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‘Own an audience, don’t just rent one’: 4 ways to build YouTube success

November 25, 2024 No Comments

Size matters – but only if you know what to do with it. And a strategic, sustainable approach is crucial. Leaders from Little Dot Studios, NBCUniversal and Virgin weigh up the scale of the growing YouTube opportunity for today’s marketers.

To build YouTube success, marketers need to realize that YouTube is now “more comparable to a streaming platform like Netflix than it is to a traditional social media platform,” says Holly Graham, chief commercial officer at Little Dot Studios.

YouTube is no longer the home of funny cat videos and 2-3 minute video content by rote. It’s the world’s second biggest search engine. It pulls in 2.49 billion users – that’s 48% of all social media users. And its content formats have changed in recent years.

The platform’s eyeball-grabbing, 60 second YouTube Shorts are wildly popular. Meanwhile, 10-30 minutes ‘mid-form’ content is also on the rise, giving marketers the chance to deepen audience engagement. And then there’s the inevitable counter trend to the short-form boom, with a growing love of richer, more immersive, 30 minutes plus long form content. So, which should marketers opt for? And when?

Graham was exploring how marketers can squeeze more value out of this ever-evolving, brand-building and revenue-raising machine, in an exclusive webinar with The Drum, alongside Nick Savage, senior vice-president, digital monetization & strategy, NBCUniversal and Greg Rose, digital, content and communications director at Virgin. Some of their key rules included:

1. Strategize – and play a long game

A sense of purpose should be the lodestar for any YouTube content creation, the experts agree. Rose advises marketers to ask themselves: “Is it for quick awareness? Do you want to grab people’s attention and then move them on? Or do you want to use it as an education tool to drive that deeper connection? Essentially, what’s the point of it? The audience is smart and will only engage with something if it has that purpose.”

That strategic starting point will then act as a guide for when and which content formats to pick up. Short term content is “a lower barrier to entry. It’s a chance to say things more directly, potentially market more directly, and have a little bit more fun or be more lo-fi with what you produce,” Graham says.

Meanwhile, Rose highlights how leaning into YouTube’s unique ultra long-form engagement capabilities deepened brand engagement for Virgin America. The brand’s famous, six hour BLAH Airlines spoof launched on YouTube as the longest pre-roll video ever produced and became a cult hit worldwide.

And when it comes to measuring those strategic KPIs, go long haul. Even if marketers dip their toes in with a Shorts campaign, they should be underpinning that with a mid- to long-term strategy of what YouTube could deliver over a year or more, Graham advises, reminding us that it’s a “long tail” platform with audiences still eating up content that was uploaded three or four years ago.

2. Get to know the platform

Creating something that feels authentic to the space is just as important as being purposeful and strategic, when it comes to generating engagement. The experts advise marketers to spend time understanding engagement data, watching successful creators or checking out competitors’ content. That will also help guide whether you need to create new content or create something new with old content – extracting as much value as possible out of existing assets.

Savage goes further in recommending: “If you haven’t done anything in the social or the YouTube space, then look to partner with experts that have and know that space.”

3. Remember – creation is only half the job

Driving eyeballs to your content should take up as much headspace as its content, the experts agree. As marketers have less than a minute to get viewers to click onto their content, “You have to think about how people are going to find that video and how they’re going to engage with it…. What are your thumbnails? What are your titles? How do they speak to one another? Are they compelling? How do you think about SEO? How do you think about tagging?” Graham says.

And, investing in a paid strategy should also be aligned with an organic seeding strategy – driving earned and organic engagement, she adds. All of which leads us neatly to…

4. Build a community, own your audience

Marketers do well when they spend time analysing the engagement peaks and troughs of their own channel, to be able to create a community of fans and advocates around that content. That’s when “you don’t just rent an audience for 30 seconds. You own them,” Graham says.

Savage thinks of it as a snowball effect, with a community growing over time. And that’s a community that can be influenced to try similar content, inspired to create their own user-generated, brand-building content or be drawn into a value-exchange where they shape future brand content.

He says: “For example, we would poll fans about their favourite moments from one of our shows, and then produce a video of those moments.” Ultimately, these deeply engaged followers are then more likely to share content and click through to monetized versions on other platforms.

For lots more actionable advice and best practice insights into how marketers can unlock brand success with YouTube content strategies, watch the full webinar now.

By Maria Greaves,

Sourced from The Drum

In News

Why is ‘brave’ marketing so often surrendered to challenger brands?

November 22, 2024 No Comments

By Bec Chelin,

Fortune favours brave marketers, so why does it feel so risky? A few hours into her new job at MadeBrave, Bec Chelin aims to derisk bold work.

Conjure an image of a bold creative campaign or a brave brand comms move. You know the type; they either make you wince at a subject matter that’s veered dangerously close to the line of bad taste (but not so much to force X to have a palpable meltdown) or a brand pops up in a domain it has absolutely zero right to play in but, somehow, it just works so damn beautifully.

You don’t need to be Mystic Meg (look her up, Gen Z) or Paul the Octopus (RIP) to predict the owner of said “brave” move isn’t the successful 80-year-old homewares brand that’s been a stalwart of the market for generations. Of course, it’s the new industry kid on the block, looking to get as many eyeballs on their slightly more eco and premium-priced products as possible, with a punch to the gut and a euphoric feeling of: “Finally!

Someone who understands how much millennials want to decorate their homes like a knock-off Soho House.”.

The question is, why?

No, not why are millennials obsessed with Soho House (we’re basic, deal with it).

Why is brand boldness and brave marketing as synonymous with start-ups with bags full of sass and a shoestring budget as Oatly is with shouty billboards?

The latest episode of Jon Evans’ brilliant Uncensored CMO podcast, features Gymbox brand director Rory McEntee, formerly of Paddy Power, Everyman Cinema and Papa Johns fame. Both uncover the winning principles of a challenger brand attitude to create cut-through marketing on little-to-no budget and a “seek forgiveness, not permission” mentality. While listening, it struck me that it’s absolutely batshit that brands simply “outgrow” the foundational tenets of highly creative, innovative, and cost-effective marketing.

The constant push for an unstoppable idea. A determination to stand out in a sea of competitor-set sameness. A new way of doing things that’s not simply: “A bit like last year ‘cos that worked well. Oh, but with less budget, obvs.”

Yawn, yawn, yawn.

If you’re a mature brand, arguably you’re in a bigger competitor set. You won’t be the first to market any more. Or even that different from others in the market. You’ll have competition snapping at your heels and your well-carved market share to boot.

So.

Surely.

This is exactly the time to be brave, and not play it safe.

When you look at how they market themselves, how different really does one mainstream car brand feel to the next? One hotel chain to the other? Do we really have to just play on product benefits that should be downright expected of the things you’re buying anyway (looking at you, Premier Inn and your good nights’ sleep)?

Challenging the challengers

OK, so clearly we’re not just going to risk all our hard-earned brand equity, reputation and, let’s face it, healthier budget on one whacking great slap-you-round-the-face-and-leave-you-thinking-WTF, challenger-brand-esque annual campaign.

But that’s not the part of challenger brand marketing we need to retain.

It’s the test and learn; the try it and see what happens. The boldness to know that whatever you do, you will learn something, and whatever you do also doesn’t have to break the bank in one fell swoop. There will – and should be – other campaigns that follow and eclipse something that might not work. But that brave idea might also just be brilliant. Unstoppable, even.

That’s not to say we throw caution to the wind and machine-gun out a series of hastily brainstormed flash mobs, guerilla-style marketing, AI content pieces and hope for the best. There needs to be a strategy to link the component parts of the test, learn and move cycle. But you can still have fun with it. Just ask Paddy Power and the strategic intent to position gambling as entertainment and gain rather than expense and loss. Whether you agree with the promotion of gambling or not, you can’t argue that it shines through everything they did, do and continue to do… and very bravely (the wincing, close to-the-line of decency kind) most of the time.

So why do brands become less brave as they grow?

Budgets are bigger as you grow and, therefore, are more scrutinized than ever. Concurrently, they’re also historically small as the industry continues to emerge from the pandemic, the recession and the rest.

Add to the fact that marketing budgets are repeatedly pegged as the “biggest most expendable budget line item,” and things feel tense. Basically, use it (well) or lose it. Hell, even if it’s used well, it still might go, depending on other industry and market forces. Or how confused the CEO is.

This is where the fear of loss starts to set in.

And that can trundle on being a bit less brave.

We get a bit bigger, and then shareholders enter the mix. Everything gets a little bit more antsy when it comes to not cocking it all up. Budgets scrutinized more. Brave signed off by legal less.

And then, what’s the opposite of brave? You’re that.

Time to de-risk brave

This is where education comes in. And probably more CMOs on boards required.

Side note: just 2.6% of board positions are held by marketers, also according to Jon and Chris Burggraeve in the 17 July episode of the aforementioned Uncensored CMO podcast. It’s no wonder marketing is seen as an expendable budget item with little business value.

Anyway, back to de-risking brave. Fact is, even shareholders are human.

Danny Kahnmeman’s loss aversion theory tells us that losses loom larger than gains. The more we have to lose, the more aversion to risking losing what we have.

So we play it safe. Rather than looking our millennial friends in the eyes and telling them they don’t just need to paint their walls Soho House Green, but they can go all in, buy the chaise longue, the swanky lighting and ban laptops in certain areas of your house if you want… we don’t. We hedge our bets and try to appeal to all millennials just a little bit, not just those who’ll love us wholeheartedly (and with the whole of their wallet) and our member-club loving ways.

We protect at all odds and aim to please all customers all the time, and we end up pleasing no one. Because being bland pleases no one. Being bold, on the other hand, turns your fans into brand advocates. Knowing your audience inside out and going in hard with this group surely feels imperative to lead the market.

Speaking the sweet language of finance

So far so good, but for this to work, and budgets for brave campaigns to be signed off, you have to make this point in a language the well set board and risk-averse shareholders will understand… a financial one.

Put it this way, we can work very hard to gain a lot of new customers on a short-term basis through trying to please everyone. Ultimately, though, we will lose them on price to our nearest same-same competitor the minute they have a better Bank Holiday sale. Or we can invest in developing fewer, long-term brand fans for life who will ride out price increases with inflation and hold longer-term value with repeat purchase. And that’s before we get into the power of peer-to-peer advocacy or the captive audience / NPD testing benefits of long-term loyal audiences. It’s a simple cost per acquisition v lifetime value of the customer conversation. And now we’re talking.

So the next time we get worried by boldness not paying off, or when brave feels risky, don’t compromise the quality of the creative. That’s not the problem. Bold and brave don’t need to break the bank, but they do need to hit smack in the centre of your well-formed brand strategy to hit that “oh my God it’s mad but genius” sweetspot only your brand can possibly execute.

And what about legal?

Well, just don’t break the law 🙂

By Bec Chelin,

Sourced from The Drum

In News

As the funnel breaks down, what’s the road ahead for media buying?

October 2, 2024 No Comments

By Oscar Quine

With seismic shifts underway in the media buying field, The Drum Network hosted a panel to discuss where the discipline is today – and where it might be headed.

Perhaps no area within marketing has felt the sands shifting in recent years more pointedly than the field of media buying. Industry figures have even suggested it may be the first casualty of AI. Privacy changes have exacerbated this squeeze as buyers have less user data to help them target advertising. The traditional marketing funnel is breaking down, while automation is putting the pinch on personnel.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. There are new developments in measurement, while omnichannel advertising offers new opportunities aplenty. Some even say, whisper it, that the move to automation and AI might usher in a golden era for creative – but, we’ll get to that at the end.

Let’s start on a positive note. Liam Wade, director of performance at Impression, describes the current moment as a ‘really exciting time’ in media buying. “Never before have you had so many competitors that you can guarantee are probably trying to do the exact same thing as everyone else,” he explains. “So if everyone else is doing those things, then what can you do?”

Panellists worried that the industry was full of people trained in skills that might become obsolete in three years, but also argued that automation hadn’t completely rewritten the rulebook.

Mary O’Brien, programmatic media director at PMG, says the rise of universal campaign types, such as Google’s P-Max and those offered by Meta, could lead to a world in which: “we’re essentially siphoning off budgets by platform and then they’re auto-optimizing across their formats and the funnel. So I think that evolution is a little scary”.

However, she’s quick to add: “I think media buyers and planners alike are not ready to give up that level of control yet.”

Team design

For Claire Stanley-Manock, paid media director at connective3, this feeds into a wider question of team design. Explaining that her agency is only four-and-a-half years old, she says it had initially moved towards PPC and social specialist roles, before rolling resources back into one pool.

“It was making communication a lot trickier, and just wasn’t as effective,” she says. “So then we took the decision to roll it all back in again. And then, of course, you have the question around, like Jack of all trades, master of none.”

It’s worked out ‘brilliantly’, though, she adds. “We have a mixed team, which lends itself to demand gen, YouTube, advantage, plus meta, all those kinds of things. So we have one person managing all of it, and they can make the best decision for that client.”

Ang Dahir, vice president of media planning at Jellyfish says that client-facing roles are still indispensable. “Clients still want to be treated the same, the bigger that they get, so they want you to still speak their business and language. You still need someone to play that role. But your investment teams can be more focused and specialized on cross-channel opportunities, etc. The client service piece just becomes more critical in those cases.”

Chris Ebmeyer, senior vice president and director of media services at 160/90, says that while automation is indubitably changing team dynamics, it’s also opening up opportunities.

“I think you might start to see a lot of new competitors come into this space,” he explains. “Because you can take a team of five people and AI is going to now allow you to go into the marketplace with an offering that is almost as good as some of the larger shops because you just need specialists… I think it could be an interesting time in terms of agency offerings.”

New media avenues offer more cause for optimism, says Rachel Owen, senior director of client services at M&C Saatchi Performance. And, have surprisingly, helped introduce her team to more traditional channels too.

“There are more ways to buy those platforms digitally now,” she explains. “The team is upskilling across platforms that they’ve never had experience of working with before. We’re working with connected TV, digital, audio, and all sorts. It’s providing us with a more holistic media mix than we’ve ever had.”

Aengus Boyle, senior director of media at VaynerMedia EMEA, says this shift offers potential new routes for creative to come to life. “There’s a big opportunity now to be more socially led, and to start with relatively small creative bets,” he says. “As you see things gaining traction, you can scale those up so that by the time you get to something that’s a big production-value TV commercial, you have confidence that this will resonate with consumers.”

He gives the example of an idea for a client that began as a piece of TikTok content. After going viral, it was upgraded to run on connected TV and soon had outperformed all the client’s traditional TV advertising.

Essential creative

Ebmeyer had more to say on the changes underway to the traditional marketing funnel model. “Many clients we’ve talked to went very heavy into the performance space for a long time,” he says. “And I think what they started to see was brand awareness begin to drop slightly.”

The funnel was perhaps broken, he says – plus, people are human so ultimately they don’t behave in predictable ways.

“Brands are beginning to realize they need this holistic view, and they need a new way to measure it,” he explains. “That‘s where we‘re starting to see a lot more brand perception studies coming to market, looking at brand awareness and brand consideration. And those are starting to be the benchmarks that we‘re looking at.”

Wade says this context is increasingly important. “Brands starting to realize that they‘re part of a bigger system, and they can‘t just be reporting on Google Ads anymore. They need to be looking at the incremental impact of their channels. So, a lot more incrementality testing as well.”

Despite the fears around the damage AI might do to media buying, Boyle says a silver lining could be found in the area where human input is still essential – the creative.

“I think the key thing as we move towards more and more automation in the media space, is that creative is becoming the variable that we can control and optimize,” he says.

Feature Image Credit: Greg Johnson via Unsplash

By Oscar Quine

Sourced from The Drum

In News

The retail media boom has created new roles, requiring new skillsets

September 19, 2024 No Comments

By Leah Sallen,

Retail media is a lucrative, but complex, space to navigate. That’s why you need a commerce media specialist, says Leah Sallen at VML. But, what exactly does the role involve?

Artwork from the OREOCodes campaign which draws similarity in appearance between Oreos and a barcode

OREOCodes played on the similarity of appearance between Oreos and a barcode to give customers offers on milk / OREOCodes via oreocodes.com

What do a TikTok manager, an AI prompt engineer, and a social media content creator have in common? Answer: those jobs didn’t exist 10 years ago – or barely existed.

To that list, we can now add the role of commerce media specialist – or, retail media experience planner – experience planners who guide clients in navigating the explosive growth of retail media networks.

Beyond placement, commerce media specialists seamlessly align data, creativity, and media to craft experiences that ultimately drive people to action. At its core, this role is about helping brands to harness the abundance of new digital media formats and channels – with the end goal of building brand while driving sales.

Three dimensions

It was only a dozen years ago that retail media itself came into being, in a modern context. Amazon Advertising was created in 2012, and it defined the category – certainly from a digital perspective. Since then, there has been a “California gold rush” in retail media, with the launches of Walmart Connect, Target’s Roundel, Kroger Precision Marketing, and so on. As E-Marketer noted, “retail media may be the decade’s biggest advertising trend”.

Retail media spend is running faster than analysts can keep up. E-Marketer stated that the 2024 estimated US retail media expenditure is $4 billion more than previously forecast. Of the nearly $60 billion due to be spent this year, 99% will be in digital media with the balance in-store.

The retailer part of the puzzle is what differentiates retail media from traditional media. Traditional media has two stakeholders – brand and consumer. Retail media is three-dimensional – an overlap between brand, consumer, and retailer. And today, when retail media campaign specifics can affect Joint Business Plans (JBPs), secure a call with a hard-to-reach buyer, or guarantee an incremental display, accounting for the business objectives of the retailer is fundamental.

This is not your grandfather’s media. It’s not broadcast or old-school digital. It’s not all “spots and dots”, reach, frequency, or impressions. It’s as much qualitative as it is quantitative – cantered not only on engaging the shopper close to the point of purchase but also on building a true partnership with the retailer.

Theory and practice

This is where the skill of a commerce media specialist comes in. The commerce media specialist works alongside brand strategists, creatives, data scientists, and technologists to devise commerce experiences that live in retail media touchpoints, resonate with shoppers, and create value for both brands and retailers.

It’s an assignment that is part strategic planner, part channel planner, and part experience designer. When we do our jobs right, the result is not only incredible ROI but also strong OER (Other Envious Retailers!).

The output can comprise breakthrough campaigns and activations that appear across all retail media touchpoints, and side benefits such as improved value from JBPs, preferred placement on shelf, and/or additional activation points.

The inputs are insights about consumers and shoppers, intelligence about the retailer, knowledge about retail media touchpoints, and judgment about what will ultimately generate excitement from the retailer. As we say, “sell-in is as critical as sell-through”.

A media planner in a commerce agency must also be able to assess the real value of the retail media options on offer, which is often complex for brands to evaluate.

Commerce or retail media experience planning is both art and science. The blend of media savvy and creative inspiration is best seen on two of our most recent, award-winning, and highly effective retail media campaigns – OREOCodes and Lucky Charmology.

Brand love

OREOCodes, which won a 2023 Gold Lion in the creative commerce and direct commerce categories, included a commerce experience that tapped into the visual similarity between barcodes on milk cartons and a stack of OREOs. Via digital, it allowed consumers to score offers directly from OREO’s all-time complementary partner – milk, redeemable at Jewel Osco locations.

With Lucky Charmology, winner of a 2024 Silver Lion in brand experience and activation, consumers could scan their cereal bowl, using technology created by VML’s in-house tech lab, to reveal personalized fortunes based on the magical charms in their bowl.

This amplified brand love for Lucky Charms while also turning every fortune into a repeat usage occasion, and thus a purchase of consumers’ favorite cereal, in partnership with Target.

Yes, brands need a traditional media team, but the commerce media specialist oversees much more than media. It’s not just about buying the slots, although of course we ensure that we meet benchmarks and deliver on impressions, but also about planning the experience, in such a way that satisfies brand, consumer, and retailer.

The retail media experience planning role is new, but like many jobs that didn’t exist a decade ago, it is rapidly rising in prominence and becoming a must-have on a client’s agency roster.

By Leah Sallen,

Sourced from The Drum

In News

Listen to consumers or eat Apple’s crumbling humble pie

June 18, 2024 No Comments

By Nataly Kelly

Was Apple right to apologize for its ‘Crush’ ad? Zappi’s Nataly Kelly thinks so, but she thinks the ad would never have survived testing.

Even Apple’s geniuses can fumble the ball. Last week, the brand apologized for its ‘Crush’ ad after seeing the market’s response. Responses were dramatic to the work which showed a number of creative tools being crushed into the thinnest-ever iPad.

But the real question lingers: why didn’t Apple test the ad beforehand? And I say that with confidence, knowing that any consumer insights professional worth their salt would have advised against its launch – unless, and bear with me here, Apple deliberately sought controversy.

Here’s what the brand said via AdAge. “Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives worldwide. Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry.”

Tried and tested

Consumer reactions were unequivocal when we subjected the ‘Crush’ ad to rigorous testing on the Zappi platform. Testing with nationally representative panels in the US and UK, we compared their emotions and reactions with averages compiled from testing over 7,000 ads worldwide. The shock value far exceeded expectations–four times more shocking than the average ad (9.3% compared with 2.57%).

Additionally, it rated exceptionally high on surprise (16% v 10.1% average) and confusion (12% v 4.1% average). When confusion surpasses the norm threefold, it’s clear something is awry. These should have been glaring red flags for Apple had they tested the ad beforehand.

It begs the question: did the brand intentionally cause shock and confusion (believing any publicity is good publicity)? Or had it naively hitched its wagon to AI without foresight? Or had the marketers forgotten the basics of success: listening to the consumer?

Building brand equity is no small feat. It demands years, sometimes decades, of painstaking brand cultivation to achieve the iron-clad reputation Apple enjoys. So, why risk it all with a single misjudged ad?

True success in advertising entails building upon attributes consumers already adore about your brand, not bewildering them with entirely new ones that contradict your brand’s essence. The ad was shocking precisely because it starkly contrasted with the delightful and engaging ads Apple fans have come to expect over the years.

Issuing an apology was a start, but it’s merely a band-aid over a self-inflicted brand wound. If Apple genuinely seeks to rebound from ‘Crush,’ it must honestly introspect how it reached this point.

Here’s the unvarnished truth: within those corporate walls, consumer insights teams serve as the direct conduit to the customer’s vital signs. They immerse themselves in data signals to comprehend how consumers think, feel, and react. They act as proxies for consumers, guiding creative teams toward work that drives significant business impact. Ignore them, and you risk severing ties with the very audience you aim to engage.

Yet, most creatives balk at basing decisions on what they perceive as dull test results and dry metrics. They thrive on pushing boundaries and delivering fresh, provocative, and innovative work. Thus, even when data clearly predicts consumer reactions, creative teams often disregard or sidestep insights and partner findings due to an inherent cultural clash.

I empathize. I hail from a family of artists and musicians.

After pouring my heart and soul into a song, the last thing I’d want is to be told some arbitrary test predicts its failure. Similarly, I can imagine my brother’s reaction if I interrupted him mid-painting with data suggesting his art wouldn’t resonate–he’d dismiss me outright. True artistic endeavours embody a creative vision that isn’t easily swayed mid-course.

There’s also a logistical hurdle. Creatives can’t be told at the eleventh hour to pivot entirely. When deadlines loom, it’s logistically infeasible to backtrack. Yet, in business, ignoring consumer data in the creative process poses substantial risks.

So, how do we avoid the Crush?

It’s time to dismantle the antiquated divide between creatives and data analysts. Integrate consumer insights teams into the creative process early and consistently. View consumer data and insights as creative tools that, when infused into ad development, can yield remarkable outcomes.

Many of the world’s best creative minds need space and time to produce outstanding work. Integrating data into their process may sometimes feel stifling, but discomfort doesn’t negate its necessity. To craft exceptional advertising and products, brands must continually listen to and learn from consumers. Leveraging data and insights embeds the consumer directly into the creative process, making them co-creators.

Instead of shying away from creativity for fear of backlash, harness the power of data and insights to unlock new levels of creativity. When consumer feedback guides us, we forge deeper connections that transcend transactions, fostering enduring brand loyalty and advocacy in today’s fiercely competitive landscape.

Brands ignoring consumer data do so at their peril, while those embracing it will dominate the competition for years to come. If Apple’s not careful, it too could face the crush.

By Nataly Kelly

Sourced from the The Drum

In News

To win the brave new digital future, brands need cohesive omnichannel strategies

May 8, 2024 No Comments

By Ward de Kruiff.

Digital disruption reshapes commerce across platforms, says Ward de Kruiff of EPAM Continuum. As new technologies create a pivot-point, success lies in cohesive omnichannel experiences.

A new paradigm is emerging in the sphere of commerce. The unification of disparate strands – spanning from e-commerce to the nascent realms of gaming and spatial commerce – particularly with the advent of platforms like Apple’s Vision Pro holds great potential for brands. Nowhere is this shift felt more than in the realm of luxury and fashion.

The key to success is crafting experiences that transcend physical and digital boundaries. Omnichannel excellence is no longer a buzzword but a baseline expectation. Consumers seek seamless experiences, whether scrolling through mobile apps, browsing in a physical store, or engaging with a brand in an immersive game environment.

E-commerce, m-commerce, and Gen-Z

The journey began with e-commerce, a digital revolution that turned the entire internet into a potential storefront. But e-commerce is not just about online transactions; it’s about an ecosystem that supports customer journeys with rich content, virtual try-ons, and personalized services. It’s a space where luxury fashion isn’t just displayed but can be experienced.

The proliferation of smartphones has given birth to mobile commerce (m-commerce) and social commerce, transforming smartphones into shopping assistants. In social and m-commerce, the luxury experience is literally in the palm of a customer’s hand. It’s instant, it’s personal, and it’s where digital-savvy customers are. The buzz yesterday was about building community with Gen-Z, hence brands entering the world of gaming commerce, a place where fashion often meets virtual reality.

Here, luxury brands are not just selling products but crafting experiences and stories. In-game fashion shows, virtual outfits for avatars, and interactive brand storytelling are the tip of the iceberg. Gaming commerce is about being present in a new market and also engaging with a new generation of consumers. With the introduction of platforms like Apple’s Vision Pro, spatial commerce will redefine how we perceive brand engagement.

The new frontier in commerce is spatial

Spatial commerce is about leveraging augmented reality, live-streaming, and socia-media platforms to create immersive shopping experiences. This combination can bring a level of interactivity and community engagement that traditional platforms might struggle to match.

The launch of Apple’s Vision Pro marks the cusp of a substantial transformation across many industries with the onset of Web4. Perhaps most excitingly, the new technology heralds novel methods for transactions and content creation, ultimately leading the way for enhanced use cases of spatial and social commerce.

Akin to the evolution of the App Store since its inception with the inaugural iPhone in 2007, the spatial computing digital economy of visionOS will take several years to fully develop. This time around, however, it’s different. The device disruption of wearables will be broad given the range of the new technology. And there will be lots of experimentation in translating the retail experience into spatial computing.

Marketers can be architects in this digital renaissance

We stand at a pivotal moment. The future for retail and consumer-packaged goods (CPG) brands isn’t just about choosing between e-commerce, m-commerce, gaming, or social commerce – it’s about unifying these channels into a cohesive, omnichannel strategy. This strategy should be built on personalization, immersive experiences, and a seamless customer journey. It shouldn’t just be about selling products, it should be about curating experiences and emotions as well.

The call to action is clear: embrace the completeness of digital commerce. Retailers and brands must understand that their customers do not differentiate between a physical store, a mobile app, a social-media platform, or a virtual world. They seek excellence, consistency, and engagement across all platforms.

As we forge ahead, let us be the architects of a new digital renaissance, where luxury meets technology, tradition meets innovation, and commerce becomes an endless realm of possibility. Let’s lead with creativity, courage, and commitment to customers, crafting a future that’s not only profitable but also profoundly inspiring.

By Ward de Kruiff

Sourced from The Drum

In News

Are we losing the art of marketing relevancy?

May 3, 2024 No Comments

By Mike Wickham

As the sands shift around digital marketing, says Mike Wickham of Impression, it might be time to reconsider how we target customers online.

Good marketing should always be a win-win. The consumer should win because they’re being provided with a relevant option for whatever it is they’re in the market for. The brand should win by meeting that need and by providing its product or service to the right audience, hopefully, at the right cost.

As someone who navigates both the world of marketing and consumerism, I’m noticing a worrying trend towards fewer, less relevant options presented across paid media platforms.

The algorithm isn’t always our friend

Let me give you an example. I was recently on a quest to find the perfect pair of shoes. Versatile enough for all seasons, suitable for both smart and casual attire, and durable for years to come. Alas, I’m still searching, and not just because I’m incredibly fussy.

My customer journey began the same as most, with a broad search on Google, and I was served a range of options from boots to sandals. Not quite right, but after navigating to the shopping tab, I found a few items closer to what I was picturing in my head.

After clicking on a few options from different brands and browsing their catalogues I still hadn’t found the dream pair, but I had at least narrowed down the style I was looking for. So I returned to Google and provided a bit more detail for my next search (long-tail searches do still exist), only to receive virtually the same list of items in the carousel as before.

The results were pretty much exclusively from the three brands that I just visited. For the following days and weeks, browsing across the web provided me with limited new suggestions. I was re-served the same items time and time again. A poor use of frequency capping is partly at fault here, but the crux of it is, my behaviour gave signals that I was interested in these items, and so the algorithms pushed hell for leather to get me to convert.

I sympathize with these brands, and advertisers in general, who face similar challenges. With a shift towards larger audience definitions and a heavier reliance on machine automation, they’re a little at the mercy of the algorithms to distinguish who is the right customer.

How to identify the most likely customers

So what can we do to help differentiate between a person who clicks a visual ad of a product, engages with the website and decides the product isn’t quite right for them, versus a person who clicks a visual ad of the product, engages with the website and then decides that while they most likely will buy, they first want to compare prices elsewhere and wait for payday?

It ultimately comes down to developing a better understanding of the behaviour and psychology of your consumers. There are often more reasons not to buy something than there are to buy it, so we must begin to dig much deeper.

It starts with research. Understanding consumer behaviour to uncover the ’why’ behind the engagement – as well as the ’why not’. Is it to do with affordability, a lack of urgency, or too much choice? Or is it down to concerns over compromise, distraction, likeability, trust, principles, ethics… and so much more? The list of conscious and subconscious reasons for not proceeding can be many and varied.

Behavioural insight often starts with old-fashioned methods, like actually talking to people. Focus groups, surveys and questionnaires are often seen as archaic to digital-first businesses, but they will provide the insights that will help you identify where to begin looking within the data.

Don’t chase every would-be buyer

We have to measure in different ways than before. Parsing small but significant signals of consumer intent, such as attention mapping, engagement depth, dwell time, and frequency of interaction, will help to build a clearer picture between a genuinely interested buyer and a passer-by.

By identifying and excluding those who have shown signals of dis-intent, we’re able to better place our energy into more qualified customers, while the same data informs how we adapt our customer journeys to capitalize on the ‘likely buyers’.

We ultimately need to be better at understanding our customers’ wants and needs. And a key part of this is knowing when to pursue them, and when to let them go. Algorithms have made it harder to do the latter, as they miss the context and the cognitive reasoning in the mind of the decision-maker.

Those are the gaps we need to fill, and it’s the combination of blending behavioural insights with your machine learning tools that will not only help the marketer become more effective with their advertising spend, but also help bring back the relevancy to the consumer.

Like I said – win, win.

Feature Image Credit: Remy Gieling via Unsplash

By Mike Wickham

Sourced from The Drum

In News

Affiliate marketing: Top 7 must-know trends for 2024

March 27, 2024 No Comments

By Rob Davinson

In 2024, affiliate marketing will see brand-creator alliances rise, TikTok vs. Amazon competition, programmatic opportunities, and more, says Awin’s global head of content, Rob Davinson.

Affiliate marketing mirrors the broader digital landscape, with trends at the macro level resonating in our microcosm. In 2024, we’ll see emergent trends (artificial intelligence (AI), social commerce and retail media to name just a few) that will impact affiliate marketers.

Here we breakdown the key changes (and challenges) that affiliate marketing is likely to encounter this year, and what they mean for the industry.

1. Brand-creator affiliation will rise amidst social media slowdown

With global digital ad spend growth slowing (Dentsu predicts only 6.5% growth in 2024, after a historically low-growth year in 2023), and social media facing a similar slowdown as new user growth plateaus, brands can combat this by directly partnering with creators, as influencer marketing proves more resilient than paid social.

Major brands like The Body Shop and Walmart are two examples that launched large-scale creator affiliate programs in the last year, tying social awareness to controlled marketing outcomes. We see this trend further developing in 2024, as it not only counters platform-dependent risks, but benefits influencers seeking stable incomes,

Awin’s platform witnessed a surge of registering influencers in 2023 (over 10,000), foreshadowing continued growth in 2024.

2. TikTok vs. Amazon: Affiliate model’s value amid new competition

As major tech giants mature, Amazon transitions from a shopping marketplace to an ad space, while TikTok evolves from entertainment to a product purchasing platform. This encroachment on each other’s territory is likely to intensify competition, with TikTok employing an affiliate-type model, mirroring Amazon’s commerce flywheel.

Both platforms embracing affiliate strategies validates its efficacy. Brands may channel more ad budgets into these tech giants, necessitating a choice between entering new marketplaces or driving traffic to their e-commerce sites.

Opting for the latter requires enhancing the shopper experience, supported by affiliate tech partners, as exemplified by Nike’s livestream shopping collaboration with Contester, enhancing the Cyber period with engaging content on their site.

3. Programmatic challenges will propel affiliate ad spend growth

In 2023, the programmatic ad industry faced serious challenges, as reported in the ANA’s Programmatic Media Supply Chain Transparency Study. Among its findings was the fact that there is $22bn of wastage from the $88bn programmatic supply chain.

Advertisers often grapple with misaligned incentives, prioritizing cost over value, resulting in diminished ad quality. In contrast, affiliate marketing’s performance model, linking ad spend to tangible outcomes like sales, proves more valuable.

It says a lot that global spend in affiliate marketing last year is estimated to be around $14bn, a third less than was wasted in programmatic. As senior marketers consider their budgets this year, the data suggests affiliate marketing should garner greater consideration for its effectiveness.

4. News and media publishers will leverage affiliate commerce content

In 2024, with a record number of global elections, including the US presidential election and 40 national elections, political interest will drive traffic to news media sites.

Despite heightened ad spend forecasts, news publishers may not see increased income due to past challenges with programmatic display ads. Affiliate channels offer a solution for publishers facing declining ad monetization and brand block listing.

Additionally, major sporting events like the European Football Championships and the Olympic Games in Paris promise increased traffic, creating opportunities for affiliate efforts to offset ad revenue challenges and enhance the value of journalism amid growing demand.

5. AI revolution in search will pose a threat to affiliate longtail

When it comes to online, the significance of high Google search rankings has been paramount. As the old adage (meme caption) goes: “The best place to hide a dead body is page 2 of Google’s search results.”

Google’s search console, shaping our online information-seeking behaviour for two decades, faces challenges from Google’s monetization motives and emerging AI-powered search consoles, like ChatGPT. These AI consoles provide instant answers, diminishing the reliance on external links and altering the traditional internet ecosystem.

Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) introduces AI-generated responses, potentially reducing organic traffic to publisher websites. Publishers face limited options – allow crawling for SGE or risk exclusion from Google search. SEO adherence to E-E-A-T values becomes crucial for publishers navigating this transformative shift, emphasizing the affiliate industry’s need to adapt and maintain audience-centric effectiveness.

6. Travel resurgence will inspire pop culture-inspired trips and affiliate growth

While some predicted its near-extinction after the 2019 lockdown, the travel industry is booming as we begin 2024.

IATA predicts that this year will exceed 2019’s travel record, with 4.7 billion people expected to board airlines in 2024. Awin observes a surge in affiliate-driven travel bookings, a trend set to continue as consumer confidence rises, airline capacity grows, and major events drive demand.

Expedia and Amadeus foresee a significant year for experience-based tourism (think set-jetting and music festivals). Affiliates play a crucial role in the complex shopper journey, offering inspiration, comparisons, and personalized options.

Brand partnerships, where one advertiser promotes another complementary one as part of the customer’ booking experience, thrived in 2023. Travel brands are well set to capitalise on this growth with lots of potential match-ups from other brands keen to tap into consumers’ resurgent appetite for travel.

7. As cheap fashion challenges sustainability efforts, green affiliates will emerge

Despite Cop28’s pivotal agreement to shift from fossil fuels, inertia persists around climate change. In 2024, the rise of ultra-fast fashion platforms like Shein and Temu, fuelled by the TikTok trend of buying cheap dupes, contributes to growing landfill fashion.

Even impacting Amazon, Teemu users spend nearly double the time compared to Amazon, prompting the e-commerce giant to lower fees for clothes under $20. However, some affiliates continue to promote mindful consumer choices innovatively. Examples include Refoorest, planting trees for site visits, and Axon Mobile incentivizing eco-friendly commuting. And another new promising solution for 2024 is spearheaded by Birl, who are introducing the circular economy to e-commerce through their smart resale system.

By Rob Davinson

Sourced from The Drum

In News

Marketers, let’s look beyond ‘the next big thing’

February 16, 2024 No Comments

By Claire Nance

As a comms leader at Activision Blizzard, Claire Nance tracks all the trends obsessing marketers. She explains why the next big thing isn’t always the best.

Our industry loves a good story. And so it should. Marketers are, after all, storytellers themselves.

But look at the industry’s big stories or trends from the last few years, and you quickly see a pattern emerge, one that places greater emphasis on latching on to ‘the next big thing’ without a longer-term view to real-world implementation or impact.

In 2022, it was the metaverse. Barely did an earnings call or marketing strategy presentation went by without the ‘m’ word being hastily inserted. There was (and still remains) pervasive confusion around what actually constitutes the metaverse, but that didn’t stop the rush to proclaim the launch of marketing campaigns in the ‘metaverse’ and the flood of metaverse-related categories at industry events and award programs.

In many cases, these activations were within virtual gaming and social platforms, legitimate growing areas of opportunity and interest for marketers that became wrapped up by the desire to be part of the buzz and hype around the industry’s trend of the moment.

The result was that the industry conversation skipped a few steps in understanding audience behavior in virtual spaces to unlock the real impact these experiences can have both now and in the future. The story was instead focused on the latest brand to activate in ‘the metaverse’ without contextualizing it within the current technological landscape and paying little attention to results, impact or objectives.

In 2023, it happened again. And yes, I’m talking about AI. Witnessing the abrupt shift from metaverse to AI across industry headlines, events and areas of expertise this year has been simultaneously amusing and dispiriting. Once again, the priority has been to jump on to the big story of the year and ride the buzz while overshadowing the real potential AI technology offers. Such was the attention given to AI this year that the term became a proxy for technology that involved even basic levels of automation or machine learning (both of which existed before the 2023 AI hype bubble), missing the opportunity for education around what it actually is and thus how marketers should be thinking about it into the future.

It’s easy to identify the similarities between the metaverse and AI and, thus, why they became the prime marketing story in their respective years. They’re both new forms of technology that are conceptually easy to understand yet inherently complex.

They present a level of accessibility and familiarity that makes it easy for them to be inserted into existing industry conversations while also occupying a high degree of technological sophistication that makes them feel exciting and advanced. The other important component of the narrative arc was that both the metaverse and AI gained prominence after major tech industry announcements – Facebook’s name change to Meta in the case of the metaverse and the launch of ChatGPT in the case of AI.

The speed and ferocity at which both the metaverse and AI became the dominant stories for marketing and advertising exposes our industry’s penchant for chasing the next big thing. There is an at-times outsized focus on ‘newness’ and being first regarding how we think about innovation in marketing, which can lead to the scenarios above, where one idea or technology dominates the year until the next ‘next big thing’ comes along. The result of this is not only that focus remains firmly in one direction, leading to an abundance of retrofitting ideas and technology to align with the newest obsession, but also that other forms of innovation that do not fit quite so neatly into the popular industry discourse can be overlooked.

As we sit at the cusp of 2024, how quickly will we see AI discarded for the next technological advancement, as we saw with the metaverse at the start of 2023? Or is there instead an opportunity to rethink how we think about innovation within marketing and the stories we tell ourselves?

As an industry, we consistently speak to the importance of identifying objectives and goals upfront, yet that may be forgotten when it comes to new technologies and ideas. Innovation, for innovation’s sake, serves little purpose, and the same can be said for innovation driven primarily by industry hype. The focus should be on outcomes, impact and exploration, rather than a need to follow the noise. After all, innovation aims to find a better way of doing things to achieve the desired results, irrespective of whether it can be attached to the current industry buzzword.

Future technologies are exciting, but without fully understanding them, it’s easy to miss areas of real potential. The appeal of the metaverse and AI was that they were easy concepts to grasp but spoke to a technologically advanced future, creating the potential to ‘skip ahead’ in the conversation around them. Understanding these technologies better as they exist today allows for more advanced innovation and execution tomorrow. But this can be easy to overlook when the intent is speed over evaluation.

None of this is to discount the potential impact of future technologies on our industry, nor the need for us to be talking about them. But there is an opportunity for the discourse around them to be smarter. As we look ahead to next year’s industry predictions, mine might somewhat optimistically be that how we talk and think about innovation evolves and that we don’t need another ‘next big thing’ to shape how we think about the future.

By Claire Nance

Sourced from The Drum

In News

From Nike to Cadbury, smart brand strategy is about emotion

January 31, 2024 No Comments

By Kate Eggleshaw

We like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, but often our primary drivers turn out to be emotional. Here, Definition’s Kate Eggleshaw argues that smart brand strategy is emotive brand strategy.

Emotionally engaged customers are twice as valuable as those who are simply highly satisfied, and up to 95% of purchase decisions are emotionally driven.

It’s no surprise, then, that we’ve seen the fight to win customers’ hearts (and not just their minds) ramping up. From Nike to Coca-Cola, and Apple to Patagonia, you don’t have to look far to find big brands that thrive on emotional connection.

Despite its clear commercial benefits, attempting emotional connection is a strategy that should be approached with caution. Done well, it can be a powerful tool for strengthening customer relationships and engaging your teams, driving towards a ‘why’ that’s so much bigger than profit. Attempt it without credibility, though, and your efforts will fall flat.

A tale of two brands

Take Cadbury and Pepsi: two brands whose communications have attempted to drive emotional engagement with customers, with famously mixed results.

Cadbury’s drumming gorilla campaign was a masterclass in reigniting emotional connection. Following a salmonella scare, this campaign reminded customers of the sense of ‘joy’ and ‘nostalgia’ that had long been associated with the Cadbury brand, driving a 10% increase in sales despite the absence of product in the campaign. By skilfully, and subconsciously, redirecting customers to their previous positive associations, Cadbury was able to grow consumer confidence with credibility.

Contrast this with Pepsi’s infamous ‘Live for Now’ campaign. The brand attempted to carve out purpose and emotional connection by “projecting a global message of unity, peace and understanding” in a space where they had little understanding, no track record, and no credibility. It backfired in a dramatic way.

So, how do emotive brands drive commercial success as Cadbury did, and avoid that Pepsi mistake?

1. Start with the customer

As people who work with brands day after day, we can easily forget that the customers we’re targeting don’t care (or even think) about the brands we work with in the same way that we do. They care about themselves, their loved ones, and the goals that they want to reach. To really connect with them, you’ll need to gather insights that help you understand the emotions driving their decisions, and then appeal to these consistently.

Experts have identified ten high-impact emotional motivators that significantly affect customer behavior across all categories. They range from the way that people wish to be seen (“I want to stand out from the crowd”) to the way that they want to feel (“I want to feel a sense of thrill”).

Emotive brands build connection by putting the customer first. They identify the motivators that matter to their customers where their brand can play a credible role and then make sure that they help customers feel that way in, or about, themselves – time after time.

2. Have purpose, but make it relevant

Brand purpose is often seen as a tool for driving emotional connection with customers, and many brands now understand the importance of standing for something meaningful.

However, when brands mistake purpose for being about noble cause, rather than the ‘why’ at the heart of your organization, it can lead to action that lands as inauthentic, irrelevant, and arrogant (see Pepsi, or the more recent backlash against NatWest/Coutts and allegations of ‘corporate moralism’…).

Strong brand purpose is a direct and relevant extension of your products and services, and weaves consistently through your operations, as well as the customer and colleague experience you deliver. It also puts your customer first. Remember, it’s all about their emotional motivators, and how your product or service can meet them.

Nike’s brand purpose is a brilliant illustration. “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world. *If you have a body, you are an athlete” is credible, relating directly to the brand’s products. It powerfully speaks to its audience’s emotional motivators and identity, and sets a clear direction for the customer and colleague experience that it delivers.

3. Keep your promises

Simple as it may sound, the key to delivering an emotionally connective brand is to do what you say you do. It might feel obvious, but when brands fail to deliver on the promises made in their communications, customers become disconnected and trust – that valuable foundation of deeper relationships – evaporates.

Your communications are just part of the mix. Whether it’s the decisions you make, the way you operate, the experience you deliver to customers and colleagues, or your products, absolutely everything that your organization says and does, internally and externally, must be aligned to your brand.

Emotional connection with customers can be a dauting, high-risk strategy, but it’s proven to deliver high rewards. Consistently deliver on a credible promise that speaks to the real emotional motivators of your audience and you’ll establish strong, long-lasting customer relationships that your competitors will struggle to break.

Feature Image Credit: Tengyart via Unsplash

By Kate Eggleshaw

Sourced from The Drum