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Nigel Hollis is vice president and chief global analyst at research company Millward Brown and his stated mission here is to discover how strong brands made more money.

There is a view among some business leaders, he says, that they don’t need to create and continue to support brands in the fast-paced digital world.

However, he says creating strong meaningful brands has never been more important to a company’s financial success.

Chief executives have a problem with brands as marketers tend to focus on brand, brand equity and brand positioning without linking these concepts to ones that chief executives worry about, namely financial value growth.

Marketers also fail to offer a coherent rationale as to how the practice of marketing leads to positive consumer behaviour and financial outcomes.

Hollis says the content that people appreciate has not changed that much. To engage an audience, ads need to be enjoyable, interesting and inv- olving. If people are to share an ad with their friends, they need to find the content funny, edgy, gripping, sexy and different. People still expect the same of brands, too, and are intolerant of poor experiences and inept marketing tactics.