Learn · track
Disciplines 101
One primer per discipline, from advertising to internal communications: how it works, its history, what it costs, the rules, its limits and when to choose it, with every claim sourced.
- 1Advertising 101: television, radio, print and cinemaHow paid brand advertising in the traditional media works, who does what between the creative and the media side, how it is bought and measured, what it costs, and the rules that apply before an advert goes on air.
- Traditional advertising buys attention in bulk: one message, seen or heard by many people at once, priced by the audience it delivers.
- Its strength is building the brand over time; the IPA's work suggests most budgets should lean towards brand building, but the split depends on the category.
- Broadcast advertising is among the most regulated forms of marketing: claims need evidence, airtime is capped in Europe, and many markets check adverts before they air.
- 2Out-of-home 101: billboards, transit, street furniture and digital screensHow advertising in public places works, from paper posters to screens bought programmatically, how its audiences are estimated by Geopath and Route, what the market spends, and the planning and environmental rules that shape where a sign can stand.
- Out-of-home reaches people where they travel and cannot be skipped or blocked; it is growing, and screens now earn close to half of its revenue worldwide.
- Its audiences are modelled, not counted: currencies such as Geopath and Route turn traffic and travel data into the likelihood that a passer-by sees a frame.
- Where a sign may stand is a planning question first: highway laws, local rules and, in France, night-time switch-off rules set the limits before any creative work.
- 3Digital advertising 101: display, video, CTV, retail media and programmaticHow paid advertising on websites, apps, streaming TV and retailers' sites is bought and sold, what happens between a DSP and an SSP in the instant a page loads, how verification and viewability work, what the market spends, and how cookies, consent and the DSA are changing it.
- Digital advertising is now the largest part of paid media: in the US alone, IAB and PwC counted $294.6 billion in 2025, with video and retail media among the fastest movers.
- Most of it is bought programmatically, through a chain of platforms; ads.txt, sellers.json and verification exist because money and impressions can leak along that chain.
- Chrome kept third-party cookies, but consent rules, Apple's tracking prompt and the EU's DSA still limit tracking, so first-party data and contextual targeting carry more of the load.
- 4Search 101: being found at the moment people askSearch marketing has two halves that answer the same question: SEO earns a place in the free results, paid search buys one in an auction where quality lowers the price. In 2026 AI answers sit above both, so the job is to be the source those answers trust and to measure what clicks are left.
- Plan SEO and paid search as one discipline: the same queries, the same landing pages and the same measurement, with paid filling the gaps organic cannot yet reach.
- In the auction, a better ad and a better landing page can win a higher position for a lower price; quality is part of the bid.
- AI summaries reduce clicks on many queries, so judge search by qualified visits, conversions and incremental results, not by rankings or traffic alone.
- 5Social media 101: earning a place in feeds that algorithms runSocial media is where most people online spend part of every day, and where brands both talk with communities for free and buy attention in auctions. How feeds and ad auctions decide what people see, what businesses use social for, how platforms and rules differ by region, and when it should lead the plan.
- Organic and paid social are one discipline: organic builds the community and the creative that works, paid scales what has already proved itself.
- Feeds rank content by predicted interest, not by who follows you, so make each post earn its place and judge it by what people do, not by follower counts.
- The right platform depends on the market and the audience: check local usage data and the local rules on minors and advertising before you choose.
- 6Influencer marketing 101: borrowing trust, and saying soInfluencer and creator marketing pays or equips people with their own audiences to talk about a brand. How the work runs from brief to contract to post, what it costs, the disclosure rules from the FTC to the UAE and Saudi licences, and how to measure it and spot fraud.
- Any material connection, whether money, free products or a family tie, makes a post advertising; label it clearly and up front, in every market, on every piece.
- Choose creators for the fit between their audience and yours, check that audience for fakes, and put deliverables, rights and disclosure in a written contract.
- In the Gulf the creator may need a licence or permit before posting; check the UAE and Saudi requirements as part of selection, not after.
- 7Content 101: earning attention with things worth reading, watching and hearingContent marketing publishes useful articles, videos, podcasts and newsletters so that people come to the brand rather than the other way round. It needs an editorial strategy, a production line that people and AI share, distribution across owned, earned, shared and paid channels, clear labels when content is paid for or machine-made, and measures beyond page views.
- Start from an editorial promise (who you serve, on what, how often), then pick formats: the content strategy decides the channel, not the other way round.
- Generative AI can speed up production, but search engines judge the result on usefulness, and from August 2026 the EU requires some AI-generated content to be labelled; keep a human editor accountable.
- Paid content must look paid: the FTC, the ASA and CAP all require that people can tell at once when something is an ad.
- 8Email 101: permission, the inbox and the rules that guard itEmail marketing reaches people who chose to hear from you, on a list you own. Whether it works depends on three things: consent that meets each country's law, authentication that Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook now require from bulk senders, and messages relevant enough that readers stay subscribed.
- Consent is the foundation: prior consent is the default for consumers in the EU and Canada, while the US relies on a working opt-out; keep a record of how and when each person agreed.
- Since 2024 the inbox has its own rulebook: SPF, DKIM, DMARC, one-click unsubscribe and a spam rate under 0.3% for anyone sending in bulk to Gmail, Yahoo or Outlook.
- Opens are no longer a reliable measure because privacy features load emails without anyone reading them; judge email by clicks, sales and holdout tests.
- 9Messaging 101: marketing in the chat, from SMS to WhatsAppMessaging marketing reaches people in the apps they use to talk to friends: SMS, WhatsApp, RCS, Messenger, Instagram, Telegram and LINE. It works when people have opted in, when the first message follows each platform's template and window rules, and when the conversation leads somewhere useful: an answer, a booking, a purchase.
- Opt-in comes first on every channel: the law in most markets and the platforms' own policies both require it, and each opt-in covers only the sender and purpose it named.
- On WhatsApp the business starts with an approved template and pays per delivered message by category and country; when the customer writes first, a 24-hour window opens for free-form replies.
- The strongest use is the conversation the customer starts, from a click-to-message ad, a QR code or a website button; treat outbound marketing messages as a scarce privilege.
- 10Public relations 101: earning trust you cannot buyPublic relations earns attention through journalists, experts and an organisation's own voice instead of buying space. It covers media relations, crisis and corporate communications, reputation and public affairs, is bound by professional ethics codes, and is now measured by outcomes under the Barcelona Principles, not by the advertising value of clippings.
- PR's currency is credibility: someone else decides whether your story runs, which is exactly why audiences trust it more and why you cannot pay for it without labelling it as an ad.
- Measure outcomes and impact, not clippings: the Barcelona Principles and the AMEC framework reject advertising value equivalents (AVEs).
- Earned coverage now also feeds AI answers, so the same work of being a trusted, quoted source pays twice.
- 11Events 101: bringing people to the brand, in person and onlineEvents and experiential marketing put a brand and its audience in the same place: trade shows, conferences, brand experiences and their hybrid and virtual forms. They are costly per person but rich in conversation and first-party data, and they are judged by objectives set in advance, a published sustainability standard and growing accessibility duties.
- Set the objective before the venue: a trade show for pipeline, a conference for thought leadership and a brand experience for affinity are measured in different ways.
- Most of an event's value is earned after it ends, in the follow-up: plan the capture of consented first-party data and the next step for every contact before doors open.
- Sustainability and accessibility are now part of the brief: ISO 20121 gives a management system, the Net Zero Carbon Events pledge a target, and the European Accessibility Act a legal floor for digital services.
- 12Sponsorship 101: borrowing meaning from what people already loveSponsorship buys the right to be associated with a team, an event, a cultural institution or a cause. The rights fee is only the entry ticket: value comes from activating those rights across the plan, protecting them from ambush marketing within the law, and measuring their effect with the same rigour as any other investment.
- Buy rights that fit the brand and the objective, then budget separately to activate them: a logo on its own rarely changes what people think or do.
- Category exclusivity is the heart of most deals, and the law protects it: Olympic Rule 40, host-city laws and the ICC Code all limit implied association by non-sponsors.
- Few sponsors can prove the business return of their deals; set objectives first and measure outcomes, not logo exposure.
- 13Direct marketing 101: mail, door drops, calls and response, testedHow direct marketing reaches one named person or household and asks for a reply, how its response rates and tests work, what lists and preference services allow, and how the rules on calls changed in 2026, from the UK's TPS and the US Do Not Call Registry to France's move to prior consent.
- Direct marketing is the discipline of the measurable reply: every piece carries a code, and a control group tells you what the campaign really added.
- Response depends on the relationship: in the UK, mail to existing customers averaged a 7.2% response in 2025, against 0.9% for cold prospects.
- Calls are the most regulated channel: screen against do-not-call lists in the UK, US and UAE, and in France, since 11 August 2026, call only people who said yes first.
- 14Sales promotion 101: discounts, coupons, sampling, prize draws and trade dealsHow sales promotions give people a reason to buy now, from price cuts and coupons to sampling, prize draws and deals with retailers; what the evidence says about what they do and do not achieve; and the rules that govern them in the UK, the US, the EU and France, and the Gulf.
- Promotions move sales now, but the classic evidence finds the extra buyers are mostly people who already buy the brand, and sales fall back when the offer ends.
- Measure each promotion for profit, not volume: most marketers in a 2026 UK survey repeat promotions they have never checked for profitability.
- The rules are specific: state every significant condition, show the 30-day prior price for EU discounts, offer a free entry route for UK prize draws, and get a permit or licence in Dubai and Saudi Arabia.
- 15CRM and loyalty 101: customer data, lifecycles, programmes and retentionHow companies use what they know about their customers to keep them: segmentation by recency, frequency and value, lifecycle marketing, loyalty programmes from points and tiers to paid memberships and coalitions, how retention and the Net Promoter Score are measured, and the rules on profiling and loyalty data.
- CRM is a discipline of the customer record: who bought, how recently, how often and for how much decides who gets which message, and when.
- Bain's work links small gains in retention to large gains in profit, but its own figures are ranges by industry, and the Net Promoter Score it created is only as good as the survey behind it.
- Profiling for marketing is lawful with care: people can object to it at any time, solely automated decisions with significant effects are restricted, and loyalty data must be portable in France.
- 16Affiliate 101: paying partners for the results they bringAffiliate marketing pays publishers, from review sites to cashback apps and creators, a commission when the people they send buy or sign up. It looks risk-free because you pay only for results, but the rules of tracking, credit and disclosure decide whether those results are real.
- Paying per sale moves the risk to partners, not the question of value: test whether cashback and coupon partners bring sales you would not have had anyway.
- Last-click credit rewards whoever touches the sale last; write rules on codes, browser extensions and brand-name bidding into every partner contract.
- Every affiliate link is a paid connection: the FTC, the ASA and the CMA expect a clear label next to it, and the brand shares responsibility for its partners.
- 17Community 101: a brand people belong to, not just followA brand community is a group of customers and fans who talk to each other, not only to the brand, in a space the brand helps run. It turns word of mouth into a programme: owned forums and groups, ambassadors and user-generated content, with moderation and disclosure duties that come with them.
- Start from what members get from each other (answers, recognition, belonging); a community built only to broadcast is a channel, not a community.
- Running your own space makes you responsible for it: plan moderation, reporting and appeals before launch, and check the DSA and the UK Online Safety Act where they apply.
- Ambassadors with perks must disclose them, incentives may never require a positive review, and reposting a member's post makes it your advertising.
- 18Internal comms 101: employees are the first audienceInternal communication keeps the people who deliver the brand informed, involved and able to speak for it. It belongs in IMC because customers meet the brand through employees, and it runs on leaders, line managers and a few well-run channels more than on any single tool.
- Tell employees first: every campaign, launch or change should reach the people who will be asked about it before it reaches customers or the press.
- Line managers carry most of the message: Gallup attributes 70% of a team's engagement to its manager, so brief and equip managers before you buy another channel.
- Employee advocacy is endorsement: staff who post about their employer's products should say they work there, and the employer should remind them.
- 19Which mix for which objective: sixteen objectives and the disciplines that serve themA practical chooser for the sixteen objectives marketers plan for: which disciplines usually lead, which support and what to measure, with the balance between brand and activation, the caveats that change the answer, and links to every primer and objective hub.
- Start from the objective, not the channel: write what must change, then pick one or two disciplines to lead and name the ones that support them.
- Fund brand building and activation together, in the balance your category needs: Binet and Field's averages run from 60:40 for consumer brands to close to even in B2B.
- Give every objective one lagging KPI and one or two leading ones before launch, and check each discipline's rules in each market; budget, category and region move the defaults.