News and Analysis
CPG Brands Rethink Advertising Strategy Amid Rising Food Costs, Inflation
While a decrease in food stamp benefits will clearly have the most profound impact on those families receiving benefits, it also marks a shift for supermarkets, retailers, and CPG brands, many of which are now looking to revamp their advertising strategies to account for a greater pool of shoppers searching for discounted items.
Commentary
Getting the Most Out of Email This Holiday Season
Email, whether for acquiring or engaging with current customers, still remains one of the most effective and important ways to drive ROI — if marketers do it right. Consumers are already being inundated with email messages, sometimes multiple in a given day from the same vendors, so the more relevant the message, the better the return.
Here are some ways marketers can ensure that their email messages get to the right people at the right time to deliver the most revenue and build loyalty.
Covid-19 Will Make the Workplace a Privacy Hotspot
More than a third of the 2,600 respondents in the survey said they want no relaxation of privacy laws due to the pandemic, 43% don’t want employers conducting medical checks and requesting health information, and nearly two-thirds don’t support disclosing information about infected individuals. While everyone wants to get back to business as usual, employers need to be careful that their efforts to monitor the health of employees and prevent the spread of the virus remain respectful of employee privacy and aren’t intrusive.
Have Generational Shopping Habits Changed for Good?
During the pandemic, we took a fresh look into generational shopping habits, surveying 2,000 UK and 2,000 US consumers to find out if and how Covid-19 and the measures taken to fight it had permanently altered shopping behavior. These findings reveal that shopping behaviors are converging across generations.
Latest Posts
Risks to Consider When Using Public Wi-Fi
The next time you stop somewhere to grab a coffee, you should think twice before taking out your phone and looking for available networks. Public Wi-Fi may be a strong positive overall, but there are dangers inherent to using it, and you need to be aware of them. That’s why we’re going to cover them in this piece — so let’s run through them.
Location Weekly: Google Maps Update; NextNav’s $120M Round for Geolocation Services
The Location-Based Marketing Association covers Home Depot piloting kiosks from Slyce to locate products in store, Google updating Maps with tips, transit, and AR, Air Canada enabling customers to use PayPal, NextNav raising $120M for 3D geolocation services in U.S., Korea’s Lotte going hi-tech to steal customers from e-commerce, and India’s NavIC possibly one day replacing GPS.
Valentine’s Day Boosts Entertainment, Food, and Social Apps
The data shows that Valentine’s Day marks a major uptick in app usage across verticals. Compared to an average February day last year, on Valentine’s Day, entertainment app usage was up 24%, food and drink apps 20%, and social 16%. Consumers also spent an unusual amount of time on transport (7%) and gaming (6%) apps.
“Alexa, Order Pizza!” How Voice Ordering Will Impact Restaurants
The numbers suggest consumers might be ready to start ordering food and beverages via voice, and voice shopping via at-home smart speakers is projected to reach $40 million in revenue by 2022. In 2020, we’ll see consumers leveraging this technology at a growing rate. In advance of this increase in adoption, restaurants will need to ensure they will be compatible with connected consumer devices.
In order to keep up with the likes of Dunkin’, Denny’s and Domino’s, restaurants of all sizes need to optimize their tech stacks and diversify their strategies.
Voice Tech Could Transform Loyalty Programs. Here’s How
Within the hospitality industry, a growing number of hotels are using voice technology to improve personalization with experiences like virtual concierges. Virtual concierges use voice technology to personalize a guest’s stay by offering experiences based on past behavior. For example, virtual concierges can adjust thermostats or place room service orders based on a traveler’s previous preferences. When hotels and other hospitality brands take action based on the insights gathered about guests through their loyalty programs, they improve the overall guest experience.
But brands in a number of industries are exploring loyalty use cases for voice.
The Risks and Rewards of Today’s Data Privacy Landscape
With media outlets like The New York Times working to educate consumers and legislators striving to protect consumers’ rights with the introduction of CCPA and GDPR, awareness of the possible costs of these privacy trade-offs is growing, and it’s in everyone’s best interest to understand the changing privacy landscape.
That’s why we commissioned a new Privacy Report from Wakefield Research, asking both consumers and marketers about how they feel about the risks and rewards of data practices today.
How Panera Uses AR to Heighten Cravings, Reaching Millions of Customers
Following up on the success of its #YouMix2 AR campaign, which debuted at SXSW last year, Panera recently launched a follow-up initiative. Working with M7 Innovations, a technology-focused consultancy that specializes in artificial intelligence and immersive realities, Panera designed an AR campaign that involved animated breakfast wraps. Consumers were encouraged to experience Panera’s breakfast wraps through AR technology and share the assets to Facebook and Snapchat.
Garnering Love, Not Likes: Advertising on Instagram
One of the most noteworthy benefits of today’s digital advertising landscape is the variety that comes with testing and choosing which social media platforms resonate most with your brand. If you have decided Instagram is the clear winner for social advertising, keep the many pros and cons of the mobile-friendly platform in mind. This column tackles Instagram’s demographics, measurement essentials, and global thinking.
The Pivot Stuck: Video Ads Dominate App Revenue
Digital marketing journalists touted the pivot to video so incessantly that mention of it after a certain point sparked obligatory mea culpas. Redundant as the proclamations may have proved, fresh data from mobile ad firm AdColony suggests those who heralded video as the future of digital advertising have been vindicated.
Using Smartwatches to Join Marketing’s Vanguard
Spending on wearables is predicted to hit $52 billion this year, according to forecasts from the research firm Gartner, and spending on smartwatches specifically is expected to increase by 24%. Smartwatches represent the merging of physical and virtual worlds, and they provide marketers with a direct line for reaching consumers.
Here are five examples of how tech-savvy brands can put smartwatches to work and develop better strategies to take full advantage of the new opportunities that exist for reaching consumers through these wearable devices.
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The Road Ahead: What Autonomous Cars Teach Us About Marketing Automation