Digital Sales Reimagined

One of the industries most affected by COVID is the retail industry. During the pandemic, it’s hit record lows followed by record highs all the while adapting at a rate that is unprecedented to create a new digital-customer centric experience across the industry. As the digital-customer experience becomes the focus of many retailers, companies have had to rethink not only internal company dynamics, processes, and initiatives, but also what the future of the retail experience looks like for consumers. While digital shopping is unlikely to replace the in-person experience, the online shopping we once knew is already changing. From new ways to send e-gifts to online shopping parties, the world of retail has whole new experiences available for consumers. According to PwC, the rise in digital sales is driven by the effects of people being stuck at home.  As demand increases for a fully digital experience, sales are booming. Gone are the days of trade shows and vendor conventions and instead companies and retailers are focused on how to optimize the fully remote buying experience, especially for B2B buyers. Not only does it allow for more flexibility, but there’s huge upside for cost-savings as well. As experiences become more personalized and customized, there’s also the role of AI and the opportunity to further streamline the experience with less human resources required.

https://www.marketingdive.com/spons/the-digital-sales-cycle-is-here-to-stay-heres-how-to-embrace-it/596507/

 

Entertaining B2B Content Marketing

This article felt very appropriate given we've been covering content marketing. I thought this was a really great example of creative content marketing in the B2B space. These kind of videos are usually seen in the B2C space but I'm curious to see if this kind of marketing becomes more popular for B2B companies. Highly recommend giving it a watch! 

https://marketingtechnews.net/news/2021/feb/22/case-study-b2b-marketing-is-tired-how-wasabi-used-its-entertainment-roots-to-spice-things-up/

Netflix Password Sharing Crackdown

 

I’m not surprised that Netflix would not announce the strategic move publicly.  I did not know that people (at least beyond the same living space) shared passwords to Netflix and other similar platforms until recently.  Still, converting such users to buyers seems like a positive, or at least more lucrative move for Netflix, especially given that other services like HBO and Disney have joined the streaming service club.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dbloom/2021/03/16/why-netflixs-password-sharing-crackdown-makes-sense-in-todays-streaming-world/?sh=2f7f4f765552

NFTs - A new wave of disruption

Non fungible tokens, NFTs are digital tokens that are unique and tied to the exclusive digital ownership of an asset.  As such, they can be bought, sold, traded and relatively easily due to the digital nature of the ownership.  By being non-fungible, it can't be replaced with something exactly the same.  Some examples of NFTs you can buy are:  Art, trading cards, and even Tweets.

NFTs are undergoing an initial growth wave with more than $200 million (R1) being spent on artwork, memes, and GIFS in the past month.  This has skyrocketed the adoption of platforms and marketplaces such as Mintable and NBA Top shots.

What's interesting to note about NFTs is that traditional asset collections such as stamps, coins, cards are an easy to understand transition to exclusive digital ownership.  However, there remain many other markets primed for disruption with this new and revolutionary technology.  Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks is looking into using NFT technology to sell tickets for their NBA games (R2).  This shows the application potential to other industries to disrupt them by addressing pain points and concerns of trust and transparency.

 

References:

https://time.com/5947720/nft-art/

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/26/mark-cuban-dallas-mavericks-may-use-nfts-for-ticketing.html

Should we invest in the Semrush IPO?

The piece of news that particularly caught my attention was the IPO of SEMrush, given our exposure to it during the course. I had a great experience working with the tool for our project, which made me wonder if it would be a good idea to invest.

The customer growth has been phenomenal. In 2010, the company was serving around 1000 customers. By 2016 the company started launching their content marketing and digital PR tools and broke the 1 million user mark.

Further, the SEMrush product has a proven track record as a leader in SEO and digital marketing analytics.  SEMrush has an array of over 50 products, tools, and add-ons in their arsenal to address SEO and digital marketing and carries a robust, proprietary technology platform.

Looking at the business fundamentals, About 94.9% of SEMrush’s customers are from the small and medium sized business category where they see an ARR per paying customer of $2,000; and their large enterprise customers have an ARR per paying customer of $4,200. This is combined with a positive net dollar retention, decreasing net losses and a growing market.

While the above-mentioned factors definitely captured my interest, on the flip-side, my biggest concern was the intensely competitive nature of the SEO market. This would require them to constantly invest in R&D and sales to maintain up-to-date tools. This is something SEMrush has lagged in, according to their financial statements. In addition, this tends to a price sensitive market which increases the competition intensity.

My assessment of the SEO market was that it is an intensely competitive and rapidly changing industry. It makes sense to be bullish on the SEO market overall, as digital marketing, SEO, and brand building are critical and growing parts of today’s business environment. However, what I remain unsure of is SEMrush’s ability to dominate the market in the coming times.

 

Pros and Cons of Facebook Ads

Facebook has garnered an enormous share of companies’ online ad spend. Advertising on social media has benefits and drawbacks. Below are a few of the pros and cons.

Pros:

-          Facebook can put your company in front of an extremely large and broad audience with over a billion DAUs.

-          Facebook allows for visual content (videos and photos) that are good at catching prospects’ attention.

-          It allows you to target users in your area or those that fit demographics likely to use your product or service.

-          Facebook’s tools make the ads relatively easy to set up and build a campaign.

-          You can use Facebook to re-market to people who have come to your website previously.

Cons:

-          If you don’t set up your targeting correctly, Facebook advertising can be very expensive and provide very little return.

-          Although you are reaching a broader audience, conversion rates are generally lower than Google ads since those people are actively searching for your product or service. Facebook can only suggest those who might be interested.

-          Facebook provides few organic views. Facebook’s algorithms purposely limit brand visibility unless you have paid them for ads.

While Facebook has built powerful tools to help marketers find huge swaths of potential customers, make sure you are thoughtful about your approach or you will see limited return on your money and efforts.

https://www.ccdigital.co.uk/blog/top-8-pros-and-cons-of-facebook-paid-ads

"Zack Snyder’s Justice League remains overshadowed by its social media campaign"

In recent classes we have discussed the positive and negative impact social media campaigns can have in generating awareness around a particular company, product, or person. I believe the below article truly encompasses all these dynamics. There was a large social media campaign that lasted for years to release the Zack Snyder Cut of the "Justice League" superhero movie. 

The social media campaign started off small but quickly took off as fans of the movie joined the movement. It generated the buzz necessary to force Warner Brothers to release the movie (positive), but it also led to negative behavior of a lot of participants in the social media movement.

https://www.theverge.com/22334362/zack-snyder-justice-league-fandom-release-cut-star-wars-twitter

Everyone's an Everything

 In the age of apps, everyone is an everything. Instagram's filters made everyone a photographer. YouTube's audience made everyone a performer/actor. Blogging sites like this one made everyone authors. With all the content being produced, how can content consumers know what is real or good anymore? 

I've been struggling with this question for a while and with Facebook's announcement that they are "getting into the newsletter game" brought it top-of-mind again. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against supporting independent writers but with the rise of the inbox explosion (Statista reports roughly 306.4 billion emails were sent and received each day in 2020) do we really need another avenue by which people can send emails? I may be an "old fogey" when it comes to digital media, but I like being able to go to my groups on Facebook when I want a bit of social interaction -- perhaps to see what the NYTCooking group is recommending for dinner or tips on how to keep my always-dying rubber tree plant alive. That is separate and I can go there when I want that type of content. I don't need Facebook continually pulling me back to their platform by being in my email inbox. Yes, the argument can be made that I can simply not sign up for the newsletters but my main question is: is this needed? With the various other email platforms independent authors can use to thoughtfully put their content into the world, do we need Facebook making it easier for amateur writers to add to the billions of emails sent daily?

Secondly, with Facebook's issue with alt-right groups pushing their agenda on the platform, how will they prevent these types of groups from getting stronger by getting into the user's inbox? To me, receiving long-form content in my inbox that I have subscribed to adds a level of credibility to the content. How will Facebook ensure the emails being sent to subscribed users are in line with the groups the users subscribed to in the first place?

What do you think about the rise of newsletters? Am I completely wrong and just need to "get with the program"? Disagree with me.

Bitcoin + Influencers -- 😬

 Article: https://www.complex.com/life/social-media-influencer-jay-mazini-charged-with-wire-fraud

Jay Mazini, a notable influencer who had a couple of famous PR stunts handing out cash with the likes for 50 cent, is being investigated by the FBI for wire fraud enticing people to sell their bitcoin at above market price. Unfortunately, when his followers complied, Jay never sent them the equivalent value in cash, essentially stealing $2.5M in bitcoin from his followers. This is the ongoing challenge with this new influencer economy, more specifically, where someone can become an influencer at such a young age and amass wealth that in turn makes them feel invincible. Something similar has recently happened with David Dobrik, a young vlogger, now worth $20M+ and charged with sexual assault. Just a few weeks ago, he launched an instagram-like app called Dispo which was quickly valued at $100M+ based on the amount of downloads it generated. No one is perfect, but in the past, individuals could learn, mature, and understand the professional landscape. Now with success coming much earlier, many of those steps are skipped and VCs often care less about the integrity of founders and more on the audience they can build. Looking ahead, I do not see this issue going away, but only getting worse with so much dry powder available in the pandemic coupled with the rise of decentralized currency like bitcoin. 

Potential uses of NFTs in e-commerce

There’s a newcomer to the digital world that has been generating considerable buzz over the past few months: NFTs.

As one of our classmates already pointed out, recent NFT transactions included the sale of a Tweet, digital works by the musician Grimes and a digital NFT painting by the artist Beeple at $69 Mn (sold by Christie’s). I have been wondering how NFTs could be tangibly used by e-commerce players and brands, and an article published by the Business of Fashion gave me a starting point.

The design studio RTFKT pioneered the first NFT e-commerce transaction: they sold 621 pairs of shoes priced at $3,000 to $10,000 issued as NFTs, meaning that the buyers have purchased a digital ownership right first, and will be shipped the physical shoes later. This implies that a new way of selling and owning physical products through e-commerce may emerge:

• Brands could issue NFTs linked to physical products, and extend their value through NFT digital certificates proving ownership of physical products (e.g., as simple certificates, or as digital twins to wear online)
• IP rights holders (e.g., brands) could potentially get a cut on all future sales, should their NFTs be sold on the secondary market   
• NFT blockchain authentication implies that brands could be better positioned in controlling the resale and counterfeit market for their goods

It still remains to be seen whether NFT will be a fad or will be there to stay. However, brands should monitor the space and brainstorm innovative ways to put the technology to use.

https://www.businessoffashion.com/briefings/technology/nfts-for-fashion-fad-or-opportunity

https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/technology/what-the-nft-gold-rush-means-for-fashion

Coronavirus and digital marketing monopoly

A Wall Street Journal article published on March 19, 2021, struck me on how the coronavirus propelled the monopoly or triopoly by Google, Facebook and Amazon in the digital marketing world. 

The article indicates that although they were dominating players in marketing, the three tech giants attracted more marketing budget as a result of the pandemic, because the traditional marketing spending on, e.g., TV commercials during sports games, newspapers and billboards, all shrank directly and indirectly because of the pandemic. 

I read the article not too long after watching the documentary "The Social Dilemma". Using the newly gained understanding, I can safely infer that with the additional budget flooding into the tech giants, more ads will be put on their platforms, they will collect more data on customers' behavior upon receiving the ads and subsequently, their algorithms will be further calibrated to be more accurate and invasive, and digital advertising will become more effective to advertisers. We just accelerated the downward spiral. This is a huge red flag to me because the pandemic accidentally accelerated the journey to monopoly for these giants. Traditional marketing media will have a hard time recovering from the impact if they do not run out of business. 

Struggling retailers would double down on digital advertising in order to keep afloat with slammed customer demand as a result of COVID-19, further speeding up the monopoly. Further, the monopoly power also disadvantage advertisers because these tech giants may collude to charge a higher price. 

It is really time to act for regulators and governments to pay attention to the rising monopoly power of these tech giants to protect the consumers, the advertisers and the overall society. 

Source: Wall Street Journal, "How Covid-19 Supercharged the Advertising 'Triopoly' of Google, Facebook and Amazon", March 2021

Digital Adoption Of FMCG Industry In Advertising And Marketing

Digital marketing is revolutionizing the marketing scenario of every industry including the FMCG sector. The social distancing and stay at home measures have propelled the consumers to make buying-decisions differently and that encouraged the industry to provide various platforms via marketplaces, apps and direct to consumer brands. As the internet data penetration has increased with people spending more time on laptop and mobile phones, FMCG brands also shifted their focus on these emerging platforms from its traditional mediums like television, newspaper and billboards. Even the latest report by Google and Bain and Co. has predicted that USD 11 billion, or two-thirds, of the total sales in beauty and hygiene products will be influenced through online marketing. In today’s digital era, a strong full-funnel digital marketing strategy is indispensable for FMCG brands.

Incorporating 4Ps for digital marketing

Adopting 4Ps (Product, Price, Place and Promotion) in the newly-evolved digital marketing sphere doesn’t mean again trying out the tried and tested methodology which marketers swear by. Rather, it involves pivoting the marketing mix for FMCG products to bring them into the current era. Digital advertising and marketing trends in FMCG actually allow the marketers to establish a relationship with the consumers, which was not possible before, besides enticing the consumers to reach the final stage of buying. It required the marketers to conceptualize a full-fledged and engaging FMCG digital strategy.

Advantages of Digital adoption of FMCG industry

Making use of a strong digital marketing strategy in the overall marketing mix provides many clear benefits to a brand:

1. It makes a separate entity for your brand

If we see the FMCG sector, there are a large variety of similar products from various brands that provide a wide range of options for consumers to choose from. But if we have a strategic digital marketing and advertising tool at place, it enables the brand to create an exclusive identity. This helps the consumer to form an opinion about the brand and also ultimately influences consumers’ purchase decision.

2. It Allows You to Gain Consumer Insights and Increase ROI

In digital marketing and advertising, the best part is you can track every facet of your marketing efforts. This feature was lacking in traditional marketing. Since FMCG companies spend a huge amount of money sums on hoardings, TV commercials, print ads, radio ads and more, the outcomes of these campaigns are difficult to measure. We can only produce a tentative figure and that’s how it lacks to arrive at a definite conclusion.

But, digital marketing and advertising, enables to monitor and measure every facet of the campaign. We can have the information about the number of impressions, clicks, conversions and more with the help of analytic tools. The brand can also find out which advertisement of theirs actually encouraged the consumer to purchase their product. The advanced analytics can also enable to get in depth knowledge about the consumers purchasing habits. Using this information, brands can make specific campaigns and create content that will engage your target audience more. As digital adoption provides the ease of tracking digital marketing offers, FMCG brands can refine their strategies and make it more cost-effective.

3. It provides an innovative way to display your brand

Brands should not forget the fact that consumers are visuals creatures, the more attractive your packaging and messaging, the higher the chances of the brand getting noticed by them. So, the product display plays a crucial role in influencing the consumers purchasing decisions. Similarly, digital marketing for a company can be approached as a digital shelf for display. If utilized in the right manner it’s one of the most effective for virtual display and cost-effective too. Similar to the physical shelves, digital marketing also allows you to position your products contextually. Through tools like AdWords Smart Display, brands can display their products while consumers browse through similar categories. For example, if you are a skincare brand, you can display your ads next to beauty blogs your consumers are browsing through.

Source: http://www.businessworld.in/article/Digital-Adoption-Of-FMCG-Industry-In-Advertising-And-Marketing/16-02-2021-378099/

The First Ever Tweet was sold for donation by using NFT (non-fungible token) and paid by bitcoin

Many of you may know about the news on the first ever tweet was sold over $2.9M. If you just read the headlines, you may think "Oh that's great." However, interesting part is not just five words are worth a millions of dollars but the way it was processed and sold. Here is the interesting part:

1. The first ever Tweet was sold at the form of NFT (non- fungible token)

NFT is a kind of unique digital asset that allows you to buy and sell over online or digitally. There is no need to have your lawyer or patent in place I guess. Because it is also digitally managed no paper work as well.

2. The bid was done through a digital plat form called "Valuables by Cent." 

Very similar feature like Twitter. There is no need to plan an auction and gathering at the same time. No physical contact.

3. The donation was paid by bitcoin.

The value of the first ever tweet was marked at $2,915,835.47 and paid immediately by bitcoin. Not in a cash which makes the transaction easily not thinking about the conversion rate for the currency in Africa (the donation was for Africa).

As digital marketer, the idea and the concept of asset and values are changing rapidly. People can now easily transact by themselves without not dealing with all the legal issues or currency issues to buy and sell stuff. If you think your house have something valuable, it may be a worth trying to bid and donate for the charity.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/22/22344937/jack-dorsey-nft-sold-first-tweet-ethereum-cryptocurrency-twitter

Clubhouse Marketing Strategy - initial signs

I was curious to see there is some initial interest around clubhouse from marketers. The article is a glimpse into the early days of a possible trend. What's interesting to note in the article is that there is no monetization strategy yet, and the lack of social tools might make it very tough. I myself am skeptical about this space since, as a user, the rooms to me are all over the place. Also, given all the conversations we had in class about the clubhouse and the platform's gaps, it's interesting to see some push here from agencies.

https://digiday.com/marketing/communicate-quickly-and-effectively-why-agencies-are-hiring-clubhouse-managers/

"For the Love of Chips and Dip" - Tostitos and Snapchat

Tostitos is looking to engage younger consumers through a new TV commercial called "For the Love of Chips and Dip" that features Dan Levy from Schitt's Creek and Kate McKinnon from Saturday Night Live to promote their spiciest chip ever, Tostitos Habanero.  In addition to the campaign, which features Dan and Kate "one-upping" each other on how spicy they think the chip is, Tostitos is working with Snapchat to feature an interactive AR lens.  The intent is for younger users to leverage the filter to share messages and have "unforgettable moments with friends," which should also increase overall brand awareness as the filter becomes part of their conversations on social media.  

This reminded me of the conversation we had in class about the Old Spice campaign and how it was able to engage people and as a result gained major traction across social channels.  Both Dan Levy and Kate McKinnon are very relevant to younger people today and by also offering the AR filter on Snapchat, PepsiCo (the parent company) could see strong engagement with this campaign.

See a preview of the commercial here.

Article Reference: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/tostitos-spices-up-celeb-backed-effort-with-snapchat-ar-lens/597388/

The UK’s biggest brand movers of 2021

According to YouGov's media metrics, the UK's biggest brand movers of 2021 or brands that are resonating the most positively among UK consumers, are improving and scoring highly in media metrics including word of mouth, ad awareness, and buzz. Star, a content hub that is a part of Disney+ streaming service, ranked #1 in the YouGov BrandIndex between January and February of 2021. Star saw a significant boost in word of mouth and ad awareness while second place in the YouGov BrandIndex, All 4, saw a significant increase in word of mouth, ad awareness, and buzz.

While the article referenced below lists the top 5 brands resonating among UK consumers and a variety of reasons for their rankings, it is clear that as you read the article, these accounts all did well by increasing media metrics, which include word of mouth, ad awareness, and buzz. There are other metrics listed under brand metrics (i.e. value, impression, satisfaction) and purchase funnel (i.e. consideration, purchase intent), however, the increasing media metrics seem to make up the success of the top 3. With added value, impressions, and reputation being a hot topic in digital marketing, it is interesting to see that media metrics were so important in launching these companies into the top positions so far this year.

Reference: https://www.marketingweek.com/uks-biggest-brand-movers-2021-so-far/

ACLU Looks into AI Surveillance

The American Civil Liberties Union is focusing on the intersection of citizen rights, bias, and AI voice, data, video surveillance.   

AI algorithms are powerful for understanding and targeting people's interests, behavior, and purchasing habits.  These tools are also heavily utilized to surveil populations.  The most visible example can be seen in China, where the country has built a widespread video and data monitoring system powered by AI that assigns a risk score to individuals and allows the country to identify, police, and silence residents that share critical or dissenting opinions.  The "social credit" risk score is utilized to restrict travel, purchasing decisions, professional opportunities. 

The ACLU has noted its concern for how the United States has historically and plans to use video and voice data within the department of Homeland Security. It's specifically looking to learn whether Homeland Security or departments has been biased against marginalized communities. To explore the issue the ACLU has filed a request via the Freedom of Information Act with the CIA, NSA, and Homeland Security to investigate further. 

source: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/privacy-and-data-security/aclu-seeks-records-on-government-use-of-ai-in-national-security

Is Brand Rating by Mega-Influencer A Great Opportunity for New Brand to Acquire Customers?

On March 2nd, Tmall introduced “Scoring Qi” where Jiaqi Li, a famous mega-influencer in live-stream e-commerce, scores each product of each brand. Meanwhile, Jiaqi was also named as Chief Discovery Officer of Tmall Treasure’s new brand.

This reminds me of the Michelin restaurant scoring system, which further brings prestige and wealth to these restaurants. Like many influencers, they test and recommend popular products in their channels, further helping these products attract more customers. As live-stream e-commerce became popular and mature, influencers, like Jiaqi Li, can test and recommend a lot of products from all over the world in a few hours of live broadcast under the lower production cost. After acquiring trust by recommending popular products, Jiaqi started reviewing products of new brands.

He knows a lot about customer preference and product advantages and will make use of the methods, like lowering key competitors’ brand images, emphasizing the importance of certain criteria this new brand performs well and introducing new decision criteria, to persuade customers and set off a trend. Therefore, many new brands invited Jiaqi Li to be Chief Recommendation Officer. Huaxizi is the most famous example. In cooperation with Jiaqi Li, it chose to focus on Chinese culture that was scarce on the market and concentrated on polishing high-quality products based on Jiaqi’s recommendation and finally became the top-selling category on Tmall.

In order to expand the current market and attract the customers who have no time to see live video, Tmall introduced “Scoring Qi” so that these customers can take Jiaqi Li’s recommendations without joining live video.

This sounds like a great idea for new brand to acquire customers, but it relies much on the prestige and taste of Jiaqi and his team. Although Jiaqi knows a lot about women’s preferences, different women still have slightly different preferences. It is difficult to rely on Jiaqi alone to develop a mature scoring system endorsed by everyone. Therefore, it would be better to see that more different influencers in different areas are also included into brand rating system and gradually improve the scoring system.

The "Triopoly" of Ad Spend

It's almost impossible to imagine a time when we operated in a world without Google, Amazon and Social Media. I remember the days in which AIM and Yahoo reigned supreme. Fast forward a mere decade and a half and there's not a day that goes by that we don't rely on Google to help navigate our neighborhoods, treat Amazon as our local store or use Facebook to maintain connections with peers, new and old. It's remarkable to see how these platforms have intersected and become mainstays in our daily lives, but their sheer impact as the leading big tech platforms is magnified when we look at their stakes in the advertising space. It's reported in this article that this "Triopoly" now rakes in almost half of all ad dollars spent in the US. As of 2020 and only exacerbated by the pandemic with consumers forcefully pushed to stay connected online, the big three has seen rising total ad spend reach $117.06B. It's no secret how the pandemic has accelerated digital innovation, but this begs the question of how will smaller emerging platforms compete? To that end, how much bigger can the big three get before commanding a majority of ad spend and the majority of our attention/reliance as an interconnected community?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-covid-19-supercharged-the-advertising-triopoly-of-google-facebook-and-amazon-11616163738?mod=hp_featst_pos3

Tips for Search Engine Optimization

 Through the course of this class, and by being curious within my network, I have learned a lot about specific tactics you can leverage to improve your search engine optimization (SEO).  Here are some practical tips I've learned about how a brand can begin to improve their SEO in a relatively low risk, low cost way:

1. Think about your keyword research in terms of personas or your customer segmentation.  These should drive your ad groupings and campaigns.  Also, I learned that getting keywords right is really hard!

2. Leverage your site page title tags.  Title tags should be based in your keyword research, and unique to every page.

3. Use metadata fields and image alt tags on your site.  These should also leverage your keyword research, and can drive potential customers looking for very specific content to that niche content on your site.

Search is a really powerful tool, whose importance might be overlooked when starting out with marketing efforts.  It is definitely something I would urge brands to dedicate significant effort to, as it really has the power to help you reach potential customers when their intent to buy is high.

Mr. Beast's Venture Fund is backed by Influencers and they are Investing in....Influencers?

I first thought this headline was fake, but if everyone is raising a venture fund, why shouldn't influencers?! 

If I followed my value investing instinct, I would immediately pass on any investment that had influencers making investment decisions...or I would typically short the idea immediately...but Mr. Beast is a Beast...so where does this go? 

"Night Media, the six-year-old, Dallas-based multimedia talent management company, is closing a debut fund with $20 million in capital commitments from the powerful family-friendly online influencers it manages, along with other social media stars."

It turns out, they are only investing in what they know, consumer facing companies, most importantly content creating companies (including gaming), which rely on user generated content that support the "creator economy." At the very least this is their sweet spot, and they are not saying to the world we are now investing in "tech enabled services focused on the future of real estate." 

A few other fun facts: 

• They started with a venture studio incubator which executed Mr. Beast Burger 
• Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Venture Partners are sending deal flow!
• Investors and deal partners want access to their creators as part of deal sharing 
• They are actually hiring a professional investor...phew

https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/18/mrbeasts-management-company-night-media-has-a-new-venture-fund-thats-backed-by-creators/

The Growth of Clubhouse

 Given the questions around Clubhouse and it's role in marketing going forward, I took a look at the growth of the company. Clubhouse has 10 million weekly active users, up from 600,000 in December 2020, 2m users in January. It's currently #5 in the App Store under the "Social Networking" category. 30% of downloads happened after January 28th. Outside of US, Germany had the next largest downloads. Some users like Jared Leto have 3M+ followers.

App Annie tracks that app downloads and reported that Clubhouse reached No. 1 at Apple Inc.’s App Store in more than 30 countries this year, so it is now a more popular download than Instagram, TikTok, Zoom or WhatsApp in those countries. It is not just a US specific thing as it's growing rapidly in South Korea and Japan along with Germany and Italy. It might also have an important role to play in more autocratic governments. One person in Saudi Arabia said there were hundreds of rooms with the topics being very political.

https://backlinko.com/clubhouse-users

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-02-24/clubhouse-beats-instagram-tiktok-zoom-whatsapp-in-app-stores-worldwide

 2021: The Year To Debrand? 

From time to time it is completely necessary for rebranding, but this year it appears that simplification is the new trend.  This redesign of simplified logos is a trend I can get behind. In digital marketing, the "keep it simple" rule still applies. 

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-03-07/debranding-is-the-new-branding-for-burger-king-warner-bros?utm_source=url_link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=instagram-story&utm_content=business

42 Digital Marketing Trends You Can’t Ignore in 2021

The article highlights the top digital marketing trends for 2021, i.e., methods of leveraging technology and personalization strategies that are essential based on existing market dynamics. I believe the article is pretty comprehensive as it lists out 42 digital marketing methods currently being utilized in the marketplace.  Topics range from the applications of AI/machine learning and integrated “Influencer” marketing. Definitely worth checking out.

Article reference: 📈 42 Digital Marketing Trends You Can't Ignore in 2021 (singlegrain.com)

How to increase the value exchange of email marketing in covid-19?

In my opinion, SEM is using the appropriate keywords to increase CTR when people’s intent is high. By contrast, display ads is delivering more interesting and nice-to-know information to increase CTR when people’s intent is low. Apart from them, email is to building the value exchange of subscription. Therefore, in covid-19, when people‘s values change drastically from emphasizing appearance to focusing on comfortability, what can email marketing do to keep engaging the customers?

Firstly, we need to catch the most important change - people pay more attention to their internal and try best to feel comfortable. Therefore, exclusive contents, such as how to organize the room, how to recycle the outdated goods and what is needed to make WFH more efficient, are indeed good information to deliver.

Secondly, reminder emails are more needed than before. Personalized reminders responding to “life cycle” can be more frequent. As people are trapped at home and have lost a lot of contacts with the outside world, they are more likely to forget to buy the goods in one specific point of “life cycle”. For example, when a moisturizer runs out they are more likely to find a substitute nearby instead of buying new. Therefore, a reminder to use coupons triggering customers buying new one is more necessary.

On the whole, in order to increase the value exchange of email marketing in covid-19, the content of email marketing should focus more on comfortability and the reminding points along “life cycle” should be more frequent.

Digital Challenges For Cryptocurrency

 

https://www.fintechmagazine.com/digital-payments/cryptocurrency-new-era-dawns

Cryptocurrency has become a hot topic recently and there are plenty of user services that could prove lucrative for businesses providing support to crypto users. But there is a challenge ahead, marketing cryptocurrency for the common citizen.

A recent survey on a major news network showed that 1/3 of cryptocurrency owners are thoroughly confused about its future uses and exactly how it works. As appetite grows more people are buying cryptocurrencies due to FOMO or “Fear Of Missing Out”. But what are the unadvertised concerns facing crypto users?

Everyone has heard that Crypto is dangerous because it holds no intrinsic value. But there are risks that people are continuously ignoring, to include the outright ban of crypto that is still a possibility in the US. Recent news from the US shows the importance of collaboration for crypto as an alternative asset class.

“Collaboration between crypto firms and incumbent financial institutes will also shape the future landscape. Indeed, crypto exchange Kraken recently became the first US crypto company to secure a banking license.”

As we see larger companies adopt crypto in hopes of future integration into their business model the threat of crypto disappearing becomes less. Tesla, PayPal, and many other firms are positioning to get ahead of the crypto curve. But when will the average citizen adopt it as a “must have” currency? The future is still uncertain.

A new game of Operation?

 

What do you think of when you see virtual reality (VR) goggles? Most people have seen the videos of people erratically waving their arms around and sometimes colliding with TVs, walls, or other obstacles as they are immersed in a game of zombie fighting or some other virtual game. However, the real-world applications of VR are making waves in the world of medicine as surgeons are able to use the same VR goggles that are commonly used for video games to improve their surgical precision and capabilities. In fact, VR has revolutionized the field of surgery because it enables doctors to visualize and plan ahead before anyone goes under the knife. This has unlimited uses like removing tumors and using VR to navigate away from critical organs, nerves, and other areas. Not only does this help the surgeon, but it also gives the patient peace of mind to be able to see their diagnosis in 3-D and better understand the prescribed procedure that the surgeon is planning to do. So, don’t worry if you see your doctor with a set of VR goggles – they’re busy studying, not zombie killing.

https://digitalagencynetwork.com/vr-helps-surgeons-achieve-greater-precision-and-success/

Data Modeling - Shifting the decision making power back to the consumer

 Ever since the e-commerce boom, online businesses have started their data collection journey to build comprehensive profiles of their customers.  From their specific purchases to what their preferences are and decisions anywhere on the Internet.  Recently in the last few years with data modeling and machine learning tools becoming more accessible, a shift has begun where consumers can actually track and analyze their purchasing habits to determine utility and benefit.

There was interesting experiment by a strategy consultant who decided to track every single clothing he wore for 3 years.  Initially, he was looking to determine if it made sense to buy expensive clothing.  However, this journey of his resulted in a deep analysis of the cost performance of clothing:

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Furthermore, what was interesting was how he created a formula to determine Cost per wear:

His analysis went on further with plot diagrams and came up with numerous insights including a key one that a wardrobe with only your favourite clothes may be the best in terms of cost performance.

Overall this exercise is very interesting in the sense that the same methodology can be applied to other purchases of product and services to determine the true utility for each consumer. Although the tools and methodology used right now requires some data modeling skills, in future machine learning and more mainstream black box models could be offered to consumers in which they plug in their history / track usage of products and services to determine true utility.

Stay tuned, for more insights in this revolutionary space...

Reference:

https://www.reaktor.com/blog/why-ive-tracked-every-single-piece-of-clothing-ive-worn-for-three-years/ 

People matter when you're doing a digital transformation

This article covers several first hand accounts from different perspectives on how to create a vision for digital transformation and execute on it. It actually comes from the perspective of various executives -- from consultants, to PE operating partners, to executive recruiters focused on CIOs. The primary takeaway is the importance of having the right talent and team, while OVER communicating with stakeholders in a language that articulates the value proposition to them in a way that they understand. 

Leading a Digital Overhaul? Here’s Some Advice - WSJ

Privacy Concerns Regarding New AI Technology Researched on Instagram

 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/03/04/facebook-trains-ai-to-see-using-1-billion-public-instagram-photos-.html

Here is an interesting quote from the article, which makes me wonderful broad the potential uses of the new technology could be:

“While this is only a research project, a Facebook spokesperson said the potential uses were relatively broad. They include improved automatically generated text for describing images to people with visual impairments, better automatic categorization of items sold on Facebook Marketplace, and better systems to keep harmful images away from the Facebook platform, the company said.”

However, there is a privacy issue for Instagram consumers, which has already been included the data policy.

Adapting To China's E-Commerce Boom

 Many western brands are striving to keep up with China’s e-commerce boom. China not only corresponds to a big sales opportunity, but also to a marketing challenge, as many new social and digital platforms rise and expand. Here are three facts that I found interesting about China’s e-commerce growth: 

 - Rise of social commerce: the lines between traditional, social and e-commerce are increasingly blurred; it is paramount for brands to rethink their customer journeys to incorporate all new social & digital touchpoints in a seamless manner; moreover, western brands need to get acquainted with new social media platforms that have limited presence in the west (e.g., Douyin, Bilbili and Xiaohongshu) to effectively target their audiences 

 - Focus on lower tier cities: digitization has accelerated especially in lower tier cities. To expand there, brands should rethink the segmentation of their Chinese customers, to better tailor their marketing messages and merchandising to fit local tastes and traits.  

 - Livestream is not there to last: influencer-driven livestream has become a popular digital marketing and live selling option in the past year; however, some industry experts believe that because its high fees and logistic challenges, livestream will not be among the primary ways that people will shop with after the pandemic  

Reference

https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/china/five-ways-chinas-e-commerce-landscape-is-changing

How do marketers need to think differently about marketing to B2B and B2C clients?

 I work at a traditionally B2B company, that is exploring a new B2C channel.  As we think about B2B and B2C customers and prospects, there are clear differences in how we need to market to the two channels.  Here are three ways marketers need to think about the two channels differently.

1) As we think about the technology we use, we need to consider the costs of how we reach, track, and assess engagement with our target consumers.  Technologies used for B2B marketing, where the audience is smaller and more targeted, may prove cost-prohibitive for B2C marketing.  This should be assessed before leveraging the same technology capabilities and strategies across both.

2) The B2B business is all about personal, long-term relationships built on trust and delivery.  B2C, though relationships can be fostered over time for certain brands, are more likely transaction-based relationships.  Marketing must account for this.

3) In the B2B space, you are likely working with a sophisticated audience that wants information, data, and metrics around your brand or product, and marketing materials should reflect that.  In B2C marketing, it is all about simplifying your message to reach the broadest audience.

Google to stop tracking individually

I have a feeling that a few of my classmates will be sharing the same topic, or definitely a related article, but according to WSJ, it seems Google's ad tools will no longer support individual tracking of users starting 2022. This is on trend with Google's recent announcements in stop supporting third party cookies, which has been described as a "seismic change" within the industry. 

Currently, "advertisers use data harvested from people's browsing across the web to figure our whom to serve an ad to, and whether that person then went on to buy the advertised product. After Google's change, they won't be able to get as detailed a picture of either."

With everything the opinion on the latest development has mixed views. On one side, there are supporters who believe it's ultimately better for the consumers and their privacy and that it was something that would have happened one way or another, most likely through regulations. On the other side, people see this as another example of big tech controlling the game. 

Others see this as a rare opportunity for other players, other than Google, "who have been working on alternative tech to track users in privacy-safe manner" to gain some ground on Google.

One thing is clear. Advertisers will be able to track individuals will have no shortage of other tools.

Full article can be read here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/googles-user-tracking-crackdown-has-advertisers-bracing-for-change-11614819326?page=1

And here's another related article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-to-stop-selling-ads-based-on-your-specific-web-browsing-11614780021?mod=article_inline

Paid tiers for virtual events

Interesting article about how there could be a market for a paid virtual events. It is something I always wondered about since conferences were a big part of my job and helped in maintaining the right audience. Since the pandemic, I have not attended any because it has been free and in a way, my perception had lowered of the same event nor did I feel the networking opportunity would be good. This could be an option if there is more to really distinguish the paid offering 

 https://digiday.com/media/bloomberg-media-is-testing-paid-tiers-for-virtual-events/

Is it possible for Google to stop selling Ads based on individual interest?

Google plans to stop selling Ads based on individual browsing habits which we are now currently using what is called "cookie" according to recent Wall Street Journal. The background of the plan was that based on increasing criticism from privacy advocates and rising scrutiny from the regulators. However, this does not mean that Google is completely pulling out from digital marketing world. Instead, they are now building a new program/system not to target the individual but rather making them into a bucket and showing the Ads based on the specific interest within that bucket. In this way, Google will no be targeting individuals but rather mixing and matching from random interest. 

Interestingly, people are becoming aware of their privacy but at the same time they are also relying on digital world/ digital advertisement. As we are in COVID situation where it is difficult to go shopping, we are heavily relying on online shopping and digital world. We need to think the balance between the regulation and the digital advertisement going forward.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-to-stop-selling-ads-based-on-your-specific-web-browsing-11614780021

Are We All THAT Predictable?

https://www.marketingdive.com/news/mcdonalds-mulls-partial-sale-of-ai-company-dynamic-yield/595893/

There have been few brands that have been able to weather the storm that the pandemic has brought. The food and restaurant industry were all but decimated under distancing and in-door capacity regulations, and so naturally, services that offered no-touch solutions were prioritized by wary consumers who for the most part, would opt for convenience over contagion. Until reading this article, I was unaware that McDonald's own AI company, Dynamic Yield, was influencing my purchase decisions through personalization. Although the company is deliberating a sale for underperforming on ROI, I think the concept itself is far more interesting. None of us are oblivious to suggestive selling technology, particularly when it comes to 'recommended products' on Amazon or other retail sites. But to think that my innate hunger could be satiated by predictive technology in under 20 seconds in a drive-through queue is fascinating yet also disturbing. Are we all that predictable?

The Best Ways for Small Businesses to Utilize Facebook

            As a small business marketer, you must be clever with your limited budget as you try to reach your customer base. Facebook can be a powerful tool, but there are some basic tips to follow to stand out, increase your reach and have maximum impact from your limited spend.

                Below is a playbook for launching an effective Facebook marketing campaign without breaking the bank.

1.       Use Name Vine to find a Facebook account name that matches your business and is available. This will save you time from manually trying to find combinations that aren’t taken.

2.       Use third-party tools to make sure your content is posted across all of the social media platforms you use. It’s an extra expense, but it will save you headaches. HootSuite is mentioned in the article by name.

3.       Facebook offers free plugins that allow customers to interact with your website through Facebook. This has been shown to increase traffic and clicks.

4.       Third party services are available to tell you when to post and what to post. They can suggest specific keywords, the type of media to use, how often to post and what day of the week to post to drive the most traffic from your desired audience.

5.       Facebook Insights will show you which updates performed the best and what your audience is responding to.

6.       Geotarget your posts to make sure you are hitting potential customers who can actually visit your location or use your services. Facebook has simple tools to allow you to do this.

7.       Create a QR code on your Facebook Page that links to your website and drives customers to wherever you want them to go. This is easy and there are free tiers of software to get this done.

8.       For a small business, buying Facebook ads can be very cost effective. Even as little as $50 per month would be sufficient to make an impact.

For small businesses, every dollar must be spent carefully. Marketing on Facebook can be a powerful, cost effective way to reach current and potential customers in your area. Using a litany of simple and free tools available, small businesses can make a splash even on a shoe string budget.

https://mashable.com/2012/02/20/facebook-marketing-small-business/

Companies that don't invest in digital transformation will suffer

 Digital transformation has grown significantly in the last few years. Covid has accelerated this growth and companies have been focusing on transforming their operations to align with the trillion dollar movement.

It is interesting and encouraging for many businesses to understand how several companies have transformed their operations in a few years, increasing their stock prices by more than 150%. Experience from these companies has shown that digital transformation engages customers, and transforms their buying practices and, most importantly, their habits.

It is no surprise that, given the impact digital transformation has had in the last few years, the companies who haven't are starting to suffer. Customers are becoming digitally savvy and live and act based on digital business integration, therefore, companies should really think of implementing a digital transformation strategy.

Article: https://www.superoffice.com/blog/digital-transformation/

Roku Acquires Nielsen's Ad Business

Roku acquired Nielsen's Ad business recently, specifically the Advanced Video Advertising unit. Roku would like to hyper-focus its ads to optimize ad inventory and allow for better ROI tracking. While Roku is a well-known streaming service, it provides access to other streaming services through its platform, giving them a unique position to take a cut of ad revenue from its competitors.

This acquisition shows just how large the addressable TV market is and may draw large players in the space to begin making acquisitions of their own. It is possible that behemoths like Amazon and Apple, which are far behind Roku, could catch up by buying up other competitors to take market share. Roku was able to increase its user base by 40% from 2019 to 2020, which is an incredible feat in just 12 months.

As addressable TV advertising increases, other large networks will likely enter the race as well and discover ways to lure in users. Other large tv stations are currently building ways to lure customers through digital gambling platforms and sports betting. It will be interesting to see how the digital advertising pie is split as the market consolidates.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/1/22308141/roku-nielsen-video-advertising-business-acquisition-linear-streaming-tv

Disney Focuses on Programmatic Platforms

On February 23^rd at an invite-only event called Disney Platform Tech Showcase, Disney revealed its new programmatic business, DRAX, which stands for Disney Real-Time Ad Exchange.  This year, automated ad revenue is projected to grow over 80% and is expected to make up about 50% of revenue by 2024.  Over 1000 new clients have purchased ads on the Disney Platform and growth was amplified in January when Disney launched Disney Hulu XP (DHXP), which allows advertisers to showcase ads across Hulu and Disney TV networks.  Additionally, they offer advertisers a program called Disney Select, which compiles its consumer and audience data, enabling them to target specific segments based on certain characteristics and behavior and to optimize marketing in real-time with their programmatic offerings.

Ultimately, Disney is focused on creating one platform that can be used across their channels to make advertising more efficient and more effective:

"As Disney embarks on a single unified ad platform across linear and digital that addresses this reality and market opportunity, we expect convergence to continue in three distinct areas: planning and forecasting, reporting and measurement and cross-channel optimization."

    -Jeremy Helfand, senior vice president and head of advertising platforms at Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution (DMED)

With people spending more time at home over the past year due to the global pandemic and watching shows on traditional televisions as well as on connected and mobile devices, it seems like a good time for Disney to focus on programmatic platforms like DRAX.  They have seen a 56% increase this year in campaigns that leverage data to target their audiences and their revenue increased 110% after DRAX was announced.  If advertisers find that their ads are performing better and that the overall process to buy these ads is easy, Disney is likely to see continued success in the future.

Article Reference: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/disney-unveils-programmatic-platform-at-first-ad-tech-showcase/596025/

Why Costco did not consider chatbot? The pros and cons of chatbot

In Q2 2020, large waves of requests reached the travel agencies, credit card companies, airlines, and cruise lines to cancel or reschedule trips due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Costco's travel arm, Costco Travel, experienced the most serious crisis in their reputation among customers due to extremely long waiting times. 

Costco is famous for its customer loyalty. It generates over $3 billion revenue from membership fees and 98.5 million customers, whose average household income exceeds $100,000. However, customers spent hours on the phone waiting for customer service to deal with cancellations. The record shows certain customers waited for up to 7 hours holding before their calls were answered. 

A big part of the reason for a failure in customer service is that Costco travel continues to use live agents to answer customer calls. If you log into Costco Travel, you will see a real person travel agent on the right hand of the page, with a name and contact number. 

In comparison, many retailers have switched to a combination of the chatbox, live chat and call centers to deal with the increased volume of customer inquiries. Chatboxes are normally the first line of response when the customer initiates an inquiry if it is simple and straightforward enough. Indeed, the study by Acquire found that 80% of the customer inquiries can be resolved by chatboxes without supervision. In this way, only 20% of the total call volume requires human intervention. 

Of course, as customers, we all prefer human interaction and being heard (i.e., the exact cons of chatbox). That means, it is hard to completely eliminate live chat or call center, but at least building in the chatbox functionality can speed up the processing of the customer inquiries and avoid long waiting time. 

It is important to note that chatboxes are an important way of marketing products and services. They collect firsthand customer information and data, engage customers in a significantly more scalable way, and build trusted customer relationships accordingly. Chatbots are definitely a wave that any retailers want to catch in the next ten years. 

Source: https://www.travelmarketreport.com/articles/Costco-Travel-Clients-Fill-Social-Media-with-Complaints-Amid-COVID-19-Outbreak

What can we learn from effective digital marketing campaigns?

I decided to look at 5 impressive and highly successful digital marketing campaigns to distill what it is that made them work. Turns out that all successful campaigns have a common theme at their core – focus on customer experience and providing solutions that the consumers genuinely need.

Yelp: While review sites were nothing new when Yelp was founded, the key lesson from Yelp’s marketing campaign was that it was able to form trust among a community. Reviewers are known people with legitimate profiles and are encouraged to develop a reputation and a following. Yelp reinforces the importance of building a trustworthy brand and community so that users actually believe/have faith in the published ratings. Without trust, the model falters.

JetBlue: The digital marketing for JetBlue is focused on speedy and reliable customer service. Rather than posting self-promotional material, JetBlue posts individual responses to consumers queries which is key to building customer confidence. The key is to balance self-promotion with content that the users actually benefit from.

Dollar Shave Club: The company created excitement for something as boring as shaving via its innovative launch video. The key to their strategy is standing out in people’s minds through their tongue in cheek humor. It is a testimonial to how well-executed content marketing can capture minds of people.

Zappos: The leader in online shoe commerce provides 365 day money guarantee, free shipping and exchange. The organic popularity it enjoys because of its appealing policies is the key to its success. Zappos strategy reinforces how while content marketing is critical, it does not replace the focus on what customers actually need. Online content marketing campaigns should strive to produce measurable results in proportion to the resources committed to them.

Slack: Slack marketing strategy again reinforces the focus on “selling a solution, not a product.” Slack prioritizes solving customer pain points, as can be seen by the fact that it responds to 8,000 help desk tickets and up to 10,000 tweets each month. Even their Twitter feed contains a bunch of 140-character #SlackTips. Once again, the secret sauce is focus on customer experience.

Is B2B Marketing Dead?

As corporations are able to reach out to prospective customers more easily with targeting marketing pushes to certain audiences, is there still a place for B2B marketing? 

After a recent interview I participated in, I was told that the company was not proceeding with my candidacy because they had other candidates with "more direct, B2B marketing experience". This led me down a path of internal exploration around the difference between B2B and B2C sales and marketing. While, yes, a marketer needs to be cognizant of their audience and businesses make decisions differently than standalone people, when it comes to awareness, doesn't a more B2C approach fare the marketer better? In the end, we're marketing to people, not businesses, right? 

I remember scrolling through my Instagram feed in early 2019 and seeing an ad for AirTable. I thought it was strange since I don't have the need to create a relational database for my personal life. That being said, however, soon after seeing the social ad I found myself discussing pain points of event planning with a team at work. Their complaint was that their tracking sheets in google were siloed and found them dreaming about a future where their different sheets could be joined somehow. The ad for an easily-set-up relational database that links sheets together (AirTable) came to mind. I'm not sure how AirTable was able to find me with their targeting, but they acquired a very valuable customer that day.

In her recent blog post "Has the Customer Journey Killed the B2B Marketing Sales Funnel?", Alison Fetterman investigates this idea from the lens of thinking through the different ways people move from being aware of a product/service through the different stages of the marketing sales funnel to (hopefully) an eventual purchase. She details "The funnel creates a guide that informs marketing and sales what the best next steps are...In short, it encourages us to think strategically, rather than tactically." She goes on to say, "[w]e can use the customer journey to inform our understanding of the customer and the funnel to better define the business impact our programs are having." I'm fairly certain I wasn't on any of AirTable's defined customer journeys but by applying the idea of the marketing sales funnel more broadly, they were able to acquire a customer and a solid sales lead into Columbia College.

Biden and Harris leveraged a data-driven social media strategy to win the election

Biden's social media director Sarah Galvez explains how their team won on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and even on Twitch by driving audience growth through social analytics specific to each platform. It was fun to learn that Sarah got her start in political social media by cold-calling Hillary Clinton's team to convince them it was essential to have a group (led by her) to focus on audience growth, specifically in video. 

For Biden's campaign, they were publishing so much content (multiple posts an hour per platform) that they relied on Monday.com as a project management tool. To track effectiveness and optimize the use of their content, they determined that the KPI actually needed to depend on what and where the content was distributed. For example:  "for a fund-raising tweet, we’re going to optimize to getting donations through the door. But on an everyday basis, we were very focused on shareable content in particular; we knew that if people were sharing it, we were getting that megaphone and amplification, whether it be a re-tweet or a share on Instagram." 

To provide metrics that made sense to the team, they leaned on Measure Studio which does not try to  combine the measurement from different platforms into an overall engagement score because that method is "just smoke and mirrors” according to the founder Thomas Kramer. “Each of these platforms is unique in the way people consume....we focused on bench-marking performance uniquely per format and per platform.”

One final area of their focus was authentic content and knowing that your audience can sniff out pandering. For example, this inspired the team to create content for twitch targeting train enthusiasts (like Biden) by live streaming Biden's train journey across the country with low-fi hip hop playing in the background. 

https://martechtoday.com/breaking-down-president-bidens-data-driven-social-media-strategy-246439

Did Google succumb to the pressure or are they pulling a fast one?

 Article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-to-stop-selling-ads-based-on-your-specific-web-browsing-11614780021 

Privacy is now coming to the forefront of all tech which has, over the past two decades, leveraged privacy to make billions of dollars collecting and selling user data. Now that the public, and the government (to an extent) has caught up, many tech companies are pivoting before regulations take control. Apple, with its most recent iOS update now indicates what data each app you download on your iPhone collects. Google, per the article is now disabling tracking of user browsing history. The question is: Is this just Google shifting our focus? It seems that with AI and their thoroughly developed algorithms, Google can now glean the same insights that they were collecting from user web tracking. The majority of Google revenue comes from selling ads, so I don't see that changing for a company that makes over $160B in annual revenue. How they do it may change, but isn't the issue using consumers data that they collect (for free) and selling it? How they do it, in a sense, becomes irrelevant because it still invades on consumers privacy. Not surprisingly, Facebook has taken the opposite approach and spun these recent decisions by Apple and Google as hurting small businesses (which I highly doubt Facebook really cares about). The next few years will be interesting as we are forced to have a more honest conversation on privacy and the revenue these tech behemoths generate by exploiting it. 

How influencer marketing will evolve as Gen Z's sway grows

Social influencers are poised to have a bigger presence in advertising campaigns in 2021 as marketers eye younger consumers who spend more time online. That engagement will help to support several key trends this year, including the evolution of social media creators into long-term brand ambassadors and the growing role of customers who act as influencers.

Among other trends, Generation Z consumers will have a greater effect on influencer-generated content as their spending power continues to swell, and marketers will be able to evaluate the effectiveness of their influencer campaigns with improved metrics, according to a new forecast from influencer marketing company CreatorIQ.

"As the industry evolves, we are moving away from what was 'Influencer Marketing 1.0,' which was really a transactional relationship between brands and the creators that they worked with on one-off campaigns," said Tim Sovay, chief operating officer of CreatorIQ, whose financial backers include CPG giant Unilever.

His company, which has a database of 20 million creators, is seeing greater demand among marketers for longer-term partnerships with influencers who can be effective brand advocates. At the same time, creators want to align themselves with brands whose social values match their own.

"A creator is really choosing the types of brands that they want to work with, that they identify with and who their audience is interested in," Sovay said. "On the brand side, they're looking for a more authentic relationship, and weirdly, it's almost like a traditional endorsement."

These longer-term contracts with creators can last for a year with an option to renew, and can include services like consulting on product launches or design ideation.

Yeti Holding, the maker of luxury coolers and ice chests, is an example of a brand that nurtured a dedicated following by collaborating with influencers whose creative efforts include everything from product tests to short films that showcase outdoor adventures.

TikTok steers demand for authenticity

Younger consumers are harder to reach through media channels like traditional linear TV, making digital efforts that include influencer marketing more crucial for brands with a younger-skewing target audience. Generation Z is even more forceful than the preceding millennial generation in demanding that brands be authentic, a characteristic reinforced by the popular social video app TikTok.

Because TikTok focuses on identifying videos that are most likely to go viral, everyday people can become famous overnight on the platform. Its authentic short-form content became even more popular among Gen Zers as their social media consumption soared during the first year of the pandemic, according to CreatorIQ. The firm recommends brands collaborate with Gen Z influencers to learn more about the audiences they hope to reach.

"[The Gen Z] audience is native to the social platforms. It's all they know. Therefore, the creators that they follow have, by far, the most influence," Sovay said.

Many young consumers aspire to become social influencers as a career, a sign of their understanding of how fame works on social media. Eighty-six percent of Gen Z and millennials said they would post sponsored content for money, and 54% would become an influencer if given the opportunity, research firm Morning Consult found in a survey.

"Traditional ideas of celebrity — like actors — don't have as much as impact as they used to," Sovay said. "The creators are truly native to social media platforms, along with new up-and-coming digitally native brands that have been built off the back of Instagram and other platforms."

Improved measurement and scale

Like many facets of marketing, the influencer sphere is becoming more data-driven, giving brands additional measurement capabilities to assess return on investment and other business outcomes. E-commerce sales linked to content is emerging as a key benchmark as platforms popular with influencers, such as YouTube and Facebook, offer native tools for marketers to measure social influencer efforts and support online ordering and payment.

"Now, it's not just about high-level impressions and engagements — we can drill down to lower-funnel measurement to understand conversions," Sovay said. "Shopping and social commerce is really set to explode over the next 12 to 24 months in the U.S."

Brands are also forecast to support their influencer efforts with paid media to extend the reach beyond the organic following creators have cultivated on social platforms, per CreatorIQ's report.

"You can get the scale and you can get the targeting through paid media that you can't through other channels like programmatic display," Sovay said. "This will allow you to truly scale beyond just organic reach to a much broader audience through influencer marketing."

By scaling into paid media, marketers can target lookalike audiences who may not follow the creator directly, but have similar psychographic and demographic profiles.

"With more scale, you have the ability to have more conversion and more attribution," Sovay said. "You can sell more products, you can get more downloads, you can get more people to take an action beyond just the audience of that creator that you're working with or creators."

Customers as influencers

CreatorIQ also foresees greater convergence between loyal customers of a product and influencers. Babe Wine, the canned wine marketed by AB InBev, expanded its brand ambassador program by identifying customers who might serve as effective social influencers.

"'Influencer' means so many different things now — and really one of them is understanding what your high-value customer is," Sovay said. "Brands have these large databases of emails and first-party data. A brand can partner not just with a number of creators but really empower their most active and 'influential' customers."

The convergence of influencer marketing and customer experience (CX) also can be scaled upward to extend reach and promote longer-term loyalty.

"You scale this by working with hundreds, if not thousands, of your customers, and give them incentives to be your partner," Sovay said. "It will take time for brand marketers to get there, but I can tell you when we talk about this with our top customers, they get excited about it. They view it as the next big jump for this category."

Source: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/how-influencer-marketing-will-evolve-as-gen-zs-sway-grows/595517/

The Next Brick and Mortar Death: The Financial Sector

With 76,000 bank branches across the U.S., is the next brick and mortar death likely to occur in the financial sector? Just last week, TD Bank announced that it will close 82 of its 1,223 retail branches in the U.S as "... many people have begun doing more transactions online or over TD's app in the past year." The post-COVID world and its acceleration of digital trends suggests that Amazon might not be the only one eating retail storefronts for breakfast. Maybe smartphones are going to be responsible for the brick and mortar attrition. After all, there are 260 million smartphones in the U.S.

The future of banking is digital and the digital wallet plays a huge part in this transition. Digital wallets are becoming "neobanks," a direct bank that operates exclusively online (i.e. without traditional physical branch networks). Examples include Paypal's Venmo, Square's Cash App, Chime, and MoneyLion, among others. 

The neobank's rise is driven by demographic change, best-in-class UI and UX, lower operating costs, and higher transaction fee capabilities. The growing proportion of digitally-native customers is a boon for the sector as more than half of the population is of the millennial generation or younger. These cohorts expect digital interaction first and sleek user interfaces rather than face-to-face interaction. This digital-first approach lowers operating costs drastically, which enables the neobanks to operate with fewer fees. Lastly, neobanks earn higher transaction fees on debit transactions due to the Durbin amendment passed with the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation in 2010, which excluded financial institutions with less than $10bn in assets from fee caps. 

Neobanks not only serve as an incremental competition to traditional financial institutions, they also address a critical societal need - financial inclusion. After all, the FDIC estimates that 63 million U.S. adults are unbanked or underbanked. While traditional banks find these potential customers to be unprofitable and unattractive, neobanks can offer a wider range of financial services to this cohort with lower and fewer fees. 

Globally, there are an estimated 300 neobanks with an average of five opening every month. In Asia, key players include Alipay and WeChat Pay. In Europe, Revolut and N26. In Latin America, MercadoPago and NuBank. 

With plenty of traditional competitors and new neobank competitors emerging on a regular basis, customer acquisition is vital. Square commented at an investor conference in December 2020 that the cost of acquiring a new transacting customer was $5 from 2017 - 2019. That compares to hundreds of dollars to acquire a credit card customer and in many cases north of $1,000 to acquire a retail banking customer at a traditional bank. Importantly, both Venmo and Square each possess an annual active user base estimated to be greater than sixty million, roughly on par with JP Morgan's deposit account base, which took years instead of decades to accumulate. 

As the digital landscape continues to advance with innovations in AI and ML that tease out observations and analytics from the software platforms created by neobanks, it becomes very difficult to see traditional banks retaining such massive deposit bases over the long-term. This becomes especially true when thinking about the ease with which a customer can transact on the streamlined UI of a neobank. 

With all of these advances in the digital banking landscape, do we need to go into a brick and mortar bank anymore? Probably not.