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Brands can build a branding programme around sustainability
Brands need to have not only a strategy that advances their sustainability credentials with investors but also an ongoing programme to explain that to consumers, according to InSites Consulting.
Why it matters
Corporate attitudes towards sustainability are shifting as thinking around ESG evolves and as new research indicates consumers have a positive attitude towards brands that take such issues seriously. There’s a strong marketing case for using sustainability in branding, the research agency explained in a recent webinar.
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TV budgets accelerate recovery going into 2021
In 2020, TV budgets were the only traditional media index which spent any time in growth globally, according to data from WARC's Global Marketing Index (GMI) review of 2020.
Why it matters
The marketing budgets index for TV reached 56.0 in December after returning to growth in October, the highest rate of growth ever recorded for TV in the GMI's eight-year history. Since an index value above 50.0 indicates growth – 50.0 indicates no change, below 50.0 indicates decline – as a channel, TV is showing its resilience in contrast to the indices for radio, OOH and press budgets which although have started a slow recovery, have remained in decline throughout 2020.
Takeaways
- Although March to August were the worst months for TV marketing budgets, since coming back into growth in October, the rate of growth has increased consecutively.
- A survey of 1,360 practitioners for WARC’s Marketer’s Toolkit saw a decrease in the 2021 net budget outlook for TV (-7), indicating increased confidence in the channel compared to 2020’s outlook of -17. The same report highlighted the challenge of engaging at-home consumers and the need for TV advertising to evolve to accommodate non-linear changes in viewer behaviour.
Sourced from WARC's Global Marketing Index
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App wars enter new phase
China’s tech firms are being encouraged to sue India’s government for compensation after the latter made permanent last year’s temporary ban on 59 apps originating from that country.
What’s happening?
- The Indian government’s decision came after it said it was not satisfied with the responses of companies to questions of compliance around data privacy and national security issues.
- TikTok is scaling back its workforce in India, with 90% of staff set to leave by the end of next week.
- China’s state-owned Global Times newspaper has urged affected firms to resort to law and seek compensation from the Indian government.
Upping the stakes
“India is like a bandit in [a] world that advocates civilized trade … India only has a layman’s understanding of the international rules” – Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief, Global Times.
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Digital 2021: Life lived online
In a year when online time rocketed due to the pandemic, the average global internet user now spends two of every 7 days of the week online, with around 7 hours per day or 42% of our waking lives online. Here’s how We Are Social/Hootsuite’s Digital 2021 breaks down time spent.
Key points:
- Social media adoption surges by 13.2%. Now a majority of the world’s population (53.6%) is on social, 98.8% of them accessing via mobile. On average, each user spends two hours and 35 mins on social each day.
- Second screen becomes first screen. As an average of the data sources cited in the report, internet users now spend around 53% of online time on mobile.
- Search behaviours changing. While 98% still use classic search engines, new formats are gaining importance. 45.3% say they have used voice to search; 44.8% have searched for brands on social; 32.9% have used image recognition on mobile. Social search is key for young users (16-24), for 53.2% of which social is the primary source of brand searches.
[Image: We Are Social/Hootsuite]
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US brands should address values, not politics
Introduction
In the U.S., the rise of purpose-driven branding has also brought brands perilously close to the political divide because there’s a tendency to label every constituency as red or blue. One solution is to be clear about their values, setting the stage for messaging and media in harmony with the brand.
Why it matters
In a country split in two over politics, brands that don’t accurately wrestle with their values, can alienate a major percentage of consumers.
Takeaways
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New Google cookie-replacing technique shows 95% conversion
Google has unveiled a new ad targeting technique that could replace third-party cookies; called Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), it involves grouping users with similar interest groups.
Why it matters
Cookies, individual identifiers of a user’s online activity, are very difficult to replace but Google’s new FLoC technique appears to be a strong contender, given that “advertisers can expect to see at least 95% of the conversions per dollar spent when compared to cookie-based advertising”, the company wrote on its blog.
How it works
The ad giant has been testing a new interface (API) that uses machine learning to form the groups based on advertising to large clusters of people with similar interests. Google says individual information can then be hidden “in the crowd”, while browsing history remains on the user’s browser.
The important bit for publishers
“Chrome intends to make FLoC-based cohorts available for public testing through origin trials with its next release in March and we expect to begin testing FLoC-based cohorts with advertisers in Google Ads in Q2. If you’d like to get a head start, you can run your own simulations (as we did) based on the principles outlined in this FLoC whitepaper.”
Criticisms
As ever, plenty of problems dot the new landscape. First, there’s the big problem of Google’s market power, which has come under increased scrutiny over digital advertising, but which saw the UK’s CMA single out Google’s post-cookie plans for particular scrutiny.
On the privacy front, the technique also draws criticism with the Electronic Frontier Foundation comparing it to a “behavioural credit score”, with added worries that it could even sustain discrimination against vulnerable groups lumped together, as TechCrunch writes.
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Brands spent and sold 50% more on Amazon in Q4
Advertiser spend and sales on Amazon saw rapid growth in the fourth quarter of 2020 as brands attracted consumers during the festive period and Amazon Prime Day, according to data from performance marketing agency Tinuiti.
Why it matters
Amazon is the go-to place for many online shoppers and marketers have responded by shifting their budgets, with clear evidence of success.
Across Canada, Germany, the UK and the United States, advertising spend on Sponsored Products rose by 53% in Q4 2020. Sales associated with these campaigns grew even quicker, rising by 56% year-on-year.
Takeaways
- WARC's survey of over 1,000 marketers finds that one-third (30%) expect to spend more on Amazon this year.
- However, marketers should avoid short-termism as this may undermine their wider e-commerce strategy.
Sourced from Tinuiti, WARC Data
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Balancing long-term and short-term objectives during a crisis
As the COVID-19 pandemic stretches into another year, brands are being forced to rethink their short-term strategies to ride out the pandemic and balance plans for long-term growth with the realities of marketing in a fast-moving situation.
According to Mike White, CEO and Founder of creative agency Lively, the phrase ‘adapt and pivot’ is taking on new meaning as a critical building block of long-term strategic planning.
Five principles to balance long-term and short-term objectives
- Stay calm, but don’t carry on as normal: Faced by the profound changes brought about by COVID-19, existing plans may feel inappropriate for the times.
- Factor uncertainty into brand planning: Every organisation must bake uncertainty into its planning and keep that approach moving forward, not just during peak pandemic times.
- Adapt the best short-term tactics for the long term: Broaden focus onto customers and other external audiences to understand how their wants and needs had changed and to identify how to evolve propositions accordingly.
- Learn to pivot, then make it your strategy: Dial up the parts of the business that allow you to keep doing this despite the changes and challenges brought about by the pandemic.
- Use the pivot strategy as an engine to grow: To turn all insights and learnings from the pandemic into an engine for future and on-going growth.
UK government taps new advertising tool
The content of government messaging around COVID-19 has frequently come under criticism, not so much the means by which it is distributed. Its latest campaign, however, steps up on both counts.
A new TV campaign takes viewers inside hospitals to show the effects of the disease on both patients and staff – rather more hard hitting than advice to wash your hands.
At the same time, it utilises Sky Media’s recently launched One Campaign to take the message to as many UK households and audiences as possible as quickly as possible with a single buy.
Key quote
“The acceleration of evolved viewing highlights the need to find agility in our media activation in order to reach audiences at an emergency pace. Such agility and measurement with Sky’s One Campaign will see our work deliver vital outcomes and save lives” – Tom Cornell, Head of Investment at OmniGOV@MGOMD.
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Keeping it real – consumers want customers’ product photos not professional shots
Consumers around the world agree that authenticity is what they want from brands when they consider buying – and for most that comes from seeing photos posted by other consumers on social media, not big-money professional shots.
The power of real
A new report from Bazaarvoice, A picture’s worth a thousand purchases, found that two-thirds of consumers say they want to see such photos – and that figure rises to almost three-quarters of 18- to 34-year-olds.
Sixty-five percent of 8,000-plus consumers surveyed across Australia, Europe and North America also said they make buying decisions based on the availability of customers’ posted photos.
The detail
- When it comes to influencing purchase decisions and buying actual products, Facebook is the most popular social media platform overall; Instagram tends to be preferred by Gen Z and Millennials.
- Visual UGC is most important for products that usually have a higher price tag, such as tech and electronics items. Across all categories, though, fresh content is everything.
- Younger consumers are most likely to want to see visual UGC, with almost three-quarters saying they prefer it when brands use social media platforms in this way.
Soundbite
“Visual content shared by previous customers can give shoppers confidence to click the ‘buy’ button and reduce basket abandonment. It’s the best way to demonstrate online how the product fits or works, and can help potential customers imagine how they would use the product in their own lives” – Joe Rohrlich, CRO, Bazaarvoice.
[Image from Bazaarvoice]
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Asia over-indexes for livestreamed video consumption
Live video content is more popular with Asian streamers but video-on-demand content is growing its share quickly, according to data from streaming analytics company Conviva.
Why it matters
The video landscape is changing rapidly and marketers need to know where their audience is. Consumers also have different viewing states across on-demand and live content so it is vital that marketers tailor their approach accordingly.
Takeaways
- Additional research shows that mobile streaming is the most popular device across much of Asia and marketers are now making mobile video their priority for 2021.
- Video advertising performs best in the long-term when employing well-defined characters, locations and storylines.
Sourced from Conviva, WARC Data
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One-tenth of successful campaigns see a profit return of at least 10 times the investment
Four-fifths of successful campaigns (80%) generate at least what was invested in the campaign in net profit, excluding the costs of the campaign, according to the latest data from WARC’s ROI Benchmark. The report is based on 1,063 WARC case studies from around the world since the year 2000 that include ROI (profit or revenue) data.
Why it matters
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How the Capitol riot should alter brand actions in a polarized nation
Introduction
US consumers entered the end of 2020 with concerns about the pandemic and the political environment, but in December, vaccines and new leadership gave a sense of anticipation about 2021. That abruptly ended with the deadly January 6 Capitol riot, and this shock alters the playbook for how brands should act.
Why it matters
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It’s a buyer’s market for Amazon as it builds its next billion-dollar business
E-commerce is soaring in the US and, as Amazon’s need for rapid and reliable logistics grows, it is increasingly looking to build its own capacity to deliver.
And, as travel has taken a nose-dive following the pandemic, Amazon has found ready sellers of 11 passenger aircraft at bargain prices. Converted to cargo planes, these will be delivering the goods this year and next. Logistics should be wary of the growth of Amazon Air.
The context
- Amazon now delivers two-thirds of its own packages in the US and has a fleet of 20,000 vans, as existing couriers like FedEx, UPS and USPS have failed to keep up with its demand over the last three years.
- Observers see the planes’ purchase along with new delivery hubs in the US and Europe as part of Amazon’s ambition to build capacity and take on established logistics giants.
- It did the same with Amazon Web Services, built to carry Amazon’s own site traffic until it was big enough to take on external clients. That’s now thought to be worth $400 billion as a standalone business.
Soundbite
“At some point, just as they’ve done with other parts of the organization, they [Amazon] build out capability internally, see their own business as their first customer, and then they look to sell that capability to others. And this, I would suggest, is another perfect example, with the planes being an extrapolation of exactly that” – Thomas O’Connor, senior director and analyst for Gartner’s supply chain strategies team.
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Online a bright spot as UK ad market to recover growth in 2021
The Advertising Association/WARC Expenditure Report anticipates 15.2% growth in the UK advertising market in 2021, better than key markets including US and China, due to strong online activity.
What it means
E-commerce has proved fundamental to maintaining platforms’ powerful position in the UK advertising sector, as consumption and commerce headed online. In the year ahead, greater certainty over trade and vaccinations ramping up indicate that the market could bounce back to pre-COVID growth levels.
A strong year ahead
In 2021, the UK ad market is set to accelerate past last year’s decline and back into growth to push past 2019’s high (£25.37 billion) and reach a total of £26.69 billion.
2020: rough but better than expected
The preliminary estimate for growth in 2020 now stands at -7.9% with adspend of £23.17bn, a marked improvement of +6.6 percentage points on the previous outlook, thanks mostly to a boost in online adspend, spurred by increased e-commerce penetration.
Internet spending stands out
- Internet spending grew by 10.1% to reach $4.2 billion during the quarter
- Search spend, key to capturing increased demand for e-commerce, grew 14.5%, closely followed by online display (pure play) at 13.9% growth

Digital dominates low budget campaigns but TV leads for high budgets
The biggest determinant of media allocation is budget. TV dominates in high-budget campaigns and digital is most important in low-budget campaigns, according to the latest data from WARC’s Media Allocation Benchmark.
Why it matters
Majority of campaign media spend goes towards digital and/or TV. Gaining the right balance of TV, which delivers reach, and digital, which supplements reach and facilitates personalised targeting, is a critical component of media allocation.
Takeaways
- Low-budget campaigns allocate 61% of the media budget to digital.
- High-budget campaigns allocate the same proportion to TV (60% when budgets are between $10-20m and 61% when budgets are over $20m+).
- Mid-budget campaigns have a more even balance of the two channels.
Sourced from WARC's Media Allocation Benchmark report
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Cricket viewership grows amongst Indian women
Sports viewing has long been a predominantly male pastime in India but there are signs that is changing and brands are responding accordingly, especially with regards to the nation’s favourite sport of cricket.
The context
- IPL 2020 saw a 21% growth in female viewership versus IPL 2019; TVRs increased to 5.4 from 4.3, according to BARC data.
- The 2020 Women's T20 Challenge in November saw a TVR of 1.3 compared to just 0.5 in the 2019 event (and reached 60% more people than a tour by India’s men’s cricket team around the same time).
- Observers attribute the uptick at least in part to the increased reach enabled by multiple language feeds of the tournaments.
- For IPL 2020, the Rajasthan Royals were sponsored by Niine Hygiene and Personal Care – the first time a feminine hygiene brand has sponsored an Indian sports team.
Key quote
“Be it cricket, tennis, table tennis, badminton, brands are now open to considering these sporting events for women audiences … I think the differentiating factor is if I can catch the same audience somewhere else far cheaper” – Priti Murthy, chief executive officer, OMD India.
[Image: Bahnfrend, Creative Commons]
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Luxury brands can tap nostalgia in China
Many of the world’s luxury brands still seem unsure how to market in China, but getting the messaging right is more vital than ever as China is set to be the world’s biggest luxury market by 2025.
The context
Ahead of the crucial Chinese New Year holiday period next month, a number of luxury brands are finding nostalgia messaging can create powerful connections – when it’s done right.
- Partnering with childhood animated characters, in particular, is popular with brands – Loewe has used characters from a fantasy movie, and Gucci products have featured a Japanese manga character, for example.
- When companies connect with customers emotionally, the pay-off can be huge. But nostalgia marketing needs to be highly sophisticated or it can backfire, especially if consumers see it as shallow – simply cutting and pasting a character onto products – or if brands fail to understand the complicated mores of Chinese culture.
- Overuse is another potential pitfall – no brand wants to be seen as looking backwards too much.
Soundbite
“The Chinese market is extremely complex and local teams can help understand cultural references, and make sure that they’re playing at the right level, without making any missteps that can be harmful to the brand” – Remi Blanchard, consultant with China market research firm Daxue Consulting.
[Image from Gucci.cn]
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Why China’s ‘Silver Economy’ is an online gold mine for brands
Even before the pandemic struck, China’s senior shoppers were gradually closing the digital gap on younger consumers, but last year they made up the fastest-growing demographic of online shoppers and many are sticking with online shopping post-pandemic.
The context
China’s over-65s are expected to number almost 247 million by 2030, and investment bank UBS has described greying China as a “goldmine”, one to which e-commerce platforms are adapting.
- The proportion of internet users over 60 years old has soared in the past four years from 4% to more than 10%. And e-commerce giant JD.com found that, in 2020, online users aged 56 and above spent 2.3 times as much as an average online shopper in 2017.
- Already worth 3.7 trillion yuan ($570 billion) in 2018, China’s “silver economy” is expected to reach 5.7 trillion yuan ($880 billion) by the end of 2021, according to iMedia Research group.
- Alibaba has spotted the growing e-commerce opportunity and launched its ‘Taobao for Elders’, which features simplified functions; JD.com has launched a number of initiatives to encourage seniors’ online confidence, including app training for digital payments, booking appointments and medical consultations.
Top takeaway
As UBS notes, where China leads, others will follow, and brands that develop products and services catering to China’s massive elderly population will be able to use this experience to find growth elsewhere since ageing populations are a global phenomenon.
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US citizens voted against disruption – and that has implications for brands
Introduction
No matter political affiliation, US voters voted for the same thing: stability over disruption. Trump voters wanted a continuation of the Trump Administration, and Biden voters wanted a return to governing norms. Either way, looking at what US consumers have in common creates a path for brands.
Why it matters
Consumers’ desire for protection from disruption gives brands the opportunity to help safeguard lifestyles and wellbeing.Takeaways
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