The Feed

Meet your new virtual office colleague – the radio

Working from home has transformed work patterns for millions of people, and, according to new research, many now find it hard to organise and break up their days, and to distinguish between work and leisure.

Why it matters

A study from Bauer Media and Greatest Hits Radio reports that 25% of us are working longer hours than ever, but it also finds many people are turning to the radio to help keep track of their day with that channel fulfilling a new role and becoming, in effect, a kind of “virtual office colleague”.

The details

• For many people working at home, having the radio on all day, listening to voices and music, has to some extent helped make up for the absence of colleagues in an office, and provided companionship, and an “antidote” to pandemic worries.
• Some 54% of those who work from home, at least part of the time, said music played a role in breaking up their day; 30% said they navigated their lockdown routines using the radio, with particular shows and content, such as the hourly news, helping them keep track of time and when to take breaks/finish for the day.
• Home workers also appear to be listening to the radio more – 24% said they’d listened to it more during this third lockdown, and 81% said they’d carry on doing so, even when life returns to normal.

The big idea

With more people listening to more radio whilst at home, there are increased opportunities for advertisers to communicate and engage with them. And with working patterns unlikely to return to those of a year ago, it’s a trend that will continue.

Sourced from Bauer Media, Greatest Hits Radio 

_{[Image: Radiocentre]}

Gaming platforms target India’s largely untapped audience – women

Gaming platforms are waking up to a huge opportunity: women make up around 42% of India’s 210 million smartphone users, but until now, relatively few have played games.

Why it matters

In order to tap into the market, new approaches are needed, including a greater understanding of what women want from games and more women making decisions around all aspects of gaming, from design and aesthetics to user experience.

The details

• According to a report authored jointly by Google and games market intelligence firm Nike Partners, India represents Asia’s lowest penetration of female gamers – just 18%, compared to 49% in countries such as Taiwan, China and Indonesia.
• The number of women players is rising. Game maker WinZO Games, for example, says over the past year, the number of women players on its platforms is up 30%, and women are also playing for longer, an average of 38 minutes a session compared to 20 minutes six months earlier.
• Women are no longer just playing games such as Candy Crush and Snake Rush – many are getting involved in action games and e-sports leagues like Free Fire and Call of Duty, say industry experts.
• More women are also getting into the industry, with the frequent option of flexible working hours making it an appealing choice for many. Hiring in the gaming industry in India is up between 25% and 30% over the past six months, according to recruitment firm TeamLease, and 20% of new hires are now women, who are taking up senior leadership roles as well as entry-level jobs.

Sourced from Economic Times

_{[Image: GGM on YouTube]}

Shirt sponsorship delivers the highest level of awareness

Sports fans say that shirt sponsorship is the most noticeable, according to a new dataset of sports fans across 15 markets from target audience company GWI.

Why it matters

Investment in sports sponsorship collapsed last year due to cancelled games, but 2021 is a major year for sport due to the Tokyo Olympics and Euro 2020 football tournament. Sponsorship is also going through a period of rapid change, with greater emphasis on digital highlights, partnerships and flexibility. Brands that are able to engage their audience in new ways, possibly helped by a prominent shirt sponsorship, stand to benefit.

Takeaways

• Football/soccer and tennis are the first and fifth most popular sports and two in three (65%) fans say that they notice shirt sponsorships, the highest rate across the types surveyed.
• GWI's latest research finds that across 15 markets, around 30% to 50% of internet users aged 16-64 are sports fans, suggesting a broad audience for brands to engage with.

Sourced from GWI, WARC Data

AT&T withdraws from media with Discovery deal

US telco AT&T has announced plans to spin-off its WarnerMedia business and merge it with one-time competitor Discovery, as the US network giant withdraws from the hands-on management of media business and the new venture readies for the next phase of the streaming wars.

Why it matters

The news heralds a “content colossus”, as TechCrunch puts it, with a vast combined library ranging from Game of Thrones to Guy Fieri, which will – if successful – still add value to AT&T shareholders without many of the complexities of vertical integration.

The bet, instead, is that the brands within the two portfolios will be more magnetic than the pull of a mobile phone contract with content on top.

Still, it is a major about-face that after a massive acquisition in 2018, which included a Justice Department competition lawsuit, AT&T has had to reassess where its properties can work together – a big blow to the quad play (mobile, TV, broadband, and voice) that was the strategic north star for the telecoms industry just a few years back.  

What we know

• The new entity is as yet unnamed, but it will bring together two significant players in the frothy streaming space: Warner’s HBO Max (9.7 million subscribers) and Discovery+ (15 million subscribers).
• The companies believe that the deal, which would bring together a combined turnover of $41bn, will set the new company up to compete with much larger rivals as it targets $52bn by 2023. For comparison, Disney pulls in $65bn and has attracted over 104 million subscribers.
• At a business level, the new group will be 71% owned by AT&T with the other 29% owned by Discovery. Subject to regulatory approval, the deal is expected to close in 2022.

Background

Only three years after AT&T parted with a whopping $85.4bn (and racking up an eye-watering amount of debt in the process) as part of a strategy in which content could add value to the telecom company’s overall offer, it is retreating from the bet. Demands on its core telecoms business have increased as it races to keep up with the investments of its competitors like Verizon and T-Mobile in fibre broadband and 5G.  

Discovery, meanwhile, is showing the benefit of its pivot to SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand) with a deal that will add significant production and library firepower to its factual core.

At the sector level, it means two players that had gone after separate audiences create a much larger slice of the potential audience in an attempt to gain a foothold. It won’t be easy, however: Netflix is noticing the limits of its growth in core markets as it struggles to continue the same trajectory that took it to more than 208 million global subscribers. Still, there is plenty to play for: Ampere research shows that half of consumers use at least two SVOD services

Sourced from AT&T, TechCrunch, Financial Times

^{[Image: AT&T]}

Airbnb sees benefits from frontloading marketing spend

Anticipating a rebound in travel, Airbnb, the online accommodation platform, is focusing its marketing spend on the first half of the year while also doubling down on brand building, and has already seen encouraging results from this strategy. 

Why it matters 

Success in the travel industry currently comes down to timing and having an adaptable business model. Airbnb’s decision to frontload spending to capture pent-up travel demand as lockdown restrictions ease appears vindicated by initial results. And, as the nature of travel changes, not having huge fixed costs is also playing in its favour. 

Takeaways

• In markets where Airbnb's new ‘Made Possible by Hosts’ initiative – described as Airbnb's first global brand campaign in five years – is running, overall traffic is up, first-time bookers are up, traffic from prospective hosts is up, and brand favorability is up.
  
• In Q1, 90% of traffic to Airbnb was unpaid or direct; traffic levels were similar to those in 2019, but marketing spend was 50% less.
  
• Almost a quarter (24%) of nights booked in Q1 2021 were for stays of 28 nights or longer.
• There has been a 30% growth in non-urban and vacation rental listings as people hit financially by the pandemic look for new sources of income.
• Airbnb is also launching a digital campaign to attract more hosts in “supply-constrained” areas, and will track return on investment by measuring the value of the hosts it recruits. 

Key quote

“People are traveling anytime, anywhere, and they’re staying longer. We think all these trends are here to stay … I think there is a shift from mass travel to meaningful travel” – Brian Chesky, CEO, Airbnb.

Sourced from Seeking Alpha

Amazon seeks edge linking online ads to in-person purchases

Earlier this year Amazon for the first time provided advertisers with attribution data linking ads served online with in-person purchases at its 500 Whole Foods Markets in the US.

The system is far from perfected and the data somewhat limited, but advertisers already report gaining new insights, in particular in relation to variances between what products are most popular online and in-store, where shoppers are less influenced by reviews and ratings. 

Agencies see Amazon’s move as another step towards connecting digital and in-store data and understanding the effects each has on the other. And it’s also a potential edge for Amazon as it battles with retail giants such as Walmart with its 11,000+ stores around the world.

The details

• The Whole Foods reporting doesn’t yet show anything like a full picture, though. It only marries online and in-store data for customers who are als Amazon Prime members, and it relies on those members scanning their membership codes when they check out. 
• Walmart is working on an automated demand-side ad-buying tool that’s expected to be launched in the second half of the year. And both Walmart and Kroger – another Amazon rival in the grocery business – offer attribution data to advertisers to demonstrate the effects of digital ads on in-store and online buys.

Background

• This year, according to eMarketer, Amazon will generate $367.2 billion worth of online sales in the US, making it by far the leading e-commerce platform in the country. 
• Walmart, in second place, is expected to generate a mere $64.6 billion. 
• Despite rapid growth, e-commerce still remains a tiny proportion of total retail spend in the US. In 2021 it is forecast to make up just 15.5% of the $5.856 trillion in total US retail sales, says eMarketer.

Key quote

“When you are speaking about true omnichannel marketing, all of these companies [Amazon, Walmart and Kroger] have a significantly different footprint, and it will be interesting to see how this all shakes out as the importance of online sales becomes more important than in-store sales due to purchasing trends moving away from in-store purchases” – Ryan Flanagan, CEO of Nuanced Media

Sourced from Digiday, eMarketer

Dentsu in push to aid minority-owned media companies

Advertising holding giant Dentsu, whose media agencies include Carat, iProspect, Dentsu X and 360i, has launched a new initiative it’s calling Economic Empowerment, aimed at driving more advertising dollars to media owned by minorities.

The programme, which includes consulting services, is designed to bring about systemic change in the way media-buying decisions are made, funneling more spending to minority-owned agencies as a growing number of marketers look for ways to reach more ethnically diverse audiences.

The details

• Dentsu says it will keep a record of all minority-owned partners and encourage its clients to reveal how much they spend with them.
• General Motors is one of the first to use the new division, says Dentsu. The carmaker has pledged to increase spending with black-owned media to 4% by 2022 and 8% by 2025 – that’s a lift from 2% this year. GM’s pledge came after pressure from a number of black media executives.
• Black-owned media companies in the US represented under 2% of total ad spending in 2020, according to Nielsen Ad Intel, while black consumers make up 13% of the US population.

Key quote

“There’s a lot of competition to get ad dollars, so people sometimes tend to work with the partners they know. You have to be willing to be educated and open-minded, looking at things that are not part of the familiar universe.” Mark Prince, Senior Vice President and Head of Economic Empowerment at Dentsu.

Sourced from the Wall Street Journal

Shopify, Walmart and Pinduoduo lead e-commerce growth

Shopify, Walmart and Pinduoduo were the quickest growing e-commerce companies last year while Alibaba and Amazon continue to dominate in first and second place, respectively, according to a UN analysis of company reports.

Why it matters

$900bn more was spent at online retailers last year, and e-commerce growth is expected this year as well.

However, as offline retail recovers in markets easing COVID-19 restrictions, there is likely to be some challenge to e-commerce pure players in future. As a result, online platforms are investing in new opportunities that include shoppable media, subscriptions and greater levels of convenience.

Takeaways

• Shopify saw the value of its orders almost double last year (95.6%) to reach $120bn, making the company the fifth-largest e-commerce company worldwide.
• Alibaba continues to lead the market, becoming the first company to have a GMV above $1trn.

Sourced from United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, WARC Data

Measuring ROI: The APAC B2B marketer’s top challenge

APAC’s B2B marketers are facing challenges and opportunities that cover everything from skill shortages and determining ROI, to metrics attributions and reporting, according to a new report. 

These findings were revealed in the State of B2B Marketing in Asia report that surveyed more than 300 B2B marketers across the region. It was produced by the B2B Marketing Leaders Forum in association with Insights Exchange and Adobe.

Three challenges 

The three biggest challenges faced by B2B marketers in APAC are measuring ROI and attribution, demand and lead generation, followed by inconsistent and broken customer experience due to disparate systems operating across marketing and sales.

Four findings

• 44% cited measuring ROI and attribution as a challenge, making it the top challenge experienced by B2B marketers across Asia.
• 51% of B2B marketers don’t know or don’t have an ROI benchmark target set for their marketing spend.
• 100% of marketers spending more than 40 hours a month on calculating ROI did not have a marketing automation.
• 20% of respondents are increasing their investments in e-commerce in 2021.

Sourced from Adobe

Fixing new communication norms in today’s hybrid workplace

A shift from the office to home work, physical isolation and the preponderance of digital platforms means there are no agreed rules and norms around digital communications.

Why it matters

Time-pressed marketing teams need to establish clear communication norms. The old, unwritten office protocols, often based on physical signs – someone in front of a screen wearing headphones, for example, was clearly saying “do not disturb … please” – no longer apply, says digital teamwork expert Erica Dhawan writing in the Harvard Business Review.

The details

• Establish a hierarchy. The use of Instant Messenger, for example, could indicate a time-sensitive or urgent message (but limit the numbers involved and the length of any conversation).
• Email can provide timely and directional, important information, and to ensure there’s a record of a conversation, or to direct someone to an online source for more information.
• Indicate urgency in the subject line, but don’t use email when an immediate response is needed.
• Teams can arrive at a hierarchy by brainstorming, asking such questions as: “how long is too long for an IM?” or “when is it ever appropriate to text someone?”
• Make the rules stick – Dhawan suggests channel advocates encourage compliance with shout-outs for those who adhere best and light-hearted call outs via hashtags for those who don't comply.

The big idea

“Having a detailed guide will help ensure that everyone on your team is on the same page and has the same expectations — regardless of who is working from where” – Erica Dhawan, teamwork and collaboration expert and author of Digital Body Language. 

Sourced from Harvard Business Review 

Estée Lauder eyes China to plan future make-up trends

Cosmetics giant Estée Lauder says the swift rebound in colour cosmetics in China post-pandemic has led it to forecast a make-up “renaissance” globally.

Why it matters

Make-up use has been severely affected by the pandemic, says the company, with sales down across all its brands; but the experience in Australia, Israel and especially China, which are all at the leading edge of recovery, has led to grounds for great optimism for growth.

The details

• Make-up sales in China have returned to growth, up double-digits; people are shopping with confidence, including in bricks-and-mortar stores.
• The experience in China suggests make-up shoppers will return to physical shops because interaction with products and people is an important part of the shopping process.
• Consumers, say Estée Lauder, are going to back to basics in terms of make-up and re-building their core routines, looking again at foundations, lipsticks and mascaras. There is an appetite for newness and novelty.
• The company is leveraging data and analytics to refine the type of products it will promote and is ready to bring back core products, with an array of new looks.

Key quote

“Looking ahead, we are preparing a renaissance in makeup. And we anticipate that momentum will gradually build around the world, driven by local reopening and social and professional occasions” – Fabrizio Freda, president, CEO and director of the Estée Lauder Companies.

Sourced from Cosmetics Design Asia