Take a look at your shampoo bottle or an item in your pantry. Is the packaging recyclable? Is it “naturally derived”? Does it come from a “sustainable” brand? Chances are, you are being misled by those labels. In order to meet increased consumer expectations for environmentally friendly products and services and reach net zero emission goals, companies have taken a less than ethical approach when advertising their products: greenwashing.
Celebrities can attract new customers, boost sales, and be iconic in advertising campaigns. With increased importance placed on social media marketing, endorsements can also come from smaller scale stars like Instagram influencers. Consumers will buy a product or service because their favorite influencer raves about it on Tik Tok or to support their favorite actress’s new product line, regardless of the celebrity’s actual involvement in product creation. [i] Despite the enormous benefits to celebrity and influencer endorsements, marketers face equally great risks to partnering their brand or product with an individual. Scandal and controversy are difficult to predict and can damage a company’s reputation and sales.
Celebrity endorsements have been around for as long as the concept of celebrity has existed. Consider PepsiCo’s newest brand of sparkling water, Bubly. In 2019, the company contracted with Michael Bublé for a series of advertisements where he plays with the Bubly/Bublé relationship, insisting that the water’s name is pronounced “boo-blay,” like his last name. The Bublé/Bubly partnership applies a number of essential items for a successful celebrity endorsement.
In the world of Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music and Apple Podcasts, it would seem that radio is in trouble. The industry, which is heavily reliant on advertising dollars, experienced a 4% decrease in revenue over the past five years. Despite this decline, insurance and real estate companies still spent approximately $257.7 million on radio advertising in 2019. In 2020, Progressive launched the “Sounds of the Old World” radio advertising campaign, which may help prove that radio is not as dead as one might think.
After years marketing to those trusty Millennials, companies now have to change their entire approach to advertising for Zoomers. Some firms are turning to what has been deemed the “anti-advertisement.” Most recently, Frito-Lay brand Doritos launched a new campaign titled “Another Level.” The campaign launched with a 60 second anti-ad on YouTube – an ad that never once showed the Doritos logo or said the Doritos name.
For many months now, TikTok has become the darling of the American public, logging more than 315 million installs in the first quarter of 2020 – not to mention the millions of installs since the initiation of mandated lockdowns. Many companies have tried to reach large follower bases on TikTok by paying creators to use specific songs, wear branded clothing, and directly promote products in their videos, but President Trump has issued an executive order banning the app in the US unless it is bought out by an American company. So, what happens to the community now that the platform may be disappearing in just a short month?
Curiosity marketing is related to scarcity marketing. It’s about leaving your audience wanting more – so much so that they perform a desired action. That action might be signing up for a newsletter, clicking a link to view your content, or even making a purchase. Marketers create curiosity in their audiences by creating a gap between what consumers know and what they want to know. They do this by providing information in small bits to maintain interest.
The investment industry is undergoing some major changes, and many firms are attempting to bring investing to a wider (read: younger) audience. The major shift has come in the form of fractional trading, which allows smaller investors to enter the trading floor where they otherwise might have been priced out. These programs come during a time when more Americans are at home, spending a majority of their time online already – so they’re perfectly poised to enter the market.
Companies and organizations are starting to mimic consumers in leveraging the power of the pocketbook; many are placing ethics at the forefront of their financial decision making. Recently, the NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League, Color of Change, and Free Press launched a campaign titled #StopHateforProfit. The campaign centers around the spread of misinformation and hate speech on social media platforms – primarily on Facebook – and encourages companies to boycott the site.
It doesn’t matter if you’re interested in fantasy football, economics, true crime, girl power, or wine varietals – if you have an interest in it, there’s probably a podcast about it. It is perhaps their niche nature that makes podcasts such a great opportunity for marketers. All of the work put into selecting a target audience and researching the best ways to reach them – podcasters do it for you.
Marketing Management 