Ritson’s top five marketing moments of 2024

It’s been another busy year. To help make sense of it all, Mark Ritson has taken a moment to reflect on what he believes are the 10 most notable marketing moments of 2024.

We revealed places 10 to six last week, and now it’s time for his top five moments of the year…

5. Oasis’s dynamic pricing

The furore over Oasis and dynamic pricing was one of the big stories of the summer. Fans were excited about a reunion they thought would never happen. However, joy for many was short-lived. After waiting hours in the queue for tickets, many found that by the time they reached the front the price had almost doubled.

Waves of commendation from the press, industry and even the government soon followed. It was roundly agreed that Oasis had damaged their brand.

Ritson, though, takes a different tack and regards what Oasis did as a “spectacular success”. Noting that while the negative attention isn’t necessarily a good thing, it needs to be weighed up against what it achieved. In this case, maximising the profit the band could achieve.

Rather than throw dynamic pricing out of the window, Ritson encourages marketers to learn from the mistakes Oasis made around framing and communications, because dynamic pricing remains “really good if you get it right”.

He added: “Consumers should be challenged by price. You will lose some customers who aren’t willing to pay that price. But it’s about maximising value not volume.”

4. Starbuck’s positioning

Ritson regards Starbucks’s 2008 positioning as one of the “worst bits of positioning he’s ever seen”, accusing the brand of moving away from what it was known for and instead becoming unnecessarily focused on being seen as a force for change. Or, as Ritson puts it, “they don’t understand what makes them good”.

But this, he says, is nothing in comparison to the repositioning in 2022 which brought with it the nonsensical positioning of: “We nurture the limitless possibilities of human connection.” Ritson calls this nonsense, claiming that they don’t deliver that and nor do they need to.

Instead, good positioning comes when you “understand the fundamental unimportance of your brand” and keep things simple. He points to KitKat as a prime example of a brand who has got this right – and says brands who want to avoid becoming like Starbucks need to follow its lead.

The good news for Starbucks? Its recently appointed CEO Brian Niccol seems to understand the mess it has made of its positioning – and Ritson hopes they learn lessons from the past.Starbucks needs to cut the crap from its brand positioning

3. Nike’s CEO crisis

It was a tough year for Nike. The sportswear giant had seen some fluctuations in its stock price heading into the year but nothing could have braced it for a plummet in July following a disappointing quarter of earnings. It ultimately led to the removal of its then-CEO John Donohoe.

Ritson makes the case that this was always going to happen, because Donohoe and Nike took too much from a pandemic boom in digital sales and overhauled its strategy to chase DTC and performance-led growth. The “boring brown line of continuity”, as he calls it, was always going to kick in eventually, and return Nike to the path of growth it was on before the pandemic.

This reliance on digital and fast sales was a necessary reminder that your marketing strategy needs to encompass both the long and the short. “The long of it doesn’t ask anything of the consumer. It’s about building salience,” says Ritson.

And while that may be tricker to measure than ROI, that doesn’t mean it’s not important. “The long sets up the short to work better,” and most importantly, it’s not a case of one or the other. “You need both in the right combination,” he says.Four big strategic mistakes Nike needs to reverse

2. M&S returns

M&S has been on a transformative journey over the last decade – one that has led to it being crowned Marketing Week’s Brand of the Year for 2024.

Ritson, too, was impressed by the turnaround M&S has been on and highlighted the reasons why it was able to do it. From rediscovering its “equilibrium” as a brand that embodies value and quality together to finding new ways to stand out in a more crowded 21st century retail picture, the brand has looked to its past to chart its future.

Ritson runs us through ten different aspects that went into M&S returning to growth.The 10 reasons Marks & Spencer is the Brand of the Year

1. Jaguar reborn

And for number one, well, what else could it be? Jaguar’s controversial rebrand has set tongues wagging across the marketing world for the better part of the past month – and Ritson has his take on it as well.

He criticises the brand for throwing away everything that made Jaguar the brand it was – and argues that you don’t need to rip up everything and start again to make an impact. He points to rival car manufacturer Volvo as an example of a brand that entered the EV space without losing its Scandi appeal.

Moreover, he challenges those who say at least the brand is being talked about now, and while, he argues, it’s true that “salience is important”, why does it have to come with so much negativity? Can’t it be positive and achieve the same thing?

He criticises, too, the Jaguar CEO for being so blasé about the fact it might lose 85% of its customers, noting that inclusivity doesn’t have to come at the cost of losing your existing audience. “You build a car for everyone,” he says. Targeting comes after that.

“I am certain if you were going to revitalise a brand like Jaguar you had to do it with more taste and sensitivity than what we saw from them,” he concluded. Jaguar has rebranded when it needed to revitalise

To watch Ritson’s moments from 10 to six click here.