Google’s recent announcement only further confirms that digital marketers need to shift their perspective to thrive in the new economy. But what does all this mean and what can you be doing today to get ahead of the curve?

We answer that and so much more with our panel of marketing leaders from DuckDuckGo, Melissa’s, Sling TV, and Centro as they dive deep into the importance of data privacy and how they’re challenging themselves to be more creative and innovative in the ways they communicate and connect with consumers.

Want to know more about how this will continue to impact your approach to marketing and advertising? Check out our blog No Cookies, No Problem: How To Position Your Brand For Success In A Privacy-First Future.

The time-tested web cookie—a tiny piece of data stored on users’ computers that tracks their activities as they browse the internet—is heading for the chopping block. As user privacy and protection become increasingly critical to company optics, Google has re-written the playbook once again, but it’s really just the tip of the iceberg.

When Firefox, making up 4% of the browser market, said it was planning on ending support for third-party cookies, advertisers barely noticed. When Apple said they were taking Safari, with a 19% market share, down the same path, brands started to get concerned. Meanwhile, DuckDuckGo reached 100M searches per day early this year, while never storing or sharing users’ information.

But when Google announced that, starting in 2022, third-party cookies will be disabled by default in Chrome, the browser that 64% of the world uses, everyone realized that this change was for real and that the impact would be felt across industries. Even more recently, Google announced it will stop selling ads based on your personal web browsing history, which many feel is effectively ending that practice for the rest of the industry, but not necessarily for Google themselves, who will still retain quite a variety of “ways” to claim 1st-party data rights.

Playing in the Sandbox

So what exactly will the cookieless future look like? That’s not entirely clear just yet, and it may never be. According to Gigasavvy’s own Sr. Media Strategist, Richard Simmons,

“It’s more than just cookies themselves. The issue is profiling people and processing their info without consent. As advertisers, we must remain at the ready to act on new ways to responsibly connect brands with their audiences.”

The 2021 marketing zeitgeist is now fixated on Google and its ‘Privacy Sandbox,’— a series of projects and initiatives for testing out potential replacements for third-party cookies.

One option is to move away from single-user tracking and instead target small cohorts, which is the theory behind Google’s FLoCs (Federated Learning of Cohorts) proposal. The idea is essentially a more granular and algorithmically-constructed buyer persona. Instead of one, hypothetical, perfect customer, the software models a large number of unique personas that share many of the characteristics and tendencies of individuals in a subset of your target market, but which has no actual individual identities associated with it.

“Doing something like that was counterintuitive just nine or 10 months ago,” said Chetna Bindra, Google’s senior product manager for user trust, privacy, and transparency. “But the performance we’re seeing with FLoC shows that it’s nearly as effective as third-party cookies.”

Nielsen recently released its own next-generation, cookieless tracking solution called Identity Sync. It uses first-party identifiers collected from publishers and advertisers for identity resolution. According to Nielsen, the system was tested by the Spanish hospitality company Barceló Hotel Group. They reported that 96-percent of their conversions (in this case new bookings) were attributable to marketing touchpoints optimized with Identity Sync.

Diverse Ecosystem or Walled Garden?

Not everyone is thrilled with the idea of letting Google call the shots for the future of tracking. Oracle, for example, claimed in a recent blog post that Google’s ideas are disguising an attempt to lock in users and publishers and maintain its dominance in the online advertising market.

Oracle also alleges that FLoCs won’t actually solve the privacy problem because Google’s algorithms will produce and optimize so many of them so quickly that it won’t be long before they narrow it down to FLoCs that purport to represent a cohort, but in fact, describe just one individual.

The biggest accusation Oracle hurled was that Google’s sudden interest in protecting privacy is really an attempt to get ahead of regulators, burnish its image by misleading consumers, and amass ever-greater stores of first-party tracking data that it alone controls.

Google, Oracle, Facebook, Amazon, and the other tech giants with an interest in the future of digital advertising will have to fight these issues out, but there is hope that a diverse ecosystem of privacy-safe ad technologies and products will emerge.

A Return to First-Party Data

That diverse ecosystem is sorely needed. Currently, 64-percent of ad buyers say they rely on Google for identity resolution, but many are already starting to diversify their options and take on new identity management partners.

Even if a workable, efficient, and privacy-compliant alternative to cookies emerges, advertisers won’t soon forget the dread they felt upon learning that their supply of third-party data could be turned off so abruptly. Many have realized that, in the future, they will need to cultivate and own proprietary stores of first-party data about their market and its customers.

“We’ve had as much inbound interest in the last five months as we have had over the last three years,” said Tasso Argyros, CEO of customer data platform ActionIQ. “The reason is people on both the brand and publisher sides are thinking a lot more about first-party data because third-party data is becoming less valuable for legacy and privacy reasons.”

Investing in first-party data will solve some of the problems the end of web cookies will cause, but it doesn’t absolve brands or advertisers of their responsibilities to protect user data and privacy.

To that end, some organizations have adopted so-called data ‘clean rooms,’ centralized depositories of anonymous data collected by advertisers, publishers, and tech companies. Though it adds new challenges to data management, that solution enables cross-platform, omnichannel measurement with zero risk of personally identifiable information being leaked.

Never Forget the People Behind the Data

It’s important to note just how complex this issue is and how high the stakes are. International governments, global tech giants, advertisers, publishers, and nothing less than the fate of the fundamental human right to data privacy, will all be affected by the recent changes.

As advertisers, branding experts, and analytically-driven marketers, the Gigasavvy team is watching the ecosystem closely and is optimistic that these changes will give us a stronger footing to better connect with consumers on a more human level.

Though marketing tech empowers us, we must not lose sight of the fact that human beings are the driving forces behind every online connection—amongst each other and among brands. This is an opportunity to balance the scales in order to solidify deeper connections in a digitally dominated world.

It’s said that great marketing and advertising blends both art and science to achieve positive outcomes. As disciplines, they meld intense ideation and bold, emotionally-evocative creativity with advanced metrics that generate actionable insights. The whole will always be greater than the sum of its parts.

In fact, an overreliance on analytics will almost always present creative roadblocks, leading to bland, homogenized advertising that often gets overlooked. If data and market research were the only voice in the room, ads like Apple’s groundbreaking “1984” might never have aired. Then Apple CEO, John Scully, went so far as to attempt to sell off some of the Super Bowl ad time he dedicated to it for fear of a major PR disaster. Today, it is one of the most esteemed campaigns of all time.

Creativity is King

All this talk of data is much needed, but the real democratizer and opportunity lies in the power of truly creative work to connect with consumers.

Algorithms and optimizing machines fed a constant stream of user data have given advertisers more insight into their customers than at any time in history, and while that innovation yields incremental improvements in things like engagement and conversion rates, it still can’t ‘create’ in the true sense of the word.

It can’t invent something new and worthwhile by being cognizant of an unsolved problem, a deficiency in the world. It can’t know when to buck a trend, when to go against the grain, or when to take a crazy leap of faith. For that, you still need a human to add their emotional, instinctual, and cultural knowledge to the equation.

In our mad dash for data, the focus sometimes gets lost on just what we plan to do with it. Does data inform our work? Of course. But, we have to respect where it comes from, be wise stewards of it, and implement it in a thoughtful way that fuses the best of the digital and the analog.

To create something new you have to diverge from the common path. That’s where breakthroughs happen. That’s where ideas connect with the zeitgeist and beyond, becoming timeless.

Privacy is Worth Protecting… and an Invaluable Brand Differentiator

Among the tech giants, Apple has been an early and often promoter of technologies that protect privacy, which was categorically driven home by their “Privacy. That’s iPhone.” campaign.

When CEO Tim Cook testified before Congress in 2018 to discuss the role of the tech giants in our lives, he said Apple believes privacy is a “fundamental human right.” Apple VP of software technology Bud Tribble added: “Ultimately, privacy is about living in a world where you can trust that your decisions about how your personal information is shared and used are being respected.”

For the general public, constant headlines about data breaches, identity theft, and a growing awareness that we are being monitored, tracked, and recorded virtually everywhere are making brands that stake out a strong pro-privacy stance look that much more desirable.

That might explain why tiny DuckDuckGo, a more private search engine alternative to Google or Bing, saw its traffic rise 62-percent in 2020 and is now the second most popular engine on mobile phones (which account for 60-percent of all searches).

There’s an ongoing debate in advertising as to its appropriate role in shaping culture. Many in the industry believe that we play a critical role in not just impacting the overall culture we operate in, but in creating it as well. With privacy at play, an opportunity has arisen for bold brands to differentiate themselves from their competitors by taking a stand on this vitally important issue.

“As leaders of industry, we have the opportunity to stand for something bigger than our digital data dependencies. By putting people and their privacy first, rather than prioritizing profit through mass manipulation, we can create a safer and more connected world that still breeds success for our respective organizations.”

– Kyle Johnston, President & Co-Founder Gigasavvy

It’s not just smart brand positioning, it’s a legitimate cause that the entire industry can rally behind for the betterment of society as a whole — and, in so doing, promote new innovations and simply better marketing and ads.

Are you concerned about connecting with your customers in a privacy-first world? Get in touch with Gigasavvy today to discuss how you can be prepared for the next generation of digital marketing.

In case you missed our exciting roundtable with featured guests Cristina Stanley, VP Marketing, DuckDuckGo, Nick Quintero, Dir. of Digital Media, Melissa’s Produce, Noor Naseer, VP Media Innovations & Technology, Centro, and Robert Zibell, GM Digital, Sling TV, you can watch the lively discussion about privacy in advertising here.

In the modern digital economy, growth is prized above almost all else. Investors, advertisers, brands, and users all want to be associated with the next big thing.

While TikTok can’t match Facebook’s massive reach, Mark Zuckerberg is unquestionably envious of the Chinese-owned app’s eye-watering growth figures. In 2020, TikTok broke 100 million active daily users and saw overall user growth top 85.3-percent in the U.S., and we weren’t alone. 12 of the 13 countries eMarketer studied saw similar growth rates in the high double to low triple digits.

TikTok will clearly play a big role in the year to come. The question is, how are brands strategically leveraging its unique advantages while avoiding the pitfalls of a still new and somewhat unpredictable social network?

What’s in the Secret Sauce?

As rumors of an acquisition by Microsoft swirled in late 2020, analysts debated whether TikTok’s value was its brand and the youthful demo that was flocking to it, or their highly effective, and mostly secret algorithm — which is uncannily good at figuring out what a user wants and delivering it to them.

The deal never went through, and the details of TikTok’s algorithm remain a mystery, but what we do know is that unlike for example Google or Facebook, which have huge repositories of demographic and behavioral data (much of it submitted voluntarily by the users themselves) for optimizing user experiences and targeting outreach, TikTok feeds three main inputs into its algorithm:

• Computer Vision: Optical detection of scene elements (e.g. “girl in sneakers dancing outside”)
• Natural Language Processing (NLP): Audio portions of videos are transcribed and then analyzed for keywords, tone, and general meaning
• Metadata: Uploaded file names, hashtags, and other user-entered descriptions and comments

What happens in the black box when all that information is analyzed is anyone’s guess, but what comes out, is a user experience that is nothing short of addictive.

Business consultants and futurists have been foretelling of this day for years. Machine learning is finally enabling personalized content delivery at scale in the real world. And also as predicted, users prefer their experience personalized. They like seeing things that interest them, connect to their lives, appeal to their sensibilities, and speak their language.

Risk Management

Investing in TikTok is not without its risks. For one thing, numerous countries (including the U.S.) have threatened to ban it on more than one occasion. India, one of the largest and most active TikTok user bases in the world, just implemented a complete ban of the app over a border dispute with China.

The U.S. ban, which reportedly had to do with foreign censorship and user privacy concerns, never went into effect (and a forced sale to an American company also never happened), and though its status stateside is still in limbo, it does appear the immediate risk of a nationwide ban has passed.

From a brand-safety perspective, advertisers are demanding active moderation and transparency as to content standards. Brands courting a youth demographic are particularly cautious about the content they produce, share, and comment on.

They’d also like more clarity as to whether TikTok is censoring content that is critical of Chinese interests. For its part, TikTok claims it only withholds promotion from content they deem as inappropriately shocking or spam.

What’s clear is that, whether it’s domestic or foreign-based, the honeymoon period with social media has passed. The vulnerabilities are now as apparent as the opportunities. The benefits of engaging with new communities and channels, however, still outweigh the risks for most.

Never Waste Virality

For some brands, the biggest risk associated with TikTok is failing to leverage it when opportunities arise. Paint purveyor Sherwin-Williams learned that lesson the hard way after finding itself ridiculed for firing a young employee that was producing hypnotizing TikTok videos of paint being mixed.

“They sent a signal, as loud as it was unintentional, that employees who do what they’re told are more valuable than employees who think outside the box,” PR executive Andrew Cross told Adweek. “They’ve unintentionally stifled employee ingenuity.”

@tonesterpaint’s 1.6 million followers were outraged. Many chastised Sherwin-Williams and questioned why they hadn’t instead partnered with him, like Ocean Spray did when a skateboarder named Dogface went viral lip-syncing Fleetwood Mac while drinking one of their juices.

Standout Moments

2020 was a breakout year for TikTok because it afforded an incredible opportunity for brands to not just speak to their audience, but interact and have fun with them. Some of the most popular such trends right now include:

Here are several brands that strategically exploited the platform with inventive, co-creative, and inherently viral experiences:

Beats By Dre

One of the most successful TikTok brand activations in 2020 was the branded hashtag challenge, where brands ask their followers to perform a certain task and then post their experience online with an associated hashtag.

To launch a new line of summer colors for their headphones, Beats by Dre partnered with rapper and influencer Ashnikko who asked her 1.9 million followers to collaborate on a series of videos based on each color and tagged with #BeatsDaisyChallenge. The campaign netted 7.1 billion views and 460 million engagements.

We’ve teamed up with @ashnikko to create a colorful video for her new track “Daisy.”
Tap in to join the #BeatsDaisyChallenge on TikTok. https://t.co/zUjfNlAarA pic.twitter.com/GigR9oF2hR

— Beats by Dre (@beatsbydre) July 13, 2020

Dunkin’

McDonald’s is serving up combo meals the way rapper Travis Scott and reggaeton star J Balvin like them, and Chipotle offers a Shawn Mendes bowl. But Dunkin’ has plans to feature some less well-known fans of their menu.
It’s asking brand fans to share their favorite food hacks, inventive combinations of their menu items like “Maddie’s Hack,” a bagel with cream cheese, hash browns, and Snackin’ Bacon, and tag their post to TikTok with #DunkinMenuHackContest. Three winners will have their creations featured on menus nationwide.

Ray-Ban

In response to advertiser demand, TikTok’s Creative Lab launched a gamified branded effect feature in the summer of 2020. Sunglass maker Ray-Ban was one the first brands to go viral with an augmented reality TikTok element that allowed users to directly interact with on-screen branded elements. Users donned a virtual pair of shades and used their own eyebrows as paddles in a game of virtual pinball.

Street Grace

If you think TikTok is only about entertainment and commerce, take a look at the good works an Atlanta-based nonprofit is doing on the platform.

To combat child sex trafficking, Street Grace created a TikTok account called the Help Locker, which debunks misinformation about trafficking and serves as a sounding board and source of education for teens and others looking for help or guidance related to this sensitive issue. The account has generated 150,000 followers and over 3 million likes.

Why Brands Are So Interested

Simply put, TikTok offers better access to young demographics than just about any other digital platform today. Plus, the engagement figures are through the roof. Instagram is bleeding users to TikTok, and that trend will likely continue.

Additionally, whereas Instagram is designed to keep users connected to people they already know and follow, TikTok is optimized to show content that its algorithm think’s they’ll enjoy, regardless of whether they have been exposed to it before.

Because viral content is optimized and discovery is baked into the platform, TikTok is far more likely to elevate small content creators than Instagram.

Speak Your Audience’s Language

Marshall McLuhan, one of the fathers of modern media theory, was the first to assert that “the medium is the message.” The context, in other words, is communicating as loudly as the content, and TikTok’s medium is fast, fun, new, young, experimental, mobile, and ephemeral.

With the reach and effect of paid media gradually diminishing with young audiences, TikTok is an opportunity to connect with them where they are, in the medium they are most comfortable with.

TikTok for Brands Roudtable

Can’t get enough TikTok? Check out our recent roundtable discussion centered around the business case for TikTok and how brands can leverage this technology to create campaigns that engage consumers in new and exciting ways.

Ready to dive into the TikTok universe? Get in touch with us today to begin crafting your own brand experience on TikTok.

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.

The majority of consumers make decisions based on their personal values.

So what does a successful purpose-driven strategy look like?

We held a roundtable discussion with four marketing and business leaders from three national and global brands, to explore the ways they create and support powerful purpose-driven strategies. 

Here are some of the takeaways from our panel of purpose-driven marketers:

Question: Why did you choose to pursue a purpose-driven brand and marketing strategy?

Barbara Moreno, VP Marketing of Allied Universal

It started before I even took the position with Allied Universal, when I was doing my research on the industry. What we found was that there was a sea of sameness and lack of differentiation among our top competitors. 

When we started doing our own research, we found that customers and employees would tend to talk about features and benefits. But when there’s no emotional connection, customers tend to make decisions based on price. That’s a problem. We don’t want to be viewed as commoditized. 

We started to dig into our why: what do we and why do we do? What we uncovered – the feeling of safety – was there all along. 

Safety is a basic, fundamental truth based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This went perfectly with our existing tagline, “There for you,” and resonated with us as a team. We were able to build a distinct purpose around defining what “there for you” means.

As we defined our direction, it was key to have executive buy-in at every step of the process. We had ongoing conversations with our CEO as we went along. The CEO was involved every step of the way in defining our new guiding statements, and in the brand campaign that brought our purpose to life. It’s essential to involve your senior leadership and to have that alignment all the way through the process.

Question: What are some of the challenges in pursuing a purpose-driven strategy?

Helen Robinson, CEO of Organic Initiative

The noise! Greenwashing is a big issue for us. In the period products marketplace, unlike food companies or cosmetics, we are not required by law to list ingredients on our packages. So when someone sees “made with organic cotton,” no one realizes that the majority of the product is made of plastic and filled with toxins and chemicals. That communication makes it hard for companies like us who are doing it right.

Our conventional competitors have very deep pockets. So how do we help educate our customers that there is a different way? 

We have gone through the difficult process of ensuring that our period products are certified organic, globally. We have to use partnerships with like-minded companies to help us get that message out. It’s certainly not easy. There’s so much misinformation everywhere. 

What we’ve tried to do is use a provocative positive protest. We want to be positive and forward-thinking, while also being thought-provoking. Our packages say “Pure inside, nothing to hide.” We want the consumer to think about what that statement really means, and to ask questions about the products they are buying and using.

Question: How do you ensure that your purpose- or mission-driven strategy is playing out in an authentic way?

Daniel Lee, Head of Brand and Technology, Flame Broiler

Christian Lee, Head of Business Operations, Flame Broiler

Especially recently, being an ethical company has become a table-stakes feature for brands. For a lot of companies, being purpose-driven comes from a place of showing first, and doing second. Many companies are making it about a marketing ploy. 

For us, at Flame Broiler, it’s all about the heart. We try to live our values before we talk about them. When you lead with purpose, you may have a P&L that doesn’t always make sense. For example, we buy antibiotic-free chicken and sell it for $7.40.

But when your purpose is woven into the framework of who you are and let it inform your decisions, you can be confident that you’ll live it authentically. And success, profits, growth, become a byproduct. 

We use the analogy of an archer. Some archers look at the bullseye and try to hit it again and again. But instead of trying to focus on hitting the bullseye, if you focus on your form, equipment, and breathing, it becomes much easier to be successful. 

Question: Describe some of the success you’ve found in pursuing a purpose-driven strategy?

Daniel Lee, Head of Brand and Technology, Flame Broiler

Christian Lee, Head of Business Operations, Flame Broiler

When the company started, our dad never wanted more than one store. But in 2020, there are hundreds of locations. We’ve gotten to where we are through word of mouth. 

Our dad opened the first store to feed us and feed people good food. But customers demanded more, so he allowed franchisors to open their own store. We have no franchise salespeople, which is unusual in our world. Our growth is entirely community-driven. 

Barbara Moreno, VP Marketing of Allied Universal

Our industry has very high turnover so employee loyalty is super important. We’re very focused on employee retention. Being purpose-driven makes a lot of difference from that perspective. Since we’ve began communicating that purpose, we’ve had a lot of positive feedback from our employees!

When we were able to articulate our purpose, it gave our employees and customers a definition of what they were a part of. It simplified our message. It brought authenticity and clarity for everyone in our organization. When you’re truly authentic to your purpose, people are naturally drawn in. It drives loyalty among customers and employees. It gives people a much bigger reason to believe in a company.

Helen Robinson, CEO of Organic Initiative

A single purpose guides our underlying principles. What are the actions and messages that you can use that play on those principles?

We use sales agencies and brokers to work with different retailers. This year, I spoke at a sales rep event. When I thanked them, I told them, “When you’re out there next year talking with buyers and stores and customers, remember that it’s not just about the orders and products on the shelf. It’s about the impact you’re making for the world and the health of women in the world.” The feedback I’ve had is how motivated they are because of that purpose!

Bonus Question: How did you find the right agency to pursue a purpose-driven strategy?

Barbara Moreno, VP Marketing of Allied Universal

It’s really important to find an agency partner that understands you well as a client and that can help you find ways to articulate your purpose and bring it to life. 

Not every agency has the background and wherewithal to tap into those core human truths and to create that core emotional connection with a given brand. For us, we’re very appreciative of working with Gigasavvy. From the beginning, the focus was on who we are as a company and brand, our culture, and why we do things. It’s that close partnership that allowed us to really be successful together.

     “Will brand marketing provide a return on my investment?”

     Or even… “We’re not looking for brand work at this time. Do you do performance marketing?”

These are real questions I have been asked by brands, friends and colleagues looking to hire agencies.

Regardless of the audience, my response is typically that brand vs. performance is not an either/or decision. For short term growth and long-term success, you really need a strategy that utilizes both.

To help explore the topic, here are some of the top myths about performance marketing.

Myth #1: Only Performance Marketing Tactics will Solve My Sales Problems

Performance Marketing often focuses solely on lower funnel tactics, capturing quick wins, or even borrowing from a “growth hacker” mentality. It is typically effective at producing a quick hit and an attractive sales bump as it picks up on those already in-market to make a purchase, regardless of brand related factors (“brand switchers”).

Brand marketing is the language through which performance marketing can articulate long term goals, real consumer motivations, and build a sales funnel set up for longevity. Only by knowing your brand positioning, your brand attributes, and how to translate that into messaging and imagery that resonates, will you will be able to elevate your marketing to create short term growth and long term customer retention.

So yes, effective performance marketing can produce short term sales or leads, but unless brand focused tactics are taken into consideration as well, the “why” that inspires consumers to purchase dissipates shortly thereafter – and along with it, your customer retention.

Myth #2: Performance Marketing offers a Better ROI than Brand Marketing

An effective sales funnel doesn’t end after the first conversion.

The fastest return is often conflated with being the best return on any investment. Even experienced marketers can fall victim to glamorizing the lower funnel conversions. This is often connected to last-click attribution models and other short term measurement strategies. As the most common form of measuring digital marketing performance, the last-click attribution model uses key performance indicators (KPIs) such as return on ad spend (ROAS), cost-per-click and other black and white data points.

While these metrics give us healthy insight into campaign performance, they can often be misleading. In this type of attribution model, the lower funnel, performance marketing tactics – the ad that gets the final click – get all the credit for the resulting transaction. And as a side effect, the brand-related marketing that actually allowed the last ad to work will get no credit, and therefore appears to have a much lower ROI.

So, while ROI for performance marketing is easy to measure because results are immediate, it’s entirely possible (and likely) that a campaign’s effectiveness was only possible because of the support provided by a strong upper-funnel (brand-focused) strategy.

Want to know more about full funnel and retention marketing?

Myth #3: Performance Marketing and Brand Marketing are Separate Strategies

At the end of the day (or campaign), real success is achieved by artfully articulating your brand’s vision, while ruthlessly optimizing against multi-touch performance data. Looking at brand and performance tactics as separate initiatives (or even hiring two different agencies to execute them) is a strategy destined to crash and burn. After all, the bottom line for an effective marketing strategy should be about making a positive impact on a brand’s financial health and market share, in the short and long term.

So, can we all just agree to drop the “performance” vs. “brand” debate and embrace the power of both? A strategy that employs both brand AND performance marketing tactics will allow you to effectively influence the one audience EVERY brand is trying to reach…humans.

Let’s Recap

Between performance marketing AND brand marketing is the power of “and”.

Think in terms of Pareto’s Law, the principle that 80% of your sales come from 20% of your customer base. Performance marketing allows you to bring in sales from the 80% who just want to complete a transaction. But, the 20% that will make up more than half of your sales need something deeper than just a transaction – they want to connect with your brand in a way that performance tactics just won’t allow for.

Read about how to create true brand love with your customers

Performance and brand marketing hold entirely different, but complementary purposes. While performance marketing can close deals and boost short-term sales, brand-focused tactics help to drive brand loyalty and long term customer retention.

Don’t buy into the either/or debate. Only the combination of both practices will drive real human influence and create the kind of success we’re all looking to achieve with marketing and advertising.

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.

Today, we are living in a new era of consumer behavior, technology and brand & marketing strategy. As your company looks to the next big game-changer in digital, brand, traditional marketing and beyond, here are some continuing trends to keep in mind as we enter the 2020’s.

A Comeback for Market Research

With the rise of digital data, it seemed as though formal market research was becoming a dying art. Marketers were hesitant to spend the time and money on primary research because all the information they could ever want was available via software and online databases. Right?

As of January 1, 2020, companies doing business in California will be required to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), regarded as the most stringent consumer privacy law in the country. Often compared to Europe’s GDPR, and expected to impact business well beyond California’s borders, marketers are going to be held to a higher standard when it comes to managing customer data and providing transparency about third party data practices.

A Fresh Look at Brand Culture

When a brand is thoughtfully created and strategically supported, it can be felt throughout an entire organization. In 2019, we all had eyes on immersive, or experiential brands – moving into 2020, internal branding and brand culture will retake center stage.

Brand culture is an organization’s internally-facing experience, values, and a strategic branded foundation that creates a consistent company environment; this enables employees to feel part of a larger team and to deliver on the externally-facing brand promise with conviction.

With recent unemployment rates dropping to record lows, we have seen companies boosting their retention efforts and adding amenities to the workplace to ensure employees stay put in the midst of ample job opportunities.

However, brand culture is not the same thing as a foosball table in the breakroom. It’s a careful consideration of the type of experience you deliver to employees; defining your values and the way your company is unique so that employees can project that experience to everyone who encounters the brand. This is a fundamental shift in how brand strategists will approach developing a brand’s positioning platforms and messaging strategies – it has to start from the inside out.

A Focus on Less Polished Content

Yes, you read that right.

To clarify – less polished doesn’t translate to poor quality. “Less polished” means branded content that adds value to the consumer experience beyond selling them something. It is authentic to the user experience, and appropriate for the medium in which it’s being received.

With thriving organic content platforms like Instagram Stories (500 Million DAU), Snapchat making a comeback (7 million new DAU in 2019), and TikTok being the most downloaded app in Q1 2019 (1 billion views daily) – there is one commonality between them: organic, user-generated, short-form content. Using this as an example, we expect to see more brands creating content that blends with this style, instead of disrupting it.

You can see this happening more and more on your own social media feeds. As users have adjusted to paid content, they begin to ignore the polished posts they can easily separate from their feeds. Brands hit back with consumer-created ads and edgier campaigns that engage people as equals rather than targets.

As a society, we have been shaped by digital mediums to absorb content in bite-size pieces, not as a narrative. However, in the past few years, we have watched the pendulum swing as consumers return to craving long-form storytelling. Yes – we are talking about podcasts.

It is our responsibility to stay on top of digital transformation across many different platforms and verticals. The technology that we use to market to our consumers can change quickly, so this requires an advanced strategic understanding of how audience development and platforms can work together.

To engage our target consumers, we must know not only where they spend their time, but why. 

To help you navigate the changing world of digital marketing, we’ve put together a guide outlining the top four digital marketing strategies that we’re incorporating into our clients’ 2020 plans.

Live Video as the True Audience Connector

Are You Engaging Your Audience in Real Time?

Live videos allow you to deliver your brand’s message in real-time and help create trust and loyalty between your brand and your consumers.

Data Advances in Audience Segmentation

How Well Do You Know Your Audience?

Reaching people online is easy. Reaching the right people online requires more strategic thinking.

How Voice Search is Changing SEO Forever

Can Your Customers Even Find You?

It’s estimated that 50% of all online searches will be voice searches by 2020. Needless to say, optimizing for voice search should be a top priority for your brand and website.

The Power of Real-Time Reporting

If it’s not real time, is it even relevant?

Has anyone told you that excel spreadsheet reporting is dead? If not, I’m telling you now.

Download the Complete Guide