We’re talking about cold outreach. 

What is cold outreach?

Cold outreach is when you phone, email, or otherwise connect with potential customers without having an initial conversation. This could be reaching out to a company you want to work with or a company you know could benefit from your services. Regardless of what the initial aim is, cold outreach can be a highly effective way to source new leads for your business. 

While it could sometimes result in no responses, cold outreach can have its role while growing a small business – and it can be as effective as networking within conferences or reaching out to warm leads. 

Here’s a few ways to make cold outreach work for you and your business. 

1. Do your research first. 

It might sound like there’s not much difference between cold emailing and spam, but the truth is actually very different – provided you do your research first and you only reach out to prospects that you can actually offer something to. It might sound like a small thing, but taking time to do your research will lend your cold outreach a much-needed, and genuine, boost. 

2. Your connection should be personal. 

Nobody likes receiving unsolicited anything – and as people become ever more reliant on email and text as a communication medium, reaching out to someone out of the blue with a really good offer might not manage to cover the initial irritation of reaching out at all. Fortunately, you can mitigate this a little by making sure that you’ve done your research as stated above, and making sure that however you reach out, you make an effort to connect personally with your prospect. 

This could be something simple as checking their LinkedIn profile while you’re drafting your email and including a reference to something they posted about. 

3. Don’t take forever to get to the point. 

Get to the point as quickly as possible. This grabs attention immediately and is respectful of the time of your readers. Make it clear what you’re offering and how you can help – and in plain language. Respecting your prospect’s time will leave a positive impression, even if the answer is ultimately no. 

One of the inherent risks of cold outreach is that you can put a lot of effort into reaching out only to get a no in response – and that’s fine. You won’t always connect with the people you’re reaching out to every time, and this is an acceptable part of cold outreach. 

Is cold outreach worth the time and effort?

Yes. Absolutely.

You might not ever meet your perfect client through networking or in-person connections – they could be located in another country, or they could simply be working with another company and you might have reached out at the wrong time. 

With cold outreach, however, the numbers are on your side. If you do your research, the number of potential leads you can reach out to increases exponentially, and a few replies will definitely come your way. 

Ultimately, cold outreach is a good way to connect with potential clients, whether or not they ultimately say yes. Making sure you have a good impression right at the outset will help keep you top of mind for when the client does need your help – and pass on your details to other clients who could potentially use your services. 

The post Is cold outreach for SMBs worth it? appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

But the latest App Store update by Apple might change things slightly. 

It is possible that in the future small business owners and influencers using iOS apps will incur some extra costs when advertising on Meta platforms.

But why?

Recently, Apple has updated its App Store rules to require that iOS developers have to use in-app purchases, giving Apple a 30% commission on all in-app purchases across the App Store. 

While Apple’s in-app purchase system is nothing new, Facebook and Instagram have never used it in their apps, meaning that the whole ‘boost’ amount went straight to Meta to pay for your ads. 

By forcing in-app purchases on all apps, Apple swung a big hit at Meta, but it’s the small businesses that depend on its advertising tools that might suffer the most.

Here’s why.

The current rules do not apply to Meta’s standalone ads manager, meaning that ads created off the iOS apps do not incur the same 30% tax. 

The problem is that normally an ads manager is used by larger companies and corporations with large spending budgets. 

It makes sense: their digital marketing activities can involve huge, complicated campaigns that need to be (you guessed it) ‘managed’.

If we look at the ‘Boost’ button option on Facebook and Instagram, it does not quite compare to the Ads Manager when it comes to tailoring audience targeting or personalising ad placements. 

But it’s simple. And simple does the job when you’ve got a small business to run. 

Until big tech says it doesn’t any more.

Meta argues that the aftermath of these changes by Apple will be felt the most by small businesses and influencers, potentially reducing the effectiveness of their advertising spend.

It is so far unclear whether the extra costs will be applied to iOS users only or spread out across all Meta advertisers. It’s also unclear when the changes will take place. But there might be something you can do in anticipation of what’s to come.

What do I do now?

If you can’t beat them, join them.

It is clear that using Meta’s Ads Manager does have its benefits. And if you’re an owner of an SME, it’s a good way to get around the new iOS tax. 

You probably have a lot of questions at this point and we’re here to guide you.

Here’s how we think Meta’s business manager works best.

Setup: Meta Business Manager

First of all, think of the Ads Manager as a tool that needs its own box. 

In the Meta suite, Meta Business Manager is the equivalent of the tool box. It is your main advertising hub for Facebook and Instagram, where you can manage all of your assets like Pages and Ad Accounts. 

It will also help keep your business and private accounts separate, as they should be –

especially if you expect your business to grow and more people will have to be involved. 

As an agency, we see the mix of business and private accounts way too often, and those setup mistakes can interfere with the advertising process and are very time consuming to fix. 

If they can be fixed at all.

To start your Meta Business Manager:

1. Go to business.facebook.com/overview.
2. Click Create account.
3. Enter a name for your business, your name and work email address and click Next.
4. Enter your business details and click Submit.

Business Info & Payments

Once you’ve got your Business manager open, you’ll be able to easily add the following by navigating the lefthand side menu:

• Business info (business name, address, Tax ID, etc.)
• Payment method (card you want to use to pay for your ads)

Connecting existing Pages and Accounts

If you already have an existing Facebook page, Instagram account, or ad account, follow the Setup Guide in the lefthand side menu to easily link those assets to your new Business account.

To create a new Ad Account:

1. Navigate to Ad Accounts.
2. Click Add.
3. Click Add a new ad account and follow instructions.

Ads Manager

Once you have all of your assets created or connected to your new Meta business manager, head to your Ads Manager and you’re ready to start advertising. 

Well, technically.

Since the setup of the Ads Manager is quite different from using the ‘Boost’ button, we recommend that you look into the Meta Blueprint, which provides free learning on all things Meta or check out a couple of Youtube tutorials for step by step guides, tips and tricks.

We know, it’s a lot. We didn’t say it was going to be easy. But it will be worth it knowing that your hard-earned advertising budget is being spent effectively.

A Temporary Fix

The Ads Manager method is a good short-term solution that will allow you to make the most of your digital advertising budget. 

At least in the meantime. 

However, it is likely that Apple will eventually require the same charge for Meta’s standalone ads manager app, which will have a larger impact on businesses as a whole. Watch this space for updates. 

We do not normally work with smaller clients, but we know that a situation like this can be overwhelming. If you need help or advice on the issue, feel free to get in touch, we’d be happy to help. 

The post Boosting on Facebook & Instagram may get 30% Pricier – Here’s Why appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Cannes 2022 is made up of those ads. 

Ad agencies from around the world compete to land a prize at Cannes Lions, hoping to take home one of the bronze, silver, or gold lions. These companies put their heart and soul into their work, and during Cannes Lions, they get to see that effort pay off. 

And, hey, even if they don’t land a lion, getting shortlisted is an incredible achievement in its own right. 

We’ve been following Cannes for years. This year’s offerings are something special. 

Here are nine of our top favourites, whether or not they landed a Lion – in no particular order. 

1. Ogilvy Asia – Spotify

Sound Tour (Japan)

Sound creates memories. After two years of pandemic lockdowns and restrictions, Ogilvy Asia wanted to bring back the memory of travelling in Japan – and they wanted to make sure that they used the best platform to do it with. Working with local artisans and Japan-based musician Matt Cab, Ogilvy constructed three larger-than-life Spotify codes that linked travellers in the location to the sound of that region. 

Truly, one of the most creative uses of squid at Cannes we’ve seen so far. And you can still listen to the songs on Spotify without having to scan the code. Here’s our personal favourite.

Melissa says, “What a brilliant and creative way to bridge an experience with their app. Not only did they create a playlist per location to enhance people’s experience while visiting, they made it incredibly easy to access it (the codes), by merging it with the culture (the lanterns, the flowers) – it honestly blew my mind how they collaborated with local artisans to create the codes, instead of opting for a printed banner that will look cheap and out of place, they managed to make the Spotify experience part of the landscape in the most subtle, yet visible way. Bloody brilliant. I bow to the team that managed to create both an aesthetically pleasing and functional jurney that enhances a person’s experience – a wonderful example of brand love.“

2. Wunderman-Thompson – Sherwin-Williams

Speaking in Colour

Colours can be deceptive; what you see on a screen or picture in your mind might not actually look the way you want it to in real life, and while it’s not the biggest problem in the world, Sherwin-Williams wanted to make sure that the colour you had in mind is the colour you wound up with. 

With Wunderman-Thompson’s help, they brought to life an AI-powered colour system that works with voice search. They ask you, ‘describe your dream colour’, and once you do, the AI trawls the internet’s images to create a custom colour palette. Besides helping people find the best colour for their walls, just the way they pictured it, it’s also helping to build one of the biggest known databases for colour attribution in the world – and lending a lot of insight into which colours are popular where and why. 

This one is great for a number of reasons; it’s innovative without being overwrought, and it leverages AI and voice search in a way that’s fun to play around with. Watching the AI generate a colour palette from a single word is effortlessly entertaining, which is one of the highest accolades tech in 2022 can achieve

. 

3. DAVID São Paulo – Burger King

Burger Glitch

We’ve all had at least one experience where something online doesn’t quite render the right way, and the results are one part horrifying to two parts funny. Burger King decided to capitalise on it by seeding glitches and easter eggs into their app, leaving them up to curious fans to come across them – and to incentivise the hunt for easter eggs, people who post their glitches to social media stand to win a discount coupon on top of the up-to-40% off that you get for finding one of those glitches regardless.

Our Head of Studio, Andrea, is especially fond of this one: “Most of us have come across these weirdly hilarious glitches in games, or have seen videos of these, so we can easily make the connection with that one hilarious moment when things didn’t go as planned. But those imperfect moments are the ones we remember and stick with us the most.”

4. Gong – Netflix

The Art of Stealing

Gong is a Polish agency. ‘Lady with an Ermine’, a Leonardo Da Vinci work, is the most expensive painting in Poland. 

To promote Netflix’s Lupin, a series where gentleman thief Assane Diop carries out elaborate heists in the style of Arsène Lupin, they worked with the Polish National Museum to use the most famous painting in Poland as guerilla marketing. They set up a painting both inside and outside of the museum of the Lady with an Ermine missing her trademark black necklace, generating quite a lot of buzz from people who happened to see the painting. 

A few days later, Gong added one more thing to the campaign: a shot lifted from Lupin, where Assane Diop holds a black necklace and says, ‘merci madame’. 

A good public billboard can do a lot, and it’s easy to overlook the impact of a billboard when we have so much more technology at our disposal – however, Gong pulled off an incredible piece of guerilla marketing using one of the oldest forms of advertising, and invigorated a field where it’s easy to get lost in the noise of other adverts: incredible, stunning work, no matter which way you look at it. 

5. BBDO Canada – Canadian Paralympic Committee

Para Expansion Pack

Lego is one of the biggest toys in the world, beloved by adults and kids alike. Their expansion packs feature everything from astronauts to figures taken right from popular culture, with more coming along the way – and thanks to BBDO Canada and the Canadian Paralympic Committee, we now have a taste of what it looks like to have Paralympic minifigures to add to Lego’s considerable back catalogue. 

Product design that’s a force for good is always worth attention. The paralympic minifigure pack showcases a subset of society that has been overlooked in toys; it’s true that not every kid or adult needs to see themselves in product offerings, but seeing yourself reflected in society always helps. 

As Andrea said, “Lego needs to make this yesterday.”

6. Grey New York – Applebee’s

Fancy Like

Tiktok virality – any virality, actually – is hard to chase after. Most ads never reach that level of international acclaim, and that doesn’t mean that they’re bad ads; it just means that it wasn’t their turn. This ad by Applebee’s never had a chance not to go viral. Combining Tiktok dances, feel-good bouncy Southern music, and everyone’s favourite topic (food), it’s the kind of thing that gets pretty good when it’s done accidentally. 

Underneath the helm of Grey New York, it’s hilarious and light and an antidote to the really heavy couple of months that we’ve been through. 

Also, the song’s really catchy. 

7. Dentsu Creative Bengaluru – VICE

The Unfiltered History Tour

We live in an entirely different world now than we did, and that occasionally means reckoning with a past that is less than beautiful. For VICE, Dentsu Creative Bengaluru wanted to make a point about colonisation. 

But instead of an outright attack, Dentsu Creative went one step further, and created an educational experience that nobody can argue against. The Unfiltered History Tour was created to elevate under-reported issues and to reach out to a younger audience so we can start changing our future, even if we can’t change our past. 

The British Museum is full of artefacts taken from countries around the world, some of which have been fighting to reclaim their treasures for years. They’re not saying anything new – this history has been raked over the coals of social media for years – but by bringing it to national attention, there’s a hope it can prompt change. 

Our copywriter likes this one in particular: “History is a thorny subject for countries in power: it’s hard to sell a national glory when your past is full of things you’d rather not reckon with, but it is a history that needs to be known. Bringing it to awareness is the only way to affect a lasting change and make sure that you end up on the right side of history – the one that understands that you had a hand in shaping the current world, and that you’re trying to make amends for it.”

8. VMLY&R Commerce – Elena’s

Fan Heartbreak Ice Cream

The pandemic pushed a lot of stores into closing their doors and taking their businesses online, and for some, they were struggling to stand out in a market that had had decades to build a reasonable presence in real life. It happened to Elena’s, a Mexican ice-cream store that needed to come up with a way to stand out on the grocery store shelves immediately. 

To do so, they released a special edition ice-cream: The Fan Heartbreak Ice-cream, a five-tiered tub where each flavour has mood-lifting properties to get you through a hard time. They also restructured the entire website to guide you through the flavours themselves, and give you tips on how to boost your mood. 

Shortly after, they released limited edition packaging to poke fun at Mexico losing the Gold Cup finale, which further boosted the narrative of ice-cream as intrinsically tied to making you feel better. 

It’s a clean, beautifully shot campaign that turns a traditional story on its head, and really makes you think about why ice-cream has such a connection to heartbreak – and best of all, it made people laugh at a time when people really struggled to find something to laugh about. A great campaign all around. 

9. Performance Art – Black&Abroad

The Black Elevation Map

Data has blindspots: things that you miss out on if you’re not looking, and it isn’t a big stretch to understand that the data that most normally has those blindspots come from minority groups. Black travellers who want to trace out the impact Black Americans have had on the culture of the United States have few resources, and Black&Abroad wanted to change that and give travellers something to help. The Black Elevation Map charters a route through America where the influence of Black creators is taken into consideration: from restaurants that fuelled the Civil Rights movements to the accolades won by startup tech companies, the Black Elevation Map is designed to be easy to read, easy to parse, and easy to use. 

It’s an excellent use of data for something that can truly bring forward a better understanding of the Black American experience. 

10. Bonus! ReThink’s Multiple Entries

Fellow ICOM partner Rethink has had multiple entries win awards at Cannes, and they’ve been voted the third best independent agency network overall – so we can’t end this list without leaving at least one mention of Rethink’s work. From their ‘draw ketchup’ campaign for Heinz to the ‘Colours of Pride’ in support of gay rights, Rethink has had a banner year for awards, and they’re well deserved. 

The post Cannes Lions 2022 – A Retrospective appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

But it’s Pride again and Burger King Austria has brought out a campaign that has everyone with a Twitter handle burning the midnight tweets. 

Let’s talk about it. 

The Burger King Pride Ad 2022

Burger King has been bringing out Pride ads since 2014, so this isn’t exactly out of the left field for them. In fact, given Burger King’s most recent ads, this is exactly what a 2022 Pride ad for a Burger King branch is supposed to be: tongue-in-cheek, light-hearted, and kind of silly. 

The backlash against this ad goes one of two ways: either ‘burgers don’t have to be a political statement’ or ‘you didn’t consult a single queer person in making this ad’. Thinkpieces on CNN, Forbes, Gizmodo, and others have been making the rounds on social media by taking jokes about the tweet out of context under the banner of rage, and racking up a lot of views in the process. 

And – through it all – Burger King gets free publicity. 

It’s an ingenious, calculated marketing move that shows clearly that Burger King has learned from its mistakes. 

Or, it’s a mistake, but a harmless one. 

Here’s what we think.

Why Burger King Pride 2022 Works

Look: pride campaigns have a challenging road ahead of them to ‘good’. When you throw in a human cause with the express intention of drawing your audience to one side of the line in the sand, something will get mixed up along the way, and what you’ll be left with is an ad campaign that phones it in. 

There are exceptions. 

This Burger King Pride ad is one of them. 

It’s different. It stands out without taking the same route to Pride as other brands do: the rainbow packaging, the all-inclusive catch-phrase. Burger King, as a brand, is still at the forefront of this ad, something that becomes a rarity once Pride comes around and organisations try to make it very clear where they stand. 

It sticks to the brand tone of voice.

It sparked a conversation. 

It doesn’t pander. And the choice of translating it into English for international appeal can be seen as a deliberate move to get exactly this sort of reaction; to see exactly this kind of conversation play out. 

As Tom put it, “it’s just a bit funny, really, and sort of – reverse psychology, I think. It’s all we’ve been talking about, after all.”

From a quick look at Twitter, Tom seems to be right on the money. The most popular tweet about the whole saga gained 12.8k retweets and over 600k likes in just five days. 

On the other hand: Why Burger King Pride 2022 doesn’t work

The biggest thing that has been said about it online is ‘you didn’t consult anyone gay, did you?’

As a Pride ad without the Pride taken into account, it works. 

Once you look at the audience that it was intended for, you can see that it doesn’t really. Or, as our Accounts Manager Lisa Cutugno said, “it’s like they didn’t think it through.”

Top and bottom subcultures have been around for decades, so using terminology that’s thrived since the 50s is a step in the right direction. The problem lies in the fact that the terminologies used have taken on a different identity in the mainstream, and it’s partially the concept of always-online fandom culture to blame. 

Luke puts it best, “it seems like they didn’t take into account the fact that the terms ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ have entered the mainstream lexicon in the last few years and just went the equal route, as in same-sex – this might have worked better like 7 or 8 years ago when those terms were less well known, perhaps.”

Actually it’s been done before—

In 2017, McDonald’s came out with this campaign. 

It’s an identical campaign, save for a different cast and country.

What’s interesting about this campaign is that it didn’t have any backlash. 

To be fair, it also wasn’t well-known outside of the country – two things that set the Burger King Austria ad apart. Whether or not it is more successful than the McDonald’s campaign of 2017 has yet to be seen, but it is definitely far more noticeable which says a lot about the way that consumers have changed the way they feel about these conversations.

Risk or Reward?

Controversial or not, our CEO had a very valid point to make: “if you are not ready to face potential backlash, you’ll never do anything different. So I applaud their appetite for risk, even if they went awry this time around.”

Burger King has a tendency to make mistakes. All big corporations will eventually put out an ad that draws ire from someone. 

However, it seems as though the fallout from their Women’s Day tweet seems to have taught them a lesson in how to balance risk with reward, and when to go for it.

At the end of the day, this campaign is not going to be remembered in the long-run – but for a brief moment, it had the whole world talking and no lasting damage was done except to fragile right-wing pundits who get offended at everything. 

All in all, not bad for a regional campaign. 

The post Burger King Pride 2022, or When Controversy Works appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Click below for a free PDF version of our overall 2022 marketing trends report.

Part of our goal for 2022 is to look farther. 

More on that soon. 

If it hasn’t been extremely noticeable by now, we’re (mostly) based on a small island in the Mediterranean. 

Our clients are based everywhere. 

It’s something we’re immensely proud of, and look forward to working on until the day when borders are a thing of the past and you can just teleport from client meeting to client meeting. 

Until then, we have to use Zoom calls and Ed’s incredible capacity to be awake no matter what time it is in Malta.

One important facet of working with international clients is understanding their situation: what consumers in those countries are experiencing and looking for, how marketers can capitalise on a situation, what trends they’re seeing gathering steam, which trends we haven’t seen yet.

Trends are everything. They’re built on real-life, tangible experience. They’re built on proof. They’re built around what the people brands are speaking to want. 

And they’re not the same the world over. Similarities are there – otherwise we wouldn’t have a global trend list – but there are variations, too.

We also feel that by keeping an eye open for global trends we can help our clients all over the world to be ahead of the curve in their regions. 

For 2022, we’re looking farther. 

Here’s some of the biggest regional marketing trends we want to see more of, and where they come from.

Trend 1: V-selling

From: China

• Online advertising revenue has grown by 18.6% YOY.  
• Digital advertising accounts for up to 78.3% of the total market and media spend in China. 
• Short video market and live-streaming markets are expected to grow at a CAGR of 33.46% and 35.29% respectively in the period between 2021 – 2025.

Short video, live streaming, and video content was one of the big breakout markets in 2020, and that’s set to be an even bigger trend as the country grapples with the ongoing post-pandemic. Big retailers such as AliBaba, Douyin and JD are already capitalising on this, but 2022 is going to really take it to the next level. 

Part of this is the proliferation of improved high-speed internet capabilities: as 4G and 5G technologies become available at a greater capacity, the technological limitations of streaming and e-commerce are no longer bound by the possibilities of the internet. Another aspect is that video-selling enhances the normal seller-buyer relationship as each live-stream aims to connect directly to the audience watching. The consumer feels like they’re taking advice from a friend – something lacking in normal e-commerce – and build up a relationship with the seller, rendering purchasing decisions easier. For those of you who 

There’s also the fact that a live-stream can fully showcase a product and drop the risk factor of buying online; after all, you saw it work in real time, so there’s nothing to worry about. 

Case Study

Perfect Diary, a Chinese makeup brand known for their minimalist packaging and everyday colours, had a series of eyeshadow palettes inspired by animals. 

For 2020, the newest palette was inspired by dogs, but they wanted to make this launch extra special. They partnered up with Chinese influencer and live-streamer Austin Li Jiaqi, the ‘Lipstick King’, and gave him free creative reign over the dog palette, letting him design the product from the packaging to the colour-story. He based the palette on Never, his own dog, who’s always present in his live-streams and popular with his own fans to the point where she has her own Weibo page. 

This collaboration was live-streamed on February 25. Within 10 seconds, 160k pieces were completely sold out. 

Trend 2: My Favourite Influencer is Virtual!

From: Japan

• By 2020, Vtuber views on Youtube have grown to over 1.5 million per month. 
• Youtube is the most popular online video platform in Japan. 
• Kizuna Ai, a popular Japanese Vtuber largely credited as the original, was voted one of the top 60 most influential personas in Asia for 2021. 

Virtual avatar and virtual avatar partnerships are a necessity for any brand looking to boost their reputation in Japan. Japan’s mascot-heavy industry has always been at the forefront of crafting and creating characters that people care about, and with the sudden proliferation of the internet into real-life, the capacity for what you can do with a static image has increased exponentially. From flat, static pictures to talking, walking, communicating powerhouses: this trend is going to take over the world, and the start of that will happen in 2022, especially now that the software to rig the mascots into animation has made it onto the Youtube algorithm machine. 

This one isn’t a surprising trend: it originated from online platforms where the name of the game is making a connection, and having a custom mascot respond and react to consumers proved just the ticket for brands who needed a way to talk directly to their audiences. In 2020, when the pandemic locked everyone indoors, Vtubers were another way of communicating – and now they’re not just going to disappear. 

Case Study

Red Bull Japan partnered up with cover Corp to promote their new purple edition energy drink. 

Shinshiro Botan and Mianto Aqua, two of the vtubers under the hololive umbrella, were appointed Red Bull Japan’s virtual ambassadors. Fans who bought a special Amazon Japan Red Bull Purple Edition pack were eligible to win a meet-and-greet with the Vtubers, as well as a special collaboration sticker. 

Packs sold out within a day. 

Trend 3: OTT  Experiential

From: Singapore

• 81% of  Singaporean consumers will pay more for better customer experiences.
• 71% of Singaporean consumers want a personalised customer experience. 
• 70% of consumers will recommend a brand to friends and family following positive experiences. 

It isn’t just about the product; it’s what delivers the product to you. Singaporean consumers are increasingly looking for more than just the traditional find-buy-repeat way of shopping; they want their experiences to be special. Some luxury retailers have already dipped into the AR/VR/MR side of things, but as the capacity for technology increases and the commercial landscape is further digitised, Singaporean consumers will expect it from everyone – not just the luxury brands. 

However, the technological side is only half the story. 

Singaporean consumers are also seeking out experiences that can double up as a memory or a status indicator, a way of differentiating themselves from others, so the experience of purchasing something is as critical as the packaging and the item they purchase. Add in the omnichannel boom and there’s a formula you can’t beat for taking your brand to higher places. 

Case Study

When Rebel & Soul were approached by Macallan, they were given a challenge: make people who don’t care about whiskey care about Macallan. 

Rebel & Soul responded with a multifaceted experiential event based around the idea of ‘Whisky Worthy Stories’. Inside the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, Rebel & Soul built eight sensorial ‘zones’ to take consumers on a journey into the world of Macallan. Featuring a custom-built boutique cinema, a copper sphere soundscape installation, and a collaboration with multiple Michelin-starred chefs to deliver a high-scale whiskey-pairing menu, Rebel & Soul made sure that every part of the event, from the infinity tunnel that led to each installation to the gift shop, had that Macallan touch. 

The results: $3.2m+ in revenue, a 1200% uptick in email newsletter signups, and over 159% ROI.

Trend 4: Small Business BTS 

From: USA

• There are over one billion monthly active users on Tiktok. 
• 74% of users say Tiktok introduced them to a new brand or product.
• Tiktok is the second largest app for consumer spend.

The greatest thing about the internet is how easy it is to learn about everything. From esoteric foreign brands to the internet trends only the perpetually online can love, the internet is a treasure trove of information, and everyone’s just ready to dive in and start snorkelling. 

For brands, this is incredible.

For small businesses, just starting out, leveraging the internet’s collective curiosity is an unmissable opportunity. 

And Tiktok is the platform they should use. 

Small businesses on Tiktok do well – between the algorithm, the ‘for you’ page, and ‘tiktok made me buy it’, the chances for small businesses to build an audience on the app are significantly higher than Instagram or Facebook, where established brands and businesses find it hard to work with the algorithm and the overwhelming amount of voices there; Tiktok is a new social media platform compared to them, and the audience on there is a digital pro. 

Additionally, Tiktok has what Facebook (and Instagram) don’t: a perfected short-form video formula that Instagram and Facebook, and most recently YouTube with YouTube shorts, have tried to emulate, and yet still haven’t quite managed to reach the same widespread audience as Tiktok. 

Small businesses on Tiktok can film themselves fulfilling orders or making products with Tiktok’s trademark sharp, snappy videography, talk to their audiences, or directly address consumer questions and complaints. And because it’s free, entertaining content, consumers don’t feel like they’re being marketed to directly, and are more inclined to purchase products from that brand. 

In 2022, more brands should be using Tiktok to build their audiences, especially small businesses who want to grow to the next level.

Case Study

Selling products online needs a few core things: a beautiful image shot, a stable web-store, and a compelling story behind it. 

Nice Shirt. Thanks! had two out of three. They had a compelling story. They had a web-store. 

They didn’t have a product shot. 

Their product couldn’t have product shots. 

Their idea – to start a t-shirt company that sold only designs custom-made by their consumers – took to Tiktok with a handful of quirky videos showing the process of designing and sending out their products. From there, they grew their account to 267k followers and are expanding the business further. 

Trend 5: Have Fun With It, or Whatever the Hell Icelandic Marketing Companies Do

From: Iceland

• The gamification market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 25.10% between 2021 – 2026. 
• 93% of marketers consider interactive content to be highly effective at conveying a message. 
• Interactive content is 2x more effective than static content. 

It’s easy to get caught up in a never-ending loop of minimalist marketing or bombarded with bombastic claims. It’s harder to find the in-between stories – the ones where it isn’t do or die, where it’s just fun. 

You’ve seen a campaign from an Icelandic marketing company, even if you don’t think you have. Their stuff stands out, and for a really cool reason: Icelandic marketing companies do things with story and technology that goes against the grain. 

Icelandic marketing is zany. It’s sweet. It’s relatable. 

It works, and it works well because Icelandic marketing also takes into account the current realities we’re facing. Their stories are enhanced by technology, not driven by it: the marketing is excellent because the stories are vibrant and fresh, and excellent because the way they use tech has put tech back where it should be. 

As a crux to the narrative, but not the whole point. 

Human-led stories scaffolded by tech-driven possibilities: it leads to the best kind of gamified marketing, where you don’t feel like you’re being sold to. In 2022, as consumers draw the line in the sand on what kind of communications they opt in and out of, giving the more useful applications of technology can help you speak above the normal noise. 

Case Study

Seven stunning locations across Iceland, seven remote speakers, a single website. 

People screaming into the void, or at least into a picture of the void. 

The very beautiful, mind-bending void.

Part of their ‘Looks Like You Need Iceland’ initiative, the #LetItOut campaign was built on the positive research surrounding scream therapy, the lockdown struggles taking over every corner of the internet, and the desire to build something so left-field wild that it would stick in your mind despite everything else going on. 

It’s simple. You go onto the website. You scroll for the perfect place to scream. 

You record yourself screaming, and if you don’t know how to do it for the biggest benefit, the website has a handy guide on how to scream. 

The scream is ‘released’ into a beautiful location via a remote speaker. 

Trend 6: Meditative Influencing

From: South Korea

• In 2020, ‘with me’ videos had over two billion views globally. 
• The number one reason consumers watch videos has been ‘to relax or unwind’.
• In 2020, search for ‘self-care’ or soothing content was at an all time high. 

Stress, anxiety, anti-fatigue, burnout: 2021 had it all, from the almost-post-pandemic regulations to travel restrictions swapping so often nobody knew what was happening to the shipping crises. 

And about a dozen things in between. 

People were – and are – still mentally exhausted by it. 

And in the midst of everything else that was going on in the world a new market came to the forefront: meditative, soft content, made precisely not to sell you a single thing. 

Korean vloggers in particular have perfected this kind of content. Whether it’s a self-care day at home or a cooking video, Korean vlogging became one of the comfort streams during 2021 by drawing viewers into a world where everything is softly coloured and quiet. There’s no music to distract you, no marketing message; it’s people calm and content in their homes in a year where very few could claim to be. 

But it isn’t just about the relaxing content. 

These vloggers are anonymous. Somehow, despite their anonymity, they’ve succeeded in building dedicated communities where human connection triumphs over the individual. With videos such as ‘clean with me’ or ‘cook with me’, Korean vloggers have created these tiny pockets on the internet where you are, without any obligation, a part of the community. 

And it’s appealing and inclusive. 

Brands can use this trend beautifully. Meditative, soothing content is something all consumers need now, and content that doesn’t sell, sell, sell always delivers interesting results – but it takes the understanding that every outbound message doesn’t have to be written over the product in neon lights to attract attention. 

For long-lasting relationships, quiet, soothing content is definitely something to keep in mind. 

Case Study

냥숲nyangsoop is one of the highest-rated Korean silent vloggers, with over 700k subscribers and an average of 1.278M views per month. In 2020, her content reached a peak viewership of over 3M views per month.  

Trend 7: You’re Working With Who Now?

From: Malaysia 

• 68% of consumers who saw co-marketed campaigns were able to make a decision without speaking to sales staff. 
• Brand partnerships that leverage digital platforms see 4x the results than non-digital partnerships. 
• 11% of marketers say that partnership posts are their brand’s most engaging social media content. 

Brand collaborations aren’t a new concept, and we’ve seen some interesting brand partnerships in the West, but not to the same extent as they happen in Malaysia. 

While brand collaborations are prevalent across Southeast Asia, COVID-19 really affected the way most brands could communicate – and with stores closed or unavailable to consumers, it wasn’t just a matter of knowing how to communicate, but also a matter of finding the people to talk to. 

Brand partnerships take care of one part of the problem. There’s no need to find an audience: your brand partner would have an audience at the ready, and vice-versa. 

Consumers want innovation. 

It doesn’t always have to be a new product or a new message. 

Brand collaborations bring fresh ideas to the table. Consumers who are a fan of one brand will discover another one, automatically. Even better, brand collaborations can help both brands: pushing customer service, and improving the reputation of both brands, are direct outcomes of successful brand collaborations. 

There’s been a spate of successful brand partnerships in Malaysia post-COVID, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to slow down as we move further and further away from the pandemic.

For 2022, we’re hoping we see this trend blossoming. There’s a whole world of possibility when it comes to brand collaborations. 

All it takes is one opportunity. 

Case Study

Used-car retailer Carsome wanted to address digital-native consumers on their own turf. 

Shopee and Lazada, two popular e-commerce platforms, allowed them to do just that. 

Primarily used by younger shoppers, Shopee and Lazada allowed Carsome to strengthen their brand reputation among their younger consumers, and also generate growth which allowed them to expand their business further. 

Conclusion

It’s easy to forget that there are other places in the world. 

Most global trends and studies are America-centric. Global studies are few and far between. 

But there’s so much you can learn about marketing from other countries, other markets, other types of consumer behaviour. 

We all live in one world. Sooner or later, what’s happening on one side of the globe will circle back around to you.

Our 2022 goal is to look farther. 

We’re starting now.

Want to read more marketing trends for 2022?

Here are a few more resources we’ve put together, with more on the way:

SEO Trends 2022: More Human

Web Design Trends 2022

Marketing Trends 2022: The Year of Conflict

The post Seven Regional Marketing Trends We Want To See More Of appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Unless it’s Pride. 

Then it’s all hands on deck to push out rainbow everything before the month ends and they can move onto something else, like Thanksgiving or Black Friday. 

Rainbow biscuits. Rainbow mouthwash. Rainbow sandwiches. 

If it can be marketed and sold, it gets the rainbow on its skin (or else it gets a makeover again). 

It’s bad design, lazy marketing, and terrible storytelling.

And this is not specifically a Pride problem. 

We’ve seen this happen with other movements: Women’s Day and Black Lives Matter, battling child hunger, raising awareness for the gender pay gap. If there’s a brand that needs money or goodwill, they’ll find a cause that needs supporting for just long enough to raise that money and glean that goodwill. 

Once the month or the day ends, they move on. 

Does it work? 

It used to. 

It worked when brands were closed off to outsiders, when social media wasn’t so everywhere, when you didn’t need to show your allyship in tangible ways. 

It doesn’t anymore. 

The problem with pride design

If the extent of your Pride campaign involves launching something limited edition or slapping on a rainbow, you are part of the problem. 

It’s lazy. Anyone with Photoshop and a specific set of brushes can create a rainbow overlay, or add a supportive hashtag to the bottom of an image. People really good with the Adobe Creative Suite can go a step further, and make it a little more sophisticated: turn the rainbow into a gif, or create a five second loop of the most aesthetically pleasing shot of a Pride parade with your product carefully slotted right in the middle. 

Good ads tell a story. 

The best ads tell a story with a deeper meaning. 

Adding rainbows to a brand does neither. 

Supporting a cause

When you support or align yourself to a cause, you’re supporting people. 

It’s easy to forget that when money is involved. 

Causes such as Pride and Black Lives Matter are created for a reason. LGBTQAI+ people still experience persecution in parts of the world, and black people are frequently victimised, criminalised, and demonised by institutions and by individuals. Children are starving. Women still have to worry about losing their rights (or have already). 

When a brand supports a cause or aligns itself to a movement, the general understanding is that it supports that cause, it wants to draw attention to that movement, it’s making a statement. 

If there is a line drawn in the sand, it’s stating definitively what side of the line it falls on.

That isn’t necessarily a problem. 

It becomes a problem when brands only support that cause on paper.

We’ve written about pride before. 

The sentiment we spoke about there still stands. 

If the extent of your Pride support is bringing out something limited edition and rainbow – without following it up with donations or actual help – maybe skip Pride this year. 

Campaigns that don’t work

Burger King ‘Love Conquers All’

Burger King and McDonald’s rivalry is the stuff blogs are written about.

For Pride, they set their rivalry aside and came out with this ad.

There’s nothing wrong with the design in theory. It wasn’t, and won’t be, the first Pride ad to go this route. 

What’s wrong with it in principle, however, is how lazy it is. There’s no narrative behind it besides ‘oh! we support men kissing!’ 

Produced even ten years ago, it probably would have been interesting enough to cause a reaction. 

Produced now – when this kind of advertising is everywhere on a daily basis – it’s just boring. From the overused hashtag to the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it rainbow underneath, it commits the worst advertising crime there is: being utterly forgettable.

Skittles Grey Out for Pride

Slightly higher on the spectrum (get it?), Skittles’ 2021 campaign for Pride rehashed their campaign from 2020 (and 2017) by removing their colourful packaging for grey. 

This didn’t do well when they did it the last time, so why they’re still beating this particular greyscale horse is incomprehensible.

At least they’re putting their money where their mouth is by donating to GLAAD.

$100,000 out of an estimated $3M revenue.

Beyond that, the Skittles campaign falls underneath the same problem as Burger King above: it reuses the same ‘safe’ narrative that other brands all fall to when they absolutely don’t care about Pride, but want to commemorate their brand as an ally, which makes it boing, and once again, utterly forgettable.

Campaigns that do work

Bubly’s ‘Out At Night’ campaign

There are always going to be terrible stories.

But there are always going to be better ones, too. 

Pepsico’s Bubly brand opened up their Pride campaign to include the reopening of the NYC nightlife, days after New York dropped their COVID-19 restrictions. 

Similarly, it shrank its viewpoint to just one tiny fragment of the LGBTQAI+ community: the queer dancers and revellers that frequent Henrietta Hudson, a 30-year-old lesbian bar, and one of the last three remaining in New York City. Featuring Lisa Cannistraci, the owner of Henrietta Hudson, mixing a cocktail using Bubly’s blood-orange drink, the product placement takes second stage to the personalities brought in for the spot: Aquaria, Ty Sunderland, Gia Love. 

In addition, Bubly donated $15,000 of their profits to help Henrietta Hudson recover from the pandemic. 

Here’s why it works: it’s hyper-focused. It looks at the history of the movement. It’s trying to keep an aspect of queer NYC nightlife alive. 

Henrietta Hudson is an iconic bar. Donating directly to it means that thought went into what they wanted to support, specifically, rather than going for the most well-known charity, the one that’ll bring in more attention. 

Reebok’s ‘Fierceness Isn’t Born. It’s Made’

There’s a huge chunk of queer history that never makes it to the front: the safe spaces and the good spaces, the places people went to enjoy themselves when it was still a risk. Stonewall has now become public knowledge; other queer history focuses on the struggle. 

After all, Drama is far more memorable than joy. 

However, Pride campaigns across the board try to focus on brighter stories. 

Reebok’s Pride 2021 campaign partnered up with House of Ninja, a 1982 ballroom and vogue empire, pioneered by Will Ninja, to create a short film documenting ballroom culture. Like the Bubly ad above, it isn’t trying to talk about Gay Experiences At Large, but shrinking its scope down to a segment: the safe place where queer Latinx and Black youth could go to feel included and protected. 

Safety. Inclusion. Exploration. 

The themes for ads that work and ads that don’t are similar. 

It’s what brands do with the story surrounding them that matters. 

Reebok used those themes to highlight an aspect of queer culture a lot of people don’t know about. That makes this ad work, both to champion a cause and as a story. 

I want to support Pride! What do I do?

Figure out why. 

Every cause a brand champions has to have some reason why it champions it. What do you want to support about Pride? What story do you want to tell? How do you want your brand to move forward when Pride Month is over, and there’s no longer any monetary reason for support?

It’s easy to stamp a sticker with a rainbow and call it a day. 

It’s also the wrong way to go around any cause marketing effort. 

Any cause marketing your brand does has to be done with the intention of change: changing your brand, changing yourself, changing an aspect of your community. To support a cause for money only isn’t just lazy storytelling, it’s short-term. People will notice. 

And once people notice, the goodwill you’ve gained through supporting a cause will drain away. 

Here’s a few tips to keep in mind for Pride marketing. 

1. Show your work or shut up. If you have no intention of actually making changes to your organisation beyond ‘Yay! Rainbows!’, just don’t say anything. Nobody’s going to pat you on the back for putting a rainbow on your storefront. 
2. It’s 2021. #LoveWins happened in 2015. Stop holding onto it. There’s better stories to tell than ‘gays can get married now’. 
3. Think over the rainbow.  Pride Month happens in September (for Malta) and June (everywhere else).  What’s going to happen when Pride Month is over? Regularly scheduled programming? Or a legitimate, dyed-in-the-wool change?
4. Stop using queer pain to bolster your narratives. See point two: there’s better stories to tell. 
5. If you have to justify that you’re doing something for Pride Month, you’re probably better off pretending September is Annual Trade Fair month or something. 

Advertising for Pride isn’t a unique set of skills or a particular way of telling a story. 

But brands are sloppy when it comes to Pride advertising. A rainbow and two long-haired women or two obviously gay men are enough. 

That leads to bad design, lazy marketing, and terrible storytelling.

And you can do better. 

You have done better. 

So do better.

The post Over the Rainbow: Pride Advertising 2021 appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

The pandemic will be on its way into the history books. 

And your industry can start to recover. 

But it will never be the same ever again. 

 The Great Restart

Every stage of the pandemic brought new changes to how we did things. 

To a certain extent, that’s human nature. Whatever challenge we face, we adapt to it, we survive it, and we come out on the other side with a handful of new skills and more ideas than we can use. 

It’s the best part of humanity. 

When offices shut down, we went remote. When events stopped happening, event managers turned to the virtual. Restaurants delivered. Art went viral. Connections happened through audio-only, text-only, visuals-only. Little by little, the better bits of being won. 

Now that the pandemic is hopefully on its way to becoming a footnote in history books, those ideas and changes aren’t going to budge. People got used to the faster, easier, more convenient, more human-centric way of living that the pandemic gave us. To take it away makes no sense. 

But there’s ways for brands to talk post-pandemic. And there’s ways to get back to your marketing without going back to the old ways of marketing: buying enough ads to populate a small browser, pushing hard on selling, making people feel like your product is the only product. 

Those methods don’t work the way they used to. 

Here’s how to use methods that do. 

How to set up your marketing for the restart

The future is stable. 

It’s also still really, really vulnerable. 

The world as we knew it is gone. 

(And if I hear anyone mention the new normal once again, I think I’ll throw a burrito out of the window. 

Don’t worry, it will be into the yard, and our dog will scavenge it at some point. I don’t waste food).

Brands should, and do, need to work to boost the economy. On this, everyone is in agreement. 

The question they seem to struggle with is how. 

So what should brands be doing to restart the economy right after one of the biggest shocks to the economy in living memory?

They should be communicating. 

Brands should be screaming from the top of rooftops in a way that matches the expectations of people in a post-pandemic world. 

Brands should be screaming about how they can understand the position that people are in and that they’re there for them. Brands should be talking about how they experienced it too: they know what their consumers have been through, and they’re here to help them. 

If there ever was a time for new beginnings in brand communications and marketing, then this is definitely it. 

This is a clean slate. 

This is the time to revisit everything you were doing to bring it up to scratch with where you should have been before the pandemic, and to where you have no choice but to be post-pandemic. 

And I can talk about it forever, but this is a blog post, not a book, and even blogs have a word-limit. 

So let’s focus on the questions you should be asking yourself, your marketing team, and your marketing agency (if you have one or if you’re looking for one). 

Your (Brand) Story

What brands do you remember from the first lockdown? 

It’s fine if the answer is ‘none’. Most brands struggled to communicate to a literal captive audience, not through messaging but through getting their messages heard, and getting people to respond to them. 

There are a few reasons for it: disposable income dipped, people couldn’t purchase a product, there wasn’t enough demand to make the marketing worth it. 

Mostly, though, people just didn’t want to listen to brands. 

And they especially didn’t want to listen to brands that only wanted to sell. 

Or brands that ‘stood’ for nothing. 

Think about it. 

The world shuts down overnight. People lose their jobs. Most get separated from their families, isolate themselves within four walls, and do their best to keep their heads above water. 

Brands that threw money at the problem – that competed against other, small brands by slashing prices, increasing sales, going doggedly and viciously after each customer – are not going to come out of the pandemic well. If you somehow got by solely on shady economic practices or simply by competing in a commoditized fashion, then there is likely a nasty wakeup call waiting for you as soon as the lockdown restrictions lift properly.

People remember. And they’ll especially remember brands that didn’t help, that had nothing to offer them when they needed it, that only wanted to use them for money. 

That didn’t build a connection.  

2020 was harder for a lot of people. The more isolated and miserable they were, the more they looked for small enjoyments, tiny little links, an understanding that there was someone there at the other end of the screen. 

Brands that understood that – that leaned into it – did well. Brands that spoke back, built their campaigns about people, switched their messaging inwards, did what they could to answer every message with, hello, we’re here, we want to help, stayed relevant and talked about. 

People wanted the escape. People wanted brands to talk. 

And people are going to look back at the brands that had a story to tell and reward them with loyalty that lasts.  

Brands that didn’t had their own notoriety, and it won’t be as quick to fade or as easy to bury as it used to be. If you used the pandemic as a way to make a quick buck in a money grab then you’re going to have as much success as a bunch of greedy football clubs who tried to launch a breakaway football league.

Your Social Media

A lot has changed since Zuckerberg made Facebook to creep on the pretty girls in his class. 

Digital advertising and social media marketing have become two separate behemoths. You can’t talk about one without the other, but there’s a lot that you can miss by putting them in the same playground. 

Digital advertising is where you live on the web. 

Social media is how you live. 

It’s the place where you can actually let your brand out to play. It’s where you can tell your brand’s story, have people respond to it, and engage with your audience without boundaries. 

(Well. Some boundaries. We don’t recommend harassing your audience, for example).

And social media worked beautifully during the pandemic. There was a slower shift in actually using social media to communicate – from static stories, for example, to pick-your-own-answer polls – but once it did, it spread like wildfire. The idea that you could reach out through your Facebook, your Instagram, your Twitter, and get a response back from your audience gave social media communication a new boost. 

Everything old made new again. Every conversation restarted. 

It’s hard to remember what social media was like before the pandemic. 

That’s a good thing. 

Social media has to stay as it is: a newer extension to communication, a way of reaching out to your audience. The point of social media can no longer be just to sell, if it was ever successfully that. 

Social media needs to be a linking point. You, and your audience. Your audience, and your brand. It should be a way of generating goodwill sustainably, and cheaply. It should let you talk to the people you want to reach, and convince people you haven’t reached yet. 

It needs to be your voice. 

Seeing social media as just another way to advertise your business cuts down all the possibilities of what you can do with social media. 

And it’s going to hurt you in the long run. 

Your Website

Have you updated your website since the pandemic?

How about before the pandemic?

If you’re still rocking the geocities maximalism, or the WordPress drag-and-drop, you might want to consider branching out and rebranding your website. Like social media, your website is no longer just a placeholder on the internet, something you have just to say that you have it. 

You might have entered the Covid era happy with a site that’s just a decent showcase for who you are and what you do, but you definitely can’t expect this to be enough as the world moves on. 

Your website should become your absolute top priority once again.

Social media has started – and will continue to – fragment. Tinier and tinier groups are spreading out across social media platforms and communicating in increasingly insular ways. It’s becoming harder to search on social media.

Besides, if your social media has become the place where you talk, you need a place to sell. 

Your website can be that place. From information about your latest products to updated listings, your website can be your selling point – literally and figuratively. Using your website as the sole point of information means that you can generate interest and interaction, to sell and to build a loyal following that’s not at the mercy of social media giants who can just kill your page or throttle your traffic at a whim.

Your Content

Once you have a decent website set up, you really need to think about the content you’re producing about and around your brand and industry. 

It’s true that people expect more now. 

What’s equally true is that it’s easier to fulfill those content demands, especially if you care about building and bridging a connection to your audience. 

With content that resonates, connection to an audience is easier to build. If you’re focused just on selling in the short-term, the longer-term will get pushed aside. After all, there’s only so much talking you can do. 

But higher-quality content gives you an abundance of topics to talk about. It’s geared towards the longer-term; towards building a connection that will last throughout the days of silence when you have nothing to say, and through any mistakes you might make until you figure out who your brand is and what it stands for. It’ll last through a pandemic. 

It’ll outlast you. 

Brands are not finite, fragile things. With high-quality content, a brand can become effectively immortal, effectively immune. 

Everyone wants to believe in something. 

Why not you?

And the way to build and hone that belief is through content that shows the better side of your brand. Through content that sings. Through content that brings it to life. 

Through content that works.

Your SEO

The argument over whether or not we ‘truly’ need SEO has been going on since SEO practice developed. My opinion is that you do. 

The market has broken. What could previously have taken you a handful of minutes to find now takes you through a parade of Facebook, website, google, Twitter, Instagram – and it’s a lot. Most people won’t go through the effort of digging through your social media to answer the question, ‘do you carry this product?’ Most people will try and find a website. Or reach out on Facebook. Or just give up and go to the person that does carry that product – the one whose listing comes up when they type the query into google. 

SEO is vital. As people are searching from devices all around the home, search engines are becoming even more relevant. It isn’t just a case of coming up in the results: it’s a case of coming up fast enough that you’re always top of mind. 

And that only works if you’ve taken everything else into account. Your website. Your social media. Your content. Where you talk. Where you advertise. Where you sell the most. 

You can only be present if you’re checking all of the boxes above and working on both technical and content-based search engine optimisation. There isn’t an option to do just one or the other; you need to do it all. Competitors – bigger, stronger – will. 

Keep in mind that the industry you’re advertising in has broken. It’s no longer one long, whole object, but something granular, split into multitudes. To address all of the people that live in those multitudes, you need SEO. 

And you need good SEO. 

Conclusion

I know it seems like a lot. 

The truth is it probably is a lot. 

But it’s equally true that you have something in place that you can build on. Nobody starts a brand with nothing anymore: no social media, no content, no website. You have a stepping stone somewhere. You have a way in. 

And the thing is, it’s easy to work on when you start working on it.

Everything above links to each other. It’s one looping circle of possibility.

So pick your direction. Start working. Get help, if you need it. 

Once you see the progress in one area, you’ll see the progress in the rest of it. 

It’s easy. 

It’s fixable. 

Just don’t ignore it, and you’re golden. 

The post Restart your economy with marketing, or: everything old is new again appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

The good news is that there is a hell of a lot that we can learn (and teach) from the experiment, but we can’t promise that you’re going to get a 3,000% increase in ROI every time you use this method. Our client’s setup was so dire that they were only barely breaking even with their ad spend, so our starting point was so low that we could hardly have done any worse.

It got better. Much better:

And this is the story of how we did it.

Some Background: ROI / ROAS

Before heading any further, however, you need to be familiar with the concept of ROAS (Return on Ad Spend), which is the main component we include when calculating ROI. We will be referring to it as ROI because we tend to include other costs in our calculations (like our fees), but the basics are the same.

Some Background: Our Client

We can’t divulge who our client is, because we’d be giving too much away. We can’t even give the industry they work in, since we only work with one client in that industry, but what we can tell you is the following. 

Our Client:

• has attribution for digital sales is as close to watertight as possible (this made our life much easier, because we could see direct effects of our work)
• has three sales channels – an iOS app, an Android app and their website (which gave us more to test with)
• operates in a highly competitive market, with incredibly fierce competition (which means that, as the competition realised what we were doing, our life became harder)
• trusted us to do the right thing, because we set a target that they would be happy with and put 100% of our fees on the line if we didn’t reach it (this trust was critical for success, this method requires steady hands).

On Fundamentals

I’m going to talk about fundamentals throughout this post, so I’m going to spend a minute or so getting the definition out of the way. I’m not sure if this is the correct way to refer to it, or if the meaning is universally understood, but for you to understand this post we must be on the same page.

A fundamental is a single decision that our team agrees is the best way to do something to reach a specific goal for a specific ad account/ client.

An example fundamental discovery could be that (with all things being equal):

1. For conversions
2. For Client A
3. On Facebook ads
4. A video ad will give higher ROI than a static ad.

This is something that we would test again from time to time, and it’s not a rule that we can apply to all situations, which is why we make it a point to test fundamentals every time we start working with a new client or a new audience.

Our Method

Before diving into what we did to grow our client’s ROI, I’m going to give away the secret recipe. The rest of this post will be useful to help you get some context, but all you should need to do is follow this simple set of steps, steps we borrowed from the scientific method, and, to a certain extent, it’s just the basis of every A/B test in history, only more aggressive. 

The main difference to what we usually see with A/B testing is that we go all-in, heavily, with multiple tests that only test one fundamental question at a time.

Here are the steps (we’ll go into more detail further down):

1. Set your objectives and KPIs. This method only works if you have goals that you can measure objectively, ideally rapidly.
2. List a set of fundamental questions that you want to answer about your ads, your ad account, your audience, and/or your targeting methods.
3. Set up a calendar of fundamental tests that you want to run, and slot them into an order that is, based on gut feeling and experience, with the tests you expect to see the biggest differences in first.
4. Set up the test for your fundamental question.
5. Run the test. Aggressively. Put all your budget for the period (whatever makes sense for your cycle) into an A/B test for that question
6. Document learnings, shift the rest of your budget into the winning test & go back to step 4
7. Cycle steps 4-6 until you’ve tested all your fundamentals, then measure the performance of your new and improved ad account.

It seems simple, and when you get down to it, it is. That’s the beauty of it. This is a method that will yield incredible results as long as you can get good enough incremental gains that build on top of each other.

What happened before us

I’ve already admitted it, but what we found was a mess. The client had a single internal resource managing all their marketing and ads, and they were doing their best to hold onto their role by obfuscating their work. This meant that we could see the results of their work in ROI from Appsflyer (which was set up correctly by the client’s excellent tech team), but we could not learn anything from their previous spend.

The ROI of the client’s Facebook campaigns, however, was abysmal. For every €1 the client was spending, they were getting around €1.32 in revenue. We did not have insight into what the executive was thinking, but we could see that all their ads were optimised for engagement, when what they were measuring was revenue. 

They were running the same few creatives with an incredibly broad audience for a very long time, the calls to action were misleading (get your calls to action right by reading this post) and the ad set contained various ads that should have been running separately.

Step 1 – Setting your objectives and KPIs

It’s critical that you start off by choosing what your goals are and get complete buy in from all the stakeholders who could influence the progress of this experiment. You’ve read about SMART goals forever, but this is the time when you should really apply this reasoning. Unless you can measure the success of your tests, you’re going to be wasting time and money.

Your tests might be running on different metrics (you might be measuring click-throughs on one specific fundamental test, even if your final KPI is ROI), but you need to be absolutely certain that the metric you’re measuring has a direct impact on your final KPI.

In our campaign we were all working towards one KPI – we wanted to take our ROI from 1.3X ad spend to a minimum of 13X ad spend.

Step 2 – List a set of fundamentals

This is the critical part of the equation. Every business, and therefore every ad account, you work on will have a different set of fundamental tests to run. Take the time to choose the right set of tests, because every one of these tests is an expensive endeavour, and you want to run tests that leave no doubts. In our case we were testing quite a few fundamental hypotheses for the account, and I’m listing them here because they could serve for inspiration:

• Which Facebook goal works best?
  • Engagement ads vs Landing page views
  • Winner of the above vs Conversion
• Do ads work better if we split conversions by target platform (app conversions and web conversions instead of the generic conversions campaign setting)?
• Which bidding strategy works best? 
• Does automatic placement give you better results than manual placement?
• Does an app install campaign give you better LTV clients than a simple conversion campaign?
• Which CTAs work best with your audience?
• Do you sell more when you advertise a product or when you advertise categories?
• Does a specific price/discount work better than another?
• Does it make a difference to our campaign if we only run ads at specific times of the day (our client runs a 24/7 operation)?
• Specific manual placements vs the rest
• Specific audiences vs the rest
• We also tested some creative choices:
  • Which of the two main USPs gave us the highest ROI?
  • Do static ads work better than videos?

Whatever you do, don’t copy this list. Think long and hard about the tests that you should run for your business in your market, with your business goals.

Step 3 – Build a calendar of tests

Set your tests up in a calendar in the order in which you’re planning to test the fundamentals. This removes all the decision making from later in the process, you want to be absolutely focused on testing, and nothing else. 

Also take this time to set your thresholds for each test. How will you know when one of the options has won? This will allow you to skip to the next test as soon as you’re certain that one option is much better than the other 

Set a first-past-the-goalpost threshold with a percentage. If you’re going to measure on 200 conversions, for example, you can agree internally that if one of the variants hits 100 when the other is still below 60, then you can decide that the win is emphatic enough, there’s no need to see if the next 40 sales will change the course of the test. They won’t. 

Step 4 – Set up the test for your fundamental

Lights. Camera. Action! This is where the fun parts begin. Set up your campaigns as you would set up any other A/B test – create identical campaigns with only one difference, the one thing that you’re testing. 

Don’t call us luddites, but we like to test manually. Set up different campaigns and actually run them independently. We didn’t let Facebook run our tests for us, because we’re not always certain that there isn’t some other algorithm at play.

Step 5 – Run the tests aggressively

This is where client (or boss) buy-in becomes critical. It’s very easy to discuss this concept theoretically, but it’s much harder to do when you are spending actual money to run the tests. We were lucky enough that we were departing from a position that was abysmal, so when, after the first three days of testing we got 500% more ROI than we had started off from, it became much easier to convince our client to back our method.

The method requires aggression because it relies completely on a rapid succession of compounding returns. It might seem drastic, but the most you are risking is the value of half your budget for a period of time. 

Which brings us to the next question – how long is long enough to run a test? This will change from business to business, and it will probably depend most on the size of your budget. If I’m running a small B2B site whose goal is to generate 10 leads a month with a budget of $200 a month, then I’d say you would probably need a few months to be able to test each fundamental. Anything less than 50 results (whether they’re leads or sales) is going to be too little to draw a meaningful conclusion from.

If you’re running an account with a couple of thousand dollars a week for 500 sales a week, then you can probably run a test or two every week. Only you can really tell how much data you need for your test to be meaningful, but don’t skimp on this process because you’ll be reaping benefits in the long term that far outweigh the cost of running the test.

By putting all our budget behind these tests we were able to run the tests even more rapidly than we had anticipated, and over a period of 6 weeks we ran over 10 tests, usually running two tests in a week when we decided that we had enough data to move on to the next one.

Step 6 – Learning 

The key to running successful fundamental tests is that you learn from them. By having emphatic winners we can be absolutely certain that the decision was made on solid data, so we didn’t really have to go back to run a full test on that fundamental for quite a while.

Step 7 – Cycle steps 4-6

By building the fundamental learnings of the account into a playbook for the client, we got to a position where we took the account from 1.3X ROI to 44X ROI in just 4 weeks, an improvement of over 3,300%. By the end of a 6-week period of testing we were ready to ramp up the client’s budget, the final test to check whether the results are scalable, and that is where we settled on the perfect balance for the account, a return of around €37 for every €1 spent.

So we made a list of fundamental rules for the ad account that the team follows every time we need to set up a campaign. Nowadays we still run fundamental tests on a monthly basis, either to test new hypotheses or to confirm that the original test results are still valid. 

Over the next year or so the client was hit heavily by Covid, however, as we scaled back budgets, the fact that we had all our fundamentals sorted out in the original tests meant that we could scale back budgets in the areas in which we knew the client would suffer least. At no point in the pandemic did the client fall below a return of €15 for every Euro spent, and now they’re hovering happily at around €80 in revenue for every Euro spent on ads.

This is what the ad account looks now, with peaks and troughs affected by seasonality, but a healthy ROI throughout:

A note about cautious clients or bosses

Our client was super comfortable with taking rapid risks in succession. To be fair, the benefit was so great after just the first test that they had nothing to lose. Having said that, if you need to offer some stability, what I’d recommend is to run the tests at full budget for the period that you need but then allow the winning version to run for a few more weeks before testing again.

Richard Muscat Azzopardi is an experienced marketer and the CEO of Switch – Digital & Brand, a boutique brand and marketing agency that loves partnering up with clients who get it. He’s been working in digital marketing since the inception of the internet, even though he’s not as old as you’d think he is. He’d love to connect with you on LinkedIn!

The post How we increased our client’s Facebook advertising ROI by 3,300% in 6 weeks appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Facebook is rolling out new metrics and removing a litany of redundant and useless metrics from the Ads Manager.
The Facebook Ads Manager is messy. 
Too many metrics makes reading ad data a pain.
Thankfully, Facebook’s been listening. Facebook is removing redundant metrics, and adding metrics to help businesses and brands succeed.
You will notice that some of these metrics are labeled as “estimated’ or in “development” in the ads manager.
Facebook is adding the label “estimated” to be more transparent about their reporting methodology. Facebook measures ad performance by scaling samples in order to provide real-time results. When this method is used, Facebook will label the metric as estimated. Labels that are still in BETA will be labeled very obviously as “development,” indicating that they may change throughout this
A great example is the new “Ad Recall Lift” metric Facebook is rolling out. Since this metric works by polling a sample of the advertising audience, it is labeled as estimated. Given that it’s a new metric in BETA, it will also be labeled  development.

Over 20 Ad Metrics on the Chopping Block!
Bam, big changes are coming. 

The Redundant and Repetitive Ad Metrics 

Actions
Actions, people taking actions, cost per action. Actions as a metric is a sum of various actions users have taken on your ad. Since there are many different possible actions a user can take, this metric is not granular enough to derive business results.
Amount Spent Today
This is a redundant metric. If you want to see the amount your ads spent today, simply adjust the date range to today and use the Amount Spent metric.
Button Clicks
This is another redundant metric. Link Clicks, Event responses, and saved for later are all metrics tracked for your ads.
Carousel Card
This metric provided clicks and conversions for Carousel ads. Its redundant – you can already get clicks and conversions data from the ads manager.
Mobile App Actions Conversion Value
This is another redundant metric. You can use Mobile App Purchases Conversion Value instead.
Positive & Negative Feedback
Positive and Negative feedback as metric outputs are not insightful on their own. These signals are used as inputs for the Relevance Score metric which paints a clearer picture for understanding how well an audience is responding to ads.

The Useless Ad Metrics

Canvas Component Time Percentage
Who even uses this? …Exactly why this metric is a goner. Use the other Canvas metrics for view times.
Page Mentions, Cost per Page Mention
This is an outdated metric for your brand. Page mentions can’t tell if you’re receiving positive or negative feedback. If you care about following, use the page likes or page engagement metrics instead.
Social Reach, Impressions, Clicks, Unique Clicks
A social ad is supplemented with copy that’s familiar to all of us “3 friends liked this page.” However, advertisers don’t have control over when this sort of social ad is delivered. Since these metrics are not actionable for advertisers, Facebook is doing away with them. Instead, leverage traditional reach, impressions, and clicks for ad performance.
Page Tab Views, Cost per Page Tab View
This metric tells you how many views your Facebook page tabs received as a result of an ad. This metric is relatively useless. Page likes and page engagement are better indicators for Facebook page success.
Link Click Destination
This metric was built to help advertisers understand which clicks lead people off Facebook through an app’s deep link or to an app store or other backup link destinations. Due to new mobile operating system updates, this metric is being revisited. In the meantime, advertisers can use outbound links as a metric.

The New Kids

There’s probably many more new metrics that are in development and on their way to our ad manager accounts. Two metrics that already existed on the Ads Manager but are still in development are:
Store Visits
This is an interesting metric for physical retail and office locations. You can run Facebook ads that are built to drive store visits using a store locator.
Ad Recall Lift
This will be one of Facebook’s most powerful metrics if its rolled out right. This gives brands the ability to measure the recall-performance of their ads.
We’ll keep you posted as more metrics come out.
Get the rest of your marketing friends up to speed by sharing this article with them  
 

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Why Switch is so interested in the Superbowl

Let’s get one thing clear – the only reason we know about The Superbowl is because, apart from streaming football, the event features tens of brilliant ads throughout the event. Each year, we look forward to Superbowl ads like we look forward to food at the end of each day. Superbowl ads usually span around 30-60 seconds and compete to stand out among the other hundred ads showing throughout the game. Some brands feature more than one ad so the competition is fierce.

What makes a good Ad

Ads have two basic functions:

• To convey brand awareness
• To sell a service or product

Trying to do so among a crowd of roaring football fans can be challenging. Especially when you’re showcasing your company beside multiple globally-established brands. So what’s the secret behind all successful Superbowl ads? Top notch scripting.
In order for an ad to stand out of the crowd (literally in this case) and pass a message on affectively – the creative company has got to understand its audience and hit their most vulnerable spots. What are our consumers’ interests? What is relatable on a national level? What does our audience inspire to be and how can our product help their aspirations?
Today we analyse our favorite Superbowl ads from 2018 and how they managed to incorporate the above factors into their cinematography.

1) The Trailers

Can we please just talk about all the sneak peaks the Superbowl blessed us with? If the Westworld season 2 trailer was not a good enough reason to watch 3 hours of football – I don’t know what is. Apart from the Westworld trailer, Superbowl fans were also allowed first viewings of: Mission Impossible – Fallout, Avengers – Infinity War and The First Purge amongst others. Trailers are THE way to our hearts.
Why did it work? What is there not to love about trailers? Fangirls sulk in corners while they wait for new episodes to come out. The least production companies can do to reward our loyalty is give us sneak peaks of how our Sundays will look in the near future.

2) Avocado from Mexico and Jeep

The two distinctive brands featured one common theme – Paleontology. Following Jurassic Park’s success in 1993, Jurassic World was the second top-grossing movie in 2015. With Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom estimating its release for June, the topic couldn’t go unfeatured. While Jeep managed to star Jeff Goldblum in their ad, co-star Chris Pratt appeared in two Superbowl ads but in neither of the two channelling Jurassic World. In fact he starred in Michelob Ultra’s ad, instead, promoting the health-conscious beer.
Why did it work? Jurassic World has been everywhere since 2015. Chris Pratt ruled Hollywood in 2017 and is coming back in 2018 for a second installation of the franchise. Jurassic World-inspired ads are as exquisite as trailers.

3) Amazon

According to engagement scores gathered by AdBlitz (a Youtube-based voting sphere), Amazon’s Superbowl ad was best received by this year’s audience. The ad featured numerous celebrities serving as Alexa’s voice. The lineup featured Gordon Ramsay, Cardi B, Rebel Wilson and the iconic; Anthony Hopkins. While the celebrities proved to be awful AI assistants, they sure did a heck of a good job at entertaining the Superbowl audience.
Why did it work? Apart from featuring numerous celebrities, the ad deals with way too familiar scenarios. Let’s face it, we’re all slightly paranoid that Alexa is judging our every single demand. I mean yes, I used the calculator to add 10 and 6 together that one time but I will not be ridiculed by a machine!

4) Kia

Listening to Aerosmith takes us back to the 70s, just like this ad did with Steven Tyler. Following his big Superbowl break in 2015, Tyler makes his comeback to the sport event with Kia. Steven Tyler drives the Kia Stinger in reverse to the tunes of Crazy. The 365-horsepower drives Tyler back to his 30s – proving to be a timeless design with an enduring soul. The 70s kids in the audience sure felt rejuvenated thanks to this ad.
Why did it work? Let’s face it, half of the Superbowl watchers had no idea who the dude in the race car was but a portion of them felt represented by the ad. Kia sought to refresh everyone to their prime years and they managed it perfectly thanks to Tyler’s performance.

5) Coke v.s. Pepsi

We’d be doing this ad review an injustice if we didn’t pit Coke and Pepsi against each other. Coke might sell better than Pepsi on the market but we personally think Pepsi owned it with this year’s Superbowl ad. While both companies sought to bridge the gap between diverse individuals, Pepsi had a clear idea of who they were targeting. In fact, the ad did an excellent job at representing typical American-hood while being humorous and upbeat. Also – extra brownie points for all the legendary references, Pepsi!
Why did it work? Pepsi was just on top of its game! The music was on point, the references were to die for and the storyline was all-too-relatable. Also, Spears’ and Crowford’s camos didn’t do it any harm either.

6) Doritos and Mountain Dew

The Lip Sync Battle era just had to feature a sing-off. Doritos and Mountain Dew are as harmonious together as the tunes of Missy Elliott and Busta Rhymes (who also feature in the ad). And who better to represent each product than Peter Dinklage and Morgan Freeman themselves? The time-relevant themes were just perfect for the Superbowl ad and let’s face it – how more American can you get than Doritos and Mountain Dew?
Why did it work? Take 2 of our favourite actors and have them lip synch to just about the coolest hits. All while promoting two heavenly products. The ad had the audience on their feet rooting for Team Red or Team Green.

7) NFL

We never thought what we were missing in life were men in football gear dirty dancing to The Time of My Life. The NFL stars shed all boundaries to show us the true spirit of the New York Giants. The ad served as a humorous homage to all past touchdowns and the seasons to come.
Why did it work? The promo was fun. Simple. We all know a guy in our life who has an epic bromance – we’re sure the ad had many poking fun at their loved ones because the scene was just all too relatable.

8) Kraft

Ah… the beauty of user-generated content. Kraft is a simple food company but its Superbowl ad said so much more about it. Instead of commissioning celebrities like most brands, Kraft released a call for family pictures and home videos back in January. The company promised to deliver a true picture of American family life and it kept its word. While the ad featured different takes on family-hood, the selected submissions also perfectly embodied the importance of football in American culture which worked perfectly with Superbowl fans.
Why did it work? The company didn’t rely on celebrities to piggy-back on, but rather 30 seconds of pure gold – family memorabilia. The Kraft ad had people giggling and smiling through it all – eager to get home and look through their own family collection.

9) Toyota

Toyota is an official partner of the International Paralympics Committee but it had no right to tug at our heartstrings like that… The moving ad introduced us to gold medalist, Lauren Woolstencroft, a world renown alpine skier with a physical disability. The chances of winning a gold medal are 1 in 997,500,000 but Woolstencroft defied the odds by winning 8. What is this liquid coming out of my eyes?
Why did it work? Our emotions were heightened, our aspirations were raised…The Toyota ad had us believe we could walk out and conquer the world. That is after we finished wiping the tears off our face…

10) Charitable Initiatives

Numerous companies sought to promote charitable action, such as Stella Artois and Budweiser with their clean water initiative. The most effective ad in this section was by far Hyundai’s. The car brand set up rigged metal detectors at the Superbowl entrance. Hyundai car keys set off the alarm and their owners were relocated to a room where they were introduced to Hyundai’s Hope on Wheels concept. The initiative donates a portion of Hyundai’s profits to cancer facilities which helps care for sick children and their families. This ad made me want to exchange my old Volkswagen for a Hyundai so I’m guessing it worked its magic on me.
Why did it work? It could’ve been any of us standing in that room. The initiative was seemingly spontaneous and gave thanks to their supporters. Hyundai would be nothing without its loyal customers but its charitable act gave them so much more than they believed they were getting. Hyundai makes its customers heroes everyday.

What have this year’s set of ads taught us about creating good content? Make your ads relevant both contextually and periodically. Portray your company as relatable and kind. But above all; hit those heartstrings – HIT ‘EM HARD.
Still don’t believe in the power of heart-centred marketing? Teri begs to differ in her awesome blog post. Check it out.

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