Scroll through your Facebook feed, and you’ll get pelted by advertisements begging for a click. Like any other type of post, these ads allow you to react. Often, you’ll notice that one or more of your friends has already “liked” them.
Advertisers hope that a high number of such endorsements, especially from familiar faces, might make users more likely to click. But new research from Texas McCombs finds it depends on the type of ad—and the type of friend.
The wrong ads and friends could have the opposite effect, making a viewer less likely to click. So say Ashish Agarwal, associate professor of information, risk, and operations management (IROM), and Andrew Whinston, professor of IROM. Whinston is also the Hugh Roy Cullen Centennial Chair in Business Administration and director of the Centre for Research in Electronic Commerce at The University of Texas at Austin.
Agarwal, Whinston, and Shun-Yang Lee of Northeastern University focused on call-to-action (CTA) ads. Such ads use assertive wording to urge users to do something specific, such as purchase a product or download a mobile app. They’re different from the passive wording of informational ads, which politely invite users to click to “learn more.”
Advertisers tend to prefer CTA ads, Agarwal says, because they put social media users “directly into purchase mode.” But past research had shown a downside to CTA ads: They often rubbed users the wrong way, especially when people felt manipulated.
The researchers wondered whether an accumulation of “likes” could overcome that resistance.
Agarwal asks, “Given that these are assertive ads, how would these social cues help or hurt?”
The team conducted two rounds of studies.
In a field experiment, they teamed up with a mobile app developer to place a CTA ad on Facebook, asking users to download an app. It appeared 710,445 times, resulting in 799 “likes” and 4,052 clicks.
For a lab test, they evaluated different combinations of ads and cues: informational vs. CTA and generic “likes” vs. “likes” from friends. Each of the 982 study participants provided the names of five friends.
The studies found that users had different responses, depending on the ad and the cue. For informational ads, more “likes” led to more clicks. The odds of a click rose 3% for every 100 generic likes and even more—21%—for each “like” by a friend.
For CTA ads, the opposite was true. The overall number of “likes” had no meaningful impact on clicks.
But “likes” from friends did have effects—both ways. They were positive or negative, depending on whether a user believed a friend had similar or dissimilar interests.
Having similar interests increased the odds of a click by 180%.
Having dissimilar interests decreased the odds by 66%.
Why the difference? In a follow-up lab study, the team found that users responded negatively to CTA ads, because they felt advertisers were trying to manipulate them. They saw the highlighting of “likes” as part of that strategy.
They set aside that resistance, though, when they saw that friends with similar interests “liked” an ad. They saw the ad as having higher credibility.
By contrast, they found informational ads less intrusive than CTAs. They felt less resistance and were more open to being swayed by “likes.”
The team’s findings have implications for advertisers, Agarwal says, as well as for social media companies that rely on advertising revenue. Displaying “likes” may be effective for informational ads but not for CTAs.
“You have to be a bit careful about the value of these endorsements,” Agarwal says. “Maybe social media companies can make their presence optional. Maybe advertisers should have a choice: Do I want my content to be promoted with these endorsements or not?”
The research is published in the journal Information Systems Research.
Over the course of this year, I’ve helped brands navigate seismic industry changes, from Oracle’s departure from the advertising business to Google’s cookie phase-out reversal. At the centre of discussions (besides the obvious, AI) is an increasing focus on the role influencers play across the media mix and customer journey. After engaging in meaningful discussions with the industry’s top marketing leaders, I’m sharing a top 10 list of my favourite questions, along with my perspectives, which have helped to shape media strategies and innovation roadmaps.
Let’s dive in!
10. How is AI transforming influencer marketing?
While AI has been around for quite some time, generative AI (GenAI) has been a recent topic of interest over the last two years. GenAI is a type of AI that generates copy, graphics, audio and videos. The integration of AI technologies, including GenAI, in the influencer marketing landscape is catalysing transformative advancements in creator vetting, communication efficiency and content creation. In other words, it’s a BFD.
By harnessing AI-driven insights, agencies and brands can optimize workflows, strengthen client relationships and navigate regulatory complexities. These are mere examples, but the opportunities are limitless.
9. Will virtual influencers replace traditional influencers?
If the question pertains to the human impact on influence, I find it hard for AI to replace human connection. People follow influencers because they genuinely have built these parasocial relationships, trust what that influencer is saying and trust their recommendations as they would seek their own friend out to do so. The human connection is what drives that authenticity.
While I don’t see that wavering in place of AI, I do see a more collaborative role in that creators can tap into AI tools to help manage their businesses. Operationally, they can save so much time and resources by tapping into AI tools to help automate things like resourcing, invoicing, planning, data/analytics and so much more. From a content perspective, AI can certainly expedite and advance the creation process—I see an early-stage use case here of expanding creativity, not used to directly influence an action/recommendation.
8. How will creator content evolve over the next few years?
Outside of AI collaboration, creator content is becoming more pervasive. I hope to see brands more proactively adapt to a creator and audience-first mindset when developing omnichannel strategies.
7. What are the most innovative ways influencers are using new social media features?
Anecdotally, I really want creator-led programming to have its moment. Humour me…if we are seeing more consistent tune-ins across lives on social, inevitably, that means people are developing the habit of tuning into their favourite creators at a specific time.
If both worlds are successful, creator live content becomes extremely valuable. I can see a world where streaming platforms are picking up creator programming (as they would broadcast programming) and offering creator content as a viewing option.
6. What influencer strategy is most slept on?
From a brand perspective, deeper creator collaborations. Creators, as their own small businesses, are an untapped resource for brands to realize their full ROI potential.
5. Which past social predictions have made an impact so far this year?
Less of a prediction and more of a framework for discerning marketing hype from hyperbole. Essentially, the parameters that need to be met in order for an emerging social platform to truly be noteworthy are: consistent adoption, a positive and value-adding user experience, serving a need and evolving with its user base as those needs change.
Threads userbase hit 200 million monthly active users according to their Q2 earnings. Up 100 million from their initial launch week in July of last year—a platform to monitor and distinguish from hyperbole if the framework elements continue to be met.
4. How can brands leverage creators to streamline the checkout process?
Approaching strategies with a customer-first mindset, understanding the customer journey and the role influencers can play in driving sales on your website or in your store. An important concept is recognizing creators as a standalone media channel. Creator content will become more pervasive as the ROI continues to be justified.
3. What does the future of creator commerce look like?
I don’t look at things as if there’s a definitive endpoint, but I can speak to the general cyclical pattern of ubiquity to consolidation and vice versa. Consumers have so many options, more than ever. Their attention grows more and more fragmented, and the ability to meet them where they are, with relevant messaging and the ability to immediately shop, is business critical but also cumbersome. The next phase in the future will inevitably shift to a version of consolidation, which we’re starting to see a glimpse of via Google’s Anti-Trust ruling and TikTok’s partnering with Amazon for integrated shopping.
2. What examples across the creator economy stand out as ground breaking applications of AI, and how can businesses tap into that potential?
What I consider ground breaking isn’t necessarily the splashy consumer-facing side of marketing but the technical infrastructure that fuels consumer insights and strategy. The stronger the first-party data for a brand, the more opportunity there is to eliminate wasted spend and influence more immediate ROI. I look forward to seeing applications of AI that enrich the data process for consumer profiles and strengthen propensity modelling for stronger go-to-market strategies.
1. How should companies be navigating this new wave of digital transformation through AI technology?
Be agile or stay fragile. I encourage everyone to embrace innovation and technology while finding ways to up level yourself, your business and your people.
Today is the worst state we’ll experience technology. It only improves from today onward. Those embracing it today are setting themselves up for success in the future.
Adverts for nutrition products promoted by Diary of a CEO podcaster Steven Bartlett have been banned after a watchdog said they were misleading.
The businessman, who’s also one of the dragons on the BBC’s Dragons’ Den, promoted products for Huel and Zoe without making clear he has business interests in both companies.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the ads, seen on Facebook in February, could be mistaken for an independent review and therefore mislead consumers.
Both Huel and Zoe argued against the ban, saying it would be clear to customers they had a “commercial relationship” with him.
The entrepreneur, who also published a Diary of a CEO book, is an investor in Zoe and a director at Huel.
In the advert for Zoe, a health testing and diet advice company, the 31-year-old is pictured with a patch on his arm alongside a quote saying: “If you haven’t tried Zoe yet, give it a shot. It might just change your life”.
The ASA says it received two complaints that it wasn’t clear from the advert that he had a commercial interest in the company.
In its ruling, it said that the advert could seem like an independent review and knowing he was an investor was key for customers to be able to make an informed decision about the product.
One of the two banned ads for meal supplement company Huel saw the podcaster in a similar situation, pictured drinking one of their products with a quote saying: “This is Huel’s best product”.
In the second advert, he was seen in a video saying: “This is the best product that Huel have released”.
“We considered that many consumers would interpret the ads as featuring a testimonial from Steven Bartlett about one of Huel’s products,” the ASA said in its ruling.
“Because the ads omitted material information about Steven Bartlett’s position as a director at Huel, we concluded they were likely to mislead.”
The watchdog said the ads could not appear again in their current form and that both companies must make sure future adverts don’t “misleadingly omit” information about commercial relationships.
The regulator also banned an ad for Huel in 2022 on a Diary Of A CEO podcast where the presenter said he’d “become hooked on” a caramel flavour iced coffee drink.
Huel, Zoe and Bartlett have been approached for comment.
When it comes to advertising your business, you no longer need months of planning and preparation to launch your campaigns.
When I started my advertising and PR agency over 22 years ago, it took weeks of planning to write clients’ ads, design show-stopping pieces and then manage all of the production for an integrated print, TV and outdoor campaign.
Nowadays, you can launch a social media campaign within a few minutes and then scale it overnight, internationally if you want. You can wake up to a calendar full of potential clients who are all warmed up and waiting to engage your company’s services.
Here are four tactics to use when you’re rolling out ad campaigns on Facebook and Instagram.
1. Be Aware Of Your Audience
Who is your target audience? Knowing your audience is crucial not only for setting up your campaign objectives but also for designing your creative. Not sure where to start? You can use tools like Google Analytics and Facebook’s Audiences section to discover information about your existing customers and identify their key interests and behaviours.
Having a great understanding of your audience also helps you craft your ad copy. You want to ensure that you communicate with your target audience in a tone that will resonate with them.
The great thing about Facebook is that it also offers look-alike audiences that allow you to reach potential new customers based on the attributes of your existing audience. You can simply upload a list of email addresses of current clients and then Facebook will automatically create a look-alike audience for you.
2. Prioritize The Meta Pixel
Properly installing the Meta pixel on your site, landing pages or customer relationship management tool is crucial. The pixel is a powerful way to track your ad audience’s behaviour on your site and then optimize the performance of your ads.
Installing the Meta pixel on your website allows you to track who is viewing your site, what products they add to their cart and what purchases they make. The pixel also can help with conversion tracking. This allows you to determine which ads produce the most conversions so you can optimize accordingly. Using the pixel as part of a retargeting strategy helps you further advertise to those who have visited your site or abandoned their shopping cart.
3. Optimize Often
Make sure you are continuously optimizing your Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns as things can change quickly. Even if you’ve hit a home run with winning creative, after a while I guarantee that your cost per lead will increase dramatically. At this point, you could either increase your budget or go back to the drawing board and start running new creative.
When testing new creative ideas, make use of Facebook’s A/B testing option, which allows you to see quickly which is the winning creative so you can roll out the ad that will ultimately perform the best.
Monitoring your daily ad spend is important as well. Although it seems like a given, many people set up their ads and don’t look that often at their ROI. You should pause any ads that aren’t meeting your advertising goals so you can give more weight to those that are.
Another metric to take note of is your ad frequency. I’ve found that ads with a frequency of two or more often start getting more expensive to run as your target audience may have ad fatigue, which can lead to a decrease in engagement.
4. Integrate Your Campaigns With Your CRM
Once your social media ads are up and running, integrate your CRM software with your Meta Ads Manager platform so your leads will be emailed to you in real time, and then you or your sales team can reach out to them promptly.
I also recommend setting up automated workflows in your CRM so you can keep prospective customers warm by drip-feeding them emails about you and your company throughout the month. You could even create an AI chatbot to engage with them and sell via a text messaging campaign. I have done this for my own company.
Running paid social media campaigns is a great way to grow your business without spending a fortune if you are doing it correctly. By taking a methodical approach, determining your goal upfront, testing creative along the way and monitoring your return on investment, you can be sure that you are setting your company up for success.
Adrian Falk, Founder of Believe Advertising & PR | Helping Entrepreneurs Scale Through PR & Digital Marketing | Best-Selling. Author. Read Adrian Falk’s full executive profile here.
The US Department of Justice is exploring a couple of remedies, and it could possibly suggest a couple of them on Google.
We just had an exciting Pixel 9 series launch from Google, and those devices certainly warrant our attention. However, on the business side, things are not looking that good for the company. Earlier this month, a US District Court ruled that Google violated US antitrust laws when it preloaded its search engine and web browser on Android devices, capitalizing on its monopolistic position. As part of the remediation, the US Department of Justice is exploring the possibility of breaking up Android and Chrome away from Google.
Google will appeal the District Court’s decision, but the judge has also ordered both sides to begin plans for the case’s second phase. The second phase will involve government proposals for restoring competition, including a possible breakup request, which the judge can then impose upon Google and its parent company, Alphabet.
A report from Bloomberg, citing unidentified people discussing private conversations, suggests that the Department of Justice is exploring several options, including:
Breaking up Android and Chrome from Google.
Banning exclusive search contracts.
Forced sale of Google’s AdWords business.
Forcing interoperability requirements for AdWords to make it work seamlessly on other search engines.
Stopping Google from forcing websites to allow their content to be used for some of Google’s AI products, in order to appear in search results.
Forcing Google to divest or license its data to rivals like Bing or DuckDuckGo.
The report corroborates an earlier analysis from The Information, which also examined the possibility of the government ordering Google to divest of Android. It also suggested that Google’s search exclusivity deals with Apple and Mozilla, worth tens of billions of dollars in revenue, are also in the crosshair. Google may also be forced to open its training data to competing AIs.
Breaking up Android away from Google would be quite a severe move. The US DoJ tried to dismantle companies, such as Microsoft, for illegal monopolization two decades ago, but it didn’t succeed then. The most plausible remedy would be to stop the exclusive search contracts, which would still profoundly impact all the parties concerned.
From how the analysis and the reports are worded, there’s also a chance that a combination of these remedies could be forced upon Google. It remains to be seen what the future looks like for Android, Chrome, and Google in light of this antitrust case.
We’ve contacted Google for comments on the report. We’ll update the article when we hear back from them.
Feature Image Credit: Edgar Cervantes, Android Authority
Stagwell’s Mark Penn asks why marketers have such a problem with emerging tech, both trades share a timeless and unbreakable bond.
Investors always think marketing companies are going out of business, but history shows it is tech companies that become outdated and fall.
Today, marketers are in fear of technology, thinking AI will be the death of human creativity. But fear not, marketers: computers and algorithms will only mimic creativity, not replace it, and AI will bring about new, creative workstreams. At the end of the day, technology needs marketing more than marketing needs technology.
Marketing has been around a lot longer than you think. Its origins go back to Mesopotamia in 3200 BCE: someone put a mark on a coin, and that mark became a signal of reliability, and the first logos were created. And as technology evolved, so did marketing. From the print advertisement boom following the invention of the printing press in 1440; to radio, television, and Internet ads in the 20th century; to connected TV and retail media in the last few decades, marketing business surged. Technology made it easier for marketers to connect with consumers, and the means of marketing improved too.
If advancing technology puts marketing in business, marketing makes technology possible in the first place. Tech spending is heating up in the name of AI innovation.
If 2023 was the year of efficiency in tech companies, with massive layoffs and cost cutbacks, I predicted 2024 would be the year of competition as tech companies battle to own the future of AI. The investment arms race in Silicon Valley suggests I was right. In the first two quarters of this year, Microsoft capital expenditures reached a total of $33bn driven by AI investments, Meta raised predictions for its 2024 spending bill twice to up to $40bn – it spent $8.5bn in the second quarter on AI computing infrastructure alone, and Google said it plans to spend at least $12bn on AI per quarter for the remainder of the year.
Who’s paying for all of this innovation? In most cases, advertising.
In the US alone, Meta, Google, and Amazon are estimated to take in a collective $322.82bn in ad revenue in 2024. Advertising makes the democratization of technology possible and funds most innovation in the world today. That includes – and will continue to include – AI tech innovation.
AI technology will enable creative marketing as all advertising becomes targeted advertising. Digital media now makes up 75% of all media, up from one-third of total media in 2020. Advertising will continue to get better and better at finding just the right consumer at just the right time in what I call the Uber economy.
Let’s take a step back.
We started off in the Ford economy with a singular choice in the market – Henry Ford made products affordable through standardization – you could have any colour of a car as long as it was black. Then, we entered the Starbucks economy with 155 choices of something that was black. Personalization became possible: baristas could alter the size, milk, and flavour of drinks to make one unique to your tastes; you could curate your own playlists on iPods. Now, we are in the age of the Uber economy, the standard now being infinite personalized choices. You can request a ride from point A to point B, and Uber will generate a product that satisfies your custom-made specifications. Rather than drive a world of standardization, technology has driven a world of personalized differentiation.
AI-based targeting will only drive personalized differentiation further, making marketing more effective than ever.
Electronic billboards will identify and trace consumer behavior, firing up ads based on who you are likely to be. Bots will simulate human conversation, and their creation will vitalize an entire industry – what do these bots look like? What is their accent? What is the tone of their voice? What level of sophistication do they use when speaking? These bots – and soon, actual robots – will create whole new art forms and become the ultimate brand ambassadors for every brand; each brand will need the equivalent of a Disney movie of creativity as these bots become their front doors. They will be as individualized as the human race itself.
More broadly, in a world dominated by data, analysis and human creativity have become all the more valuable.
When I first started polling, I had a team of 63 people ranging from interviewers to samplers to keypunchers. Now, we can do surveys with three people, and surveys are readily accessible to everyone. Technology and AI will satisfy the simple cases, but they won’t eliminate creativity, interpretation, insight, and analysis – all of which marketing encompasses. Creativity will continue to thrive; it goes hand in hand with new technology as it always has since the invention of the coin.
Influencer marketing is one of the best forms of digital advertising today.
Companies of all kinds are harnessing influencers’ immense sway over their followers to boost their reputations and compete with rivals.
Influencers also can have a large impact on driving consumer purchasing behaviour. A recent study found that 74% of consumers have bought a product because an influencer recommended it.
But how exactly do influencers drive consumer behaviour? Let’s explore this topic.
Trust And Authenticity
The sway that influences hold over consumers hinges on trust and authenticity. As a result of being authentic and honest about their thoughts and experiences, influencers can gain followers’ trust. Research shows that 71% of consumers trust influencer content. Their followers also tend to hold them in high esteem and perceive them as authorities in their respective niches. This goes a long way toward convincing their followers to purchase a particular product.
Fear Of Missing Out And Social Proof
Social proof is a big deal for consumers. They often see a product as more attractive when they see other people, particularly influential people, promoting it. The fear of missing out (FOMO) comes into play as well, causing customers to move quickly so they do not feel left out. Influencers often take advantage of these dynamics by making products seem exclusive and time-limited, which can increase sales through impulse buys.
Boosting Engagement
Influencers play a crucial role in raising brand awareness and encouraging meaningful follower interactions, which ultimately leads to measurable outcomes. Their talent for crafting captivating stories about items strikes a chord with buyers, starting discussions and shaping their choices.
Overcome Obstacles And Achieve Your ROI Goals
While influencer marketing may seem promising, there are challenges as well. There are a lot of influencers out there, and since every business is unique, you have to conduct careful research into the influencers you partner with. In the interest of authenticity, make sure you carefully select influencers whose values align with your brand’s.
Remember that successful influencer partnerships go beyond product placements. You need a well-planned strategy for seamlessly integrating your brand into the influencer’s content to ensure relevance and authenticity. Influencer marketing works best when you focus on true partnerships rather than advertisements.
You also have to keep track of how effective your influencer marketing activities are by measuring your return on investment. Keep an eye on metrics including your engagement rate and conversion rate, as well as your brand perception.
Embrace Innovation And Adaptability
Always be prepared to adapt to changing trends in today’s digital world. Pay attention to new platforms and trends in the field of influencer marketing, and encourage innovation. For example, experiment with the way you cooperate with your partners and negotiate prices for sponsored material. Learn about affiliate marketing strategies.
Seek to build long-term relationships with influencers rather than viewing them as one-time partners. By nurturing these relationships, you’ll not only strengthen them but also boost the number of long-term fans of your business.
Conclusion
Influencers have a lot of power when it comes to driving consumer purchases because they can persuade others to act. Businesses can tap into this power by building authentic long-term relationships with influencers and working together to build trust with their target audience.
Michael Kuzminov is the Chief Growth Officer (CGO) at HypeFactory, a global AI-powered influencer marketing agency. Read Michael Kuzminov’s full executive profile here.
A campaign promoting a new Tree Glider shoe is part of the sustainability minded marketer’s bigger push into awareness-driven tactics.
The balance of power in the sneaker industry is shifting as legacy brands like Nike and Adidas face fresh challenges from upstarts. As newcomers including Hoka and On gain market share, Allbirds — among the category’s original fleet of direct-to-consumer disruptors — has contended with slumping sales. Now, it’s looking to change the narrative with a revamped marketing strategy.
Founded a decade ago, the San Francisco-based company first rose in popularity thanks to its comfortable designs and a sustainability minded ethos. Once deemed the “it” shoe of Silicon Valley, Allbirds saw its fortunes turn following an IPO in 2021 and over expansion into retail. Net revenue dropped 26.8% in Q2 2024, partially due to the closure of 10 stores, though the company narrowed its losses.
An ad campaign created with Sid Lee that landed Tuesday has a dreamy quality as people walk around in Tree Gliders before floating into the air. Messaging emphasizes the dual meaning of “nature” in relation to both the Earth and intrinsic human qualities. A partnership with Melissa Wood-Tepperberg, a wellness influencer and founder of Melissa Wood Health, rounds out the effort.
“We’re excited about building a platform that can sustain us through the lens of consistency, repetition and investment, hopefully for the next five-plus years,” said Kelly Olmstead, who took on the CMO title at Allbirds in December.
Olmstead’s prior roles include nearly two decades at Adidas, where she helped lead brand, retail and digital marketing for North America. Below, Marketing Dive spoke with the executive about tapping into a cult following via customer relationship management (CRM) and what marketing tactics are catching her interest this year.
The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
MARKETING DIVE: You’ve been in the CMO role almost a year now?
KELLY OLMSTEAD: We’ve been in the midst of this brand reset. I joined as a contractor and I wasn’t sure about coming back to a footwear brand. I came in and just fell in love first with the people here and the spirit, we say a lot: “High horsepower, low ego.” I was really disarmed by that. I stayed because I do think Allbirds is poised for a strong return.
One of the things that struck me out of the gate was this perfect storm of opportunity. We have an incredibly high [Net Promoter Score]. Coming from this industry, to be north of 80 on an NPS means people that know us love us. But we have very small and steady awareness, around 15% to 17%, that is hard to move. It’s about telling more people about the brand and getting more people to try us.
What was missing from the past marketing strategy that didn’t connect those dots?
We’re nine years old. Marketing takes time. What I’ve been excited to do with Joe [Vernachio], with [Chief Design Officer] Adrian [Nyman] and with our agency partner, Sid Lee USA, is formulate a campaign and a platform that will endure. It has the breadth to allow us to dimensionalize great products and what’s special about those products, but also can flex into this more aspirational brand space. People that choose Allbirds are making a conscious choice for something that is a little lesser known. It’s kind of counterculture, it’s not the mainstream.
How have the cross-organizational aspects of the brand changed since you joined? Did it used to be more siloed?
Joe was with the company for a few years. In assuming the CEO role, he comes in with a wealth of knowledge, not only in Allbirds, but also Mountain Hardwear, The North Face, Nike. He’s done it all. He’s not necessarily a CEO by trade. With this whole “high horsepower, low ego” [idea], he has really gone out and tried to break down silos. I can’t speak to what it was before but certainly now there is a spirit of all of us getting on the same page and getting a clear plan.
It’s a challenging time for the business. How are you balancing launching this new marketing with that contraction?
There’s been a lot of great work done to get Allbirds to a more operationally healthy place. What I am feeling, not only from the executive team but the board, is the willingness to invest in brand. It’s the view that it has the potential to be a 100-year brand. That’s a shift of the way that we market, the KPIs we’re looking at. Having been at some brands that have been around for a lot longer, that’s how you weather storms and downturns.
The balance of brand building versus performance marketing is a bigger theme I’ve covered. Allbirds is natively DTC. How is the organization thinking about media differently?
There’s been changes in terms of operations. Performance marketing used to sit with e-commerce, now it sits with marketing. We’ve been able to look at the performance of assets and stories and react to those to get to the best work. That’s been a huge benefit.
There’s a more modern way to look at a platform, whether it’s YouTube or Netflix or even TikTok, to entertain, to give the consumer something valuable so that you earn their attention. If not, they’re done in 3 seconds. We’re hoping to articulate the Allbirds story, which is unique and not something you’re going to get in 3 seconds. We’re looking at longer-format content, where Allbirds may not be the first thing you see, but hopefully you get a lot of value out of what we’re putting forward.
You mentioned a couple of platforms, like Netflix and TikTok. Are you advertising on those platforms?
We’re on YouTube with this most recent campaign. We’re on TikTok and all of social. What’s coming in Q4 is still not baked, but we’re looking at what the right platform is to build a more robust story for Allbirds. In the space of footwear, it’s such an emotional purchase and there’s such high consideration that you have to do the work.
It’s an interesting time for footwear, generally. Nike and Adidas have both struggled with challenger brands. Do you think of yourself as being within that set?
Absolutely. Allbirds was one of the first to come in and disrupt. I was sitting at Adidas and saying, “Who are these guys?” Allbirds was really at the forefront of challenging the big dogs and doing it in a way where they walk the talk. Very few brands will open source some of the secrets that make them great. That was my first exposure [to Allbirds]. We did a collaboration between Allbirds and Adidas on what was, at the time, the most sustainable running shoe on the market. There is a real opportunity that Allbirds helped to create.
I think of shoes as being bucketed into streetwear, sports performance and comfort. Is there any one of those or a mix of them that you’re looking for Allbirds to have a bigger stake in?
In the last couple of years, we’ve really put forward this story around sustainability because that is a leadership space for us. The “Allbirds by Nature” campaign realizes that nature is a much bigger, more aspirational position.
“Effortless by nature” is the line that we are associating with the Tree Glider. You see this maximalist, overdone viz tech [from other brands]. The Tree Glider is really interesting in its ability to be comfortable but it has the confidence to not have an overt logo. That was an intentional design choice from the inception. There is a real opportunity to have a more sophisticated take.
Tell me more about the Sid Lee relationship. Is this their first work for you?
It is. Both Joe and I, separately, had a relationship with Sid Lee before. We brought in Sid Lee and it was a true collaboration. When we got to “by nature,” it was so simple but it does have breadth. You can articulate product benefit, aspirational human benefit and style benefit. It’s the consistency that we need. We’re too small to be telling different stories all the time.
We’re in the thick of back to school and holidays are coming up. What’s your plan for H2?
The Tree Glider launch will be our biggest push, certainly since I’ve been here. We’re excited to be back in streaming, TV and true awareness channels to articulate what Allbirds is about and do it in a more distinctive, ownable way. Going into Q4, we’re looking into deeper stories we can tell and maybe more longer-format content in addition to everything we do on social and within the digital and retail space and with influencers. It is, we believe, a story we’ll be telling well into Q1. We see this as the first step and the hope is, by Q3 of next year, that we’re in a rhythm in terms of marketing and investment.
Is there anything new tactically or in terms of technology in 2024 that you’re particularly excited about?
We haven’t been at a place where we can push into awareness-driving efforts, so partners, influencers and awareness channels. That’s certainly not a new tactic, but it’s something that we haven’t been as invested in. For the launch of the Tree Glider, we partnered with Melissa Wood-Tepperberg. I don’t believe she partners with brands she doesn’t truly believe in because her credibility is at stake.
We have a pretty exceptional CRM program that we own [called C360]. It’s the ability to have almost too clear of a picture. More data is not necessarily better. Just recently, we brought in new team members that have helped us build a solid strategy around how to unlock that, how to prioritize what we do with it. They are thinking about how to use personalized marketing and CRM in a much stronger way that helps us put the right products in front of customers at the right time.
The difference between a flourishing business and a floundering business often comes down to an effective marketing campaign. This is especially true for small businesses. Every successful marketing campaign starts with a well-thought-out marketing plan. In this article, we will guide you through the steps on how to create a top-notch marketing plan to help put your business on the road to success.
What Is a Marketing Plan?
A marketing plan is essentially a roadmap that guides businesses through the complex terrain of promoting their products or services. Think of it as a blueprint that details specific marketing campaigns, timelines, target audiences and channels such as social media, email or traditional media. Your plan should also establish clear metrics for success, the methodology used to evaluate performance and allocated budgets.
It is important to note that a marketing plan is not a static document. It is supposed to be an ever-evolving plan that adapts to market trends, customer feedback and the successful or unsuccessful marketing efforts. If done properly, a marketing plan will help you synchronize your marketing objectives with your overall business goals and ensure every marketing activity aligns with your broader vision of growth.
Marketing Plan vs. Marketing Strategy
Some assume that “marketing plan” and “marketing strategy” are the same thing, but be aware they hold distinct meanings and serve different purposes. A marketing strategy is more big-picture thinking. It identifies your target market, your value proposition, how you position yourself against competitors and how you will sustain your value over time. It involves deep insights into your customers’ needs, market trends and competitive analysis. It is essentially the “why” behind all your marketing actions.
The marketing plan, on the other hand, details the “what” and the “when” of those efforts. Once you have your marketing strategy outlined, you can begin to create a marketing plan. The plan should outline the specific campaigns, activities and tactics you’ll use to carry out the strategy. This includes details on the marketing channels you’ll use, the timeline for implementation, the budget and the key performance indicators you’ll track to measure success. It’s a blueprint that translates the strategy into actionable tasks and schedules.
Why Businesses Need a Marketing Plan
A carefully crafted marketing plan can be a game-changer for small businesses dreaming of steady growth and a competitive edge over larger companies. Marketing plans with smart strategies and targeted campaigns can level the playing field by helping small businesses carve out their niche. It provides a clear roadmap that aligns marketing efforts with business objectives to ensure every marketing action contributes to the broader company goals.
This focused approach saves small businesses money by efficiently focusing resources instead of using a scattergun approach that can drain limited budgets. By identifying and understanding target markets, businesses can tailor their messaging to meet specific needs, which increases the likelihood of conversion. A solid marketing plan offers a framework for measuring success by setting benchmarks. With careful tracking, small businesses can quickly see what’s not working and adjust strategies in real time for better outcomes.
Essential Marketing Channels
Today’s businesses have a wide array of marketing channels available to them. From highly analytical PPC advertising to engaging in-person event marketing, there’s no shortage of methods to promote your company.
Social Media
During the past two decades, social media has proved to be a highly effective way for small businesses to market themselves at little to no costs. Platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, X and LinkedIn offer businesses a dynamic platform to engage directly with their audience. They allow for the sharing of content, running targeted ads and fostering community through comments and shares. Effective social media marketing can enhance brand awareness, drive traffic and strengthen customer loyalty.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is another highly effective way to reach an audience directly. Newsletters, promotional offers and personalized content can nurture leads, promote loyalty and drive conversions. Email marketing offers measurable results and high ROI, making it a staple in a digital marketing strategy toolbox.
Content Marketing
Content marketing involves creating hyper-relevant and compelling content that will act as a magnet to attract a laser-focused group of people. You can create blogs, videos, infographics and podcasts to cultivate an engaged community of followers with whom your brand’s message genuinely resonates.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is the practice of optimizing website content to rank higher in search engine results pages. Effective SEO strategies including on-page optimization, quality link building and keyword research help drive traffic to your website.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
PPC advertising is a method of online marketing where you pay a fee each time someone clicks on your ad. Popular platforms such as Google Ads and Bing Ads guarantee your ads show up first in search engine results for specific keywords, allowing you to bypass the “organic” results. While the pay-per-click fees can add up, this form of advertising provides immediate traffic and measurable results.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing leverages the reach of influencers in specific niches to help you promote your business to a larger audience. When you partner with a credible influencer, you can tap into their loyal followings, gain trust quickly and drive engagement that will hopefully lead to greater sales. Affiliate marketing can complement influencer marketing by allowing influencers to earn commissions on the sales they drive. This performance-based option is cost effective, as you will only pay for actual results.
Event Marketing
Event marketing involves marketing your brand, company or service through in-person or virtual events. It can be anything from interactive webinars and educational workshops to large-scale conferences and industry trade shows. Event marketing gives you the opportunity to directly engage with your audience and hopefully provide a memorable experience for your customers.
How To Create a Marketing Plan
Creating a marketing plan is a step-by-step process. Make sure you take your time with each step before moving on to the next one.
1. Create an Executive Summary
An executive summary is a snapshot of your simplified marketing goals, significant milestones and an outline of future plans. It should encapsulate relevant facts about your brand, setting the stage for the detailed strategy that follows. This section provides stakeholders with a clear understanding of where the company stands and where it intends to go, concisely summarizing the essence of the marketing efforts.
2. Identify Your Target Market
Who are you trying to reach? By identifying your target market you can tailor your marketing strategies effectively to help them reach the people most likely to be interested in your products or services. Outline the characteristics of your ideal customer including age, location, goals, pains and trigger points.
3. Research Your Competitors
Competitor research is a critical step in forming a marketing plan. Analyse the strengths and weaknesses in other businesses in your industry. This insight can help you identify opportunities for differentiation and areas where you can fill in the opportunity your competitors may have overlooked.
4. Determine Your Marketing Goals
Without clear marketing goals, you are just shooting barrels in the dark. Are you trying to increase brand awareness, boast sales or grow your digital footprint? And if so, by how much and in what timeframe? Use the SMART criteria for goal setting, which advises that goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
5. Establish and Track Benchmarks
Once you determine what your marketing goals are, it is important to track their effectiveness.
To do this, set baseline measurements for key performance indicators related to your goals, such as website traffic, conversion rates or social media engagement. Monitor these benchmarks on a regular basis and adjust strategies as needed to enhance marketing performance.
6. Identify Your Marketing Channels
Are you going to throw all your eggs in the social media basket? Or are you going to diversify your marketing strategy with both digital and in-person events? This step requires a deep dive into the various channels available—be it social media, email marketing, SEO or traditional advertising. When choosing your marketing channels, be sure to ask yourself where your target audience is most engaged.
7. Create a Budget
Finally, create a budget that covers all aspects of your marketing efforts from paid advertising and content creation to software subscriptions and event sponsorships. This will help you stay financially responsible as more marketing opportunities arise.
Bottom Line
One of the keys to a successful business is setting yourself apart from the competition. A strategic marketing plan that details your marketing efforts can not only help you stand out but also provide a step-by-step guide toward reaching your business objectives.
This month, U.K.-based online creator platform Fanvue announced the top ten finalists of the inaugural “Miss AI” beauty pageant, and none of them are real. The contestants only exist on social media as “photorealistic images of extremely beautiful young women,” created using a “combination of off-the-shelf and proprietary AI technology,” said NPR. But while the beauty queens are not real, the $5,000 cash prize is.
This pageant is simply the latest platform for influencers created by developers using advanced artificial intelligence. Virtual influencers these days have been featured in fashion campaigns and are even snagging brand deals like their human counterparts. What’s more, the recent boom in AI technology has given them an uncanny photorealistic quality. It is now much harder to spot what is real and what is fake.
AI influencers in mainstream media
Virtual influencers have been around for a while, but the advent of AI chatbots and image creators has taken the possibilities to a new level. As their presence on social media grows, they are infiltrating the mainstream and reaching a larger audience. An April report by The Influencer Marketing Factory found that 50% of participants followed at least one AI influencer, and 22% were at least somewhat familiar with the virtual creators. Among those following the digital influencers, 49% said they followed them “out of curiosity about the technology and creativity behind these creators,” while 36% said they followed them for entertainment, said Business Insider. Participants also said they followed faux influencers to “learn about new products and services and to escape from reality.”
Lil Miquela, a.k.a. Miquela Sousa, is one of the more prominent photorealistic AI-generated influencers; she has amassed over 2.5 million followers on Instagram since her debut in 2016. She has also appeared in ads for companies like Chanel and Givenchy and was named one of TIME Magazine’s “25 Most Influential People on the Internet” in 2019. With AI becoming more accessible, companies are creating digital personas to vie for brand deals. Luxury fashion accessory brand Coach’s recent “Find Your Courage” campaign featured virtual influencer Imma traveling through digital worlds alongside real celebrities, including rapper Lil Nas X, actress Camila Mendes, South Korean rapper Youngji, Japanese model Kōki and Chinese actress Wu Jinyan.
The developers behind the AI influencers are not “finding success in a vacuum,” Business Insider said. Many of them are gathering in online groups on platforms like Discord to share “resources to fine-tune their art” and “marketing tips to help expand their reach and improve their monetization.” Some of these creators are looking for a way to make money, while “some of us are more in an artistic objective,” the creator behind AI model Aurora Shogun said to the outlet.
A ‘symptom of a larger issue’
The rising popularity of AI-generated influencers may be creating a new lane of opportunity for creative expression. Still, it also raises concerns about the potential to use these influencers to spread misinformation or deceive followers, said Claire Leibowicz, the head of the AI and media integrity program at the nonprofit Partnership on AI, to ABC News.
While the influencers may seem harmless as they post about innocuous products like lip gloss, “we don’t want that same technology to be used to cast doubt on much more,” Leibowicz said.
Parents have also taken note of the growing popularity of AI influencers, many of whom are so lifelike that they could pass as real people. Over 12,000 concerned parents signed a petition urging TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew to label AI-generated influencers on the platform clearly. These digital personas are “creating extreme and utterly unattainable beauty standards,” the petition said. Most kids “won’t know the people they aspire to look like aren’t real people at all.”
This latest wave of influencer culture is just “indicative of the larger moment we’re in,” said Shelby Knox, the campaign director of the nonprofit ParentsTogether, who sponsored the petition. Parents are overwhelmed, and social media has “become sort of a crisis for young people in this country,” Knox said.
Human influencers have faced similar criticisms about their impact on impressionable followers. “It hurts that society values one specific standard of beauty, whether on a human being or some AI creation,” said Wired. In a world where people already follow attractive human influencers that “they’ll never meet or form a meaningful connection with,” an AI beauty pageant like Fanvue’s is a “symptom of a larger issue, not a harbinger of impending doom,” Wired added.
