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.
Saturday, March 27, 2021
Digital Sales Reimagined
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.
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.
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/
Friday, March 26, 2021
"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
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.
Thursday, March 25, 2021
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.