Our Ops Director Mike Sharp gives his take on what to expect next year.
As we roll towards the tail end of 2021 it is that time of year where agencies and thought leaders start to roll out their predictions for the coming 12 months. In fact, a quick search online yields my own article from a previous life written six years ago. What did I predict then?
A change in attribution – the growth and importance of Data-Driven Attribution as it became mainstream
Year of the mobile continued – the switch to mobile-first and the growth of mobile-first formats
Hyper local search – A move towards Minority Report style ads thanks to improved accuracy in tracking
Google Shopping advances – since Google’s switch away from the free listings, Google Shopping would push forward significantly with new formats and local ads
It’s strangely comforting that even six years on these could still be relevant in 2022 – everything has changed in advertising, but also nothing has! Although hopefully everyone realises that ‘the year of the mobile’ prediction has definitely run its course.
So, what could be dominating the digital marketing industry over the next 12 months?
It’s safe to say that people are now more comfortable than ever talking to things around their house and expecting to get coherent answers – not something as a parent I can quite relate to!
Our industry’s been predicting voice search uptake for years, but now the interesting part comes with how these searches get monetised. From an SEO perspective the What, How or Who queries have long been valued as a way of owning these results, but over the next 12 months I expect to see more from audio ads with advances in Google’s existing YouTube Audio ads offering.
Android Auto penetration is also on the rise, which is further boosting voice searches, so there is another captive audience waiting to be advertised to by Google.
We take it for granted now that Smart paid media campaigns are the norm and will outperform most human-led ones. They’ve helped to free up Account Managers’ time with automation, allowing marketers to focus on strategy and creative processes to push our clients even further.
We’ll see the use of AI increase even further as companies big and small lean into it to help with predictive modelling and forecasting as part of the standard planning cycles.
The pandemic has also seen the rise of conversational AI in the form of bots and digital assistants – again, something that will continue to grow over time, helping with onsite conversion and customer retention.
Expected to surpass 1.5 billion users in 2022, TikTok is going to absolutely dominate social media in 2022 – bringing with it the continued captivation with influencers, memes, and trends.
TikTok has quickly advanced its ad platform to become more accessible for more brands. In the coming 12 months I think we’ll see smaller brands using the platform, moving it away from the playground of the mega brands and into a core part of the media mix. ‘Always on’ micro and nano influencers will also become more valuable as brands try to target their niche in an affordable way.
Between the impending death of third-party cookies, talk of first-party analytics and even zero-party data, much has already been said in this space, so I won’t dwell on it too much.
Given Google’s already delayed deadline of 2023 for them phasing out, we should expect to hear a more about the possible alternatives. No doubt Google will desperately be finding a way of protecting its revenue streams whilst tipping its hat to the more privacy-conscious consumers and advertisers.
So we can all expect to become more familiar with terms like Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoCs) and Unified IDs or Authenticated Traffic Solutions… exciting!
One of the biggest struggles in digital marketing is the constant battle to improve attribution modelling – especially cross-channel and cross-device.
Google spent many years teasing Google Attribution, only to pull it and pretend it never happened. GA4 is now stepping up to fill some of this gap as well as staying on the right side of the incoming privacy changes.
In 2017 Facebook pushed out its own attribution tool, which seemed to be gaining momentum – only for it to be pulled again this year.
So, my hope is the next 12 months will bring with it improvements in how we measure clients’ success and attribute that fairly across the channel mix – but a part of me suspects it will still be a hot topic for the next few rounds of predictions.
It should be another exciting year in the paid marketing sphere this year. After what’s been a fairly strange 18 months for everyone, these advances will allow us to drive forward our clients’ businesses and continue helping them capitalise on opportunities.
All the best for the festive season!
Children’s Hospice South West are one of the largest children’s hospice charities in the UK, providing Children’s palliative, respite, end-of-life and bereavement care for children with life limiting and life threatening illnesses and their families from the South West England region. Before the challenges of the 2020 pandemic, CHSW had already identified a need to boost fundraising income and grow their well established support base. Working with AgencyUK, the team have developed a strategy to raise brand awareness and start building a younger base of donors.
The first integrated campaign launches CHSW onto TV this Christmas, targeting the brand to potential new donors in the South West (Cornwall, Devon, Bristol). The strategy looks to connect CHSW with this new audience whereby a lasting relationship might be established.
“We wanted to create a campaign for CHSW which raises awareness of the brand, and the vital work they do. The sensitive nature of the subject matter meant the creative had to be researched and tested prior to final production and release. The advertising tells the story of families of children with life-limiting conditions, emphasizing their journey with the charity. Children’s Hospice South West is so much more than just end-of-life care associated with the term hospice – the charity supports their families to create times that matter; time to laugh, time to share, time to rest, remember, and most importantly, time to just be a family – something that any parent can relate to. Our creative approach therefore was to create a relatable campaign with an authentic narrative that was far more positive than a traditional charity TV campaign, that our audience feels good about supporting rather than guilt tripping people into giving,” says Nix Boulton, art director, AgencyUK
“As the creative work developed and more time was spent telling the stories of the families, the AUK team became emotionally attached to the work CHSW do. I don’t think one person involved in this production left the set without their life having been touched in some way,” says Amy Mansourpour, director, AgencyUK.
“We are delighted with the work we have created with AgencyUK, and the support the families have given us throughout this process. We’re looking forward to seeing the campaign go live, and the opportunity for us to build on it throughout 2022,” says Jess Patel, director of marketing and communications, CHSW.
“At AgencyUK we pursue opportunities to work with brands and organisations that we truly believe in and want to get behind as a team. We’re incredibly proud to call Children’s Hospice South West a client, as the work they do is truly remarkable. This isn’t just about a project or the next advertising campaign, this is about turning our skills as marketers and using them to make a difference each and every day. It’s about solidarity and human empathy,” says Sammy Mansourpour, managing director, AgencyUK.
The new CHSW campaign will be live over Christmas 2021, and will be launched on TV and YouTube, before amplification through broader social media channels and digital advertising formats.
The new ‘Intro to Game Art’ short course will give you an insight into the world of game art, exploring the range of roles and essential skills needed to get you started when exploring a potential future career in game art. There is a host of exciting modules that your tutor will guide you through, including:
Planning and producing work to a design brief.
Working in the games industry
Concept art for computer games
Modelling for computer games
This new and exciting programme is designed to equip individuals (aged 19+) with the technical skills, knowledge and understanding needed to produce digital content across several platforms, ensuring you can use social media most effectively for your small business, sports team or trade.
This course will provide a great opportunity for you to develop media production techniques, such as camera operating (on mobile devices, DSLR cameras and broadcast cameras), video editing, graphics and motion graphics to produce content for Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and more. There is a host of exciting modules that your tutor will guide you through, including:
Planning your Project
Camera Production Techniques
Sound Recording Techniques
Editing Techniques
This new and exciting programme is designed to equip individuals (aged 19+) with the technical skills, knowledge and understanding needed to produce digital content across several platforms, ensuring you can use social media most effectively for your small business, sports team or trade.
This course will provide a great opportunity for you to develop graphic design techniques, such as designing and producing a brand identity and branded graphics for Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and more. There is a host of exciting modules that your tutor will guide you through, including:
Planning your Project
Typography and Layouts
Working with Illustrator and Photoshop
Creating a Brand
Independent brand consultancy, Mr B & Friends, has unveiled a bold new brand strategy and design identity for global serviced accommodation booking agent, Situ.
Situ combines industry leading technology with first-class customer experience to provide an impeccable and effortless service for a range of client companies, from large corporates to film production companies, to clients in the construction industry. Having continually proven its credentials since its inception in 2006, Situ needed a brand that reflected the organisation’s unique positioning – while delivering a visual and verbal identity that stood out in an increasingly homogenised and predictable sector.
Situ’s point of difference was clear from the outset – they emphasise the value of the relationship between their team and the client. Every Situ listing is subject to stringent quality checks to make sure it’s perfect; criteria that ensures Situ continually achieve excellent service ratings ensuring that in a world of faceless booking agents and platforms, Situ’s approach has always been, and will continue to be, people-first.
Mr B & Friends worked collaboratively with CEO Phil Stapleton, Head of Communications Jo Redman and Senior Marketing Manager Tamara Edgar. The brand idea took its lead from the company ethos and created the organising thought ‘Connected by people’. A perfect encapsulation of the way Situ empowers their team to deliver unforgettable service, sources quality serviced accommodation options and creates unique tech which supports their clients.
The visual identity was transformed, capturing the energetic, upbeat personalities of the team behind Situ. A warm, charming tone of voice adds to the appeal, while the three brand pillars (technology, people and product) are brought to life through three powerful propositions: Search with ease, Service with heart and Stays with soul.
Liam Smith, Associate Planning Director at Mr B & Friends said: “From the first meeting we felt the warmth and positivity of the Situ team and could see their dedication to making booking effortless for their clients. Following category research, we identified this space as the narrative that Situ could own and make distinctive. It was clear that we had to translate this into a powerful brand idea.”
Situ Founder and CEO, Phil Stapleton says, “The new brand strategy and identity is perfect. Our ambitions meant that we needed a brand and cultural platform that would unite our company and take us all to the next level. The work that Mr B & Friends have created epitomises what we’re all about as a company, but also importantly enables us the Situ brand to really stand out in the business travel, global mobility, and relocation sectors.”
Tamara Edgar, Senior Marketing Manager at Situ says, “What I loved about working with the team at Mr B was their ability to really tease out our personality, our ethos, our aspirations and our culture and make that shine through in the new brand which now just feels so us, so Situ!”
The project was awarded to Mr B & Friends following a competitive, but non-creative pitch process. The agency has now helped Situ to implement the new idenity across internal communications, digital estate and customer facing marketing.
Client team
Phil Stapleton, CEO
Tamara Edgar, Senior Marketing Manager
Jo Redman, Head of Communications
Agency team
Liam Smith, Associate Planning Director
Harriet Whitehorne, Head of Copy and Content
Sara Foley, Middleweight Designer
Chris Tozer, Associate Creative Director
Andy Kaye, Account Director
Steve Richardson, Executive Creative Director
Simon Barbato, CEO
After what’s been a stellar year for awards and recognition at Launch, we’re delighted to be rounding off the year by being recognised as a top 10 paid search agency in the UK by The Drum Recommends.
It’s a real honour to be listed among giants of the PPC industry, and is testament to the brilliant work and effort our team puts into client accounts. Our team has more than doubled in size this year, and we’re excited to continue putting our clients at the forefront of paid search in 2022.
You can read The Drum’s full write-up, and see the other agencies listed here.
As digital marketers, we have to constantly evolve and adapt to the world around us. And the past 18 months taught us how to respond to extreme changes to the digital landscape.
Looking ahead to 2022, we need to think about how to recover and thrive in this new private, customer-centric online world.
So, what are the key macro trends to focus on in 2022? Let’s take a look at the main topics that should be high on your agenda in the coming months (and beyond).
The last few months have been described as ‘The Great Resignation’, and marketing – both in-house and agency-side – has undoubtedly been impacted.
This isn’t exclusively a digital marketing challenge. Hospitality has been well written about in political contexts in the last few months.
In the most recent US Bureau of Labor Statistics report, the hospitality industry made up 157,000 of the 242,000 total resignations (these figures do not include redundancies or terminations).
And in the US, The Labor Department revealed that 4.3 million Americans left their jobs in August 2021, or around 2.9% of the national workforce, which is the highest number on record.
Here in the UK, the number of open jobs surpassed 1 million for the first time in August. In response to this, employers started to look inwards on this subject; what are we doing wrong? Why aren’t we able to find talent as easily as we were in previous years?
The pandemic allowed people to take a step back and re-evaluate their lives and what’s important to them. And the main reasons why employees are deciding to leave their jobs are down to poor working conditions, fears of catching Covid-19, and desires to shift to more purpose-driven roles.
However, while these numbers can make it look like the loss of talent is an insurmountable challenge, you need to look at these stats as an opportunity.
As is often the case, macro-economic trends create change, and we are forced to embrace them.
Firstly, you need to look at the people you have and think about what they are demanding from their job in 2021. Today, money is just a part of what will attract and retain talent, you need to be thinking about benefits, purpose, and flexibility.
Flexibility will be a key attraction in 2022. In a recent survey conducted by EY, 90% of respondents said they want flexibility in where and when they work post-Covid-19 and would even consider quitting if flexible working was not an option.
At Adapt, we’ve taken an approach of ‘extreme flexibility’. We want people to use the office and gather in the office in a way that makes them most productive and best able to serve our clients.
There are some big wins from agencies introducing this level of flexibility. Diversity and inclusion for example, as flexible working environments are particularly helpful for women, people with health concerns, carers, and the older generations.
Creating such a space will promote a more inclusive and diverse workspace that reflects modern society is a true attraction, especially for Millennials and Gen Z.
This year, we’ve seen Apple, Google, and other big tech players make major changes to how they handle the privacy of their users. The most obvious is Google’s announcement it will be removing third-party cookies from Chrome in 2023.
When we start changing fundamentals like this, it becomes a leap into the unknown, which in turn causes concern. What’s the substitute? What can I trust?
Trying to bring a whole industry along without knocking out what is delivering results and economic growth is undoubtedly challenging. Part of the challenge is the subjectivity of privacy, as privacy will look different for each person.
So, it will be difficult to develop a working consensus around privacy amongst all the parties. And we won’t arrive at a formal answer straight away because of language barriers, terms, and understanding of meaning.
To start, you need to take ownership of your data.
The ownership of your data and the organisation of that data will be critical. The way you organise your data will allow you to consider its lifetime value, media mix modelling, and also develop new views of attribution in the future.
Taking control of your first-party data will be a slow burner. And while we have time until third-party cookies are fully removed, we need to act now.
As these changes roll out people will need to see a change, feel a change, and understand the change. This might be fine for tech experts, but for the general population, we have a long way to go to educate. So, the sooner we adapt to a privacy-led digital world, the better.
Over the last few years, we’ve seen big tech companies increasingly adopt AI within advertising campaigns, by collecting huge amounts of first-party data and using that profile to deliver better advertising to individuals.
This has developed improvement in the performance of advertising, reduction in the administration of campaigns, and far better serving of the “right person, right place, right time” methodology.
The interesting debate is where do we go from here? AI is starting to impact our business through many different forms and we’re continuing to embrace it.
To ground ourselves in this, it’s best to look at what the search engines are doing. It gives us clues into the most powerful uses of AI in the understanding of content, and helps us understand how AI can be used in the creation of content.
This opportunity has never been greater than what it is now. The ability search engines have to discover and serve content has never been stronger.
Google has reached a critical point in understanding information through AI using MUM (Multitask Unified Model). To give you a feel for how powerful it is… it’s 1,000x more powerful than BERT.
All these new aspects ultimately serve Google’s purpose and aim to keep their users engaged for as long as possible.
The advancement in search engines understanding content better through AI creates some incredibly interesting opportunities for brands.
It poses the question… how can AI start influencing how we create content? Particularly in multi-market translation scenarios, AI can be hugely powerful in supporting us develop content.
Right now, at Adapt, we’re using neural machine translation to power SEO content creation for a global technology manufacturer.
This has been possible for common language pairs for a little while with a degree of accuracy, but we’ve recently used it to cover 11 languages in APAC with some more obscure language pairs to a high degree of success.
The scale, possibility, and efficiency of AI-powered content creation are absolutely staggering, even today. Even just this example goes to show how far machine translation has come.
Macro trends, from the need for talent and the sunsetting of third-party cookies to the takeover of AI, are fundamental factors you need to give your full attention to in 2022. And ignoring these three trends could be your downfall.
And while 2022 is a few months away, the time to respond to these trends is now. I’d urge you to be bold and take risks – you’ll see the benefit in the longer term.
What does the future of PR and marketing look like? Business leaders are planning ahead for 2022 in one of the most unique situations that people have faced. How do you prepare your business for life when dealing with a pandemic?
AMBITIOUS and Insider Media spoke to business leaders in the South West to find out what their approaches to PR and marketing will be in 2022. Which areas will be their focus? Where are they increasing their investment? And, where they’ll be choosing not to spend.
The answers show that business leaders in the South West are planning to invest: engaging with their core customers and visitors more than ever before. And not just their customers. Thanks to a skills shortage across many sectors, using online to source new recruits is alo where businesses will be investing. As a result, online activity is becoming more important than ever for PR and marketing activities.
Life really did move online during the last 12 months and while in-person events are starting to come back, digital has taken the lead on many aspects of businesses. As well as B2C companies, B2B businesses are seeing the value of social media and how to use it for success.
Mike Ribbeck, Insider Media Editor said: “As the purse strings tighten, business leaders look at expenditure and decide which are the most important functions to protect and which areas of the business are expendable.
“The reality is that, rather than bringing the world to a standstill, the pandemic has accelerated many of the trends that were reshaping the world that we all live and work in. The digital revolution has picked up pace and businesses from all sectors and different sizes have made the transition to operating virtually.
“All of that means that the need to get the message out about your business and the services it can offer has never been more important.
“And the channels of communication to potential clients and business partners have continued to multiply with social media playing an even more important role when it comes to marketing and PR.
“According to our survey, the majority of businesses have maintained the level of spending or even increased.
“One of the most interesting findings was where businesses will be concentrating theory efforts. The two main areas that stood out were content creation and social media.”
Our survey has found that there are six core areas where business leaders will be focusing their PR and marketing efforts, including content, PR and SEO. Results from our survey include:
Phil Smith, Managing Director, Business West, said: “In the past 18 months, South West businesses have wrestled with a unique and complex set of challenges as a result of Brexit and the pandemic.
“Whilst business impacts such as social distancing measures are temporary, labour shortages and inflationary pressures look set to continue (at least in the medium term) and could have a stymieing effect on our economic recovery.
“As the government looks to recoup some of the £300bn+ that it spent during the pandemic, SW businesses will no doubt be anxious about potential tax hikes and rate increases.”
It is encouraging that businesses recognise the huge part that PR and marketing play not only in boosting their brand and growing sales but generating awareness of new products and services too.
It is also evident that marketing has a vital role in attracting, engaging, and recruiting talent into the business (as well as helping to retain talent). Indeed, today’s job candidates discover and weigh up potential employers in the same way they find consumer goods, restaurants, and hotels. It is mission critical that marketing budgets reflect this digital shift.
The amount of online content consumed by the average person doubled to seven hours a day. Social media activity increased by 12.3 per cent with the average person spending nearly two and a half hours on social sites.
A clear, resounding message from the businesses we spoke to is that we are going through an accelerated pace of significant change.
The pandemic hit the fast forward button, transforming consumer perceptions, expectations, and behaviours almost overnight. There are no pause or rewind buttons – consumers and the world have moved on. This has profound implications for how we market ourselves. Failure to keep up with the pace of change could mean being left behind forever.
Download your copy of the white paper now.
Yeo Valley Organic, Britain’s largest organic dairy brand, is returning to TV with a new multi-million-pound advertising campaign by McCann Bristol which will celebrate the big difference everyone can have on the planet.
Over a decade ago Yeo Valley Organic made history by taking over an entire commercial break during a 2010 X-Factor live show, with its two-minute rapping farmer ads. Now the brand is going back on screen with a carefully crafted multimedia masterbrand campaign by McCann.
McCann Bristol won the work through a competitive pitch process, and it marks an exciting new era of growth for the organic dairy brand as it raises awareness of its regenerative organic farming credentials. Yeo Valley Organic believes that regenerative organic farming is key to mitigating the effects of climate change and the creative campaign, including over £3m media investment, will celebrate the big difference everyone can have on the planet by coming together to take part in small positive acts, as part of the ReGeneration.
The campaign will launch on TV next spring with further bursts and activity planned throughout 2022 including events, press, on-pack promotions and innovation.
Yeo Valley Managing Director Tom Wright said: “It’s an very exciting time for us as a business and we’re thrilled to have McCann as a creative partner to help us fulfil our ambitions. Due to climate change, what we eat, how we farm and how we live have never been more important, and we feel we have a role to play in helping the nation join the dots between organic and the planet. We want to inspire people to think about food systems, and how we can all collectively make a difference through small everyday acts, like choosing Yeo Valley Organic products. The message should be fun, positive and inclusive.”
Vince McSweeney, Chief Creative Officer at McCann Central, said: “We’re delighted to have been selected by Yeo Valley Organic to produce their first masterbrand campaign in a decade. As a champion of sustainable practices, we couldn’t be more excited to work with them on driving meaningful change. When we all come together to take part in small regenerative acts, we’re all part of the ReGeneration and can make a big positive impact.”
Sustainability is high on consumer agenda’s and new findings from the latest organic shopper research reveals that 79% of people say they are increasingly worried about the natural world and our impact on it. With the organic market experiencing the highest year-on-year growth in 15 years (at +12.6%) and 77% of people saying they want to make more sustainable choices in the products they buy, Yeo Valley Organic feels it’s the right time to launch a motivating consumer campaign.
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