Fair warning, this is a relatively long read. If you don’t have the time to take it all in now, you can download the PDF version of Marketing Trends 2022: The Year of Conflict for free by clicking below. Otherwise, just keep reading!

Intro to Marketing Trends 2022

In a little over a month, it’ll be 2022. 

These last couple of months have been interesting. We’ve watched the world go from full COVID-19 pandemic to ‘what pandemic?’, offices go offline, then go remote, then go back to the office, new cases hit critical mass. It’s been the year of COP26, the year of ICOM Back to the Future, the year of the Great Resignation. 

Last year, we wrote about The Year of New. 

This is the year of conflict. 

A Global Snapshot

The world has had enough. 

Rising house prices. Climate change crises. Mass dissatisfaction. An overwhelming, drowning feeling of exhaustion. Activism that changes nothing. 

2021 taught us a lot about how people will pull together in a crisis and how, given enough opportunity, there is a lot of kindness left in the world.

2022 is going to teach us that kindness is a weapon, and it’s aimed directly at the institutions that failed us: big corporations, governments, and celebrity-led companies that hide behind the thinnest CSR initiatives to pull in greater profits. 

People are leaving their jobs. They’re advocating for better working conditions. They’re criticising the people in power – loudly and visibly. The internet has become a battleground, and the more the year draws to an end, the more it’s obvious that the patterns started in 2021 are going to reach into 2022, dig down even deeper, and force a change. 

Whether that change is easy to make or not.

Also, ‘global’ doesn’t mean ‘it’ll never happen here’. 

It will. The trends we’re seeing in the United States, Europe, Asia: they’re going to hit you too. These things aren’t held by borders or rules or strong economies. 

There is a domino effect. 

Hit one, and they’ll all get it. 

What’s here to stay

Marketing trends change – but the old trends don’t stop happening just because the calendar’s rolled forward one year. Some of the biggest trends of 2021 are following us into 2022. 

Here’s what’s going to stay: 

1. Remote and virtual events. 

The pandemic isn’t over. We’ve just stopped building contingency plans around lockdowns and limitations. 

That said, remote and virtual events were popular last year, and the wider accessibility of remote and virtual events means that these are probably going to keep going until virtual reality becomes a little more accessible for everyone. 

2. Working from anywhere. 

Let’s face it: you don’t really love your office. You love the people that come with it. 

Office culture took a beating in 2021 when offices went remote. Then people realised they could travel around the world, not ever have to do another eight hour commute, and still keep their job more or less the same. We’re not going to go back to the days of working from the same location; if anything, people are going to think bigger. 

If your home can be anywhere, so can your office. 

3. Brand accountability. 

Brands that want to stay relevant need to stay on the good side of their consumers. 

That’s a good thing. 

In 2022, brand accountability is going to be something slightly different, but it’s still the same old mantra: unless you want to be the internet’s main character (nobody wants to be the internet’s main character), you need to look at what your organisation stands for and how it’s going about supporting that cause. 

Everyone needs to support something in their lives. 

Your brand can’t be an exception. 

Not if you value profit. 

How things have changed

2021 brought some big changes into play. If you’ve read our blog about The Great Resignation, you know that’s part of it. 

There’s more. 

Cookies are on the way out: they’re being blocked by most popular browsers. 

Apple has blocked data tracking. 

Data is a big concern for consumers – and for businesses. 

People care about how they’re being treated and about how others are treated. 

The tide is starting to turn against global corporations that are ignoring this narrative. 

2021 has been a lot. People have hit the glass sides of what they’re willing to put with, what they’re willing to sacrifice, and what they’re willing to do. 

In 2022, that glass is going to start straining. 

Trend 1: Active(ism) Listening

We’ve mentioned that brands need to support a cause. 

We’ve mentioned that brands have to have something they believe in. 

Before 2022, that was kind of take-it-or-leave it. A general donation to a charity or co-opting a hashtag was enough – and then 2021 happened. 

Organisations need to show tangible, concrete, continuous proof that they stand for something beyond making profit. 

A brand that has admirable values at its core will do this. Those brands that, even on a small level, actually care about a cause enough to link it to their fundamental principles will behave accordingly and the world will, slowly at first, take note.

That doesn’t mean you can compromise on quality or price. It just means that you have to do more than quality and price to attract customers. 

You have to do more than what you say. 

Statistics

• 79% of consumers agree that positive actions by brands raise brand awareness¹. 
• 64% of consumers have switched to only purchasing from brands who are actively fighting for change². 
• 58% of consumers are influenced by a brand’s activism when making a purchase³.  

How do I use this trend?

Find a cause you believe in. 

Once you do, see how you can support that cause – and, no, ‘raising awareness’ doesn’t count as support. What can you invest in to bring your cause more attention? How can you make sure that your brand supports your cause the best way it can? Once you have that, you have to keep moving forward from there. 

Case Study

Ben & Jerry’s have always been activists. From LGBT+ parades to campaigning for prison reforms, they’ve had things to say, campaigns to say it with, and funds locked into pushing their campaigns to better awareness. 

They’re pros at putting their money where their mouth is, and 2021 continued the trend: as the Israeli conflict deepened, they stopped selling their ice-cream in Occupied Palestine Territories. 

Caveat: they’re currently locked into a disagreement with parent-brand Unilever, who wants to keep selling their products in OPT, and there’s no current information how it will be resolved. 

One other thing of note: Ben & Jerry’s, the company with over 43 years of active history, has little to no major controversies. In the age of the internet where every company has controversies, that’s saying something. 

Here’s what we did

One Run, One Race wanted to promote equal education opportunities for everyone in Malta, so they decided to do it by running around the two main islands straight. 180km in just under 2 days.

We donated our time and expertise to the cause. We planned their campaign ahead of time, planned the course of action for how to communicate during the event and we even stayed with them for the entire 35 hour marathon to make sure their cause attracted attention – and funding.

Our expert says

“Brands that honestly align with a cause are nothing new. Brands that pretend to align with a cause are now getting old. A growing and vocal group is out there, calling out brands for paying a feeble tribute to the cause-of-the-day, and demanding that they do more. It is a great time for those brands that are still on the fence to take a moment, to sit around a boardroom table and have awkward, introspective conversations, to acknowledge that financial return will only be bolstered by engaging in best practice, and to commit to doing the right thing. We’ve worked with some established and traditional brands who have honestly supported worthy causes and have only seen positive outcomes. While there will be a few loud voices that will scream, ‘that’s not enough’ to anything a brand does, this should not discourage brands from taking small steps in the right direction. Be steadfast, be honest, acknowledge that the brand is in progress, and you will reap the benefits of stronger ties with the audiences who matter.”

Trend 2: Data Do-Over

2021 brought us closer to the end of third-party cookies. 

One of marketer’s significant data allies, the phasing out of third-party cookies meant that a source of consumer data gold was no longer going to be available, and though the end of the third-party cookie has been delayed until 2023, marketers have to start adapting to the cookie-less world now. 

Why did it happen?

Consumers want privacy. 

There’s an unprecedented amount of data that you can collect on consumers today. Download any free-to-use tool or spend even five minutes on an individual’s Facebook page, and you come away knowing more about them than they know themselves. It illuminates what drives that consumer; what they like to support, how they talk to their loved ones, what catches their attention. Things that, if you pin them down to a formula, are crucial for anyone wanting to market to today’s consumer.

And it’s easy to pin them down to a formula. 

Understandably, consumers don’t want anyone to know them to that extent. 

And even more understandably, all that data is useless unless you can make sense of it. 

2021 showed us just what data can do. With everyone locked down and the metrics for success changed, consumer data for 2021 all came from online. Over 90% of the world was on Facebook or Instagram at the same time; is it any surprise that people noticed how much their online life has permeated their real one?

2022 is going to bring about a change in data: in how we gather data, how we use data, and what that data means. 

Statistics

• 61% of high-growth brands are shifting to a first-party data strategy with the intent of providing personalised content⁴. 
• 66% of global users feel tech companies hold too much control over their personal data⁵. 
• 70% of consumers say they’re happy with companies accessing their data so long as they gather it themselves⁶. 

How do I use this trend?

There are two main points you should keep in mind to make the most of data: 

1. Invest in excellent cybersecurity. A data breach is going to hurt you – a lot. 
2. Develop a strategy to collect first-party data. This is important: make sure you have a relationship with your consumers first, and make sure you put that data to good use. 

Case Study

Sour Patch Kids has been pivoting its data accruation strategies from third party to first party since 2020. It started with a Tiktok page; it has since become the biggest snack brand on the platform, and has had a constant, steady stream of activations and experiments that netted the brand an incredible amount of attention from their target audience. 

Its ‘Make My Mix’ campaign is a goldmine of best first-data collection practices. People who want to create their own custom mix get to pick and choose the sweets and pack-size they want, and have it delivered to their home – and because they get something in return, the ‘data collection’ part doesn’t sting. It’s sweetness all the way down. 

Here’s what we did

DIY went big during the lockdown. No matter how old your house, no matter what colour you needed, everyone trapped inside started working on the DIY projects they’d put off for years. 

Enter: Sigma Masterpiece, a fully crowd-sourced campaign that taught us a lot about what kind of people our brand’s audience is made up for. And we got to visit some to-die-for houses in the process! 

Our expert says

“The death of the cookie is a symptom of a larger ideological shift. Gen Z in particular expects brands to be more transparent and have better business practices surrounding subjects such as privacy. The quicker your brand gets onboard with these expectations, the more support it’s likely to find. Until recently, most people were not aware that their data was being collected and sold to the highest bidder. Or, just as likely, they didn’t care. Now, notorious data collectors such as Facebook & Google have come under serious fire, and will continue to do so until their practices change. Resting your entire marketing strategy on these platforms will work for now, but won’t be as sustainable very soon, unless you’re happy with a spray-and-pray approach to your advertising. Find out how you can provide real value to your audiences for them to want to hear from you, rather than have them scroll mindlessly past it. Or worse, develop a negative association with your brand based on the channels you use.”

Trend 3: ‘Just-Like-Me’ Marketing

Consumers want to see themselves. 

This isn’t really a new trend as much as the expansion of a pre-existing trend. If you’ve ignored the push for diversity in the last couple of years, the possibility that you’ll be able to keep going is getting smaller and smaller. From Black Lives Matter to the Netflix boycott, consumers are tired of the ‘ideal’ advertising: white, bright, and beautiful people in white, bright, and beautiful homes.

They want to see their society, up in lights. 

And their society isn’t going to look like anything you expect. 

This goes double for influencers. Influencer marketing is going to skyrocket in 2022, but not for the big influencers everyone is tired of looking at. Micro and niche influencers will find their audiences much easier to grow as people look for authentic lives: lives they can relate to, lives they can watch, and lives that can guide them to live a little bit better. 

Statistics

• 59% of consumers are more likely to trust brands where they are represented in ads⁷. 
• Micro-influencers with less than 15k followers have the highest average engagement rate of all influencer categories⁸_. 
• 71% of consumers expect greater diversity from brands⁹. 

How do I use this trend?

Reach for different influencers. Hire diverse, from small businesses to suppliers to content creators, to add meaning and authenticity to your messages. Listen to the minorities in your audience and learn from that. 

And back up your paper promises with proof. As we’ve said: in 2022, the name of the game is how much you’re willing to invest for a cause. 

Case Study

Decathlon, a sports brand, recently went viral for a very small thing: expanding the notion of what sports and active lifestyles should look like. Their first, and most recent, campaign took the international symbol for the disabled, a man in a wheelchair, and gave it a modern, active slant. 

They took inspiration from the 2020 Canadian Paralympics team, and made the icons available to use free of charge in the hopes that other retailers would update the old 1968 with something more inclusive for all. 

Here’s what we did

Our Take Me to Malta campaign gathered influencers from all over to leverage their unique audiences into seeing our island through their eyes. We built their itinerary based on the most beautiful locations at the perfect time to get them some incredible shots of the island at its best. 

Our expert says

“Every content creator on social media is an influencer. What is going to stand out in 2022 are long-term relationships. Creators are pushing back on the ‘one time collaborations’ of putting a product or service in the spotlight, and instead are looking for long-term brand collaborations where they can really experience the brand in order to truly talk about it. 

And this is something that they have to do to remain relevant. More than ever, people are aware that they’re being targeted with paid content, and creators have to stand out as an authentic source of information despite that. The narrative of influencer marketing has changed from ‘this brand is collaborating with me to promote their product’ to ‘I have selected this brand to promote their product because of [reason]’ and this is something brands need to be prepared for. There needs to be a drastic change from looking at influencers as just a billboard booking to actually investing time in creating meaningful, lasting relationships – and only then will you have truly authentic, diverse, human content.”

Trend 4: IRL Online

One of the things that came out of lockdown: how to make sure that your real life and your online life meshed. Remote events, hybrid experiences, AR, VR, AI: the list is limitless. And hey, it makes sense. Clicking on ads and Zoom calls are so 2016. 

Technology has never been capable of so much. The capacity for what you can do with a little bit of coding and a sense of fun hasn’t been met yet, and it’s time that it is. 

2021 showed us tech is possible for great things. 

It also showed us that tech, in general, has been boxed up and made generic. 

But that’s primed to change. 

After a whole year of routine Zoom calls and emails and bland connections, brands should start adding fun back into their online offerings and hybridising their approach to communication. We’re in a beautiful, technological time. 

Make the most of it. 

QR, AR, and VR are the sectors most likely to see a rapid-scale expansion as brands connect the physical world to the virtual. Easier shopping experiences and multiversal offerings offer a lot of value to consumers who crave innovation – and after a year of nothing, everyone craves innovation a little bit. 

That said, don’t knock the possibilities of AI. AI tactics for customer services have barely scratched the surface of what’s possible, and 2022 is going to show us just how much AI can do with human-led design behind it. 

Statistics

• 73% of event planners see hybrid events as here to stay¹⁰. 
• Products with AR capabilities see a 94% higher conversion rate than products without¹¹. 
• The augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality market is forecast to reach 30.7BN in 2021 and close to 300BN by 2024¹². 

How do I use this trend?

Stop thinking about your audiences as separate. Online or in-store: it doesn’t matter. Address them both, at the same time, and within their own territories, using the tools you have available. Bring online in-store and take the store online – 2021 showed us the boundaries between them are paper-thin. 

Break them. 

Case Study

Estee Lauder is a perfume company. It’s hard to sell perfume remotely – the scratch’n sniff technology of 90s stickers hasn’t yet been pioneered to transfer scents over the internet 

However, that didn’t stop Estee Lauder from pioneering a Snapchat filter designed to sell scents. Using image, sound, and ambience, their augmented reality line-up includes four fragrances that allows users to pick what kind of scent they want to buy. It’s a good way of building atmosphere and marketing a product without relying on physical stores – and a good way of leveraging today’s try-before-you-buy, bargain-hunting mentality to do something creative. 

Our expert says

“The more ways we have to talk to a customer, the more ways we have to get it wrong.” That’s the glass half empty reaction that most businesses will have, which means that there is immense opportunity to get it right. Just like every other great opportunity staring at us in the face right now, this will be one area in which smart businesses will take advantage and use this as another way to get ahead of the competition. 

So think of all the channels with which you can communicate with a client and create a process that ensures delight with every interaction. Delight in a way that makes sense for you across channels and that matches the spirit of the channel itself. It’s not going to be easy, but nothing worth doing ever is.

A note of caution: Just because someone promises that they’re using AI to carry out a task does not automatically mean that it is better. AI is being thrown around by marketers all over the world, but very few companies are using it with any real benefit over traditional algorithms yet. That time will come, but it will take some time until it’s really democratized. For the moment most AI “implementations” are just smoke and mirrors.

Another note of caution: Keep human. Don’t see different channels as a new opportunity to bug them across all the channels you can possibly reach them. If you’re seeing more channels as more opportunities to bombard your “20% off!” message, please crawl back into your cave.”

Trends we’ll see later on in the year (or beyond)

Some trends don’t strike at the same time, and these won’t roll out the second the calendar changes digits. 

But we’re going to see them regardless. 

Trend 5: Metaversing

Tech brands are going to figure out a way to capitalise metaversing: finding a way to create a for-entertainment sub-society on the internet, with real-world, real-life applications. Think supersized entertainment as a way of life, from in-universe tie-in products to actually getting to live out and experience your favourite escapisms. 

Early trend-setter: Microsoft Mesh

Microsoft Mesh is expanding what it means to work from home by using their newly-built Mesh technology to create a comprehensive virtual reality office. Featuring avatars, ‘shared holographs’, and interactive elements such as a whiteboard and colour-coded tasks, Microsoft Mesh is on the way – and work will not be the same. 

Trend 6: All the Comforts of Home

We’re not going back to commuting everywhere, and we’re not going for green energy. We’re staying home, and companies are going to provide every opportunity and possibility for those WFHers to live the same way at home as they did in the office. Does this lead to increased privacy concerns? Maybe, if your boss is like that; but it’ll definitely be more comfortable. We’re looking at high-speed, do-or-die internet, unique corporate products built as an ecosystem, and the diversification of what ‘corporate’ means in an online environment with less accountability than the office. 

Early trend-setter: Skittish

Skittish was one of our favourite initiatives in 2020, and now that we’ve had a chance to play around with its ecosystem, it’s definitely looking like something that’s going to take the corporate world by storm once they realise that working from home might lead to increased productivity, but the office culture so many of us have painstakingly built will suffer. Skittish isn’t strictly work: although you can create multiple locations that deal with business, you can also watch movies, spam Rick Astley music until your coworkers change the video, and just pretend you’re in the office for a little while. 

As a technicolour llama. 

Trend 7: Anti-Doomscrolling

Occasionally, the internet is overwhelming with bad news. This takes a toll on social media users in particular. For 2022, companies are going to start rolling out better measures against doomscrolling and screen-fatigue to combat the higher rates of stress and anxiety that comes with being online. This means, for some companies, a complete overhaul of their core tenets. We’ve seen some of this in 2021, but it’ll only start making strides in 2022 as companies figure out what side of the mental health awareness they stand on. 

Early trend-setter: Joyscrolling

The best way to fight screen fatigue and the general anxiety that comes with an endless loop of bad news is with joy. Joyscrolling, by the Icelandic Tourism board, is a multi-sensory app that uses sound and image to draw the user into a more positive, cheerful mindset and show them only good news. Fighting doom with joy: we’re into it. 

Trend 8: Super-App Synchronicity

The days of disparate apps are slowly dwindling; make way for the super-app, the all-in-one, everything-at-your-fingertips expansion to your regular Facebook or Instagram browsing. Social media companies have already attempted to make their app the supreme app: Facebook has Facebook Marketplace, Messenger, Facebook Live; it’s attempting to branch out into virtual currency, it’s rebranding as Meta, it has plans to encompass even more of online life than it already does. And once it happens for Facebook, it’ll happen for Instagram and Whatsapp in tandem. One app that you can do everything with. One app that you never leave. 

Early trend-setter: Yandex Go

Yandex Go combines Yandex’s food delivery, transportation, and delivery services into one global application in what is being called Europe’s earliest adoption of the super-app trend. 

A note on trend forecasting and trend watching

We publish one of these reports every year. 

It doesn’t mean that last year’s edition has stopped being relevant. 

Trends are determined by huge, seismic shifts in society: by activism and riots, by rage, by progress, by burnout, by joy, by people and what’s in their lives, what they watch, what they buy. The trends that we see now are reflecting what we’re seeing in real life. 

But they don’t come from nowhere. 

Each trend report we release builds on last year’s edition. And the trends we published in 2021 are still relevant – just less so.

As consumer priorities and behaviours shift, so do the trends we’re seeing; they adapt to the society that’s pushing them forward and making them the focus. 

2021 changed everything. The trends we saw then are still going to be relevant for years to come. There’s a reason we called that year ‘The Year of New’. 

2022 builds on that. 

Keep them both in mind. 

Conclusion

It’s always bittersweet to write these articles at the end of the year and see how much has changed. On the one hand, understanding where the world is going is important for everyone, not just marketers.

On the other hand, the changes are coming fast, and they’re not all for the best. 

Sometimes it feels like all we can do is tread water until the next big change comes along. 

But agencies can do more. 

Our role as an agency has not changed from 2021. The goals that we set out to do then – make better choices, tell better stories – are going to remain relevant for the end of this year, and even more so for what comes next. 

Things are difficult. And they’re getting harder. 

We need to make sure going forward is better, for everyone. What’s become increasingly obvious over 2021, and going into 2022, is that agencies also need to push for better: better causes, better goals, and a better way of doing things.

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

Seven Regional Marketing Trends We Want To See More Of

B2B Marketing Trends 2022

Social Media Trends 2022: The Year of More

Sources

Trend 1: Active(ism) Listening

1. 2021 Global Marketing Trends, Deloitte, 2021
2. 2021 Meaningful Brands Report, Havas, 2021
3. Q3 2021 Consumer Trends Report, JungleScout, 2021

Trend 2: Data Do-Over

4. 2021 Global Marketing Trends, Deloitte, 2021
5. Global consumers opinion on personal data control by tech companies, Statista.com, 2021
6. ‘Personalize or Perish: State of Personalization Report for 2021’, Forbes.com, 2021

Trend 3: ‘Just-like-me’ marketing

7. ‘The Psychology of Inclusion and the Effects in Advertising’, Microsoft Advertising, 2021
8. Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2021, Influencer Marketing Hub, 2021
9. ‘The difference diversity makes in online advertising’, Facebook Marketing, 2021

Trend 4: IRL Online

10. ‘73% of Even Planners Expect Hybrid Events to Be More Common in the Future’, Meeting Spotlight, 2021
11. ‘The Rich, Untapped Future of Augumented Reality for Customer Experience’, Deloitte, 2021
12. ‘Augmented (AR),virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) market size 2021-2024’, Statista.com, 2021

The post Marketing Trends 2022: The Year of Conflict appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

After 2020, we can add another immutable truth to the list: when faced with a massive global pandemic, most people* will buckle down, get shit done, and help each other out. 

The Kinder Consumer

2020 changed everything. 

The way we thought about marketing. The way we thought about people. The way we thought about how to connect to those people. 

It also, crucially, changed the people themselves. The post-2020 consumer has no connection with the consumers that marketers have been bending over backwards to please ever since the first advert was etched into papyrus. 

They’re outspoken. They’re dedicated to purpose: themselves, others, and everything in-between. They’re loud about what they like, and even louder about what they dislike. 

Most importantly, they’re kind. 

Snapshots from the pandemic

When borders closed and countries locked down, a lot of people found themselves at home, if they were lucky, and in quarantine if they weren’t. The normal 40 hour work week shrank down to one long stretch of time after another, and without anything else to keep them occupied, those people who would normally have gone out to restaurants, or watched a movie, or worked an extra hour later at work found themselves online. Internet usage increased by 7% month on month in 2020, and social media platforms took the brunt of all that internet traffic. 

• Tiktok saw a 75% increase in usage. 
• Facebook saw an 11% increase in usage. 
• Twitter saw a 34% increase in usage. 

Worldwide, people were having conversations. 

So what were they talking about?

Everything. 

Their day in lockdown. Sharing tips on getting through quarantine. People who could make art took to creating it, publishing free zines and artbooks, spreading a little joy through Tiktok dances. Zoom was full of people having family-wide internet chats.

When lockdown was too much, everyone flocked to the internet for a break. 

There’s more. 

Strangers helped other strangers through their grief. Fundraisers for medicine, rent, and myriad other expenses were met in record time. People cared – about other people, about themselves, and about getting everyone in their community through this safely. 

Understanding the Great Shift

A global pandemic puts things into perspective: probably, you don’t need that new pair of shoes to make your life better. You definitely should reconsider the latest phone. And do you really need to buy around 100EUR worth of skincare products when your job’s hanging in the balance by a thread? 

There were people who decided that they needed to shop. They needed that pleasure of receiving something in the mail, something normal in a year that was otherwise not. 

On the most part, though, people decided, “no, not really”, and the conversations brands were having with consumers dried up overnight. 

This isn’t normal.

Typically, times of crises lead to more shopping, not less. In other words, as the going gets tougher and tougher, the wallet gets lighter and lighter. 

However, this wasn’t just a crisis, it was a wholesale mental shift. The fact that people couldn’t go out to eat or travel to distant places to escape the current situation impressed upon many that this wasn’t a drill, keep your hands and your loved ones inside the house at all times, and don’t venture out before it’s safe. Do not pass GO, do not collect £200. 

Brands, and especially big corporations, didn’t realise this. Why would they? This wasn’t anything different from a housing crisis or an economic downturn, and they’d survived those crises with only the tiniest adjustments to their profit margins. While the history of some big corporations is long, memory is short. 

Corporations forget. 

They forget what it’s like to be a consumer. 

They can’t relate to the struggle to put food on the table before buying a product. 

They don’t know how to talk to a consumer undergoing an astronomical shift in their entire existence. For corporations, there are only two facets to any reality: people buy things, or people don’t buy things. 

With COVID-19, people weren’t buying things. They were listening to the conversations that brands were putting out, but as the death toll rose higher and higher, those conversations became more of an echo chamber, brands rebounding off of brands and silence. 

That would have been survivable, if unpleasant.

Then people started talking again. 

While brands were off still having the same conversations ad infinitum, consumers were watching what else they were doing: who was paying their workers fairly, who was giving them time off to be with their loved ones, who’d increased wages, who hadn’t, who donated to the community and who didn’t care about anything but sell, sell, sell. 

When the dust had eased on COVID-19 and the immediate crisis passed, the conversations that began to reverberate revolved around help. Who’d helped? Who hadn’t? 

Brands who’d helped – actually helped, not said they would, and did nothing about it – didn’t need to do a single shred of marketing or start any more conversations. Essentially, even brands that simply acted as they would have and didn’t resort to leveraging a dire situation in their favour emerged as winners. The consumers did it themselves, going to social media to tell everyone else, and spread the word farther. 

Brands who didn’t help got the same treatment. 

Obviously, it’s easy to say which is better. 

Care and Feeding of the New Consumer

This was going to happen sooner or later. 

Historically, big brands could get away with being less than responsible by the snail-pace crawl of information. Something that happened wouldn’t become public knowledge for years and years after. That’s why the McDonalds’ ‘hot coffee’ lawsuit is known as an example of Darwinism instead of ‘look at this company who served their coffee so hot to save money that the woman who sustained multiple life-threatening third degree burns’.

This is what brands are used to – information travelling slowly enough that it can be buried, without affecting the conversation about their products. 

People have been becoming aware of the darker side of brands slowly. 

As the generations shift forward, each consumer that comes is a kinder, more compassionate version of the one before; each consumer is more difficult to get through to when your actions don’t reflect your attitude. 

COVID-19 didn’t create the new consumer out of thin air. It just sped up the process into days instead of years. 

How do you market to the new consumer?

It’s not a question of marketing. 

Having the right conversations at the right time is important. Talking about your products and your company remains crucial for getting the word out about who you are. 

But it’s what you do that’s going to make the difference. 

The new consumer isn’t going to retweet, repost, or praise your brand just for existing. The new consumer doesn’t care if you have the cheapest prices or one-day delivery or if you can offer something new. There will always be another retailer who can offer the same thing, undercut their own prices, and one-up you.

What matters is what you do.

What the new consumer wants to know is this: if the worst happens, if the community needed help, would you help?

The answers don’t need marketing. They just need to happen. 

Bacardi teamed up with Olein Refiner to provide the raw materials to increase hand sanitizer production and saw a 3410% increase in conversations.  

Dyson created a brand-new production line to build around 5,000 much-needed ventilators for use in hospitals in the United Kingdom saw a 2626% increase in conversations about Dyson.

Nintendo listened to fans and released their much-anticipated Animal Crossing: New Horizons game early and saw an 8,136% increase in conversation. 

None of these brands are strangers to controversy. 

They still stepped up to help, and they saw the benefits: increased conversation, which means increased awareness, which means more people likely to engage with the brand. 

The takeaway is this: people are kinder, less tolerant, and ready to fight for what they believe in. Lecturing them doesn’t work. Pandering isn’t a solution anymore. 

Get ready to talk. 

And get ready to mean what you say.

* There are people who won’t, but for every anti-masker and big corporation forcing their people back to work in garbage bags, there are a dozen others who realise that the only way to survive is together.

The post Consumer Behaviour in 2021 appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

#TAKEMETOMALTA

March was another busy month for Switch. After winning the pitch for Air Malta’s New Destinations Campaign, we got straight to work on both the advertising campaign and influencer campaign. A tight deadline loomed, but the excitement in the agency was palpable. This was going to be bigger than anything we’d worked on in a while.
The brief was straightforward: we needed to promote Air Malta’s new destinations outside of Malta. Locally, Air Malta is one of the top of mind brands when it comes to airlines, but it is still not that established abroad – especially in areas in which it hadn’t been operating.
The digital advertising campaign is vast, targeting 7 countries and the respective audiences within those regions. This gave us all the more reason for the ads to be as relatable, personalised and engaging as possible. If the message was going to be memorable, we needed to make it stand out among the noise.

Things didn’t stop there though. We were lucky to be working with a team at Air Malta that was open to fresh ideas, so we were thrilled when they agreed to work on something we truly believe in: Influencer Marketing. We’ve been proud advocates of Influencer Marketing from day one, and we’ve helped many brands expand their business through local collaborations – but Air Malta gave us the opportunity to take it one step further. We invited international influencers to Malta for a destination marketing campaign: #TAKEMETOMALTA.

THE SPONSORS

Between the 20th and 23rd April, we hosted 17 bloggers and influencers on our islands, on behalf of Air Malta. The goal was to show them the best that Malta has to offer through a destination marketing campaign.
Our work was cut out for us. Our target audiences in the 7 new destinations consider Malta to be a ‘party island’, a destination only ideal for students who wish to take a three-week booze-fuelled vacation away from their parents who think they’re ‘studying English’. We wanted to change that misconception; so we planned a three-day event to show the most Instagrammable places around the island. We wanted to ensure that the influencers (and their combined following of 5.2M) would see the gem we’re living in, and want to experience it themselves.
There was one restriction: we had to work within the initial budget allocated for the digital campaign. To work around this, Air Malta agreed to let us look for partners to help us make Malta’s biggest destination marketing campaign happen without breaking the bank.
The response was great – Corinthia Hotels were soon on board, providing accommodation through their three hotels (Corinthia Palace, Corinthia St George and Marina Hotel), and a delicious five-star welcome dinner at Villa Corinthia on the influencers’ first night.

A post shared by Vladisláv Karpyuk (@vladislavkarpyuk) on Apr 22, 2018 at 10:40am PDT

Ecabs also signed up as sponsors, providing transport throughout the duration of the event. From airport pickups, to drop-offs around the Island – the influencers were treated to first class transport.

A post shared by eCabs (@ecabsmalta) on May 5, 2018 at 2:54am PDT

Trabuxu, one of our favourite wine bars in Valletta, provided the perfect afternoon snack – a combination of excellent wine with cold cuts and cheeses, well needed after a stroll around the capital city.

One of our own clients, Danny’s, offered us a fantastic lunch after a long day of exploring the gems that the south of Malta has to offer (and yes, the influencers got to try their famous spicy beef cheek linguine, which they loved).

If there’s one thing we know, is that there can never be enough food. We were thrilled to collaborate with de Mondion from Xara Palace, who provided first-class service and food for the influencers‘ last dinner (and can we please talk about the view? ????)

A post shared by Xara Palace Relais & Chateaux (@thexarapalace) on Oct 9, 2017 at 8:57am PDT

THE INFLUENCERS

Finding the right people to work with for each new route took quite some time. We were after a balance of travel bloggers (people who are followed because of the blogs they write) and travel influencers (the ones who are known for their beautiful photos and short, yet useful, captions).
We opted for quality over quantity, as it was important for Air Malta to create meaningful conversations. Because of this, we chose to collaborate with ‘micro’ influencers over ‘macro’ influencers. This being said, there was nothing micro about the combined number of followers that our influencers had across their social media platforms: 5.2 million followers is no mean feat.
From Spain, we had:
Irene & David, from the Traga Viajes blog – a dynamic couple who are always on the go exploring and visiting new places.

A post shared by tragaviajes.com – Foto???? Vídeo???? (@tragaviajes) on Apr 23, 2018 at 11:59am PDT

Alii Moron, fashion and travel influencer – with over 160K followers on Instagram, Alii is known for promoting beautiful outfits in beautiful destinations.

A post shared by A L I I M O R Ó N (@aliimoron) on Apr 20, 2018 at 7:46am PDT

Dani Keral, blogger at Un Viaje Creativo – Dani travels the world with a camera in one hand, and a pen in the other.

A post shared by Un Viaje Creativo (@danikeral) on Apr 21, 2018 at 10:15am PDT

Nadia & Javi, the power couple from Travel the Life & Javi Cubo – this Spanish power couple have started travelling the world back in 2002. They’ve visited over 30 countries and launched their blog and social platforms in 2015.

A post shared by Javier Cubo (@javicubo) on Apr 27, 2018 at 12:41pm PDT

From Russia, we had:
Vladislav Karpyuk, the adventurous Instagrammer. Vlad has two obsessions: heights and puddles. If you scroll through his Instagram profile, you’ll see breathtaking views taken from the roofs of buildings, or stunning water reflections in puddles.

A post shared by Vladisláv Karpyuk (@vladislavkarpyuk) on Apr 25, 2018 at 10:45am PDT

Yulia Taskaeva, beauty and travel blogger – When she’s not travelling to Paris or Coachella for work and leisure, Yulia is either studying for her Uni exams or swatching lipsticks for her next blog.

A post shared by yulia taskaeva (@juliataskaeva) on May 2, 2018 at 1:00am PDT

Valeriya Kornacheva, traveller & photographer – Valeriya photoblogs her life, from places she’s seen (over 40 countries), to hotels she’s stayed at, to languages she’s learned and food she’s tasted.

A post shared by ????Traveler ????Photographer (@v_kornacheva) on Apr 20, 2018 at 3:39pm PDT

From Portugal, we had:
Susana Ribeiro, the solo traveller from Viaje Comigo – Susana started writing about her travels in 2013, and since then has won two awards for her blog. Her passion for discovering new places has taken her everywhere around the world!

A post shared by Viaje Comigo – Susana Ribeiro (@viajecomigo_susanaribeiro) on Apr 28, 2018 at 9:53am PDT

Carla & Rui, the travelling teachers from Viajar entre Viagens – when a geography and physics teacher decide to start a blog, no one can stop them. In between school holidays and days off, Carla & Rui have managed to tick off many countries from their list, and Malta was one of them!

A post shared by Viajar entre Viagens (@viajar_entre_viagens) on May 1, 2018 at 10:03am PDT

From Italy, we had:
Nunzia Cillo, writer and photographer – Italy is her home, but her heart belongs to the world. Nunzia writes about beauty, fashion and lifestyle, all while visiting and exploring new places.

A post shared by Nunzia Cillo (@nunziacillo) on Apr 25, 2018 at 1:15pm PDT

From Israel, we had:
Ella, hilarious blogger from Ella Travels Word – Possibly one of the most dynamic and hilarious people we’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. She’s passionate about everything, and visits every place with an open mind, no expectations and curiosity to learn about everything.

A post shared by Ella (@ellatravelsworld) on Apr 25, 2018 at 11:16am PDT

From Morocco, we had:
Zeineb Laouni, beauty and travel vlogger – Zei is a famous radio host by day, but has grown her following due to her passion for all things beauty and her curiosity to visit new places.

A post shared by Zeineb Laouni (@zeibeauty) on Apr 21, 2018 at 11:52am PDT

THE AIM

We had one goal in mind for this destination marketing campaign: to promote Malta as a holiday destination by showing how easily accessible it is thanks to Air Malta’s new routes.
Every detail of the three-day event was strategically planned in order to encourage the influencers to promote the Island, the airline and the sponsors. We took them to Malta’s most Instagrammable spots. We planned each location stop at the right time of day to ensure the best lighting for photos and videos, and we ensured that each meal was worth photographing. In a nutshell, we made sure that wherever the influencers were, there was a good-looking story to tell.
We encouraged the use of the hashtag #TAKEMETOMALTA for every tweet, story, post, blog and vlog shared related to the Air Malta’s destination marketing campaign – which resulted in over 300 posts in just under a week.

A post shared by Nadia ???? Travel the Life (@travelthelife) on Apr 25, 2018 at 2:04pm PDT

THE ACHIEVEMENTS

It’s been almost three weeks since we hosted the influencers, and the results are still pouring in. To date, we’ve recorded over 1,150 posts, stories, tweets, blogs and vlogs that were shared in relation to the destination marketing campaign #TAKEMETOMALTA; not including the blogs and vlogs that are still yet to be published, and all the photos that haven’t yet been shared.
Considering the tight budget and limited timeframe we had to work with, we were (and still are) overwhelmed with the positive results. We’re still compiling reports (the numbers keep growing by the hour!) but we can proudly say that the campaign was a resounding success.

A post shared by Nunzia Cillo (@nunziacillo) on Apr 23, 2018 at 10:13am PDT

The next stage was just as fun. As all the influencers returned home and continued to promote Malta and Air Malta (along with Corinthia Hotels and our other partners), we started rolling out the digital ads – a mix of social, Google, Yandex and VK ads) to promote the direct flights to Malta in each new destination.
This is just the beginning. As more conversations happen online, our aim is to reinforce the message that Malta is now more accessible, thanks to Air Malta’s new direct routes.
Keep your eyes peeled for the final results – we’ll be sharing them on our page the minute we have them.

The post Destination Marketing | Air Malta's International Influencer Campaign appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

What is experiential marketing?

Experiential marketing focuses on making the customer engage with the brand and experience it first hand. It focuses on creating an emotional link with the customers, one that will remain with them for as long as possible – even forever!
Many big brands known worldwide have adopted this method to engage with their audience.
Let’s have a look at some of them.

Coca Cola – 007

Coca Cola used their “Coke Zero” product to promote the Skyfall movie by associating the “Zero” to 007. An interactive Coca Cola distributor was placed in a train station, where travelers were invited to ‘unlock their inner 007’ by going on a mission. The train passengers who bought a drink from the vending machine were given the opportunity to win tickets for the James Bond movie, all they had to do is get to a train platform in 70 seconds. Obviously, reaching the platform wasn’t all so easy. Check out the video:

TNT

Another very well known experiential marketing advert that went viral around three years ago is the TNT “We know drama” promotion. A red button was placed on a relatively quiet square in a Flemish town with a sign saying ‘push to add drama’, inviting people to press the button. Once pressed, the quiet square would turn into a drama scene – promoting their slogan ‘your daily dose of drama on Telenet’. Here’s a grasp of what happened:

The Simpsons

Back in 2007, Century fox and 7-Eleven partnered up to promote the new Simpsons movie. 7-Eleven turned some of their shops into the Simpson’s famous shop Kwik-E-Marts, in which products from the actual series were available for purchase, such as: KrustyO’s Cereal, Buzz Cola, and also Squishee Frozen Drinks.

Ikea Big Sleepover

In 2011, the Ikea in Essex hosted a sleepover where 100 lucky winners had the opportunity to sleep at the store. This was the result of a Facebook fan group, with over 100,000 people, called ‘I wanna have a sleepover in Ikea’. The winners could choose their beds, sheets, and were also given manicure and massages. A sleep expert was also available to provide people with advices, and help the interested ones choose a new mattress.

One of the best ways for a brand to connect with their audience is to give them an experience they won’t forget. Thinking outside the box, as the examples above showed us, is the answer as to how to get such an experience. A positive experience will result in great reviews (the digital ‘word of mouth’), which is exactly what a brand needs to become successful.

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1. SMS marketing
2. MMS marketing
3. Push notifications
4. In game mobile marketing

SMS marketing

When a company sends you a text message regarding a new offer they are providing or what new stock they have. SMS marketing is permission based, meaning that the company must first attain the prospect’s mobile number with their permission, and then proceed to promoting to them.

MMS marketing (Multimedia Messaging Service)

Similar to SMS marketing, however, through the use of MMS marketing the company is able to send pictures, video, and also text.

Push notifications

A great way of attracting the attention of people addicted to their applications and tempting them to purchase online. An example of an application which uses this type of marketing is eBay. Don’t pretend you were never tempted!

There’s a very simple way to explain what in-game mobile marketing is. You know when you’re playing a game on your mobile and there is a small advert that you keep accidentally clicking? Well there you go.
Let’s face it, the average person spends more time looking at their mobile phone than looking at people. A company actually made an application that shows you what there is in front of you whilst you text (using the front camera) so you can walk and text and not bump into anyone! So basically – though a bit on the bombastic side, this shows that people are constantly looking at their phones, especially millennials. With proper market research, and an effective strategy, mobile marketing can be just what your company needs.

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No, we’re not talking about the Aerosmith hit, no matter how good it may have been. We’re talking about being jaded in the aspect of digital marketing. Let’s refresh your memory. Jaded means “bored or lacking enthusiasm, typically after having had too much of something.” Sounds like a familiar feeling?
Being jaded in the digital world has become common. It’s something that any serious digital marketer would take into consideration and plan for. It comes into effect in many ways, here are two of the most important ones to keep in mind.

Ad Blindness

As a society we’ve become almost immune to advertising. We see ads everywhere from the moment we wake up and drive to work, to the moment we get into bed. We’re bombarded with special offers, marketing campaigns, and non stop adverts. Eventually we get so used to these that they become background noise. We automatically tune out and stop paying attention (unless it’s an advert for a product we’re interested in). When it comes to online advertising our eyes have become accustomed to the positioning of ads, such as banners, in particular locations on a website. We filter out these adverts, focussing on the valuable information instead. Of course the ads do work to a certain level, specifically on a subconscious one. However it’s important to constantly update your ad sets and not let them run for too long.

Same tactics, different day

Everything in the digital world works as though it’s on overdrive, and this includes campaign lifetimes. Trends come and go quicker than anything on a Paris runway. Staying at the top of the game is quite the challenge. Consumers become accustomed to the same marketing tactics. They start to see past the charade and learn how the game works. Things in the digital world tend to become overdone. They reach such a high point of virality that eventually they become annoying (like planking, and even the ice bucket challenge) whereas the same competitions become dragging (think ‘like my photo to help me win’).
Thankfully we’re seeing a shift from the short term, high engagement campaigns – the kind of campaigns which don’t last very long but create a peak in engagement. Once these campaigns fizzle out, the brand’s reach goes back to normal until the next big competition comes around. These days the focus is more on having consistency – being relevant throughout in order to have true, genuine engagement and a loyal fan base.
By analysing the top marketing trends and constantly thinking of innovative ways of engaging your audience you’ll automatically improve your chances of remaining relevant. Don’t fall into a marketing rut where you simply copy what your competitors do – dare to be different, and always make it new.

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Another abstract word which can be applied to many different contexts, what does intelligence have to do with Digital Marketing?
Apart from the fact that you need to have a good head on your shoulders in order to have successful marketing campaigns, intelligence in relation to the digital world goes much deeper.

Human intelligence

It’s not always about textbook knowledge, it’s not simply about theory, facts, and figures – sometimes it’s even more complicated than all those combined- it’s about intuition. If you want to be successful you’ve got to have a specific kind of intelligence – the kind which allows you to understand the various layers that go behind something and to just ‘get it’.

This is especially true when it comes to audiences. You might have all the data in front of you. The demographics, the age range, the times they’re online, and the pages they spend the most time on. But if you can’t understand the human beings behind the numbers then your strategies will only go so far.
The problem is that you can’t teach intuition. However you can train yourself to be slightly better at hitting those immeasurable targets.

• Put yourself in their shoes – would the campaign be relevant to them? It’s useless trying to sell high end designer stilettos to the over 50s who have no desire to break an ankle.
• Appeal to them on an emotional level – will they want to be a part of the campaign and engage with it, creating long term benefits for both parties? Or will they simply get what they need and go, possibly never to return?
• Look into all the pros and cons – how will an outsider view the campaign, is it user friendly? What’s the UX like?

Technological intelligence

According to Back to the Future’s predictions by now we should all be driving flying cars and wearing funny clothes. While I’m still waiting on the flying car to be manufactured, it is impressive to see that technology has advanced in leaps and bounds in ways which we could have never imagined.
Who would have thought I’d be able to speak to my phone and get almost human replies (thanks for the laughs Siri)? Wearable tech and the smartest apps you could think of have simplified life and made the mundane interesting. Artificial intelligence, real time data, and the ability to sync across devices and instantly connect all your tech has revolutionised our world.
And while some fear that A SkyNet/Terminator situation is imminent, we can’t help but count our lucky stars for the convenience created by our intelligent tech.

Intelligent Marketing

This is probably our favourite aspect of intelligence in the digital world.
Let’s go back a couple of years – before digital marketing was even conceived. Marketers had a tough time trying to get quantifiable data regarding their campaigns. They did brilliantly of course – they had their suitcases full of artillery, their pitches, their theories of hierarchical needs, and anything else a traditional marketer could ever want.
What they didn’t have were instant results, data about even the most seemingly irrelevant thing, the option to target specific people, and the possibility to customise their adverts.
This is why we love digital.
Google is God when it comes to simplifying the marketing process. From highly specific SEO criteria which ensures that the best search results are displayed, to the constant improvement to make digital marketing more human. Digital marketing is putting people at the forefront. Whereas before marketers would talk at an entire broad audience, now they can select, tweak, and even target specific groups. What’s more is that with things like retargeting and context marketing you can easily come up with a strategy which really gives people customised adverts which will actually be relevant and useful to them.
So at the end of the day we can say it’s true that sometimes it’s not how much you know, but how you use it. We’re always ready to see what new forms of intelligence the digital world will throw at us. Let’s just hope it won’t be terminators.

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A lot of companies find themselves doing well in the market for several years. Everything is going great but at some point they just have to get themselves some sort of communication strategy, so they come to us.  And even when they have been active and successful for years, suddenly a blanket of silence falls onto the room when we ask: Who are you as a Brand? What are your values, what guides your work and, consequently, guides your communication?
Things become even more interesting when you are speaking about companies that come from industries which are very distant from the communication fields: accountancy, cheese makers, metallurgical industries, medical treatment, or nutrition professionals, etc.
The first answer you will probably get is an operational answer: “we work with numbers”, “we make cheese”, “we transform iron into stairs”, “we try to heal people”, “we teach people how to eat better”, etc. Some other clients may think that their identity is their logo, the colours and even the font they’ve been using since the company’s origins (which is kind of true, but that’s only one of the many embodiments that the identity may take).
When it comes to creating a brand identity it’s the same as when talking about a person. You’re not defined by what you do for a living, or the colours that you wear to go to the office… what defines you is something that comes before that, it’s bigger and it guides all that you are and do.
So, before working on a communication strategy it’s essential to firstly know who you are… what your identity is. More often than not brands ignore who they are and think only about what they do. The good news about this is that it’s never too late to find your identity behind all those circumstantial expressions of it. You’re always in time to take control.
So, for all those who are always asking, “where should I start to achieve better brand communication”, here are some initial steps to move in that direction.

How do you know if there is something to be worried about?

Brand identity is the answer to “Who are you as a brand?” Think of your brand like a person, it works for your personal brand as well as for a multinational company. So be sure that you are not answering this question with things that you do, colours that you wear or the mood in which you can wake up every now and then. To get there, you can try this exercise.

1. Analyse honestly and sincerely what your Brand VALUES are. Generally speaking: what are those three or four things that make you do what you do, in the way you do it, and not in a different way?
2. Think about the PROMISE that you, as a brand, are making to your clients every day. What do you offer to your clients that makes them come to you and not to someone else?
3. Think about how all that DEFINES your brand and your job.
4. Think about how your client SEE your brand.
5. Think about how you would like your brand to BE SEEN by the clients.

If you can answer all these questions, and the result sounds logical and makes you feel happy with what you have; then you have a clear idea of WHO YOU ARE as a brand, and you are ready to communicate in any possible way your brand may need to.
Otherwise, if with each of these questions, another five new questions appear, or you only get vague replies for them; it means that you have the common situation of being unable to analyse your brand’s essence.

Don’t panic

It’s always difficult to analyse yourself objectively.
Keep calm and breathe, you simply ask for an expert’s help to take the first step in the right direction. To get to know something that is as basic and important for your brand, as it is for any person: get a better knowledge of yourself as the brand that you are, to understand who you are, and find out your identity behind the promise you are making.
Only if you know who you are, you will know what to do. And we are here, ready to guide you through this process of getting to know yourself to start turning your brand into a healthier one. So if you need some expert advice, why not get in touch?
These images were designed by one of our interns, Antonella Meli. Who doesn’t love a panicked Wonder Woman?

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