Are ‘cutesy’ pictures of wild animals shared online fuelling the illegal wildlife trade and can marketers serve the increasing demand for social media animal marketing, but in an ethical and responsible way? Phil Aiston shows how working with animals – but with a conscience – can be a force for good.
Remember when shops used to be closed on Sundays? Or closed for a half-day during the week (presumably so staff could have time off)? It seems ridiculous now, as we shop whenever we like, either in the high street or online. In fact, research shows that shopping ‘out of hours’ – late night shopping – is evolving and consumers are increasingly settling down in the evening for a bit of second-screen retail therapy. So how savvy is your brand at providing a first class customer experience for those ‘night owl’ potential purchasers?
Collecting and analysing marketing data takes humans a long time, but AI-enabled insight instantly identifies data patterns and enables marketers to match people to the products/services they want, at the right time and at top speed. So is 2017 the year AI becomes the age of acceptance for marketers?
Providing customers with personalised content can lift revenue by 15%, according to Harvard Business Review, so why is it that businesses so often settle for producing generic marketing – or, worse, create messages that simply do not translate? Robert Berkeley says they need to do more to localise content if they are to draw in customers and grow their businesses.
From product selection and presentation through to search, filtering and promotions, retailers such as ASOS, Missguided and PrettyLittleThing are top of the class when it comes to speaking to Generation Z. As these technologically fluent post-millennials enter the world of work and start to purchase from a wider range of brands, how can retailers tempt them across their virtual front door? Katie Woodhead examines lessons other brands can learn from the online fast fashion fraternity in communicating with the twentysomethings –
the next generation of consumers.
If employees think that marketing is a job done only in one department, the company is heading for trouble, says former Porsche MD Kevin Gaskell, who believes that everything the customer touches relates to marketing and needs to be done well. He says ‘inspired leaders’ recognise the importance of every single interaction and build that idea into the business.
When it came to customer data, instead of drinking from the fountain of knowledge, brewer and pub chain Marston’s was alarmed to be watching most of it trickling down the drain. The company realised it should get to know its customers and build a relationship with them. Here’s how they did it:
In today’s digital landscape, retail innovation is ever-present and it is clear that retailers failing to meet customers’ shifting habits and abiding love of e-commerce will not prosper. What vendors cannot do is refuse to transform in a world that is being disrupted by technology. Amazon is a leader in the retail sector and understands that you can’t sit still in an industry that is always changing to meet the customers’ demands. Hugh Fletcher takes a deeper look at Amazon’s achievements.
Social media listening can have a monumental effect on your business – garnering customer insights and improving engagement, building brand loyalty and, thereby, increasing revenue. Learn how and why to do it well:
Ten years on from the first airing of the hit TV series Mad Men, about a ‘golden age’ of advertising – a world of sexism, racism, hard drinking and even harder smoking – Dale Lovell looks at how the ad world changed after Mad Men and why the modern era of technology, appropriate data targeting and creative must coexist in order to maximise today’s advertising campaigns.