Month: June 2018

Facebook and Google are the biggest media owners in almost every market across the globe and they seem to be heading for world domination says Richard Lord, Head of Digital / Business Unit Manager at The MediaShop. But, is that so bad?

One of my favourite TV shows growing up was Pinky and the Brain (you’re humming that tune now aren’t you?). The best part of every episode was when Pinky would ask: “Gee, Brain, what do you want to do tonight?” and Brain would reply: “The same thing we do every night, Pinky – try to take over the world!”.

Over the years there have been a few companies that have made a play for world domination, but in the last decade or so two, in particular, stand out…Google and Facebook. According to Statistica, as of Q1 2018, Facebook had almost 2.2 billion global monthly active users (that’s a third of the world’s population, give or take a few hundred million people). Google is so ubiquitous that “googling” became a verb in both the Oxford English, and the Merriam Webster dictionaries as far back as 2006.

These two global giants are so big that in 2017, according to an article in the Financial Times, they commanded 84% of global digital ad spend between them. In the US, Google and Facebook account for a quarter of ALL ad spend revenue – not just digital! As a result, more and more people have been expressing a concern about this digital duopoly.

Locally, PWC and the IAB tell us that 70% of digital ad spend goes to search (read Google), and we know from our own TMS billings how much we spend with Facebook. So the global picture is very definitely mirrored in South Africa.

So while one would think that things are looking rosy for the world’s two biggest media owners (they don’t call themselves that, but let’s call a spade a spade), the reality is that it hasn’t been all plain sailing. They have both been hit recently by scandal and controversy…

Cambridge Analytica. Two little words, but one gigantic can of worms! Add in Fake News, Rigged Elections, and they have given rise to senate committee hearings, threats to boycott Facebook, and campaigns to encourage people to delete their Facebook accounts.

What about Google? Well remember those YouTube ads that appeared next to ISIS recruitment videos in 2017? This is still an ongoing problem, and it’s not just terrorists either. Ads have been served next to content promoting white supremacy, Nazis, paedophilia and North Korean propaganda.

But here’s the rub…each time there is a scandal, there are threats by consumers to leave these platforms and delete their accounts, and advertisers vow that they will pull ad spend. But just how credible are these threats?

The reality is – not very!

In a Reuters / Ipsos poll conducted in April, half of Facebook’s American users said that they had not changed the frequency with which they use Facebook. A quarter actually said they were using Facebook more, and only the remaining quarter claimed that they were using Facebook less, had stopped using it, or had deleted their account. Facebook claim that new subscribers in the US grew by 2% in Q1 2018 which, they say, is in line with previous years.

So consumers, despite the threats, keep their accounts open and if anything, are spending more time on these platforms. But what about advertisers? The simple truth is that Facebook, Google, YouTube (and the rest) are simply just too big to ignore for any extended length of time. They may boycott for a month or two, but in the end, they keep coming back. These platforms are just too valuable to ignore!

Why are they so valuable? Because they simply are the largest media owners in every market across the globe (except maybe for China). In South Africa, Facebook is approaching 18 million monthly active users…a third of our population. We can reach 8 million South African’s a day on Facebook. YouTube has almost 12 million monthly active South African users. This makes both of them bigger than the majority of “mass” media owners in SA. And before you all start saying that they only reach the top end, consider this…the SABC puts episodes of Skeem Saam, Generations and Uzalo onto YouTube after they run on-air (a ‘poor man’s’ Catch Up service if you will). Every episode is generating in excess of 200,000 views, some as many as 350,000. That is more viewers than the average episode of Carte Blanche!

Not only that, but with every click, comment, like and share, these platforms learn more and more about their consumers – and much of this data is available to us, as advertisers, to use and to help ensure that the right ads are seen by the right people. Looking to speak to people in the market to buy a new car? No problem! Wanting to sell gym equipment to cross fitters? Absolutely! Want to get households with gamers in Fourways to sign up for super-fast fibre to the home? Couldn’t be easier.

The plain and simple truth is that Facebook and Google HAVE taken over the world! Should we be worried? Maybe! But they have so much to offer us that, in my humble opinion, the benefits far outweigh the negatives…for now!

Does your brand matter? Jedd Cokayne, Business Unit Manager at The MediaShop asks some tough questions

More and more brands are finding it difficult to trade in this ever changing and difficult market we find ourselves in. The biggest challenge is remaining relevant to a core target market.

Consumers are becoming more and more fickle with very little brand loyalty, and with easy access to a vast amount of information at a click of a button, they’re able to do their own brand and product comparisons before consuming a product.

This leaves brands in a very precarious position where they not only have to remain relevant to their consumer but most importantly have to relook their business model and what they stand for in order to ensure they set themselves apart from their competitors. Brands need to be able to trade in tough economic environments but also have a little fun along the way.

Personally, I think it’s more about making stronger connections with the exact consumers a brand is trying to reach over a period of time rather than offering a unique product or service. Does your brand resonate with its core needs and desires? Pushing brands, products and services onto consumers without a core consumer insight has become a thing of the past – brands need to really connect with their consumers.

So as brands go through the process of reinventing themselves and developing their new Vision, Mission and Value statements that will determine their next 5 to 10 years of development, one area that brands often neglect before any of this is done is the Brand Purpose. Your brand purpose is the reason your brand exists, something you can offer your consumers that no one else can, and that becomes not only what your brand stands for but also a philosophy that the staff live by. It needs to be actionable and impact the lives of the very consumer you are trying to reach.

A key area that tends to be neglected when developing the brand purpose is the buy-in from internal staff, stakeholders and service providers, ensuring they are aligned and the ethos becomes part of their daily trading habits. It may sound very cliché but employees need to live the brand to fully understand the impact they have on the consumer’s lives. It needs to become part of the company’s DNA. This is a lengthy process and should not be taken lightly because to ignore this vital step is to inhibit your brand growth twofold.

Brands need to remain authentic – ask what it is that you do or offer that is better than your competitor and remain dedicated to that. Often this entails combining forces with like-minded brands that can offer and add-on service or product combined with yours that will lead to a competitor’s edge and enhance the brand stickiness in the eyes of the consumer. Often this co-existence will further develop the brand and its reputation as it is seen as progressive and forward thinking.

But often building your brand through its brand purpose is not enough. The brand stickiness is not complete…….

What we really want is to create a brand movement, create a brand experience that consumers are drawn toward and have an emotional connection with, that’s the real relevance. Brands are moving from offering traditional products and services to delightful engaging experiences and communicating your value in the market in a powerful way. By doing this, brands will develop a passionate and loyal customer base that will not only continue to use your brand but also become brand advocates, not something a lot of brands can boast in the current trading environment.

It is often not essential to create a movement to be successful if all the other elements fall into place but it sure does help in terms of encouraging rapid growth and adopting a creative thriving business!

 

Unpacking the era of Influencer Marketing by Ronel De Kock, Media Planner at The MediaShop

Influencer marketing is a form of communication which identifies individuals that have influence over potential buyers, then focuses marketing activities around these influencers – mainly online.

This kind of marketing uses the influence or reach that an individual has on social media to create awareness or hype around a particular brand. This can be very beneficial for brands as it captivates audiences by using individuals that consumers know and trust. As a result, marketers are finding influencer investments to be not only worthwhile but necessary. Marketers are also choosing to embrace turnkey providers such as Indahash or Webfluential for managing influencer marketing programmes as well as influencers themselves.

In the last few years, influencer marketing has grown exponentially, from being a mere tactic to being an important part of a company’s marketing budget. A study by Linqia found that 39% of marketers were planning to increase their influencer marketing budgets for 2018 and research shows that influencer marketing can provide a 960% return on investment making it an integral part of any marketing strategy.

Globally this marketing tool is being hailed as the next big thing in the marketing industry with one of the biggest advantages being authenticity. The desired target market is more receptive because it is coming from an ‘ordinary’ person they have an established social media relationship with, making the product placement seem more like a referral from a friend rather than an ad.

There are two main types of influencers, those being micro and macro influencers. The distinct difference between the two is that micro Influencers are ‘everyday’ people with less than 10,000 followers. A micro influencer will often ‘apply’ to become an influencer. Platforms such as Tribe and Takumi are communities of individuals who pride themselves on aesthetic social media accounts. These kinds of people usually have a good eye for photography and promoting content.

Macro Influencers are the famous household names. These kinds of people are often celebrities who have tens of thousands or even millions of followers. They are approached by a brand to feature their product or service on their social media profiles, with a contextual caption mentioning the brand.

By using macro influencers, a brand is positioned in front of millions of people. It’s great for visibility and awareness.In a world of DStv catch ups and Netflix where people are actively avoiding ads, influencers fill the gap by speaking to a target market in a way that exposes them to your product that they can relate to without it feeling like an ad. At the end of the day, influencer marketing provides brands with a new age form of word of mouth.

So, now you know the difference, let’s go through the pros and cons of both. These are important to know, especially if your brand only has time (and/or budget) for one.

The Pros of Micro Influencers

They’re authentic: micro influencers work in a similar way to word of mouth – when they share a photo on Instagram of them enjoying a nutribar snack after a workout, you don’t question it (even if their photos are sometimes a little staged).

It’s often easier to believe that a micro influencer has actually bought or used a featured product. They tell you the nutribar is delicious and it’s high in protein, so you make a mental note of the brand.

This kind of authenticity attracts engagement, awareness and brand recall. So, the next time you go to buy a snack, you remember that extra yummy brand name you saw on Instagram (it looked so good!). It’s cost effective and more affordable than macro influencers.

Not all of the available influencer platforms give the brand rights to use the content thereafter. Takumi, for example, gives the brand full rights to usage after the photo has been posted. Other platforms like Tribe, charge the brand an additional fee to keep and use the image in other forms of marketing.

A micro influencer campaign is easy to execute and easy to use, while free online platforms such as Takumi.com and Tribegroup.com enable in-house marketers to take the lead.

The Cons of Micro Influencers

Capped visibility and reach – micro influencers obviously don’t have the vast followings of macro influencers, and with most influencer platforms setting a 10k follower limit, the visibility and reach of content is capped.

That isn’t to say this kind of content isn’t engaging – HubSpot reports that micro influencers, on average, receive 0.10% higher engagement rates than macro influencers.

Brands have less control over a micro influencer’s output. Often, the way influencer platforms work is that brands submit a brief stating what product needs to be featured, some information about the product and a general sense of how it should be represented. For example, an organic makeup brand might write a brief which explains why their product should never be shown in an environment of bold and brash colours or plastic materials. They may instead state all photographs must be taken in natural light, outdoors and must only feature neutral colours.

However, once this brief is written up, approved and sent to micro that’s it. The power is out of the brand’s hands. They often have little control over outputs. A micro influencer is trusted to post a quality piece of content, without any form of sign off from the client.

In many cases, you put your trust in the quality of influencers recruited by an influencer platform and ‘get what you’re given’.

ROI is often hard to prove. Performing a micro influencer campaign can be great for getting your product in front of lots of different people – but while visibility, reach and engagement can all be easily measured and reported on, it can be somewhat harder to directly attribute influencer engagement to direct sales. This is because influencer posts are great for driving awareness, but not at directing site traffic – especially as Instagram doesn’t allow links to be posted in captions.

The Pros of Macro Influencers

Brands have more control when running a macro influencer campaign. They can often choose the exact celebrity and give them precise instructions on what to post, meaning the outcome can be almost predicted.

This control also enables brands to build a stigma or reputation around their product – for example, a cast member of Made in Chelsea may support the ‘luxury’ representation of a product, whereas an Olympian may support strong, robust and professional connotations.

However, this can go wrong – take BooTea for example. The diet brand asked Scott Disick to feature their product on his Instagram (see below caption).

 

A campaign that results in something like this can shatter a brands’ authenticity.

ROI in a macro influencer campaign is often easy to define, well, easier to define than that of a micro campaign, at least. This is because many brands will set up a unique offer code for a macro influencer campaign. The influencer will then post this along with their content. This makes it easier to attribute sales to a precise post or macro campaign as brands can easily track how many times an offer code was used online.

The Cons of Macro Influencers

People don’t believe or trust macro influencers as product placement is often obvious, and not very authentic.

People can see through a devised Instagram post, and therefore trust the content less. While this kind of marketing is great for reach and awareness, people often don’t trust that the influencer really uses the product.

Macro influencer campaigns are more expensive. These celebrities will also generally require much higher payments than micro influencers.

One piece of content from a celebrity influencer could cost you an astronomical amount, depending on their status and follower count. If you’re thinking of getting the Kardashians involved, you better have a worthy budget knocking about. Believe it or not, these endorsements now make up around 25% of the Kardashians’ income, demonstrating just how expensive they can be.

Although their audiences might be bigger, and your content will therefore see a much higher reach, you may also be able to get a lot more out of lots of single posts with micro influencers, as opposed to one expensive macro influencer post.

Macro influencer campaigns are a little harder to execute as they’ll often take longer to organize, and may require a PR agency. Getting hold of a celebrity or their manager is one thing, but standing out amongst many other requests, is another.

Celebrities can also be picky with which brands they endorse, so demonstrating how your product will raise their profile and personal brand is also important.

So, which one should you go with? Both macro and micro influencer campaigns have their pros and cons, but in most instances, I’d choose a micro campaign. Authenticity is so important – Millennials, in particular, crave it.

If your budget allows, it is recommended to trial both a micro and macro influencer campaign, starting with micro to elicit a response. Report on which does better in order to develop your future strategy. Assess your KPIs and choose accordingly.