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Millennials Are Not All Alike (And They May Surprise You!)

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New research studying the millennials market has identified five unique subgroups.

A new research study from Zeldis Research Associates reveals surprising findings for marketers which belie the frequent mythology that Millennials are “all the same.”

Unlike many other market studies attempting to better understand Millennials as a single group, Zeldis researchers identified five Millennial segments based on income, attitudes, and other important factors.  This “Seen One Millennial and You Haven’t Seen Them All” study is part of Zeldis’ ongoing investigation into how marketers can better reach and successfully engage this group.

“Despite a lot of the media coverage we hear, Millennials are not one homogenous group, unfortunately and incorrectly characterised by a few negative stereotypes such as lazy or entitled,” said Zeldis Executive Vice President Amy Rey. “Our research shows that there are important differences among Millennials. We wanted to dispel some of the myths and help marketers better understand the nuances that will help make Millennial-targeted outreach, products and messaging more effective.”

Five Identifiable Segments

Based on online interviews with 1000 Millennials aged 21-36, the Zeldis researchers identified five unique segments:  Faithful Optimists (31% of the sample), Struggling Parents (23%), Secular Activists (22%) Tech-Savvy Independents (14%), and Pessimistic Conservatives (10%).  Some of their findings include:

– Faithful Optimists, the largest segment, tend to be joyful, hardworking, dependable, and religious. They are more likely to be non-white and heterosexual.

– Struggling Parents tend to be pessimistic about their lives and about the country. They don’t pay much attention to politics or technology. They are more likely to be white women with children and tend to be less educated and from rural areas.

– Secular Activists are more likely to be politically liberal, and to be pessimistic about the country’s future. They tend to be single, childless, and secular and are more likely to be part of the LGBT community.

-Tech-Savvy Independents are more politically conservative but also environmentally conscious. Optimistic about the economy, this segment has a higher proportion of males and non-whites, and tends to be from urban locations.

– Pessimistic Conservatives, the smallest segment, are likely to be from suburban areas. They tend to be religious and politically conservative. Skewing male and non-white, they have high incomes but are pessimistic about their economic future.

Though holding some attitudes and beliefs in common with other segments, each group showed nuanced differences that the Zeldis researchers believe are important for companies to understand and apply when marketing their products.

The full results are available at ZeldisMillennialsStudy.com.

 

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Understanding Facebook Emoticons Can Impact How You Advertise on Social Media

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Not all “likes” are equal.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

While the trusty “like” button is still the most popular way to signal approval for Facebook posts, a computer model may help users and businesses navigate the increasingly complicated way people are expressing how they feel on social media.

In a study, researchers developed a social emotion mining computer model that one day could be used to better predict people’s emotional reactions to Facebook posts, said Jason Zhang, a research assistant in Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology. While Facebook once featured only one official emoticon reaction – the like button – the social media site added five more buttons – love, haha, wow, sad and angry – in early 2016.

“We want to understand the user’s reactions behind these clicks on the emoticons by modelling the problem as the ranking problem – given a Facebook post, can an algorithm predict the right ordering among six emoticons in terms of votes?” said Zhang. “But, what we found out was that existing solutions predict the user’s emotions and their rankings poorly in some times.”

Zhang added that merely counting clicks fails to acknowledge that some emoticons are less likely to be clicked than others, which is called the imbalance issue. For example, users tend to click the like button the most because it signals a positive interaction and it is also the default emoticon on Facebook.

“When we post something on Facebook, our friends tend to click the positive reactions, usually love, haha, or, simply, like, but they’ll seldom click angry,” said Zhang. “And this causes the severe imbalance issue.”

For social media managers and advertisers, who spend billions buying Facebook advertisements each year, this imbalance may skew their analysis on how their content is actually performing on Facebook, said Dongwon Lee, associate professor of information sciences and technology. The new model – which they call robust label ranking, or ROAR – could lead to better analytic packages for social media analysts and researchers.

“A lot of the commercial advertisements on Facebook are driven by likes,” said Lee. “Eventually, if we can predict these emoticons more accurately using six emoticons, we can build a better model that can discern more precise distribution of emotions in the social platforms with only one emoticon – like – such as on Facebook before 2016. This is a step in the direction of creating a model that could tell, for instance, that a Facebook posting made in 2015 with a million likes in fact consists only 80 percent likes and 20 percent angry. If such a precise understanding on social emotions is possible, that may impact how you advertise.”

The researchers used an AI technique called “supervised machine learning” to evaluate their newly-developed solution. In this study, the researchers trained the model using four Facebook post data sets including public posts from ordinary users, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, and showed that their solution significantly outperformed existing solutions. All four sets of data were analysed after Facebook introduced the six emoticons in 2016.

The researchers suggest future research may explore the multiple meanings for liking a post.

“Coming up with right taxonomy for the meanings of like is another step in the research,” said Lee. “When you click on the like button, you could really be signalling several emotions – maybe you agree with it, or you’re adding your support, or you just like it.”

And we as marketers know, the more you understand how your market feels, the better you can tailor your advertising to them.

 

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Mastercard spurs consumers into a year of social good

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By John Glenday


 

Financial services provider Mastercard is seeking to perform some social good this year after announcing that it will seek to spur its customers into a Year of Action.

Start Something Priceless aims to engineer a social movement tackling issues such as bias and cultural stigmas in society by way of a series of individual campaigns such as the backstory behind a group of musicians who have battled against the odds to earn success at the Grammys.

In doing so Mastercard aims to inspire customers to pursue their own pledges to their own individual passions to bring about real change.

Raja Rajamannar, chief marketing and communications officer at Mastercard, said: “Start Something Priceless is a call to action at a time when people expect actions, not just ads, from brands. This is a time when people truly believe in their own power to fuel change, and whether big or small, an action has the ability to make the world a better place. That movement is what we aim to unleash this year.

“Every day at Mastercard we work to make a difference in communities across the world, whether that’s reversing the cycle of poverty with the World Food Programme, donating to Stand Up To Cancer to give more people support in their fight, or bringing young girls into our family to inspire and prepare for a career in STEM.”

One of the first moves as part of this push has been the installation of interactive billboards around Paris which enable passersby to donate a week of school meals for one euro by way of a contactless payment.

Rajamanaar previously discussed the challenges of keeping the brand’s ‘Priceless’ fresh in the midst of a digital tsunami.

By John Glenday

Sourced from THE DRUM

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Small Businesses Use Social Media Instead of a Website, Despite Risks

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A new survey indicates that 1 in 5 small businesses use social media in place of a website. Many assume a website is cost-prohibitive and may not consider the risks of not having one.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

More than one-third (36%) of small businesses do not have a website, according to the websites section of the fourth annual Small Business Survey conducted by Clutch, a B2B research firm. One in five small businesses (21%) selectively use social media instead of a website in an effort to engage customers.

The survey indicates that small businesses consider cost a bigger concern than the potential repercussions of not having a website.

 

Social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram attract small businesses by cultivating a highly engaged user base. However, relying solely on social media may be a risky strategy for businesses.

“Whenever you put all of your eggs into someone else’s basket, it’s risky,” said Judd Mercer, Creative Director of Elevated Third, a web development firm. “If Facebook changes their algorithm, there’s nothing you can do.”

Facebook recently announced changes that potentially increase the risk of using social media in place of a website. The social media platform plans to prioritise posts from family and friends over posts from brands.

This new policy may make it more difficult for small businesses to reach their audiences through social media. As a result, websites are expected to regain importance among businesses – as long as cost is not considered an obstacle.

Among small businesses that do not currently have a website, more than half (58%) plan to build one in 2018.

Some Small Businesses Say Website Cost is Prohibitive, But Others Cite Costs of $500 or Less

More than a quarter (26%) of small businesses surveyed say cost is a key factor that prevents them from having a website. However, nearly one-third of small businesses with websites (28%) report spending $500 or less.

Small businesses may not be aware that some web development agencies offer packages that defray costs by dividing website construction into multiple phases or sliding rates for small businesses. “You don’t necessarily need to launch with your first-generation website,” said Vanessa Petersen, Executive Director of Strategy at ArtVersion Interactive Agency, a web design and branding agency based in Chicago. “Maybe just start small.”

Mobile-Friendly Websites Becoming Standard
Businesses that do have websites are moving en mass to mobile friendly ones, the survey found. Over 90% of respondents said their company websites will be optimised for viewing on mobile devices by the end of this year.

In addition to the 81% of company websites that are already optimised for mobile, an additional 13% that say they plan to optimise for mobile in 2018.

Clutch’s 2018 Small Business Survey included 351 small business owners. The small businesses surveyed have between 1 and 500 employees, with 55% indicating that they have 10 or fewer employees.

To read the full report and source the survey data, click here.

 

 

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The Media is Now the Least-Trusted Institution Globally

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So, which citizens trust their media the most? And the least?

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Let’s start with the USA. The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals that trust in the U.S. has suffered the largest-ever-recorded drop in the survey’s history among the general population. Trust among the general population fell nine points to 43, placing it in the lower quarter of the 28-country Trust Index. It is now the lowest of the 28 countries surveyed, below Russia and South Africa.

The collapse of trust in the U.S. is driven by a staggering lack of faith in government, which fell 14 points to 33 percent among the general population, and 30 points to 33 percent among the informed public. The remaining institutions of business, media and NGOs also experienced declines of 10 to 20 points. These decreases have all but eliminated last year’s 21-point trust gap between the general population and informed public in the U.S.

“The United States is enduring an unprecedented crisis of trust,” said Richard Edelman, president and CEO of Edelman. “This is the first time that a massive drop in trust has not been linked to a pressing economic issue or catastrophe like the Fukushima nuclear disaster. In fact, it’s the ultimate irony that it’s happening at a time of prosperity, with the stock market and employment rates in the U.S. at record highs. The root cause of this fall is the lack of objective facts and rational discourse.”

Conversely, China finds itself atop the Trust Index for both the general population (74) and the informed public (83). Institutions within China saw significant increases in trust led by government, which jumped eight points to 84 percent among the general population, and three points to 89 percent within the informed public. Joining China at the top of the Trust Index are India, Indonesia, UAE and Singapore.

For the first time media is the least trusted institution globally. In 22 of the 28 countries surveyed it is now distrusted. The demise of confidence in the Fourth Estate is driven primarily by a significant drop in trust in platforms, notably search engines and social media. Sixty-three percent of respondents say they do not know how to tell good journalism from rumour or falsehoods or if a piece of news was produced by a respected media organisation. The lack of faith in media has also led to an inability to identify the truth (59 percent), trust government leaders (56 percent) and trust business (42 percent).

This year saw a revival of faith in experts and decline in peers. Technical (63 percent) and academic (61 percent) experts distanced themselves as the most credible spokesperson from “a person like yourself,” which dropped six points to an all-time low of 54 percent.

“In a world where facts are under siege, credentialed sources are proving more important than ever,” said Stephen Kehoe, Global chair, Reputation. “There are credibility problems for both platforms and sources. People’s trust in them is collapsing, leaving a vacuum and an opportunity for bona fide experts to fill.”

Business is now expected to be an agent of change. The employer is the new safe house in global governance, with 72 percent of respondents saying that they trust their own company. And 64 percent believe a company can take actions that both increase profits and improve economic and social conditions in the community where it operates.

This past year saw CEO credibility rise sharply by seven points to 44 percent after a number of high-profile business leaders voiced their positions on the issues of the day. Nearly two-thirds of respondents say they want CEOs to take the lead on policy change instead of waiting for government, which now ranks significantly below business in trust in 20 markets. This show of faith comes with new expectations; building trust (69 percent) is now the No. 1 job for CEOs, surpassing producing high-quality products and services (68 percent).

“Silence is a tax on the truth,” said Edelman. “Trust is only going to be regained when the truth moves back to centre stage. Institutions must answer the public’s call for providing factually accurate, timely information and joining the public debate. Media cannot do it alone because of political and financial constraints. Every institution must contribute to the education of the populace.”

Other key findings from the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer include:

  • Technology (75 percent) remains the most trusted industry sector followed by Education (70 percent), professional services (68 percent) and transportation (67 percent). Financial services (54 percent) was once again the least trusted sector along with consumer packaged goods (60 percent) and automotive (62 percent).
  • Companies headquartered in Canada (68 percent), Switzerland (66 percent), Sweden (65 percent) and Australia (63 percent) are most trusted. The least trusted country brands are Mexico (32 percent), India (32 percent), Brazil (34 percent) and China (36 percent). Trust in brand U.S. (50 percent) dropped five points, the biggest decline of the countries surveyed.
  • Nearly seven in 10 respondents worry about fake news and false information being used as a weapon.
  • Exactly half of those surveyed indicate that they interact with mainstream media less than once a week, while 25 percent said they read no media at all because it is too upsetting. And the majority of respondents believe that news organizations are overly focused on attracting large audiences (66 percent), breaking news (65 percent) and politics (59 percent).

It’s a brave new world, and we as marketers must realise that placing any marketing cash with distrusted media outlets could mean a very big waste of our advertising spending power.

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Influencers are Losing Interest in Snapchat, and Are Using Other Ways to Reach Their Fans

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Snapchat seems to be sliding down the list of prefered ways for influencers to reach their fans. A new report had shown that not one influencer surveyed chose snapchat as their favourite platform.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

New research released today by Carusele and TapInfluence uncovered some surprising results about how influencers feel about various platforms heading into 2018.

Of the 790 influencers surveyed, none answered Snapchat to the question, “What is your favourite channel to use for branded content?”

Personal blogs were the favourite of 36% of respondents, followed closely by Instagram at 35% and Facebook at 12%. Twitter (9%), Pinterest (6%) and YouTube (1%) also received votes.

Even when asked to name their second favourite choice, Snapchat collected fewer than 1% of the responses, while Facebook ranked first at 26% and Instagram second at 25%.

“Two things are clear from this part of our survey,” said Jim Tobin, president of Carusele. “The first is that blogs aren’t going anywhere, which I think is a good thing for both brands and influencers. And second, Instagram’s moves over the last year or two have really outmanoeuvred Snapchat, which had been a hot platform for creators two years ago.”

Influencers also plan to be in the space for the long haul, with 97% of influencers surveyed planning to continue their work “as long as I’m able.” This despite fewer than half surveyed reporting working full time in the vocation (46%) while 24% work full time elsewhere and 13% part time elsewhere. The balance report being full time parents or caregivers.

“Our earlier research legitimised influencer marketing as a sales driver. This new research supports the fact that it remains a viable career option for content creators,” said Promise Phelon, CEO of TapInfluence.

Carusele won the 2017 Small Agency of the Year Award at the Shorty Awards. It utilises a hand-crafted network of content producers to produce premium influencer campaigns for leading brands and retailers.  TapInfluence is an influencer marketplace connecting brands with social media influencers. And if they say that Snapchat is no longer cool, then it probably isn’t.

 

 

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HP to usher in new design era with its revolutionary software

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By Matthew Chapman

HP is opening its software to help creatives and brands collaborate to achieve greater and more rapid customisation and personalisation of their products.

HP’s SmartStream Designer software, famously used to create the personalised bottles for the ‘Share a Coke’ campaign, has been stripped back to make it more accessible to designers. Until now the software was only accessible to owners of HP digital presses, but the lighter version of the software – HP SmartStream Designer for Designers (D4D) – is set to democratise the digital printing process.

The beta trial was unveiled at a launch party at the Black Swan Studios in London’s Bermondsey on Thursday.

Smirnoff gave its blessing to HP and emerging designers, the Yarza Twins, to show off the capabilities of the technology. The Yarzas created a design concept using 21 characters, 21 hats, 21 bodies and 21 patterns to reflect the brand Smirnoff 21 and showcase the capability of D4D. This resulted in the creation of individualised bottles, posters, table wrappings, wallpaper, based on an ‘Everyone the same, Everyone different’ concept.

“We are living in very tough times where everyone is very individualistic and believes their community is the best, so we wanted to bring it back the idea of everyone is the same, everyone is different,” added Marta Yarza.

Nancy Janes, global head of brand innovation at HP, said: “Share a Coke was the lighthouse campaign that people are very familiar with and helped people understand that HP digital printing is no longer short run.

“Now what the designers are looking for is; how do you take digital printing to the next level to make packaging truly unique, regardless of volumes.”

D4D is free-to-use and allows designers to create 20 variable images from every seed file, which will enable rapid prototyping.

Janes explained: “The designers can fix any design elements that need to remain and then vary or randomise everything else. If the brand client signs off on the concepts it can go into full blown production with a D4D enabled HP print service provider.”

Steve Honour, design manager at Diageo Europe & Africa, said the company would “love to” roll out the bottle designs on a commercial scale and added the HP technology meant this was a “feasible possibility.

“The idea of taking this to a larger scale and people standing and spending 10 minutes looking at the packaging as art is actually really exciting because sometimes art, design and creativity is not accessible, or shareable, let alone purchasable and touchable,” said Honour.

Silas Amos, who coordinated the collaboration between HP, Smirnoff and the Yarzas, believes allowing designers access to the software to prototype designs is “changing the rules”.

“Advertising has become a real-time medium, leaving packaging behind, but the opportunity is now here to move the packaging industry forward,” said Amos. “It is the only interruptive media left. I can screen out a banner ad, look away from a magazine, turn off the television, but if I want to get to the aspirin or the deodorant, I have to go through the packaging.

“You have to be very careful you are building the brand and not diluting the brand. The good stuff will be based on brands that have invested in building strong iconography that can be flexed so it is un-mistakably them even when they are highly abstracted.”

HP has created videos featuring the Yarzas to show off the capabilities of the software and explain how it can be used.

The 500 designers who will trial the software are being accepted on a ‘first come first served’ basis, and there will be 15 ‘super users’ providing detailed feedback during the beta trial.

Janes said the UK was chosen for the trial due to its innovative nature and because the “design community in London is really quite dynamic”.

Other designers and artists who have already trialed the technology and spoke of their efforts at the launch party included Emily Forgot, Supermundane and David Shillinglaw.

“I think this is a really playful technology and it feels like the future,” said Shillinglaw.

The software also allows users to print in a combination of seven colours than the usual four (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black).

“When you print normally, it does not look the same as your screen, but this way it looks exactly the same,” said Marta Yarza.

The software can be used on any type of print, whether that be a corrugated piece, a table covering, the floor, a leaflet, a brochure or a business card.

“Where people are looking for omnichannel executions I think print has a big role to play,” concluded Janes.

The new software will be trialed among 500 UK-based designers. From November 6 for a three-month period, designers will be able to register to be part of the beta programme by visiting here.

By Matthew Chapman

Sourced from THEDRUM

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Why brand advertisers are shifting to attention-based metrics

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By Jessica Goodfellow

After a troubling year for digital advertising the world’s biggest brands are cautiously re-embracing programmatic. Although, they are now turning to attention-based metrics to better ensure brand safety and overall return on investment (ROI).

This was the consensus shared from attendees at The Drum’s recent Programmatic Punch event. Speaking on Thursday (9 November), participants in a panel that explored the growth of programmatic across apps, mobile and video said this shift towards more inventory quality assurances has been prompted in part by Procter & Gamble chief brand officer Marc Pritchard’s keynote speech earlier this year, in which he called for greater transparency in the digital supply chain, which he called “murky at best, fraudulent at worst”.

Now that media buying using programmatic technology accounts for 72% of display advertising spend in the UK, publishers, agencies and big brands are beginning to rethink the tendency to “race to the bottom” when approaching programmatic by simply chasing views or clicks.

What’s more, the walled gardens of the internet each have different standards for what denotes a ‘view’, with Facebook counting a view as three-seconds or more versus YouTube’s 30-seconds.

Facebook said last month that it doesn’t believe there is value in a one-size-fits-all currency when it comes to video viewability, instead preferring to offer advertisers flexibility to trade and buy video in a way that drives value for their business.

While Facebook’s argument is that some clients buy as cheaply as possible where other more luxury clients care about view duration, this only works to further muddy the waters of viewability, according to panel participants.

Which is where attention-based metrics come in. In traditional CPM (cost per thousand) buys, all impressions are valued equally, e.g. an impression that lasts one second on a viewer’s screen is valued the same as an impression that lasts 30 seconds. Attention-based metrics breaks that model down in order to allow advertisers to trade on how long someone watched and was engaged with their ad.

“Completed view doesn’t tell you too much, how many people are paying attention for a second, two seconds? That is the big opportunity moving forward – moving into an attention economy,” said Jon Hook, vice-president EMEA of brands and agencies at AdColony.

“That tech is there so it is up to advertisers to demand that from their partners,” he added.

In line with this, the Financial Times (FT) developed a new cost-per-hour (CPH) metric which is designed to attach value only to impressions lasting more than five seconds whilst the user is engaged with the page and, therefore, to deliver greater brand impact for each dollar of advertising spend.

CPH was informed by research which showed that brand awareness, uplift and association all increase the longer an ad is in view.

While attention-based metrics is not a new concept, adoption rates have been slow. However, Aurelia Noel, global digital partner at Carat, revealed that there is a demand for this fledgling type of trading from “more mature advertisers”, naming Diageo, Mondelez and Heineken as examples of the type of brands who are recognising the difference between viewability and attention.

“At end of the day this year was the year of brand safety and viewability…In video especially, a lot of inventory still cant be tracked, neither by IAS or others. Outside of just changing the way we measure our campaigns, we also need to change the way we plan and manage our campaigns,” Noel added.

Responding to this, Clementina Piazza, programmatic director of Integral Ad Science (IAS), said video is a “very tricky area” to agree on standards, and that in-app is “even trickier”.

“It is about time [we brought] all of those available solutions together and understanding what are the limitations of the available solution and how the interpreting solution can react to those. It is an IAS technology challenge but also a challenge overall with regards to how many environments support it,” Piazza said.

Noel also believes that advertisers are not harnessing ‘moments’ – that is when is the best time to connect with a customer.

“Even when we have the right moments, the creative falls short because we are not taking advantage of creative optimisation, whether in display or video,” she added.

By Jessica Goodfellow

The Drum’s media reporter covering everything from publishing, TV, social media, radio and technology.

All by Jessica

Sourced from THEDRUM

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How To: Get More From Your Social Strategy

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By Charlie Sammonds.

Getting your social media right is essential for success

It can be difficult to quantify the effect of your social media strategy on your sales. The waters are murky; conversions are more often indirect and the real value of a strong social presence is the more nebulous ‘personality’ of your brand. Regardless of how you define its value, though, a proper social media strategy is well worth investing in. Before you set out on building a loyal troop of followers online, consider these four tips for an effective, consistent strategy.

Identify your target demographic

Where many companies falter is in casting their net far too wide. Being present on all social media is great but unless you have the resources to effectively manage a plethora of accounts, the message risks being diluted. Facebook is the universal social media – it spans demographics like no over and is present in almost every country in the world. But outside of the world’s second most popular website, a more targeted approach can be effective.

Consider more than just the big two – Facebook and Twitter. Promoting a fashion brand? Use Pinterest. Promoting a B2B company? LinkedIn. And these distinctions can be further developed; 85% of Pinterest users are female, for example, so those men’s shirts are probably best marketed elsewhere. Luckily, the demographics of particular social media sites are easily accessible, so identify yours before assuming that more means better.

Find your tone and hone it

Perhaps secondary only to identifying your target demographic and the social media they use, is finding your tone. Different tones suit different products – travel companies, for example, tend to be lighter in tone than financial institutions – but as long as the tone is both strong and consistent, they don’t necessarily have to naturally match. More jovial personalities tend to get higher engagement (and hence more shares), but doing it poorly is a surefire way to come across try-hard.

A great example of a playful social presence is Skittles, whose Facebook page has over 24 million ‘likes’ and whose content is well shared. Their tone is relaxed, comic; not every post has to be hilarious for a jovial presence to work. Paddy Power’s R-rated Twitter feed is followed by 569,000 Twitter users – leaps and bounds ahead of the competition – thanks to a commitment to comedy and a tone so consistent you’d wonder how their social media team have a day off. These kinds of account give a company a human face, a personality to veneer the number crunching and stuffy boardroom meetings at play under the surface.

Use visual platforms

Social media campaigns are often more successful when they employ various mediums rather than the occasional tweet or Facebook post. Snapchat grosses 8 billion daily video views, for example, and the non-intrusive nature of having a company as a contact on the media sharing app renders it more appealing for the user. Again, it is a question of demographic; if your product is designed for the over-50 market, Snapchat would be an essentially useless medium.

Video, more generally, is a fantastic opportunity for full engagement. The most effective marketing videos are 15 seconds long or under; Instagram caps ads at 15 seconds and promotional Facebook videos will autoplay if under that length – a great way of grabbing the idle scroller. It’s not a long time in which to tell a story, but if you manage to create an engaging, concise video ad, you have the best chance of conversions. User-generated content is also an often under-valued source of strong visual content. It is more viable for already established companies, but can be leveraged by all if done well. Coca Cola’s ‘Share a Coke’ campaign – where they invited customers to, you guessed it, post a picture of them sharing a Coke – was one of their better recent marketing strategies.

Build a story

This is where the difficult task of converting your social media presence into sales requires some creativity. Self-promotion is all very well, and directly inviting followers to buy your products will doubtless see some return, but there is more value to be drawn from building a story around your brand. Slow Watches, for example, have developed a philosophy surrounding their products and they use it to underpin their social media marketing; ‘Can a watch change your life?’ is an effectively emotive opening gambit. Doc Martens, similarly, run a well-followed blog covering everything from punk festivals in the Netherlands to bands that have appeared on their ‘Stand For Something Tour’ – which is, in itself, a wonderful marketing move.

Your story should, of course, contain your product in some way. Saddleback Leather describe themselves as a ‘people business cleverly disguised as a leather goods company’ and their social media strategy reflects this. Their Instagram account focuses primarily on adventure, with their bags appearing all over the globe. A story is an effective indirect sales driver, and appeals to more than just a customer’s wallet.

By Charlie Sammonds

Sourced from innovation enterprise

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Marketing to millennials: Should brands spend money?

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By Shawn Lim

As social media increasingly becomes the tool of choice for millennials, is it sensible for brands and marketers to base their marketing strategy around user-generated content on these platforms and not invest any money into their strategy?

According to Rohit Sharma, founder and chief executive of Pokkt, a mobile video advertising and app monetisation platform for game developers, he tells The Drum that even though the millennial generation is extremely plugged into social, many companies are plunging headfirst into social without understanding that social simply cannot function as a standalone strategy as it must be incorporated as part of an integrated strategy.

“It is akin to functioning with tunnel vision, or with blinkers on – you end up overlooking other channels that could deliver greater reach, engagement, and which ultimately drive the bottom line,” he adds.

Sharma believes that social is prized for how easily it lends itself to native and while there are channels that might do this just as well, or even better. For example, he says by engaging the user in a mini-game within a game, in-game advertising is the perfect example of native, with a far higher guarantee that the user will actually see and interact with content, instead of simply scrolling past as they might do on a social feed. “Furthermore, the nature of the games in question often allow for short, predictable breaks – easy spaces for advertisers to communicate their message without being annoying or interruptive,” he adds.

However, there are some brands who buck the trend by putting their trust into social media. Take GlampingCity for example, a company that combines glamour and camping for people who want a hotel-style accommodation, but with the feel of outdoor camping.

Its entry into Singapore was initially met with scepticism, but the trend slowly caught on when the company started posting picturesque photos on its Instagram page, taken by its staff and local social media influencers that it collaborates with.

Aside from its Instagram page and a website, GlampingCity does not have any budget allocated for ad spend and marketing strategy, according to founder Ryan Lam, adding that glamping caught on fast in Singapore through word of mouth and social media because people were posting about their experiences with it.

Lam, who was speaking to The Drum on the sidelines of the 2017 ACI Asia Business Summit in Singapore, also reveals that 50% of the photos on the company’s Instagram page is from his own team. “This business is very new, so we have not approached anyone (influencer) yet, all of our collaborations and partnerships, it all came naturally. I spent zero dollars on marketing. I only spent on logistics. The publicity came naturally.”

“I don’t plan to pay influencers, the genuine ones, maybe, not those that are looking to do it for their own benefit,” he adds.

Bart Mroz, co-founder and CEO of Sumo Heavy, a ecommerce consulting company, tells The Drum that he agrees with GlampingCity’s social media heavy strategy as he feels that social should be a main priority for the production, distribution and syndication of content when it comes to marketing to millennials as they are changing the ways brands market.

Brands like Sephora and Nike, have also been successful in marketing to millennials by using Instagram to post visually stunning photos that clearly reflects brand identity and draws users in, according to Mroz, noting that Nike has become the 19th most followed account and the fifth most used hashtag, while Sephora has increased its engagement rate and now boasts nearly 13 million followers.

Mroz however, adds that in order to effectively use social media, brands still need to put money into these platforms. “You won’t see the needle move much if you don’t invest. Marketers need to shift their spending from traditional channels like TV, print, and PPC to social media. For example, Facebook and Instagram are both strong channels because of their high engagement rates, robust targeting options, and popularity with this demographic.”

Noting that 41% of millennials use Facebook every day, which makes it still the number one marketing channel, and that Instagram and Snapchat are catching up because the platforms are very different in style and have features that attracting more millennials, Mroz says: “Therefore, brands should still focus on Facebook, but pay much more attention to platforms like Instagram and Snapchat to better engage with this target audience in the long-run.”

Feature Image: Ryan Lam, founder of GlampingCity. Photo by: Institute on Consumer Insights

By Shawn Lim

Shawn Lim is a reporter at The Drum, covering industry news around the Asia Pacific region with a focus on Singapore and Southeast Asia. Based in Singapore, he has worked across photography, video and online, covering a range of subjects including current affairs and sports.

Before Game of Thrones, he was a huge Breaking Bad fan. He does CrossFit and yoga to stay healthy.

Sourced from THEDRUM

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