What was the best commercial website you visited lately? We can all name our favourite websites; the ones we steal a moment to look at during work, the ones that make us smile, laugh and even feel more connected to people.
But what about company websites? This gets a bit trickier.
If we think about it, digital is at odds with being human. Digital loves efficiency, infinite capacity, and scalability. However, it’s not great, on its own, at being memorable, empathetic, and intuitive – this is what we humans crave in any experience. So, in many ways, digital is at odds with what we want from a satisfying experience.
To this end, it is up to us to make sure our website design is inherently rewarding and motivational. Making any brand touchpoint an enjoyable experience leads to brand likeability and loyalty, and your website is no different.
Think of it like a simple equation:
Better Digital Experiences = Better Customer Outcomes = Better Business Outcomes.
We can further use the following two considerations when crafting a digital experience:
I want to finish this blog with a simple checklist to remember when you are being a good ‘digital human’ and thinking through your website.
Increased online privacy, control of user data and walled gardens are common topics of discussions among digital marketers and will continue to make headlines with Google’s recent announcement to delay the removal of its third-party cookies yet again.
Post Apple’s iOS 14.5 update in April of last year, which introduced a new App Tracking Transparency (ATT) protocol, Google announced that they would remove third-party cookies on Chrome by the end of 2022. The move, which has been on the cards since 2020 came as no surprise as Chrome and other web browsers have been tightening their cookie policies and look-back windows for years, long before Apple made the update.
More recently, and to some marketer’s delight, it was announced that Google will delay the removal of third-party cookies at the end of 2023. Despite the delay, many marketers are already underway with plans and strategies to live in a cookie-less world as marketers have seen it coming for some time now. The rise of 1st party data, the incorporation of said data and the increased reliance on machine learning all within the privacy constraints has become common place, but there still lies a few additional factors marketers should be taking into consideration to ensure the transition has the least amount of impact on their businesses.
Cookie-based targeting is engrained in most digital marketing plans, but it was the rise of programmatic advertising that really enabled this now common practice to be so effective. Cookies have been a powerful tool for marketers and digital brands to reach the right audience, with the right message, at the right time, and sums up perfectly the synergy between cookies (the audience), creative (message) and programmatic (time). As start-ups and some digital brands across the world have boomed, they have become more reliant on digital marketing to grow their business and forgoing essential brand marketing. This poses a significant challenge ahead as the removal of third-party cookies may mean an estimated 30% decline in Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS), as the ability to target ads based on rich user-based profiles comes to an end.
The removal of third-party cookies is ultimately for the better in an aim at giving consumers more control over their privacy and information online, however there is no doubt that it won’t have a huge impact on online earnings, with Google, in a recent study, disabling third-party cookies publisher revenue, estimating that brands might be at the risk of losing circa 50% of their revenue when they can no longer tap into cookies. Put simply, the removal of third-party cookies will mean:
[1] source: Gartner Consumer Community (2020) Survey n=325
AI is on its way to becoming well established and machine learning itself is merely a subset of AI. But what role will AI play as cookies no longer become available? No matter how sophisticated a company’s first-party data infrastructure is, it’s unlikely to match cookies in terms of the availability, volume, and depth. And despite cookies no longer being available, the task for marketers remains the same, to match the right message, with the right audience, at the right time to ultimately encourage an action. Success relies on learning what works from the data available and success itself is relatively easy to measure, ‘did the customer take the desired action, or not?’.
Building out dedicated machine learning models with dedicated teams isn’t realistic for most companies. No company builds their own CRM system, they simply plug into one that already exists. It’s then how, when and if you choose to use it that delivers value. The same can be said for machine learning in digital marketing.
Integrated tech giants like Google, Facebook and Amazon have the capabilities to analyse post marketing data to learn how to best allocate digital marketing spend and through AI, micro-audiences of users can be identified. Perhaps woman aged 35-41 that like travel respond more favourably when a couple is placed more prominently in an ad for a hotel? Other audiences might engage when a special offer is more prominent. AI learns these variables and builds personalised campaigns that optimise results while functioning within today’s privacy constructs.
First Party Data
Gather a deeper understanding of your customers
Focus on brand and creative messaging
Walled Garden Mentality
Be ready to welcome AI
Do you ever taste a certain branded product and just think ‘ahhh that’s so good’? Is it just the taste of the product, or is there something much deeper going on in your emotional subconscious, and indeed your sense of emotional security?
During the pandemic we saw the disproportionate increase in sales of brands that people were familiar with. The reason for this is not just down to taste, but our need for the sense of the familiar. This goes back to our ‘primary socialisation’, the first 1-7 years of our life. Primary socialisation happens with our parents and it forms the basis of who we are, the morals, values and beliefs that shape us. The foods we eat, and the love we feel from our parents, intertwine at this early age. This sets up a deep semiotic connection with products that will last into our adult life, and may well be passed onto our children. The key here is that food forms a comfort bond and we draw on that bond in times of change and uncertainty.
Gourmand Girl Eating Tasty Hamburger at Fast Food Restaurant
Secondary socialisation occurs from seven years onwards and it is more the outward stimulus of the world that starts to shape us. Within this construct the same brands get reaffirmed by peers and start to bond us with social groups. We need assurance and connection and will look favourably on brands that facilitate our social connection, happiness and, of course, popularity.
Taking all this into account, food and drink brands are rarely about just taste. There is a great interplay going on in our brains regarding choice that may have formed part of our pre-programming from a very young age.
So how can brands help themselves in this area? Think beyond what your brand is, and ask the question of what higher emotional and social functions does it facilitate. There is a clear and sustainable long-term strategy here, it just takes a good deal of empathetic thinking to get it right.
Colour, lines, texture, shapes…. Entire worlds are created out of pure imagination. Illustration is a medium that blurs the lines between art and business. Illustrations are displayed in some of the most prestigious art galleries in the world, as well as on billboards in Times Square, successfully selling millions of Nike footwear. There are still many outdated stereotypes out there that place illustration squarely in the realm of art, far away from business, marketing, and advertising. That’s not the case at all.
Illustrations, in a business context, can be defined by playful graphics that help a business of any shape or size appear more human, and are used to help communicate often-complicated messages from that business more clearly. Illustrations, when crafted creatively and strategically, can help inform, persuade, and influence consumers and customers, often in a more emotional way than other mediums.
So, why should your business use them?
Image © Alan Wrath
The creative process is a little bit like problem-solving. Many briefs require an answer to a problem or require the simplification of a complicated message. Illustration, when brought into the creative problem-solving process, can widen the range of solutions for advertising messages. For example, you can invent anything you want. Illustration, unlike video or photo, can invent a person or place that has never existed, or depict a person whose characteristics, age, gender, or race cannot be identified. Fictional characters can be created too. Need a half dragon half zebra lying on a beach under a Pohutakawa tree with a melting ice cream in one hand? The possibilities for brand storytelling are endless.
Using illustrations in a campaign avoids the need for stock imagery. Stock imagery has its place, however, illustrations give the campaign or brand piece a sense of authenticity. Many stock images are overused, especially if they’re New Zealand shot (due to us being a smaller market.)
You can also never have full control over the look when using stock images. There’s often something in the image you want to change, like people, angle, composition, or slightly different lighting. Using illustrations gives you full control over what the artwork looks like, the mood it creates, and how it communicates your brand or message to the world. You own that piece of work.
Working from home during red light setting or don’t want to organise a shoot in turbulent Covid times? Illustrations only require you, us, an illustrator, and a few emails and calls. It can be a lot less admin to get the same beautiful outcome for your campaign. Here’s a campaign we put together for Instant Finance during Alert Level 4 last year.
Illustration can also be a cost-effective way of producing concepts. Photographic concepts require location, talent, props, post-production costs which can all add up very quickly. On the other hand, illustration can not only visualise concepts that aren’t photoreal but also create photographable subjects at a much lower cost.
So, I hope you’ve learnt something new today about the wonderful, creative, and colourful world of illustration. Remember, at the end of the day, the best creative output is also determined by what the brief is, or what your goals for your company and brand are. Don’t know what those are? Contagion can help you figure that out too.
As we step forth into 2022 with a refreshed optimism and slight apprehension, we start to glimpse the shifts across our media landscape fast tracked by the pandemic. Advertisers can of course expect the continued demise of print investment, increased streaming eyeballs, the return of OOH, the growth and diversification of digital first strategies and of course no doubt more ownership consolidation.
Through a strategic lens, the disruptive nature of the start of the 2020’s has us scrambling to innovate, adapt, pivot and evolve. Many CMO’s are simply struggling to keep up with the ongoing changes that consumers and audiences are undertaking, so much so that a constant re-evaluation of customers journeys will be a key aspect of strategy in the short-term. Expect to continue having an ongoing conversation around attribution, optimisation, fast wins, and the continual interplay and influence of each channel and how it works and connects with the next. Those brands that can simply evolve faster and take more risks than their competitors, will be most successful.
While it’s easy to consider a constant advancement of marketing and media practice, we do it in a context however, of increasing strain and uncertainty on consumer spending and confidence. Growing inflation, interest rates, labour and skills shortages are just some of the impacts that, marketers will be facing in 2022.
So, while we can expect the continuation of gradual marketplace movements 2022 may well offer just a glimpse of the media innovation shaping the decade ahead. Let’s look at just five areas that we all may be hearing a lot more about in 2022.
The growth of Third-Party Digital Marketplaces has only accelerated throughout the pandemic. Shopify figures suggest that third-party marketplaces account for half of the $5.86trillion in global e-commerce sales volume.
While Amazon Marketplace, Shopify, Walmart Marketplace and Target Plus Marketplace are all expanding, it is the Chinese who are in a league of their own. Online retail sales in China make up a third of total global e-commerce, but just three companies make up 89% of the total Chinese market: Alibaba, JD.com and Pinduoduo. The Alibaba owned Tmall boasts a Gross Merchandise Value $709b, 45% more than that of Amazon.
With rich 1st party data, these retail giants are enabling brands to experiment with ever more impactful customer experience strategies. Ahead expect leading CX in this space that significantly surpasses that of Google and Facebook. And yet social too will only improve the growing social-commerce opportunities for brands.
While the realities of the global landscapes may take some time, the impact to spend habits here in New Zealand its already making a notable dent. Simply upskilling ourselves, and evaluating longer term marketing models and supply chain models is encouraged heading into the 2020’s. As more kiwis ‘buy now’ the erosion of share and loyalty will only add further complications to our ever-growing marketing job specs.
Covid has of course accelerated many existing trends. To that end if the pandemic has taught business anything over the past 18months, it’s the fundamental importance, and in many cases total reliance, on digital first marketing solutions.
For over a decade social commerce has assisted in driving online transactions, what we termed ‘social media marketing’. It is however only over recent years, and even more so over Covid times that we have seen this expand further.
Social commerce strategies see brands moving away from re-directing users to an online store by giving users the ease and ability to checkout directly, within the platform they are using.
As app-based platforms like Snapchat, Instagram and Tiktok continue to develop opportunities we also see more seamless innovations arising across messenger apps such as WhatsApp, WeChat and Messenger. Creating frictionless more simplistic user experiences will only evolve and increase. Media publishers are rapidly evolving to aid marketers in the distance between awareness and purchase; Like it, then buy it. This drive to convert shoppers to buyers through more direct and membership focused pathways will only become a more commonplace conversation.
Amazon’s Actionable Video Ads will see ‘buy now’ ads move well beyond social. Launched in the US in May last year consumers are steadily adopting the tech. Google likewise through YouTube have launched ‘Video Action Campaigns’ allowing users to send advertiser web links to mobile devices without interrupting their viewing.
On a practical level, digital commerce in all its forms along with marketing tech, need not be deemed a specialism, but an increasingly commonplace skill. Training, development and mentoring of such an increasingly influential sector of the industry will become mainstream.
While some of us shake our heads and scoff at talk of Metaverses and virtual realities, just take a look at the games our kids are playing on the iPad. The early glimmers of the metaverse are already with us in the form of Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite. Put simply the metaverse is where users can effectively ‘live’ within a digital universe combining elements of technology including the likes of virtual reality, augmented reality and video.
In reality this is years away, if not a decade away, from becoming a useable, affordable and worthwhile idea. And yet the likes of Zuckerberg and many others with deep deep pockets including the usual suspects, Microsoft & Google are gearing up to create a world where users can connect with friends, can work, can play, enjoy the theatre or a concert, go to conferences and take trips to foreign lands. The coming decade will see the existing technology and the required infrastructure and internet speeds develop at such a rate that the aforementioned Mr Zuckerberg even suggests that we are in the process of replacing the internet as we know it.
Google has confirmed support for tracking cookies won’t start being phased out in Chrome until the second half of 2023. The move, which has been on the cards since it was first announced in 2020 will of course make it more difficult for marketers to track web users.
Despite the delay, many marketers are already underway with plans and strategies to live in a cookie-less world. And many a marketer has seen it coming for some time now. The rise of 1st party data and the incorporation of such information within the regularity restraints will become common place. With it however we will see brands increasingly recognising the importance of their customers and the value exchange for that connection.
The rise of UX and CX will only increase to the point that our education institutions will hopefully recognise the need for specialist skills to empower a value based economy. To all marketers, - what is your first 1st party data strategy?. Did you even know you needed one? Those utilising the data and generating connection and value for consumers will again lead the pack.
Publishers both globally and here in NZ will continue to explore and experiment with new and diverse revenue models. We can expect established premium media brands to ramp up their subscription approach adding new and additional content offerings at a further price. In-depth video content, specialist advice, exclusive behind the scenes content and subscriber-only newsletters will start to entice users to increase their subscriber package.
In protecting and evolving their current business credentials, NZME’s recent acquisition of locally owned Business Desk provides further evidence of the continued acquisitions seen in the market over recent years. As a small market the duopolies we work with locally need to remain supported in the spirit of an open democracy. Storm clouds are ahead though with ongoing increases in both interest rates and inflation, the squeeze may hit hard.
News first publishers will not be the only ones further evolving the subscription approach. As Sky TV’s revenue model evolves in the wake of decreasing mainstream pay tv subscriptions, expect further exclusive content and flexible coverage of the likes of sports, movies and news services. While TVNZ’s buzz around a subscription service has been absorbed into the slow moving possible merger with RNZ, expect the opportunity to remain on the Special Projects long list.
Regardless of the plans that 2020 has in store for the marketplace, take advantage of the speed of change to get better prepared. As agencies and advertisers are tempted to roll through the motions, exhausting past strategies and tried and true principals, consider 2022 as the ‘year to prepare’.
Data, Digital, AI, Commerce, Measurement, Distribution and Tech are just some of the opportunities ahead. We need to also embrace Podcasts, Personalisation, Influencers, Interactive Content, Email, Memberships and Video. The pressure on CMO’s amongst this ongoing diversified has never been greater and also is crying out for simplification. As the media landscape and the marketing toolbox evolve, let’s look ahead with prepared expectation to the opportunities that 2022 will bring.
Measuring effectiveness of marketing investment is critical to any campaign that goes to market, and the scale of investment shouldn’t matter. In our industry, your investment should be considered by the strategist/creative/media planner’s as if it’s their own. From the outset your agency team should understand what needs to be done for your business/marketing/communication objectives to be deemed successful. And then deliver over and above.
The ultimate acknowledgement of effectiveness in our industry is the Effie Awards – a globally-recognised, peer-judged, showcase of extremely high-quality work delivered in local markets.
Each year the bar is raised, and 2021 is no exception. There are always our favourite entries - those that won our hearts, taught us something new and made us think “I wish I’d thought of that”. And every year we glean learnings and challenge our own thinking as we endeavour to continually produce exceptional, effective work for our clients.
A couple of things that stood out for us this year in the entries we judged, and how they relate to our own clients:
We can’t sit in our Ponsonby offices and pretend our kids live and breathe the same as those in South Auckland. We might have a lot of experience, do multiple CMI runs, and have access to WARC, but if we don’t create safe spaces to get inside our prime prospects’ hearts and minds and use our skills to distil down key insights that will help establish an idea, we are simply making up a story. Use of closed Facebook groups is one way to get into the heads of hard to understand the motivations of hard to reach audience. We conducted focus groups earlier this year to understand people’s relationships with their power companies. We can’t make this stuff up; we can’t be shy about understanding what we’re really dealing with to create the bones of an effective campaign.
If there’s one thing people are tired of reading about in a post Covid-era it’s how much money X company has made. Yes, we need sustainable businesses in our midst to ensure New Zealand succeeds, but don’t make this your ultimate end goal or reason for being. Our client BusinessDesk is all about the need to preserve the fourth estate and how critical it is to democracy, in a world of Kardashians and clickbait. Delivering subscriptions to their product simply helps sustain this. People buy into brands that stand for something. Many finalists focus on behavioural change and therefore human lives are their ROI – the value of saving lives or the betterment of society, which is incredibly compelling in the world we live.
Consumers’ lives have become so cluttered with choice resulting in the struggle for brands to grow or even survive. Historic brands that have to reinvent themselves in categories that are becoming harder to win impress us when they go back to timeless truths. What are your own hidden gems? Our client Instant Finance’s latest brand campaign uses its I and F characters that have been around for 50 years to highlight its ability to make (what seems) the impossible, possible.
The best entries always show strategy, media, and creative working together as a well-rehearsed orchestra. An idea is not a script or a media plan. An idea is a thought that leads to a seamless communications and creative strategy and can be fully leveraged across all executions and channels. Recognising media’s influence is critical e.g., does the idea work in a 15” video? Long form content is only workable if it’s an exceptional story that will engage people to the last second. A brilliant example of integration is our own Silver Effie award winner for Tourism NZ’s Freedom Camping – the idea was to build a Wi-Fi network from the ground up to enable our illusive audience to still connect to the ‘gram, and in turn using it to target them with our message.
Now more than ever we’re being forced to adapt to new norms and marketing is no different. Reinventing eCommerce offerings, being agile when facing lockdowns, chasing revenue holes with new ideas are all part of being effective marketers. Recognising the changing face of New Zealand consumers is critical in this and diversity is now a hygiene factor. It’s easy to roll out old classic ads that everyone loves, but if they don’t accurately reflect the changing face of Kiwis, think about a smart twist to create inclusivity to make your brand more current.
Roll on award night, we are eager to see the results of the efforts of the incredibly talented industry we are part of in New Zealand.
In client service we often get asked, “What is it you do on a daily basis?”
The answer - a little bit of everything. Working across a number of clients of different sizes and industries makes for great variety during the work day, but also means that a whole raft of skills are needed to pull together the wide range of things we are asked to do and organise.
At Contagion we have always prided ourselves on hiring polymaths; people who don’t just have wide knowledge and skills but can put these into practice, and our client service department wholly embraces this. Some of these skills are the more obvious ones – timekeeper, accountant, forward planner - but then there are the others that are not so obvious. Here are a few of the different “hats” we wear to keep things flowing smoothly day-to-day.
As the bridge between clients and internal agency departments, we’re involved in projects every step of the way - from conception, through execution, and beyond. When working across a portfolio of clients with competing priorities, there are bound to be numerous balls in the air at any one time. To be sure that none of them drop, being agile and responsive is a must.
The more knowledge we can accumulate and file away about the client’s market, industry trends, target audience, even their preferences around process means having a robust resource that allows us to be one step ahead of the game, anticipating (and meeting) our clients’ needs before they have to ask. Never underestimate the value of a good filing system!
Every day is like a live performance with many variables outside of our control. When you are dealing with multiple stakeholders, you need to expect the unexpected, no matter how much you plan for things. Constant, clear and transparent communication is key to rolling with the changes to make sure that the show goes on as smoothly as possible.
You need to be prepared to find yourself in some tricky situations that may seem impossible to navigate. But if you can listen and take a pragmatic approach to problem-solving you will be able to get both yourself and your client out of any bind. Sometimes, a dash of lateral thinking doesn’t go amiss either.
Knowing your client’s business inside and out also means knowing their coffee order (or wine, depending on the time of day) to fuel weekly progress meetings or brainstorming sessions. Whatever the occasion, our bar has a drink for it - and we love nothing more than getting together with our clients to celebrate a job well done.
Client service is fast-paced and varied - no two days are the same. To thrive in this role is to be relentlessly curious, welcome and embrace challenges, and take pride in delivering powerful, insight-driven results for clients. Because when our clients succeed, we all succeed.
If you’re a fan of fostering strong relationships, developing a broad range of skills, acquiring knowledge across numerous topics, and keeping busy, then client service is a job worth investigating. And if, on top of all that, you’re a fan of dogs then give us a call - we are always looking for great new polymaths to join our team.
Hardly the most loved job in the office, making a compelling presentation can often feel like an uphill race against that looming deadline and your own sanity. What's more, it's often the case that after hours of filling your presentation with amazing content you'll sit back to admire your hard work when suddenly it hits you – this looks bloody horrible. Certainly not the inspiring feeling you want before actually presenting the thing.
Fortunately, there are a few really easy (often overlooked) ways to turn that mess of slides into a presentation-dream.
Quick note: This isn't meant as a presentation masterclass, instead it's quick-fixes to take that PowerPoint that's been bugging you all week, or that pitch document you need to finish in the next hour, and effortlessly bring it up to scratch so you can present with confidence. So, let's get into it.
Context is everything, and your presentation will typically fall into one of two categories:
If you're doing the first option, then don't feel like you need to stack lines and lines of text onto each slide. The presenter should be the hero of the show, with the slides a supporting element to help elevate the whole thing. Keep a holistic picture of the final presentation in mind and make sure the content you do have is appropriate for the context. Seth Godin says there should be no more than six words on a slide – EVER. And while we all know this can sometimes be difficult, it does bring us neatly onto our next point…
There's nothing worse than a presenter clicking to the next slide and you being faced with a screen full of text. Who's seriously going to read that? Either the audience will be too busy reading your slides that they won't hear a word you say, or they'll ignore the slide all together to focus on you, or even worse (and most likely) – they'll try and do both and end up taking in nothing at all.
Make slides that reinforce your words, not repeat them. Not only will this help cut down on the worst PowerPoint faux pas (reading the exact same words that are on the slide) but it will actually help the audience retain the information better. To put it plainly, the slide should sum up what you're trying to say without any effort. And even if you're not there to present the information, using clear concise points, and avoiding an info-dump, will give the audience a much better chance of understanding what you're trying to get across and remembering what you've said long after it's over.
People rarely give a presentation for no reason at all (although I'm sure we've all sat through a couple that felt that way!), and that's the point: presentations should always have a purpose. Have a clear goal in mind and when reviewing each slide ask yourself "how is this supporting the goal of the presentation?" If the answer is "it's not", then you could probably do with removing it. Make sure the content you're presenting is relevant to the overall goal you want to achieve. This will help the audience retain the all-important information and better understand what it is you're trying to say.
What's more, make sure the audience is clear on what your objective is right from the start. People remember information more accurately when it is consumed early on and at the end of a sequence, so bookend the body of your presentation with an engaging introduction and always sum up the key takeaways at the end.
While it's certainly true that content is king, in regards to your presentations... looking good certainly never hurt. And while there's plenty of tools, tutorials and companies out there ready to give you a helping hand, making an amazing looking slideshow really doesn't need to be that complicated. Yes, getting a designer to make a sparkly new presentation is a sure-fire way to impress but, fortunately, you don't always need to have a keen eye for design to make a set of slides look great.
Forget Canva, forget Photoshop, all you need to do is this... make the pages consistent. Here are three simple rules that will start getting your slides looking sharper in no time:
It sounds obvious, but by using master slides you can ensure your content stays in the same place on each slide. One of the BIG problems most people are unaware of is that if your content is jumping around all over the page, your audience will have to work harder to process the information. People like consistency, so keep your titles in the same place and keep things like text sizes as consistent as possible.
We don’t need to say much here. Just… don't.
And that's it! We hope this helps lessen the headache of putting your next presentation together. But if you do still find yourself pulling your hair out screaming at the screen "WHY WON'T IT JUST WORK?!?!" then remember... Contagion's always on hand to help.
Websites are often the first touch point consumers have with your brand and it is a media channel that you totally control. So why is it so many of them are so unengaging?
Websites should be totally true to the brand and represent an experience that enhances it. If we can win with our websites, we can be more empathetic, more persuasive, and ultimately more profitable. I am not writing this to downplay the importance of user experience or conversion rate optimization. But instead, to keep sight of your brand, your tone of voice, and personality. In a post-covid age, website visitation has further exploded, so these factors have never been more important.
How do we bring that traditional instore experience to the digital environment? This blog is about so much more than your website.
At Contagion, I help brands find their purpose, define their values, crack key consumer insights, and work collaboratively with our clients to ensure these values & insights permeate all channels including online. Since COVID accelerated our digital adoption – there are new expectations from consumers on their digital experiences. This means we need to merge the physical & digital operations for our businesses – particularly in the retail space.
We must find what is important to customers. It doesn’t matter if you are a tech start-up, a great food brand or in health care. Consumers are interested in themselves, not your brand. They want to feel smart, they like things simple, they want to smile, they crave status, they also want to feel cared for and feel popular.
The thing is, digital lacks inherently what it means to be human. It is efficient, has infinite capacity and is scalable, but it is also binary, inflexible, and lifeless. It is up to us, as good humans, and brand owners to makeit memorable, empathetic and intuitive
As a great example of this look up Google’s DeepMind simulation of a ‘human’ learning. This may be the most efficient way to run, but it is utterly ridiculous, it may be efficient, but you would be locked up if you ran like this. So, it is up to us to put the life and empathy back into our digital processes.
This is where my research started. To make things very human I naturally turned to psychology, which has been a lifelong love of mine. We need to look at what makes us really motivated. This means doing an activity that is inherently interesting and satisfying, not just because of the end goal. Self-determination theory covers just that. We can break down motivation into its components that have to be satisfied, in order for us to find things inherently rewarding and motivational. From commercial perspective satisfaction leads to sales and loyalty.
So what are these three components?
We want users act with willingness and a feeling that their personal goals are aligned with the site. To this end, we cannot just sell but really think through the user’s ideal state of mind ability to navigate
Make users feel able and effective. In essence, we want them to feel smart when they use our site.
Makes users feel connected to others/community, they feel cared for and empathy
Following this theory will lead to better digital experiences, which lead to better customer outcomes, which of course lead to better business outcomes. So, in a way we are talking about UX here, we are just relating it directly back to the emotional brain of human beings.
Finally, I have two simple measures for you to keep in mind, that will help in judging any website project you may have.
This comes down to the architecture, Is it accessible, simple, intuitive, useful and resourceful
This is where as marketeers we can add true value. Make the site entertaining, empathetic, educational, motivational and rewarding.
I hope you find this helpful. Remember your website is your brand home, so give people a warm welcome.
I’ll be the first to admit I’ve enjoyed a fair few evenings on a YouTube binge session. Autoplay, tantalising thumbnails, coupled with infinite content - it’s easy to let yourself go. We all have. It’s okay.
But YouTube is more than an endless well of novel entertainment. Like any platform with an audience, YouTube doubles as an incredibly powerful marketing tool. I would say it’s one of the most cost effective channels to reach New Zealand audiences in 2021.
If you haven’t yet, here are four reasons why you should consider adding YouTube to your marketing mix in 2021.
It’s no secret that YouTube is popular. YouTube is New Zealand’s #1 social media platform, and our second-favourite website (behind Google.com). 87% of New Zealanders are using YouTube each month - more than Facebook (83%) and Instagram (57%).
With 3.92 million kiwis visiting YouTube every month, watching 30 minutes per day, it’s an excellent opportunity to get your brand in front of anyone and everyone.
You may have existing 15 or 30 second video assets created for TVC. In addition to sharing these on social media, they can also be used across YouTube to get extra mileage from your video.
We note that the nature of YouTube ad placements does differ from other digital inventory across social media. YouTube offers non-skippable 6 and 15 second ad formats which essentially “brickwall” content. This means users have to watch the entirety of your ad in order to view their video.
In contrast, other digital placements - such as display or video ads on social media - sits between content. Users navigating other social media such as Facebook and Instagram are generally able to scroll past ads and move directly to their content with relative ease.
YouTube falls within the suite of Google advertising. Naturally, YouTube enjoys the same powerful targeting options as seen in Google Ads.
In addition to your standard interest and contextual targeting options, a key competitive advantage of YouTube targeting is the ability to manually select specific channels and videos you’d like your ads to appear on.
Broadly speaking, New Zealand’s digital industry is generally a few years behind Australia and the US. While we do love to whinge about it, in this scenario, I would argue it actually works in our favour.
Compared to other Google-owned platforms such as Search and Display, the YouTube space today is extremely cheap. While there is a low barrier to entry to other digital advertising such as Google Search or Facebook Ads, not all businesses have video assets
This leads to relatively low competition today. With a $1,000 investment, you could expect to drive around 70,000 ad impressions and reach over 40,000 users.
