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Why marketers must enhance their "cultural intelligence" to succeed in the long term
Traditional approaches to strategy underestimate, or ignore, the effects of cultural trends – but the past year has shown that brands need to create the capabilities to continuously catch the waves of culture and ride them in both smooth and rough waters, says Terry Young of the Sparks & Honey consultancy.
Why it matters
Cultural movements affect companies, their people, and their products, so not tuning into them means confronting unexpected roadblocks and blind spots.
Takeaways
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Working culture may be evolving in China
China’s culture of long working hours is again under criticism following the recent deaths of several tech company employees, but there are signs that a younger generation is fighting back.
Context
The so-called 996 schedule of working from 9am to 9pm six days a week has been blamed by social media for the recent death of a 22-year-old Pinduoduo employee who collapsed walking home at 1.30am.
What’s changing?
- With COVID still an issue, young people are spending even more time at home with digital entertainment. They don’t need to earn as much as before to fund their lifestyle.
- Most graduates aren’t earning what they expect to in any case and aren’t inclined to work too hard for what they see as too little reward.
- With managers preoccupied by the pandemic, the work behaviours of Gen Z are altering as they opt to deliver only the minimum necessary – the ‘touching fish’ philosophy that says the best time to catch a fish is when the water is muddy.
The official line
“We must strive to succeed in pursuit of dreams, but the legitimate rights and interests of workers cannot be ignored or even violated” – Xinhua News Agency in a post on microblogging site Weibo.
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P&G’s Pritchard predicts all ads will involve 'some form of digital'
All advertising will ultimately incorporate “some form of digital” component in the future, Marc Pritchard, Procter & Gamble’s chief brand officer, has predicted.
During a session at the Variety Entertainment Summit, a conference held as part of CES 2021, Pritchard argued: “All advertising and media will become some form of digital, some form of programmatic, data-driven and automated.”
Why it matters
The growth of channels like digital out of home and connected TV means what was once defined as “traditional” media inventory can now be purchased via systems that enable precise targeting and measurement. Even cinema, a touchpoint that has suffered greatly during the COVID-19 pandemic, has got in on the act, allowing for clearer measurement than in the past.
The payoffs from digital capabilities
As more media channels are infused with digital planning and buying capabilities, Pritchard noted, it will let marketers:
- “define the audiences that we want to reach”;
- “define what kind of programming we want our brands to be associated with”;
- “recognise … there is a huge ocean out there, and there are a lot of fish, and there are just a few that you have to go with.”
Continued Pritchard: “That's the beauty of what we have here with programmatic … and the advent of connected TV: it just opens this vast opportunity to ensure that we can reach people, the people we want, where we want, when we want, in a safe environment. And it will be good for the entire industry.”
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Predictions for the next decade of sport streaming
As streaming enters the mainstream of sports viewing, a new paper anticipates that fans will increasingly subscribe to a handful of services, expecting the ability to switch plans on and off as needed.
Why it matters: The magical critical mass for sports streaming success might be 50m active subscribers, as two media veterans predict how the direct-to-consumer streaming giants, with their large international audiences and flexible packages, leave no one dominant player but multiple platforms selling certain sports.
This is according to an exploration of the future of sport broadcasting by the media consultants and former heads of NBA Broadcasting in the 1980s and 90s, Ed Desser and John Kosner, writing in Sportico.
Still got it: “Sports is appointment viewing, an advertising magnet and a means of counter-programming against services with stronger libraries like Netflix.” Sports are both promotion machines and some of the most promotable content out there.
Growth potential: SVOD platforms are approaching saturation in many markets, but the US has its own quirks of distribution. Broadband penetration is higher than traditional cable networks, which makes the exposure an SVOD platform offers arguably superior to cable providers given the headroom in the market.
The really worrying thing: the new guard of video titans – Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple – “can justify outspending linear TV because of their scale, applications for data, and superior monetization capabilities.” Worse still, they don’t even have to.
One size no longer fits all: Leagues are likely to align with the highest bidder, which means that the all-in-one subscription for all available sports will likely recede. In its place, platforms able to reach out to a younger fanbase will make individual sports more accessible.
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Investors call out Omnicom and Home Depot on ads fuelling misinformation
Investors in advertising giant Omnicom and the home improvement retailer Home Depot are calling for investigations into whether the companies may have paid for digital ads that appeared alongside hate speech and misinformation.
Resolutions have been filed by both groups of shareholders calling for independent investigations to look into whether advertising policies “contribute to the spread of hate speech, disinformation, white supremacist activity, or voter suppression efforts”.
The context
- The resolutions make clear investors consider advertisers cannot distance themselves from the context in which they advertise. “Advertisers are not passive bystanders when they inadvertently finance harm,” the resolutions said. “Their spending influences what content appears online.”
- Companies are now believed to spend over half their global advertising dollars on digital platforms, where ads are mostly placed using algorithms with no oversight of the content alongside which they may appear.
- Recent research revealed 1,668 brands had run 8,776 unique ads on 160 sites that published misinformation about the 2020 election.
Takeaway
The Capitol siege, greatly fuelled by misinformation about voter fraud and conspiracy theories, is seen as a game changer. Shareholders’ current action signals that a lack of supervision over where advertising dollars end up is no longer acceptable – plus, it’s a risk to a brand’s, and so investors’, interests.
View moreFamous brands send Premier Foods’ profits soaring
Consumers stuck at home during lengthy lockdowns are turning to familiar brands for consolation, judging by trading results from the UK’s Premier Foods, the maker of Mr Kipling cakes and Bisto gravy.
A strong brand performance
Reporting on the three months to the end of 2020, the company says it’s expecting profits for the full year to March to be up at least 12%.
- Describing “another exceptional quarter of trading”, Premier Foods said sales of its branded products were up 16% for the year to date – seven times the growth rate of non-branded products.
- Comforting, old-favourite brand names performed very strongly – Mr Kipling cakes is on track for a record year; gravy brand Bisto and Batchelors, the market leader in dried soups, both saw double-digit sales growth. Ambrosia custard and rice pudding also saw sales climb.
- Sales of Sharwood’s cooking sauces surged by 40% for the quarter, helped by a new low-sugar version of a stir-fry sauce. This and a number of other products were boosted by TV ad campaigns.
Soundbite
“By spending money on marketing now, all Premier Foods can do is make its products front of mind when consumers shop, so post-lockdown people still recall its brands when they are deciding whether to cook themselves or go for the ready-meal option, which was so popular before COVID-19 struck” – Russ Mould, investment director with AJ Bell, speaking to Proactive.
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TikTok leads the social pack as user activity doubles
TikTok's growth in user activity far outpaced major social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp in 2020, according to an analysis of App Annie data.
Why it matters
The short-form video app is the most direct challenge to more established social platforms like Facebook and can provide audiences and advertisers more creativity and spontaneity.
Brands are already taking notice – over two-fifths (44%) of marketers plan to spend more on TikTok in 2021, making it the fourth most in-demand platform and ahead of Facebook.
Takeaways
- Across 16 countries, TikTok's average monthly consumption per user nearly doubled while the other top five social apps rose just 11.0% on average.
- In eight of the countries analysed, TikTok is now the social app with the highest monthly consumption per user. Last year it replaced the Facebook platform for the top spot in Canada, France, the UK and the United States.
Sourced from App Annie, WARC Data
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Diversity, inclusion and team culture in a time of crisis
As COVID-19 drags on, many marketing leaders are leading shell shocked and exhausted teams that likely look very different from a year ago, are working remotely, and managing the ever-competing priorities of home and work in a pandemic.
Diversity and inclusion has also become a top priority for many leaders in the wake of Black Lives Matter and ongoing political crises. But with teams working remotely, and often under huge pressure, building a truly inclusive team culture can be challenging.
Why it matters:
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CPMs under the attention spotlight
New research shows that the traditional, impression-based cost per thousand (CPM) does not always correlate with the level of visual attention given to a channel or platform.
By combining attention data from TVision and Lumen with media cost data from Ebiquity, a study found that some CPMs – most notably Facebook in-feed – exceeded performance from an attention standpoint.
Why it matters
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Even fictional brands can win online
A shopping simulation by Google and The Behavioural Architects found that by manipulating how brands are represented online, consumers can be persuaded to switch brands – even to a fictional product.
Why it matters
Challenger brands have the opportunity to change mindsets and disrupt preferences in a short space of time. It is vital for brands of all sizes to show up in the right places, and remain in contention throughout the purchase process.
The big insight
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Why WFH could be here to stay – some people prefer it
Just over half the people who have had to work-from-home (WFH) during the pandemic say it suits them well, finds a major survey in India. For them, WFH leads to good-quality sleep, more exercise, better relations with family members, improved mental health, and many say they’re more productive.
What the research shows
A YouGov-Mint-CPR Millennial survey questioned 10,000 workers on how they feel about a work-from-home (WFH) routine. They were equally divided on the issue, with about half wanting to get back to the office, and the other half wanting to continue to WFH.
- For a slight majority, not having colleagues around makes WFH “unsatisfactory”. Younger people and women were more likely to be working from home.
- The more educated and higher-earning professionals tended to be able to work from home in larger numbers, while those who earn less or are poorly educated tend to work in roles where WFH is more challenging.
- The trend has meant a dramatic fall in commutes, which has saved people money, but it has also added to home costs, such as utility bills and grocery costs. These trade-offs could prove to be important considerations going forward as employees either push to return to the workplace, or to carry on remotely.
Key takeaway
What is clear, the data shows, is that WFH has had a significant and positive impact on the work-life balance for many, and it’s likely to be in demand by a sizeable number of workers post-pandemic.
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Why inspiration should be part of brand strategy
There is strong link between inspiration and brand growth, according to a study by Wunderman Thompson, with inspiring brands able to grow their market share faster and to charge higher prices for their products and services.
What is an inspiring brand?Wunderman Thompson’s study across multiple markets identifies three core characteristics:
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Oil giants find revenue solace in grocery sales
Major oil companies, suffering weaker demand for fuel during the pandemic, are finding that an uptick in grocery sales at their network of service stations world-wide is helping pick up the revenue slack.
BP and Royal Dutch Shell say the surge in food-and-drink sales means they will expand in the sector, hoping retail can help them offset the falling demand for oil in the longer term, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The long-term trend- Shell says over the next five years it has plans to add 10,000 retail units to its 45,000-strong world-wide network, giving it a larger number of outlets than either Starbucks or McDonald’s. BP says it plans to add 6,700 outlets to its current 19,000.
- The business model is an attractive one, say experts, because margins tend to be higher on retail compared to fuel, and are more stable because they aren’t subject to the same price volatility as the energy market.
- The companies are also expanding into new revenue streams run out of gas stations – Shell, for example, says it plans to speed up its rollout of parcel collection and home delivery services. BP has partnered with home delivery app Glovo in Spain and Deliveroo in the UK.
“COVID-19 was effectively a dress rehearsal. We already knew there were likely some headwinds coming at fuel demand in future, combustion engines are becoming more efficient and electric vehicles are coming” – Frank Beard, convenience retailing consultant.
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Brands need to adapt for a new wave of online shoppers in KSA and UAE
Up to a quarter of online shoppers in KSA and UAE are new to the experience and started as a result of the pandemic. A new WARC report details the implications.
WARC has partnered with Choueiri Group to place e-commerce in these markets in context through analysis of proprietary research among 1,490 consumers in KSA and 1,230 consumers in UAE.
Takeaways
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Facebook and Google accused of striking anti-competitive sweetheart deal
Documents reviewed by The New York Times provide some evidence that Facebook shelved a competitor product in return for preferential terms in a deal to join a Google-led ad auction alliance nicknamed Jedi Blue.
What it means:
Ultimately, should a deal have been made, it will renew concerns about the closed-door agreements that major players in digital advertising are able to make, especially when a guaranteed win rate is alleged.
Even if, as both Facebook and Google contend, such agreements are commonplace, the lack of transparency will not be gladly received by competitors or legislators.
It all comes down to header bidding, a technique designed to reduce reliance on Google’s ad platforms (given they own both the dominant ad exchange and ad server) so publishers could find better prices. Google needed to navigate past this, especially with the news that Facebook was thinking of throwing its weight behind the new technique, and so created Open Bidding, an alliance of exchanges.
Source:
Details of the agreement, shared by Texas prosecutors in a federal court, are part of the multistate suit filed by 10 state attorneys general in December alleging that Google overcharged publishers and edged out potential challengers. It comes hot on the heels of a DoJ suit filed in October concerning preferential deals with Apple and other device-makers for search engine defaults.
Comparisons:
Executives at six of the more than 20 partners told the Times that their own agreements lacked many of the terms included for Facebook, giving the social network an advantage over them. These boil down to information and speed advantages, a guaranteed win rate, and the ability to maintain direct payment relationships with clients, the complaint alleges.
Google’s spokesperson argues that the complaint misrepresents both the agreement and other aspects of the company’s ad-tech business; Facebook says that such deals actually help to increase competition. Neither spoke in detail about the deal.
Sourced from the New York Times, WARC
Read the original NYT report
Societal and media trends will interact in 2021
Fear of going out, more local living, increasingly digitally connected lives and a new focus on data privacy provide the context marketers will be working in during 2021 – and all this in a polarised society, adds the annual Carat Trends report.
What can we expect?
Carat also identifies a number of shorter term patterns and innovations that will have an impact on the media landscape and teases out some implications for the future of the industry.
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Five tips for driving effectiveness in 2021
The WARC Guide to new research in marketing outlines several vital considerations for driving effectiveness in 2021.
Why it mattersDespite (or, perhaps, because) of the turbulence experienced in the past year, the marketing community has been focused on new thinking that can help brands improve their effectiveness in 2021.
The insightsSome of the main insights featured in The WARC Guide to new research in marketing are:
- A brand’s share of search – or the proportion of search traffic claimed by a specific brand compared to that of its rivals – is a useful proxy for its market share.
- Google UK and The Behavioural Architects identified the “messy middle”, a phase in the online purchase cycle where consumers are typically engaged in one of two actions: exploring their options (an “expansive” task), or evaluating (a task aimed at reducing their options).
- Neuroscience research applied to TV spots from brands like Ford, IKEA and Goldfish Crackers found that ads with diverse casting performed more strongly in terms of persuasiveness, attention, connection and encoding metrics with Caucasian audiences in Canada.
- Marketers should add “digital availability” – that is, making sure brands are available to buy in more places online – to their focus on physical and mental availability.
- “Creative commitment” – a metric based on campaign duration, budget size and the number of media channels used – has a strong correlation with campaign effectiveness.
The WARC Guide also contains recommendations around outcome-based marketing, the value of measuring attention, and the continuing importance of share of voice.
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Shoppable video can help reduce e-commerce friction
Shoppable video – technology which allows consumers to buy featured products within an online video with only a click or swipe – may help marketers to solve the problem of abandoned shopping carts, according to OneDash CEO and Founder Rayhan Perera.
Why it mattersConsumers have little tolerance for friction in online shopping: 69% of e-commerce buys go uncompleted, according to Baymard Institute. By providing a faster route from inspiration to checkout, shoppable video can help marketers tackle this challenge.
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Why inspirational brands grow faster
Brands that possess ‘inspirational’ qualities can grow their market share faster and charge higher prices, according to a new study by Wunderman Thompson.
Why it mattersTech brands like Amazon, Samsung and Apple have no trouble presenting consumers with exciting, inspiring products and services. However, such qualities are often in short supply in other categories.
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