Marketing Futures Pulse

No matter which side of the cancel culture debate you may fall on, the impact it has for brands hasn’t essentially changed from any other previous form of accountability companies have faced. Consumers expect brands to act, at the least consistently with the values they espouse, and studies continue to show that a brand’s reputation and trust among consumers increase when they’re doing good for society, whether that’s through sustainability initiatives or in the ways they’re helping communities.

Net0 defines net zero emissions as “the balance between the greenhouse gases that have been emitted and the offsets that have brought those emissions to zero. Zero carbon is when no GHGs were emitted to begin with. Successful carbon reduction strategies include lower emissions targets every year until zero emissions are achieved.

Marketing to any demographic includes looking at sets of trends and profile basics to craft a message that will reach them most effectively (the explosion of articles discussing "marketing to millennials" is an easy way to see this in action). The issue with reducing groups of a similar generation, race, or preferences to a target on a marketing calendar, however, is that it forgets the individual, and betrays strong consumer preferences for personalization.

As the well-worn proverb says, “necessity is the mother of invention,” the pandemic hit retail spaces particularly hard, pushing consumers to use e-commerce more as social and safety protocols increased. While there may be more stores open now, shoppers have found that the convenience and speed when ordering items online is invaluable even long after the protocols have gone.

QR Codes are an extension of the barcode, and were first introduced as a way for manufacturers to scan larger amounts of data quickly. By 2011, retailers and trade shows were able to take advantage of smartphone technology to utilize QR codes in their inventories, badging, and check-ins — and slowly there emerged consumer usage in the form of online offers.

SEO was a lot simpler in a less-crowded marketplace; you could optimize by keyword for your product, industry, or customer demographics and watch your traffic grow. In 2021, however, not only is the online space left with little metaphorical keyword elbow room, but search engines have gotten smarter to keep up with consumer demand.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the quarantines that followed quickly changed the way brands could sell and show off their products, fostering a need for marketers to get inventive with their tactics. The online space also evolved during this time, becoming increasingly dominant and the perfect place to welcome creativity beyond banner ads, video, and social posts. Enter livestreaming, a tactic already well established by gamers and other communities as a way to connect with one another in real-time. What better way for marketers to connect with consumers with so many traditional methods inaccessible for the foreseeable future? Similar to a television informercial or home shopping network, livestreaming offers all of the benefits of those models but cuts out production costs and call-center intermediaries. While brand livestreaming is mainly centered in Asia at the moment, there is a huge opportunity and an eager audience ready for marketers to connect with everywhere else. Read on for more information about the livestreaming trend, how to do it, and what other brands have done in this space.

When AI-based algorithms were introduced to the marketing world they were an immense game changer: they upped the ante on how brands could target their existing audiences, and they sped up the process of understanding how to build new ones. As machine learning grew exponentially, however, it also lost much of its human touch. Without a balance of human input and safety checks, algorithms can adopt human biases (including hate speech), and cannot adapt fast enough to real-time crises like COVID-19. The resources here discuss how marketers can best work with algorithms to ensure they reach desired targets with efficient, optimized results, and avoid communicating the wrong messages.

As the news of the cookie’s so-called demise has spread far and wide (and we’ve previously discussed here), there have been a number of potential strategies laid out for marketers looking to navigate this brave new world. While further leveraging influencers or re-designing loyalty programs have emerged as two possibilities, we’ve also witnessed a natural tendency to focus on party data above all. This makes sense, as it’s the “death” of third-party data (in reality, privacy regulation barriers) that prompted a re-examination of how to properly use consumer data in the first place. Enter (or, re-enter, as it may be) first- and zero-party data, best explained by this chart from Cheetah Digital:

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sent shockwaves throughout the world; and with so much information sent digitally today, the events have been unfolding in real-time with no filter, and often with no commentary. People around the world are looking for a response from those with the power of global conversation, and brands are naturally part of this.

The world is seeing price inflation on a scale that hasn’t been experienced in 40 years. While brands may be tempted to resort to their old playbooks by raising prices, cutting margins, or sacrificing quality, the amount of data and visibility that brands experience now can help manage these difficult times. Nuanced information about markets, consumers, and suppliers allow marketers to choose where and when to change prices or margins, and provide an opportunity to optimize their promotions around the products most affected. The resources below provide insight into how consumers are dealing with inflation, and how brands can positively respond.

The new kids on the block are generation Alpha, kids born after 2010 to predominantly millennial parents. Following their gen Z predecessor’s footsteps, they are already heavily immersed within the digital world and were born with screens all around them. The resources here discuss some of the ways CX will evolve in 2022.

Last month's Pulse discussed Customer Data Platforms to manage the myriad data marketers will need to collect post-cookie. It begs the question, though: If you can't deliver an exceptional customer experience in a highly competitive world, will you even need a CDP? If you can't delight your customers, then the rest is moot; the keys to all success across a marketing organization start and end with the end-user: the consumer. The resources here discuss some of the ways CX will evolve in 2022.

Apple announced earlier this year that with the update to their operating system with iOS 14, consumers would have more control over the information that apps could track via the IDFA (we explored the effect this would have on marketers here). Now with the announcement of iOS 15, Apple is putting yet more control in the hands of consumers by extending privacy protection to email and other often-used services on all their devices.

The resources collected here explore just what the metaverse entails, how brands can take advantage of them, and some examples of marketers who have already dipped their toe in these unchartered waters.

With the eventual and final phase out of the third-party cookie, marketers will need to rely on the data they can collect directly from consumers. This first- and -zero-party data will come from a multitude of sources and, if not managed properly, can end up as a disorganized, in-actionable mess.