Getting Creative: 2020 Highlights
2020 was such a rough year, I felt obligated to dedicate the masthead image to the “Moldy Whopper” which aptly represents 2020. Burger King launched the Moldy Whopper ad campaign in early 2020 to highlight the lack of preservatives in their burgers, in order to draw a truly unique comparison to their rivals. While the campaign included broadcast and broad media exposure, the ad went viral digitally. It may not have increased Whopper sales, but it did capture tons of free media exposure. In other news, the Superbowl happened as it does every year, involving breaks in between commercials for some football. Check out some of the best ad creative via The Drum’s Superbowl highlights. Shout out to The Drum for being a critical resource for this article. I’m a long-time reader and fan, and they’ve done an exceptional job curating content, including Creative Works: the 10 most viewed ads of 2020. One brand that generated a great deal of buzz from its Superbowl ad was Planters and the killing off of its 104-year-old mascot as outlined in this article: The Mr. Peanut Death Super Bowl Commercial Refuses to Die.

Making Lemonade During The Pandemic
While Asia was rocked by COVID-19 in the Fall of 2019, the US didn’t feel it until March of 2020. Face masks, handwashing, thermometers, quarantine, remote work and Zoom meetings became a part of our daily lives. Marketers had to adjust to the resulting layoffs, hospitalizations, deaths, restrictions and changing behaviors. Smart brands adapted quickly, tweaking logos, messaging, creative and channel strategies to reach those stuck at home. One notable COVID-19 messaging adjustment came from a global fast-food chain: Why KFC isn’t stickin’ with its famous finger lickin’ slogan… for now. For the remaining brands, I outlined a few notable coronavirus communications strategies in the article Ten Marketing Communications Strategies to Navigate the COVID-19 Crisis. I also shared insights into the impact of coronavirus on the mom-and-pop storefronts: How to engage customers and market your retail business during a pandemic. One of the positives to come from pandemic is a renewed focus on authenticity in marketing: Coronavirus is prompting brands and tech players to show the real power of purpose. Regardless of the degree of your marketing or business pivot during 2020, humans have changed for good. I address the impact of the pandemic in the article COVID-19 changed consumer behavior and marketing strategy. In case you were looking for a silver lining in all of this, Facebook (aka Mark Zuckerberg’s) earnings were impacted, earning $3 billion less than pre-pandemic estimates.

Making Social Change
On May 25th, George Floyd was slowly suffocated by police, on a now infamous 8:46 video. While excessive force and deaths are common among minorities in the US, this particularly graphic video became a rally cry to eradicate racial injustice. Protests started Minneapolis and spread quickly across the US and around the globe. Some brands reacted quickly and powerfully, like Ben & Jerry’s, and others followed suit, as covered by The Drum: Brands show solidarity with George Floyd protests, but can they contribute to real change? The ripple effect extended to Facebook and Twitter in the form of advertising boycotts. Despite media attention, this summer’s Facebook ad boycott did not affect the social network’s ad revenues. Many brands elected to reallocate ad budgets back to Facebook moving into 2021, but time will tell whether any meaningful change resulted from the boycott. One lasting impact that snowballed quickly after George Floyd protests was a new cultural awareness filter regarding product names, mascots and packaging that could deemed insensitive. Names changed across the board, ranging from professional sports teams (The Redskins) to household products, as outlined in this article: Eskimo Pie Becomes Edy’s Pie: Here Are All The Brands That Are Changing Racist Names And Packaging. If you’re still unsure what your brand can or should do to honor (or simply minimize blowback) from the racial equality movement, I’ve outlined a few key stopes in this article: How You and Your Brand can make Positive Change in honor of George Floyd.

Maximizing Brand Strategy & Engagement
For the past few years, influencer marketing has been a big buzzword and a growing marketplace. The pandemic further fueled growth, as consumers were relegated to shopping online for most of the year and looked to influencers for ideas. I’ve outlined my perspective in this article: Influencer Marketing Strategy Best Practices, Tips and Trends. The coronavirus ripple effect forced marketers to evaluate new ways to engage consumers and influencers. The best example of opportunistic influencer marketing engagement is outlined in this article: Ocean Spray finally reacts to viral skateboarding TikTok. I’m a big fan of authenticity in influencer marketing, so I felt the Ocean Spray example was a gold standard for what will be a more intentional brand strategy moving into 2021. Another trend I couldn’t help but notice, was a rash of brand collaborations and product licensing deals between CPGs, QSRs (and other brands that lack cool abbreviations). The Drum provided an excellent summary in this article: From Dunkin’ PJs to Doritos’ sweaters: why brands are leaning on licensed products. Last but not least, I have to give a shout out to my idol, both personally and professionally: Yes, Ryan Reynolds Really Writes His Own Stuff, and He’s Got 7 Marketing Lessons for You. Beyond his acting and comedic chops, Reynolds brilliant marketer and a very astute businessman, from whom we can all learn.

Evolving Channels & Platforms
While I kicked off my digital marketing career in the mid 90’s as a search engine marketer, I’ve always preached the virtues of a multi-channel approach. In this article, Omnichannel marketing in the new digital age, I outlined the importance of integrated messaging and tracking across media. The pandemic forced many lagging businesses and marketers to make a digital transformation to deliver products and services online. One of the channels that benefitted from quarantine, was podcasting. While I first co-hosted a podcast over a decade ago, podcasts were relegated to a nerdy subset of the consumer spectrum. Not anymore, as Forbes outlined in its article, Podcasting Is Going Mainstream. I provided an outline for brands looking to join the fray in this Business Journal article: Podcasting strategies for quarantine life and beyond. Finally, virtual meetings and events became the new standard form of communication, as well as marketing. In a two-part series, the Anvil team outlined a game plan for slow adopters looking to ramp up event marketing in 2021: The Power of Virtual Events, Part 1.

For many, 2020 was a year to try to forget. For smart marketers, however, it will be a year to remember. Brands and marketers demonstrated an ability to pivot, be more authentic and create content with a greater sense of purpose. Look for that trend to continue. When it comes to digital marketing strategies and trends in 2021, we have you covered as well. For more insights into the year ahead, check out Anvil’s 2021 Digital Marketing Predictions.

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Creating a Social Media Measurement Framework
Jim Sterne is truly a godfather of analytics and I was excited to see him on the conference schedule. He’s the founder of a host of associations and excels in making measurement more accessible to marketers. In his session, Jim talked about the ‘opportunity to see’ your messages on social media: Who to target and Which platforms to utilize. He also outlined What to measure: awareness, sentiment, influence, competition, action and value.

He reminded the audience that powerful brands have recognizable logos and associated attributes (some brands like Doritos are even removing their names from the logos to appeal to Gen Z). When it comes to influencer marketing, Jim advises we look at where the conversations are happening, which is more contextually relevant than singling out influencers that may not know your audience or industry intimately. He also recommends chopping up 1-hour videos into one-to-two-minute segments, as consumers prefer shorter length, even if they watch more of them overall. His session was helpful in framing up common challenges around measurement. Check out Jim Sterne’s website for more insights.

A Lead Generation Powerhouse: Proven Strategies, Platforms & Tactics That Deliver
Sam Ruchlewicz is a seasoned digital marketer and instructor currently at Warschawski Agency. In his presentation, he took the audience through a customer journey, highlighting major touchpoints. Sam used buying a smart phone as an example of his recent customer journey. Journeys commonly start on Google, accessing publishers for product roundups, reading social media posts and customer reviews. He reminded us our behavior has changed (shorter attention spans) thanks largely to the invention of the iPhone in 2007. The result is brands having trouble capturing and retaining attention of consumers. Platforms like Amazon, Google and Facebook are determining how we live, sometimes at the expense of privacy and transparency. In exchange, we get simplicity and convenience. Sam then went on to highlight the core challenges marketers face in today’s digital age and how to address them. He suggested reframing perspectives, structuring for successful campaigns. He quoted Neil Patel and the concept of thinking of growth frameworks instead of campaigns. One way to do this is to lose the ‘funnel’ by reframing perspective, accepting customer control and focusing on intent. This foundational funnel insight is core to omnichannel marketing.

He reminded us to tier campaign structure, starting with local community and working up to regional and corporate brand level. This is particularly relevant to the senior care (as well as hospitality and retail) sectors. Sam also proposed an alternative to the outdated sales and marketing funnel:

Sam then touched on platforms other than Facebook (remember to separate FB & Instagram campaigns for optimal campaign performance) and Google. He touched on Microsoft’s Bing, Twitter (his clients are seeing 20% of total lead volume with 10% of overall ad spend) and YouTube. He loves Quora and reminded attendees to tag your site with the Quora pixel to unearth data about site visitors for free. It’s an excellent platform for early-funnel research. Similarly, he’s a fan of Reddit for advertising: sub-reddit targeting provides a strong awareness and education play, with relatively low the lower cost (brands haven’t discovered it yet). He recommended using Google Tag Manager (GTM), session variables and measurement protocol to create consistent measurement and experiences across campaigns. Sam also suggested testing Sequential Ads on Google as well. He reminded the audience that most Google industry searches are for “nursing home” nationwide, although “senior living” is more common on the West Coast. From a paid perspective, Sam suggests owning 85 percent of branded search, as the remaining 15 percent is incrementally expensive. He touched on top content marketing ideas based on research: guides, videos, listicles, newsletters and expert content. He provided a few suggestions to optimize overall campaign performance:

One parting thought that relates to the omni-channel theme, is to find ways to help your prospects NOT need to complete forms. Good reminder to leverage auto-fill or remove forms entirely where possible.
The SMASH conference was informative and managed to bring in other big-name digital marketing experts, including Catfish Comstock. For more insights, check out the conference hashtag: #SMASHSRCARE. I look forward to attending next year.

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