For a year marked by lockdowns, 2020 was also paradoxically a time when many people were in motion. We moved from densely packed cities to remote spots in the countryside and transitioned from physical locations to virtual ones.

The gym gave way to live-streamed Peloton classes. The office was replaced by Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and other productivity and collaboration platforms. Even school went virtual and many medical services were delivered via telehealth.

Digital transformation was a priority across industries even before the pandemic hit, but after, it became a true lifeline.

Post-Pandemic Pivot

Some brands and companies were slow to change when COVID emerged. Others saw the opportunity to use their skills and creative strengths to quickly develop memorable and innovative solutions.

For example, when the L.A. Dodgers made it to the World Series, Postmates developed a unique at-home experience for fans. Everything from classic Dodger Dogs to a mini baseball helmet filled with chicken strips was made available for home delivery to recreate the stadium experience as best as possible under the circumstances.

Lockdowns forced us to rely far more heavily on digital tools than ever before. And not just the mundane stuff like online spreadsheets and chat rooms. Almost two-thirds of leading consumer brands, invested in AR, VR, 3D content, and 360-degree video in 2020, according to Accenture.

These still early experimentations will only grow more sophisticated, more immersive, and more engaging. We still haven’t seen a killer app in this sector, a piece of content, or a platform that massively drives adoption, but it’s only a matter of time.

In fact, Gigasavvy Creative Director Mitch Fait believes that reality is closer than even many industry insiders realize:

“There has always been a barrier to entry for AR in advertising because you had to force users to download a special app to view content. People resisted using QR codes for the same reason. But, with that tech now native to most phones, there is an opportunity to push AR experiences in ways previously unimaginable to mass audiences.”

Ultimately, technology is only as useful or engaging as the purpose for which it’s deployed, and 2020 saw some ingenious implementations — many of which will stick around in 2021 and beyond.

Digital Togetherness

Humans are social animals. We are driven to share, connect, and congregate. When we couldn’t see each other in person we formed gatherings on messaging apps, video conferencing platforms, and social media networks. We formed digital clubs, live-streamed our days, and shared our experiences through whatever digital means were available. And the platforms responded to this new normal.

Discord, the online service for gamers, artists, and hobbyists, saw a 47% increase in use. Spotify rolled out a plugin-in for listening parties. Twitch, the video game streaming site, broke usage records seemingly every month. Five billion hours were watched on the platform in the second quarter of 2020 alone.

Live viewings jumped 50% on Facebook during lockdowns, and Instagram was up over 70%. Generation Y favorite TikTok broke 100 million active monthly users in the U.S., an 800% increase from 2018.

What’s more, these platforms enabled a far more interactive and engaging experience than legacy media channels are capable of. Viewers could post questions, tag images and videos, share digital stickers and emojis, and even buy products directly in their mobile apps and social media websites.

Virtually There

Another thing that is likely here to stick around in 2021 is the increasing number of incredible interactive virtual events. A record-breaking 12 million players logged into Fortnite to catch Travis Scott’s live virtual concert, Astronomical. J Balvin’s Halloween concert in the battle royale game was also incredibly well received.

Though forced to take their acts online by the pandemic, brands leaned into the opportunity and created experiences that were eye-popping, larger than life, and so engaging that you can bet Fortnite will continue to seek out top artists to collaborate with for virtual events, regardless of whether real-world venues are hosting events or not.

With its runway show canceled, Prada converted its SS 2021 Womenswear Show into a multimedia experience, complete with fully immersive 3D VR. Competing high fashion brand Zegna described its approach as ‘phygital,’ a hybrid solution that merged pre-recorded content with live models.

Rebranding Revolution

Some of the changes brought about by the pandemic will slowly fade away with time. A post-COVID world will hopefully feature a lot less social distancing. But not every new change will disappear. 75% of U.S. consumers tried different stores, websites, or brands during the pandemic. The majority of them said they expect to integrate these new brands or stores into their post-pandemic lives. Gigasavvy Strategy Director Kristy Gulsvig expects the recent interest in rebranding will spread in 2021 and continue growing as brands are required to evolve and adapt to accelerating trends.

“Brands are beginning to invest in rebranding to keep up with changing consumer behaviors and attitudes,” says Kristy. “They are also rethinking the way they converse with their customers. Brands are laser-focused on identifying what consumers truly care about and communicating their values in authentic ways that resonate by tapping into our shared humanity.”

Conscious Companies

An increased demand that brands and companies articulate their position on pressing issues of the day and behave in accordance with their stated core values, a trend that has been attributed to the Gen Y and Z demographics, exploded in 2020 amid cultural upheaval surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement, pandemic lockdowns, and growing awareness of environmental risks.

Diversity and inclusion, in particular, were hot button issues in 2020. Accenture found that 41% of consumers have begun deserting retailers that don’t reflect their views on identity and diversity. That trend has implications from the consumer perspective — 66% of millennials say they won’t patronize a company that refuses to take a stand — and for employers who have discovered that most of the younger talent pool is willing to ‘job-hop’ until they find a home that matches their ethos.

“The need to formulate and express a prosocial corporate culture and vision has become a vital objective, with very real repercussions not just for most company’s ethical grounding and perceptions of their authenticity, but on profitability and brand growth,” said Gigasavvy’s Kristy Gulsvig.

Co-creative User Involvement

In March of 2020, as the pandemic was just starting to become a reality, there was an 80% increase in searches for “DIY” (“do it yourself”) on Google.

Taking the initiative to build it yourself turns a rote activity into a journey of personal growth. Harnessing the IKEA effect (the tendency to put disproportionate value on goods you help build) is an emerging goal for all designers of engaging experiences and interactions. What was once limited to couches with unpronounceable Swedish names now applies to just about anything.

“Your audience isn’t a dumping ground for content, messaging, and products,” explains Gigasavvy Marketing Director Daniel Reizes. “So much of what traditional marketers do is landfill, put into the world to meet a deadline or check a box, then tossed away and forgotten in an instant with the hope of subconsciously influencing purchasing decisions. But it doesn’t have to be that way. As marketers, we are in a position to add significant cultural value to society by creating opportunities for dialogue and discovery. Best of all, we don’t need an algorithm or cookies that track our behavior to make these connections.”

Part and parcel with that development has been the perpetual growth of user-generated content (UGC). “Audiences loved the opportunity to share their voices, and brands were more than happy to help them because it’s an inexpensive source of relatable and authentic earned media that helps form lasting bonds and stay stop of mind amongst consumers,” says Reizes.

Gigasavvy’s Senior Social Media Strategist, Angie Guevara, predicts that the next big trend in UGC will be remixing. Superfans empowered with the tools of digital creation aren’t just consuming culture, they are recreating and reimagining it, and adding in their own personal touches and character.

Agile Agencies

Another trend that flourished in 2020 and which is primed for further growth is the rise of smaller and independent marketing and advertising agencies. With a new reason to pivot seemingly every month, the value of a partner that is inherently nimble — and able to extract maximum value from smaller, more targeted brand investments — has been highlighted.

According to Adweek, 40% of brands could be looking for a new agency in the next six to 12 months, and with less bureaucracy and fewer stakeholders to appease, small and independent shops are empowered to be proactive in solving problems and accelerating turnaround times to address rapidly changing conditions in the marketplace.

Even the very biggest brands, like pizza giant Domino’s, are devoting a lot more attention to this space these days. “I really feel that the independent agency model gives us more flexibility and less distractions,” said Domino’s Chief Marketing Officer Art D’Elia. Others, including their rival Papa John’s and massive conglomerates like Kraft Heinz, are also diversifying their roster of agencies to include smaller firms that are more open to creative experimentation and a quicker cadence.

Cookieless Web

One of the biggest unknowns facing us in 2021 will be the fate of a time-tested piece of digital marketing technology: the browser cookie. These tiny bits of data record user activity on the web and are essential for advertisers attempting to track, target, and optimize digital ads. It’s difficult to personalize outreach when you don’t know who you are talking to, after all.

That is about to change, though. Google has announced that in 2022, its Chrome browser, which dominates globally with 65% market share, will stop supporting third-party cookies. That change might result in the development of new, less invasive, and more private means of tracking users.

It also looks to spur the growth of advertising directly on ecommerce platforms like Amazon and Walmart, which rose by 39% in 2020, according to eMarketer, and is predicted to grow another 30% in 2021 to reach 13% of the total digital ad spend in the U.S. Top ecommerce sites know a lot about their customers already and aren’t as reliant on third-party tracking.

What’s Next?

Complacency breeds contempt, but new obstacles light the fires of creation, and the whole world was challenged in 2020 like at no point in most people’s lives. We should be proud that, in the face of volatility and turmoil, so many forged ahead unabated. More than half of the respondents to tech brand Wetransfer’s year-end survey said that the changes in their working environment resulted in them having more ideas, not less.

Growth always happens outside our comfort zone, and 2020, most would agree, was a year spectacularly devoid of typical comforts. For certain, the road ahead is still perilous and uncertain, but the knowledge that we can not only survive but thrive no matter what 2021 throws at us is confidence-inspiring and should serve as motivation to continue to evolve, ideate, and connect.

Ready to start leveraging the lessons of 2020 to make your 2021 revolutionary? Talk to Gigasavvy today.

A Proven Market Leader

Many know 3 Day Blinds as a California original that has evolved from modest roots to become a leading manufacturer and seller of custom window treatment solutions. With more than 40 years of experience, they have built a brand that represents high-quality, customized offerings, and an authentic commitment to their customers.

Despite an incredibly competitive and fragmented marketplace, 3 Day Blinds has seen decades of growth and market dominance in part because of its culture of innovation. It’s drive to know its customers, test ideas, and offer a premium service has led to continued expansion across the country.

Now, in its next phase of innovation, 3 Day Blinds reached out to Gigasavvy for a new approach to its advertising.

A Sea of Sameness

In today’s world of performance marketing, a preference for direct-response tactics leads to repetitive, undifferentiated advertising. Many of these ads – including those in the home improvement space – recite a laundry list of features and benefits, followed by a phone number that you can “call today!” These ads are great for educating consumers, but typically don’t inspire brand loyalty.

In the past, 3 Day Blinds relied on this style of direct-response advertising that focused on the features of their products, the wide range of options they offer, and their well-regarded in-person consultation program. The ads work, but 3 Day Blinds is a brand that continually seeks to push its success to the next level.

In order to stand out in a cluttered marketplace, 3 Day Blinds and Gigasavvy sought to create a campaign that would go against the typical direct-response style. Instead, we would try to inspire growth by creating a close emotional connection that would allow us to stay top-of-mind if – and when – homeowners need to update their window treatments.

But before diving headfirst into pursuing this approach, we needed to make sure it was right for the brand. That’s where data and market research came into play.

Data-driven, Human-centric Marketing

Data is a keyword used across industries in 2020, and rightly so. In the digital economy, the companies making the most of their data routinely outperform their rivals.

Still, amassing data is the easier half of the modern marketing equation. The real trick is separating the signal from the noise: identifying which datasets are valuable, extracting meaningful business insights from them, and strategically leveraging those assets.

Data is merely a means to an end. An instrument for measuring things that resist quantification, like personal engagement, emotional connection, and even ineffable human values and truths. Gigasavvy is built around the idea that contemporary marketing is an inherently cross-disciplinary pursuit, one that requires a mastery of both art and science.

Creative brilliance that isn’t vetted by data and narrowly tailored to achieve measurable outcomes is obsolete. Likewise, dogmatic adherence to raw numbers without any consideration for the flesh and blood behind them is equally unproductive. Finding the balance between these two concepts is the only proven pathway to greater performance.

The modern consumer is more sophisticated, better informed, and, yes, slightly more jaded than their predecessors. Today, hard selling and information overload are instant turn-offs. It takes a more nuanced approach — one that connects organically to your target audience — to generate lasting brand affinity, customer loyalty, and increased sales.

Performance marketing is a holistic endeavor. It’s more than picking the right demographic, channel, and ad spend — those are merely prerequisites, things that you have to get right before tackling the harder challenge of forming real and durable human connections. You can generate short-term results with just the bare fundamentals, but the returns will inevitably diminish without ongoing, creative investment in the brand and its content and messaging.

The Art of Pressure-Testing Creativity

You can’t connect with people if you don’t understand them. That’s why step one at Gigasavvy is always rigorous data collection and market research to find out exactly who the target audience is, how they see the world, what they value, and what sets their hearts and minds in motion.

Yet, as we’ve established, research, investigation, analysis, and statistical interpretation will only take you so far. Creative output can only be informed by data, not determined by it.

It’s through reading between the lines of data that we can parse out the true value of the numbers. Loyalty and emotional connection are highly subjective; the magic of successful campaigns comes from the stories that the data isn’t telling.

Seeking to increase bookings for their design guidance offering, we developed two very different concepts, one focused on humor and one more emotional and heartfelt. Our ultimate goal was to see how consumers would react: Would one ad resonate better? What would consumers have to say about either concept? And most importantly, did the stories communicate the right emotions and features?

Both spots were tested among the target market, and both received overwhelmingly positive and constructive feedback. The heartfelt version of the ad garnered the highest marks for consideration, the reaction we were hoping for. Not only was the spot well-liked, but consumers were able to parse out complex features and benefits that were never explicitly mentioned in the script.

That feedback helped us refine the scripts and storyboards to maximize the number of potential customers we could connect strongly with.

The Audience Reaction

The finished product subtly highlighted the durability, beauty, and variety of 3 Day Blinds’ products. It was filmed on location in a lovely home that showcases window coverings as a backdrop to family life — which also tied nicely into the reality that most of 3 Day Blinds’ customers are now doing their shopping from home, too.

The public response and the return on marketing investment we achieved for 3 Day Blinds has been incredibly gratifying. The quantity and quality of their leads immediately jumped following the launch of the ads.

Gigasavvy has long invested in the tools and expertise, as well as the mindset, that enables these results. By synergistically augmenting our creative powers with the latest analytical methodologies, we are helping brands like 3 Day Blinds boost their bottom line while making deep and lasting connections to the customers they value most.

For a long time, we relied on digital databases to provide us access to more data than we knew what to do with. But there are two problems with that reliance. On the one hand, the big data dumps are more than most marketers can handle. Without a dedicated analyst to make sense of the numbers, that data is as good as useless.

The other issue – and arguably the bigger problem – is that the data is going away. With the California Consumer Privacy Act going into effect at the beginning of 2020, we are seeing more and more information disappear.

So how do we get the information we need to be as effective as possible? At Gigasavvy, we’re seeing a resurgence of primary market research to fill the gap.

To clarify, Primary Research is custom research you perform yourself. Not desk research, or online searches where you farm information that others have gathered, but insights that you are gathering yourself – straight from the source – using tactics like focus groups, online surveys, or one-on-one customer interviews.

However, market research can be expensive. Not to mention; translating numbers into actionable information is an art – so, depending on the research partner you choose, it can have a limited impact on your business.

Here are three types of market research that we find are always worth the money, and that can have the biggest impact on your business.

Consumer Preference Studies

A consumer preference study helps identify specific consumer trends or market segments to help inform the way you do business.

These exploratory studies can help guide everything from product strategy to audience targeting. When designed around your specific business, it can give your brand a leg up over the competition by providing you with proprietary insights that only you own.

These types of studies are incredibly valuable when launching new things. For example:

• Launching a new product and identifying market reception
• Mid-stage startups and quantifying market opportunities
• New businesses or industries testing market interest

Brand Perception Studies

Brand Perception studies help quantify the subjective value of your brand. This type of research can be incredibly valuable at the start of a brand strategy project – when you’re trying to identify the best path forward for a new or refreshed brand – or to evaluate the health of an existing brand.

Between common measurements like Net Promoter Score, awareness levels and other quantifiable KPIs, this type of study repeated at regular intervals can give you an idea of how your brand is perceived, and the impact of your marketing and branding efforts.

At their core, Brand Perception studies give you a firm foundation to build your brand. They allow you to explore the attributes consumers like about your offer, and the factors you need to improve upon.

But don’t assume these studies are just for customers – your employees are an incredibly important audience for your brand. They have to be on board with your vision in order to accurately exemplify your values to the outside world. Your employees are the literal face to the brand, and it’s just as important to understand what they think is or isn’t working.

Understanding your brand and customers’ perceptions of it can help shape messaging and marketing approaches that will truly resonate and create loyal followers for the long term.

Ad Testing

Whether you’re testing a concept or a fully fleshed-out campaign, Ad Testing is a great way to get both qualitative and quantitative feedback on a creative concept.

Ad Testing can be the trickiest kind of market research. Consumers – who are not professional marketers – often don’t know what to look for when responding to ads. And, when being paid for their time (like in a focus group situation), they feel obligated to give opinions that they may or may not feel strongly about.

Ad Testing needs to be done carefully and consciously, keeping the line of questioning to subjects that the consumer has direct knowledge of, and topics directly pertaining to your advertising goals.

We use Ad Testing in a variety of ways to inform our creative decisions. In a recent case, we tested two partially-developed commercial concepts to help determine which one would be most effective with our target audience. The up-front research focused our efforts on a single ad that consumers told us would be most effective, rather than going through the time and budget of A/B testing two high-production-value ads.

In another case, we used Ad Testing to measure brand perceptions of a client, both before and after viewing an ad. (Spoiler: Our ads raised the client’s Net Promoter Score by over 30 points!)

A side note on A/B testing; It’s only as effective as the quality of work being tested. If you’re comparing two underwhelming concepts against each other, the final outcome will still be mediocre regardless of which campaign scores higher.

The Real Test

Regardless of the kind of market research you’re considering, make sure you’re clear on your objectives, and the questions you’re trying to answer. With a pointed focus on your end goals, you’re sure to find the right insights to propel your business and marketing strategy to create a true competitive advantage.