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Consumer streaming video consumption trends show that people are spending more time watching streaming content, but they are also becoming more selective and spending less time on individual platforms or content. This indicates a growing preference for diverse content options and the need for platforms to capture viewers' attention effectively.
It is no secret that TikTok has been driving trends and shopping behavior for years (even elder Millennials like the writer of this post have been influenced a time or two). TikTok has capitalized on this behavior and has built out technology to enable an even more integrated shopping experience!
TikTok's new shop feature allows users to seamlessly discover and purchase products directly within the app. It enables creators and brands to showcase their merchandise through short videos, making it easier for viewers to shop for items they see in TikTok content. This feature enhances the platform's e-commerce capabilities and provides a more convenient shopping experience for users, bridging the gap between entertainment and online shopping.
Synthetic media refers to digitally created or modified media— often driven by algorithms. Some common examples of this type of content are:
Deepfakes: video or audio recordings that look and sound authentic, but are not (typically these have malicious intent behind them)
Virtual Influencer: influencers who are digital entities but appear human
Synthetic images (i.e. CGI)
The obvious downside to synthetic media the opportunity for people to distribute false information for the purpose of exploitation or inciting violence and/or unrest. We have seen quite a lot of this in the past few years, most notable the 2016 US election.
The upside is that synthetic media provides some really unique opportunities for advertising, media and communications. CEOs could potentially speak to their constituents across the globe all at once with bespoke translations paired with their “virtual self” for each market or region. Advertisers are also tapping into this and State Farm’s integration with “The Last Dance” is a terrific example of how to use synthetic media in a smart and meaningful way. They used the technology to augment old footage of sports reporters in a way that made sense with their desired narrative today.
Synthetic media is still the Wild West, but can be very powerful and useful when implemented the right way.
2021 is right around the corner (hallelujah to that), so we wanted to share a quick summary of some of the key themes you can expect to see in media and advertising. Use these to help build or tweak your future plans to ensure you are maximizing your media budget.
Personalization will be huge. With the knowledge that cookies are being phased out over the next few years, it is even more important to start building infrastructure to provide a tailored experience to consumers.
Long term/Upfront buys are a thing of the past. With all the uncertainty the pandemic brings, it is not feasible for brands to invest huge amounts of money and commitment to long term offerings.
Local media is increasingly important. With varied statuses and regulation across the country, being able to speak uniquely to local audiences is imperative.
Connected TV should be a larger part of strategy. The rise in adoption paired with the addressability and attribution benefits of this channel make it a key vehicle for being very targeted in outreach.
OOH is adapting to reach consumers now that traffic patterns have changed. Although commuting in the usual sense is down, people are still driving to the store and around the community. Some OOH companies are capitalizing on these types of opportunities through branded sanitizing stations, etc. Additionally, consumers will become more mobile once the vaccination is here, so out of home advertising will be an effective way to reach consumers on the go,
App usage is up. With app usage on the rise, marketers should consider shifting to more in-app advertising in 2021.
Subscription stacking will be a key trend. As Pay TV households decline, more consumers will look to rely on multiple streaming services to meet their TV needs.
Black Friday is going to be a bit different this year for obvious “unprecedented time” reasons I don’t have to explain. For those who get a thrill from shoving old ladies to get the last Tickle Me Elmo, this probably stings a little. For those of us who would rather poke their eyes out than brave the melee that is Black Friday, this is a welcomed change! Merchants are working ahead of the game to find creative ways to capitalize on the annual post holiday “holiday” and acquire consumer’s wallet share in ways that are safe, easy and compelling. Below are a few trends to look out for.
No more jam packed store locations or consumer campouts outside the store the night before.
Curbside pickup will continue to gain momentum as adoption of this service continues to grow.
A potential lottery system might be implemented in some stores to give select users the old school in-store experience.
Flattened Black Friday will expand beyond just the weekend and brands will likely offer more frequent discounts and doorbusters.
QR codes will be included in more advertising collateral to shorten the path to purchase distance.
Voice-activated shopping through connected devices will scale.
VR may bleed into the shopping experience, with some companies that are creating virtual retail spaces that let consumers feel like they are actually shopping at their favorite stores.
The ‘Gram will continue to be a huge player in the retail space.
The issue of big dreams, little budget is a timeless tale in the media industry (ok, maybe all industries). Often times brands think they need huge budgets to be able to advertise but that is not the case. The truth is that a little scrappiness and creative thinking, pretty much any budget can work. See below for a few tips and tricks…
Clearly define your objectives. Is your goal to drive awareness of your brand? Traffic to site? Sales? Being very specific will help you to hone in on the media types and tactics that are most suited to achieve this goal.
Focus, focus, focus! You do not need to be present on all media channels al all times, so revisit your objective and consider the top one or two channels that will help you reach your goal and won’t break the bank. Paid social, search and programmatic are usually going to be the channels with lowest barriers to entry, so start there. There are lots of tactics and targeting options within those vehicles that will allow you to reach objectives across the funnel.
Decide whether it is more important for you to be on all the time at lower levels or on iteratively at higher levels. For example, if you are launching a new product, it might make more sense for you to focus for investment a few weeks leading up to during, and after launch rather than thinly spreading your dollars over several months. In doing this, you will make a bigger splash in the marketplace when you are “on.”
Don’t try to do it all on your own. When your day job is running a company, you have enough on your plate without adding on “Media Planner” to your list. It can be tempting to cut costs by taking on the media responsibilities, but you are going to save money and be better off in the long run if you enlist a professional to do it right the first time. There are different payment structures to allow you to get the service you want with a payment option that you are comfortable with.
Be patient. While you may see some immediate results in sales or traffic, you want to make sure that you are always keeping the long game in mind. Make sure you are not just putting out a message and then forgetting about it. For best results you should continue to foster than conversation between your brand and potential customers.
According to Facebook research, nearly four-in-five (78%) of online purchases already are happening on its mobile interfaces. I am sure this stat is not shocking to anyone as most of us have fallen prey to Insta-commerce at least once. Despite the fact that as a long time agency vet with the “insider knowledge” on how targeting works, I am still weak against the charms of my favorite influencers peddling products (as evidenced by my Goli gummies, Prose shampoo, Marine layer pants, etc.). To capitalize on this ever-growing trend, Facebook this morning is unveiling a series of commerce-driven ads and features on both Facebook, and Instagram.
Beginning with the start of the holiday shopping season, Facebook will rollout “Ads With Product Tags On Instagram,” which will it easier for advertisers and small businesses to tag products so consumers can discover products and shop for them by driving traffic to product detail pages embedded on Instagram.
Facebook says the new features are based on beta testing by a group of advertisers who have been using it for about a year, and effective today it’s available to all advertisers via Instagram’s "Ad Manager." Another new feature being rolled out today, “Shopping Engagement Custom Audiences,” enables advertisers to create custom audience profiles to target users who have already demonstrated an interest in their product or brand by taking specific actions such as “saving a product,” viewing a shop or initiating, but not completing a purchase.
Instagram also is enabling advertisers to extend the reach of those explicit purchase intent users by offering “Shopping Lookalike Audiences” that matches them with others with similar profiles in its user base. Meanwhile, Facebook’s main platform will introduce a “Discount Feature for Facebook Shops,” which create traffic among users looking for deals, discounts and other price-based sales promotions.
Connected TV and streaming services were already on the rise, but increased substantially in 2020 as consumer behavior adjusted to pandemic life. According to YouTube, connected TV viewership has spiked 80% since March, further exaggerating the fragmentation of the current state of reporting.
The good news? The third party reporting platforms like Nielsen are starting to evolve their practice. Ads watched on YouTube and YouTube TV on connected TV devices will be added to Nielsen’s Digital Ad Ratings and Nielsen’s Total Ad ratings beginning next year, according to Nielsen. This will allow for more cohesive reporting as audiences can now be tracked across all screens (YouTube and YouTube TV apps on connected TVs, digital and mobile). Nielsen already has integrated connected TV campaign measurement on other platforms, including Amazon, Hulu and Roku, but the addition of YouTube expands their measurement capabilities substantially.
The first phase of the measurement expansion is expected to roll out in the first half of 2021, and will begin on YouTube TV, YouTube’s virtual MVPD offering, Nielsen said. Measurement on the YouTube app will be folded in shortly thereafter.
Although many of the traditional media channels are losing share at the expense of digital, OOH advertising share has been increasing and is expected to continue on that upward trajectory for the next few years. Why? The key reason is the growth of urban populations. More city dwellers and public transportation commuters equals more opportunities to reach consumers via virtually unavoidable formats (aka train riders would rather stare at an ad for a research study rather than risk eye contact with another passenger after a long day at work). Additionally, the channel has adapted to the changing landscape by incorporating new technologies to follow the user experience and digitizing formats to provide greater creative flexibility. Below are some of the key trends to be aware of in the coming years.
Digital formats will continue to expand. Digital boards grew 14% in the past 5 years and show no signs of slowing down.
Advertisers are becoming increasingly creative. OOH is adopting some of the same principles digital has used as it relates to high impact formats. Augmented reality and motion sensors are a couple of ways brands have amplified their presence.
Brands are making OOH more interactive. Leveraging functionality such as facial recognition or gamification allows consumers to engage with the brand via OOH formats.
Emergence of more niche vendors targeting specific audiences or locations in non-traditional ways
Unless you are living under a rock, you should be VERY aware that June is Pride month. I won’t speak to where you live, but in Chicago, it is as though the city threw up rainbows and it is fucking glorious! The bars and restaurants have been hosting special events to support the cause, organizations supporting the LGBTQ+ community are out in full force and even corporate offices are getting in on the action by hosting inclusion events and encouraging employees to include their preferred pronouns in their emails. Oh and the Super Bowl of Pride Month… the parade is happening this weekend.
It is moving to see how increasingly involved the community becomes with the LGBTQ+ cause, and how brands continue to follow suit. As with other cause-related marketing, it is not enough to simply “slap a rainbow on it” to show your support. Brands need to also engage in conversation and show their support on an ongoing basis, using Pride month as an extra push to amplify those efforts. Ad Age recently wrote a great article highlighting the brands that are doing this well and I have included a few of those and how they are supporting the cause, below.
Wear pride
MeUndies has a three year history of supporting pride and this year’s collection is collabo with DJ GRiZ. From every pair sold, $1 will be donated to Miley Cyrus’ nonprofit Happy Hippie Foundation. Go ahead, let your undies do the talking!
Toms, Converse, Reebok, and Doc Marten’s have created rainbow-fied versions of their shoes to show their pride support. Cute kicks for a cause!
Glow Up for Pride
MAC cosmetics rolled out a new #MACLOVESPRIDE rainbow lipstick. HAWT!
Eat Pride
Kind has created a Pride Bar (dark chocolate, nuts and sea salt bar covered with a rainbow wrapper) and will be donating 100% of in-store sales to the Ali Forney Center, an organization that supports LGBTQ+ homeless youth in the US. Such a bad ass and delicious way to give back!
Drink Pride
Pepsi’s Bubly has a special-edition “All For Love Pride Pack,” which includes 18 cans in the colors of the rainbow—totally delicious and totally ‘grammable.
Watch Pride
Hulu has created a dedicated site for LGBTQ+ content and this month will launch “The Bravest Knight,” a kids animated show that revolves around LGBTQ+ themes.
Twitch is selling its own Pride T-shirts with proceeds befitting TwitchUnity, the platform’s unity and inclusion program
Do you do it for the ‘Gram?
Have you ever posted a picture of your dog wearing a sombrero just to get a boost in likes after your dud of a post yesterday?
Do you feel a mini euphoria rush over you each time you post and start seeing those Insta notifications on your phone roll in?
Have you felt an overwhelming feeling of “loser-ness” when your post gets only 10 likes (and not even a mercy like from your husband or parents)?
Yeah, me neither.
Instagram is currently testing a new feature in Canada that aims to redirect this behavior. Essentially, they are hiding like counts from view, so that the focus is more on content and engagement, rather than on like volume. The poster will have the ability to see the likes on their post behind the scenes, but the theory is that the pressure is alleviated when others cannot see the count.
Studies have been conducted looking at the impact of social media on mental health and although there are some benefits, there are also some big negatives such as anxiety, depression, loneliness and negative impact on body image. The goal in the change is also to alleviate some of these stressors.
There is some concern from the influencer community, as their likes are currently part of the algorithm that helps determine their feed rankings and value to brands (note follower count will not be hidden). If this change rolls out in mass, developers will likely need to revisit their algorithms so measure value in other ways.
With likes as the main currency for social media, it will be interesting to see how users react. As with most changes, I suspect there will be resistance followed by acceptance, but I have to wonder if something else will emerge as a new source of currency.
While the up fronts are usually a dog and pony show where the big guys parade the latest and greatest programming for the coming year, networks took another angle this year.
Of course programming was still a huge focal point, but networks also combatted OTT competitors by sharing updates on streaming offerings. NBC is rolling out an ad supported streaming option which will be free to all cable subscribers. This in itself is a huge point of differentiation from services like Netflix, which are paid services without ads. Disney announced it received full operational control from Comcast as it relates to streaming (translation: they will get to execute their vision as they see fit). WarnerMedia and CBS also teased advances in their streaming offerings with an increased focus on audience and content.
This move is specifically geared towards Millennials and Gen Z’ers (is that a word?) who are either cord cutters or prefer to view content via non-traditional platforms.
Millennial and Gen Z consumers are highly passionate and prefer to do business with brands that are like-minded in terms of values and causes. Despite this fact, the numbers are showing low associations between causes and brands that have supported them. Why?
According to DoSomething Strategic, a social impact consultancy, marketers are struggling with putting the ideals of cause marketing into practice as brands focus on individual campaigns and not deeper meaning. In a recent survey conducted by dosomething.org, 66% of respondents said association with a cause they are interested in would influence positively their opinion of the brand and 58% said it would sway their propensity to purchase the brand. However, only 12% of consumers made a positive association between the 88 brands tested (i.e. Nike and Dove) with the cause they are linked with.
While the numbers contradict what consumers say they want, it doesn’t mean brands should shy away from cause-related marketing. It does mean they need to commit and make that messaging present in an evergreen fashion. Simply having a POV at a key moment might have a temporary impact, but in order to drive long term results, brands need to inject that stance into their DNA. Patagonia is a great example of this. They continually find ways to creatively support causes that are important to them in a way that feels authentic and meaningful. Patagonia consistently donates 1% of annual profits to environmental groups, donated their $10M Trump tax refund to green charity organizations, and in 2016 donated 100% of Black Friday profits to environmental groups. They are a perfect example of a brand embracing an ongoing cause-based strategy layered with pulses throughout the year.
Today’s customers are savvy and see through efforts to temporarily benefit from a hot topic. In order to win, brands must be authentic and action-driven, because there are few things young consumer find more irritating than empty bullshit promises or statements like #thoughtsandprayers.
If you have a pulse then you probably also have an Instagram feed. That feed is probably a mix of one million pics of your high school friend’s babies, gratuitous selfies from your newly single friends, vacation photos from boss and his partner, and celebrities hawking their collagen teas and skincare regimens. Somewhere in between all those things is another category of social media mavens, called micro-influencers. WTF does that mean? Much like social media itself, the definition is a little bit nebulous and full of room for interpretation, but in a nutshell, Micro-influencers are a group of people with higher volumes of followers than you or your best friend, but less followers than Kylie Jenner or Chrissy Teigen. The exact number of followers varies across experts, but typically between 5K-50K is a good ballpark. The key is not the volume, but rather that these influencers are extremely influential in their niches with followers that are HIGHLY engaged across social media channels. These people are more grassroots, and community based so there is a level of authenticity and relate-ability that is often lost with the mega influencers.
Why use micro influencers?
Scale: Rather than putting all your eggs into one celebrity basket, you can diversify by leveraging multiple micro=influencers to reach those same audiences at scale (and without the $500K/post price tag)
Authenticity: While this group of influencers may have smaller overall footprints, they have strong power of their group and are able to communicate
Flexibility: Big ticket celebrities will usually have more stringent guardrails. Leveraging a smaller scale influencer or group of influencers could give you more creative flexibility
1. Marketing Funnel continues to shift away from from one to many to one to one
2. Content is king and consumers are demanding that brands are providing value
3. Chatbots are on the rise and providing a way for customers to interact with advertisers without the hassle of speaking with an actual human
4. AI is becoming more pervasive and is helping to sharpen targeting and the consumer experience
5. Security and privacy are top of mind
6. Voice search is on the up and up with voice-based sales projected to reach $40B in 2022!
7. Video is being optimized to user preference, so vertical video formats are on the rise (because who wants to constantly flip their phone sideways just to watch their cute puppy videos)
8. Visual search is increasing making the consumer experience as easy as taking a picture of an objective in order to find information about it
9. Shift from celebrity influencer to micro-influencers as consumers are growing increasingly skeptical of celebrity advertising
How do you make your message stand out in an increasingly crowded social media landscape? Below are a few quick tips to help you make the most informed decision for your brand.
Develop and use your own voice and brand personality. Social media has allowed brands to be humanized and consumers would rather do business with the brands that they like and/or align with their values. Wendy’s does a killer job of this by replying to comments in their snarky tone.
Make your followers give a sh*t about you. While acquiring followers is good and dandy, those followers are useless if they are just sitting there dormant. Give your followers a reason to care through engaging them through one on one communication. Reply to comments, ask consumers to share their own stories using a specific hashtag, and post content that adds value to their day.
Please, please, please, DO NOT plaster the same content across all social media channels. Consumers use different channels to fulfil different needs. For example, consumers tend to use Twitter to stay up to date on news, conversation, and buzz, whereas Instagram is more for quick updates and Pinterest is where they go to get inspired. You do not need to be on all channels in order to be relevant. Think about your brand and choose to focus your efforts on the channels that matter most to your audience and tailor your content accordingly.
With the rise in smartphones comes the fall of the desire for verbal human contact. How many times have you let your phone ring only to text back the caller immediately after? If you aren’t jazzed about talking to your best friend on the phone, then you likely are way less jazzed to talk to a customer service rep from your TV provider or bank on the phone. Enter, chatbots! Messaging apps like Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger started the chat trend and have facilitated adoption of chat from a personal standpoint and have begun using their technology for pushing out advertising. Other giants like Amazon have started to use chat technology for custom service. I recently forgot to include a quart of strawberries in my Amazon Fresh order and in a panic chatted up a representative to help make sure my missing fruit found its way into my order. How to know if you should incorporate chatbots into your business? The technology is still relatively new, so before jumping into chatbots, make sure it fits into your overall type of business and also your target audience’s consumption habits. If your product or service is targeting senior citizens and has complex instructions, perhaps bots are not the way to go yet. If you are slinging cheeky tee-shirts to millennials… get with the bots immediately!
As a marketer, the more data, the better. As a consumer…not so much. Having grown up as a digital marketer, I am 100% comfortable and a fan of all the tracking that has been available. With that, I know my friends and family who are not in “the biz” have always been thoroughly creeped out by the depth of data being shared with advertisers. The classic example is the shoes you have been eyeing but haven’t pulled the trigger on following you around on your internet journey (aka retargeting).
The United States has always been one of the most open countries when it comes to data exchange compared to Europe or other cohorts, but that has been changing. The biggest shift happened the past month with Apple’s ITP restrictions. Basically, what they have done is cut down the “shelf life” of cookies which have been the number one way advertisers have been able to anonymously track and identify users (no PII of course).
Why should you care? While ultimately the experience and outcome will remain the same, the attribution piece is what will change. Sites will see inflated unique users and activity because duplication will be more frequent. How can you combat this will depend on your objectives and the types of data you have available. If you are in an industry where you have access to 1st party/CRM/known data, you can use this to replace cookie-based data. Another option is modeling. While this isn’t a one to one tactic, it will allow you to use patterns you have seen in the past to make inferences on behavior.
There is not a one size fits all solution for this situation, so it is important that you consider your specific business needs and data availability, tech stack, etc. before making any drastic changes.
