2021: Taking “People First” Marketing to The Next Level
The coronavirus pandemic undoubtedly shifted consumer behaviors and attitudes drastically. Brands and their marketing teams underwent massive change last year as they found new ways to go to market and connect with consumers in a very unstable and unpredictable environment. As we look to the new year, we pulled together our top predictions for what will come in the marketing world in 2021.
A Greater Emphasis on Building Trust with Consumers (in particular with data collection)
Building trust with consumers is an objective that should be high on every brands’ priority list in 2021, especially when it comes to data collection and being transparent about what data is being collected about each consumer. In recent years, consumers have started to lose trust in brands/large corporations. In 2021, brands should prioritize gaining trust and finding solutions to track consumer actions. Apple has put measures in place to give users the freedom to opt out of being tracked on certain sites. Brands should continue to find ways to make consumers aware of their data privacy policies and how data collection will be leveraged - transparency is always best.
Content Consumption: Quality over Quantity?
When the COVID-19 pandemic started and quarantines were implemented in March 2020, content consumption increased drastically. Over the past 10 months content has been consumed at a record amount. Forbes says global content consumption doubled in 2020. 47% of consumers increased time spent streaming content like Netflix or Hulu, and 48% increased time spent scrolling through feeds on Instagram or other social media sites. While the quantity of content consumed increased last year, quality is not always up to par. Will this work post-pandemic, or will content creators need to raise the bar and prioritize creating high quality content instead of focusing on speed and quantity? Our prediction is that content consumption behaviors will evolve as the world slowly returns back to normal; people will have new standards for what they want to see and how much time they spend consuming it.
Saying Goodbye to the Digital Marketer
Physical and digital commerce are slowly blending together, helped along by the COVID-19 pandemic, which shifted consumer needs, attitudes, and behaviors. Consumers are looking to digital interactions as their first choice, however offline commerce is definitely not gone forever. Due to this, we predict that marketing roles will need to become more specific in nature. Brands will be focused on providing the best experience online and offline. Our prediction is that brands will need specific roles for business objectives or product lines, and specialists in fields like data analysis in order to be more successful.
Video Marketing
While video marketing used to be mainly focused on television advertising, we are now seeing the rise of video marketing being used through Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, and Youtube. Videos have proven to be easily digestible for consumers, and using them within these social media sites allows for more engagement and interaction. Short, to the point Instagram “Reels” or videos on Tik Tok are able to quickly grasp the attention of a potential customer. This is something we predict brands will invest more heavily against in 2021, therefore justifying the need to provide more brain power into dissecting measurement of video ads and analyzing the engagement on those ads.
Brands Capitalize on Change
The COVID-19 pandemic allowed consumers to change buying habits, and purchasing patterns became completely different. We predict brands will adapt to this and continue to use the “virtual world” where people want products at their fingertips and without even leaving the house. An example of this could be virtual try-ons at Ray Bans’ website. Consumers won’t want to return to the pre-COVID “normal” and instead will want to continue to see brands hosting “virtual” options to make their experience easier and quicker. To adjust to this, brands will need to come up with out of the box ideas on how to ease the virtual experience and make it more interactive.
People First
If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that human connection plays an importance in our lives. This can mean connecting with our personal friends and family, or with employees and coworkers. In 2021, brands should build on how they reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure that human connection remains the best it can be. In order to do this, they should put people first. Not just putting the customer first, but ALL people in general -- customers, employees, society, etc. People want community and togetherness, and when companies show that this matters to them, it will make people feel included. Bacardi is an example of a business adapting to the pandemic. They have created “at home cocktail classes” for consumers to sign up in order to get that personal experience we have been missing. If businesses let customers, employees, and society know that they value their opinions and care about people over profits, this will make them successful in the year to come.
