2017 Taught Us 3 Ways to Be
A Year in Review
What a rollercoaster.
2017 has had its ups and downs, with lots of lessons that we can bring into next year. When it comes to marketing, we’ve boiled it down to 3 simple tips that every brand can — and should — follow.
Be Authentic
Younger generations are born into a society based around consumption and are marketed to from birth. As a result, these consumers have a keen sense of which brands they can trust and which brands are just trying to push their product.
Influencer marketing has been very important this year. Influencers are individuals who have established social media followings that brands have the ability to leverage through partnership. Research by Leverage Marketingfound that 74% of people look to social networks to guide their purchase decisions.
Businesses can use the same tactics that makes influencer marketing so effective. Humanizing the company adds credibility and authenticity to the products, building trust between the brand and the consumer.
Wendy’s has done very well by applying these tactics to their Twitter account, revolutionizing the way brands run their social media. Their #NuggsforCarter campaign cultivated the most retweeted post of all time. The popularity of the account led to a recent Q&A event on Reddit where fans of the twitter account could ask questions directly to the social team. Needless to say, hilarity ensued.
Be Responsible
In 2017, brands placed high priority on their proactive responses to major issues, like never before. Global tragedies such as Hurricane Harvey and the Manchester Arena Bombing prompted several brands into taking action to help the victims of those events.
Anheuser-Busch, Miller Coors, and Oskar Blues stopped beer production so they could can and provide fresh water to those affected by Hurricane Harvey. Meanwhile, Airbnb waived their service fee and encouraged hosts to house the homeless.
Businesses also had to be careful about how they treated their own customers, as many fell into controversy. One of the biggest of the year was the United Airlines scandal when a passenger was violently removed from the plane. United’s CEO, Oscar Munoz, responded poorly by playing the incident off as a re-accommodation. As a result, irreparable brand damage has been done.
Organizations can actually recover from these controversies, but only if they ensure that problems are resolved and steps are taken to preventing future ones.
It’s important to be aware that your business can have a major impact on consumers’ lives, and that consumer opinion can have a major impact on your business’ success.
Be Creative
IT, one of this year’s most successful movies, and fast food giant, Burger King, were successful in creating unique campaigns that made use of new technologies.
IT seized audiences in three forms: physical, VR, and online. Warner Bros. worked with out-of-home agency, Grandesign, to bring 29 Neibolt Street — the terrifying house from the story — to life. They also created a short VR clip following the main character’s path through the sewers. The website had even more engaging content, such as an interactive story overview that allows users to scroll down into the sewers while discovering more of the lore.
“The biggest risk is not taking any risk.” -Mark Zuckerberg
Burger King was all about taking risks in their ad campaigns. This year they:
- Gave a free Whopper to people who just lost their jobs,
- Tackled bullying,
- Fired shots at McDonald’s and…
- Outsmarted Google
As we look towards 2018, we can use our lessons from this year to inform our planning and strategies. Together, let’s be more authentic, responsible, and creative as we tackle the new year!