatigue in retail culture and the maturation of in-store marketing.

Time was allocated to investment returns covering Cash and People Flows and Brand Building.

The ARF conference always takes an in-depth view of marketing and other talks were titled CRM as it exists is Digital Darwinism, CRM of the future should mean that Customers Really Matter, There is no mass market and product life cycles are shorter. A talk entitled Unconventional marketing wisdom is an advantage and strategic marketing is about 'investment banking' turning marketing commodities into securities proved fascinating.

Positioning and Partitioning was another hot topic: rethinking the strategic role of Brand Image and that more users of a brand like the brand than do its non-users. Rethinking reach was also dissected: if Nielsen exposure is less than a person seeing an ad at a frequency of one, reach isn't reach anymore.

"The majority of the media focus was on television, and its demise, and the Internet," says Gill. "We became aware of the major role the Internet plays in the lives of the American people.

"In some ways we, as South Africans, still have a lot to learn and, in other ways, I think the knowledge encountered by NAB via its R&D Initiative membership indicates that our retail/insert advertising relationship is far more advanced. The ARF 'Week of Workshops' was an excellent conference, a great experience and good way to learn about new ideas, methods, tools and techniques from the rest of the world."