The pandemic has changed how many of us are living our lives. Here are four trends that help explain the new world and provide implications for how brands should be responding.

1. From FOMO to FOGO
We have gone from a time when people had a fear of missing out to having a fear of going out. Almost every country has seen a lockdown to control the spread of the virus, and this has led to people having to live more distant lives, working and socialising remotely. As the lockdowns have ended, many, especially those over 50, have been reluctant to live lives as full as before, wanting to continue to stay and order in.

Why now?
Technology makes it easier to live more distantly. If the pandemic had hit 20 years ago, we would have been less able to live normal lives from home. Now with Zoom, Netflix, delivery apps and more we can be distanced, but still socially and economically active.

Implications
Brands need to create a contactless point of connection for their customers. This could be offering the same goods and services online, or it could be re-working your business model for the new world, with innovative new lines for people to buy. Brands can also create new ways to experience what they are doing, including virtual try-ons with augmented reality, online consultations, or even just an upbeat social media presence to update customers on how the brand is surviving.

2. Big Government
After years of governments trying to create conditions for the free markets to take a larger share of the economy, governments are now having a larger role in the economy than at any time in recent memory. They are injecting financial stimuli through programmes like furlough schemes, and providing subsidies and tax cuts, but also insisting their populations follow rules like wearing masks and helping to cut levels of infections.

Why now?
Governments have no choice if they want to support their economies. They know that many businesses are fundamentally healthy, but they need to pay workers to stay at home so that the virus can’t be spread between people. They also know that changes need to be made to how people live their lives (healthy people cope better with illness), and other measures can make life safer, for example allowing electric scooter companies to operate.

Implications
Brands need to understand and accept this new world. Restrictions may be inconvenient or even prevent some areas of business, but it is important that they help the government’s efforts to get the economy back to health as soon as possible.

3. The Metaverse
The Metaverse is a name for a new, immersive type of gaming that is changing how games are perceived. The most popular games like Fortnite are now MMO (massive multiplayer online) games, which never stop; you log in for a few hours, but the game continues whether you are there or not. They have become more ‘places’ and ‘spaces’ than ‘games’ — they are the locations where people arrange to meet and hang out, like ‘The Oasis’ in the movie Ready Player One.

Why now?
Just as social media services like Instagram used elements of gaming (Likes and Follows) to increase their traction, games are now using aspects of social networks to increase their role in people’s lives, and the amount of time spent in them. This increased engagement has led to a more enjoyable experience and made more revenues for gaming companies.

Implications
Brands need to view these games as locations where people choose to spend their time. As they are becoming more brand friendly, there are lots of new opportunities to engage, including in-game advertising and partnership opportunities.

4. Transport
Many advertising opportunities are based around travel, including out of home, podcast consumption while commuting, and reading newspapers. With mobility levels are still below pre-lockdown levels, we need to get a better understanding of how people are using media during these times and identify the new media moments.

Why now?
If people are working from home, they don’t need to commute. If people don’t need to commute, do they still need to live near to their workplaces? The economics of transport systems is based around full capacity, and if we won’t have this in the near future, how will cities transform?

Implications
Location has never been more important in understanding consumer behaviour, and planning communications. Brands need to understand the new media moments that have replaced drive time and other segments that don’t exist in the same way anymore.

Dan Calladine, Head of Media Futures at Carat

Crises accelerate change. Developments that would’ve normally taken years are now happening in weeks or months. How will the coronavirus pandemic fast-forward us to the future of work?

1. Mass unemployment feeds white-collar gig economy

Since the global financial crisis in 2008, we’ve seen an enormous boom in the gig economy. Driven in part by new technology and companies like Uber and Deliveroo, nearly five million people in the UK and 15 million in the US depend on gig-economy jobs as their primary source of income.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, a report by MasterCard predicted that the global gig work market would more than double from about $200bn in 2018 to $455bn in 2023. This is likely to accelerate as more people lose their jobs in the downturn. In just three weeks before Easter, 16 million Americans registered as unemployed — and these workers will have to try to find new employment.

‘As the economy rebounds, I suspect gig will play a key role as employers will value the flexibility it provides while they navigate uncertain demand’, Mathieu Stevenson, CEO of gig work platform Snagajob told Forbes in April.

But whereas gig work used to focus on driving around customers and their meals (57% of the gig market was transportation-related in 2018), the post-pandemic gig workers will be increasingly white-collared. Trending skills on freelancing platform Upwork include ‘HR consulting’, ‘proposal writing’ and ‘risk management.’

Gig and freelance work will be more task-based with specific short-term goals to meet, but employees will have more flexibility to work when they want, with the potential to earn more if they have the hours and the energy.

However, as more people move into gig work, there will be a need for more legislation to protect these workers and their conditions of employment. Brands that want to be best prepared for a more flexible workforce need to start developing ethical and attractive HR policies for the best on-demand talent.

2. Remote working can enhance productivity, but also competition

When Coors Light branded themselves as the ‘official beer of working remotely,’ little did they know how big of a trend they tapped into.

The first month in lockdown has shown that office jobs can be perfectly done from home. But the virus has also leapfrogged remote working in more unlikely industries, for example, healthcare and education.

Before coronavirus, only 1% of doctor’s appointments in the UK were done over a video link. In April, telemedicine companies Push Doctor and Docly told the New York Times that their weekly orders had increased by 70– 100% from one week to the next as the virus spread. According to McKinsey, nearly one-third of consumers in France and Germany have used telemedicine for the first time during the coronavirus crisis. In China, the number was almost 40%.

After years of scepticism towards online education, schools and universities around the world have also gone online in the last months. Studying and working remotely is not only flexible. It also has the potential to reduce global inequality. A talented student from Bangladesh would not have to move to Boston to go to Harvard. On the other hand, this can come with ever fiercer competition in the global job market. If your team is working remotely, why not hire professionals from Mumbai or Bangalore, where salaries don’t need to cover the stellar rents of New York, London, or Palo Alto?

Even if tasks can be performed and information exchanged remotely, things like trust, togetherness and team spirit are harder to take online. In a Stanford University study with China’s largest travel agency, employees who were allowed to work from home were more productive, worked longer hours, and were less likely to leave the company. However, when offered to work from home 100% of the time, most employees chose not to — they felt too isolated.

Companies with a strong culture were best positioned to the sudden shift to working from home. Now all businesses will need to focus on team building and employee engagement — let it be with Zoom happy hours, online book clubs or virtual movie nights.

3. Coworking returns with a 2nd wave of the WeWork pandemic

Remote working has myriad upsides: less time and money spent commuting, less CO2 emissions from business travel, less space and money needed for office rents. Working remotely, however, does not mean that all of us would want to work from home. Sitting on sofas, beds or at kitchen tables for months on end is already taking its toll on our posture.

Once we are allowed to come closer than two meters to each other, we may see a second wave of the WeWork pandemic: lots of businesses will try to copy the infamous workspace provider’s model and let people hire desk space by the day or less.

The hospitality industry has been hard hit by the pandemic. One way to potentially recover income is to try to increase occupancy throughout the day, including areas where people can work comfortably all day long. Sheraton Hotel & Resorts is revisiting over 400 lobbies to make the spaces more work-friendly. If there will be fewer travellers, hotels could convert part of their rooms to virus-proof pay-as-you-go offices. Coffee shops, bars, and restaurants could also start providing facilities like meeting rooms, high-quality printing and super-fast Wi-Fi to meet the needs of remote workers.

The aim is to bring more flexibility into how people work, creating a new space beyond the office and the home. Some individuals will join local spaces so that they can get cheaper rates and guarantee space on certain days. Companies will need to reassess where coworking is likely to happen based on where their offices are and their employees live, working out contracts so that they can offer high-quality facilities to staff to work closer to home and trying to make it easy for their staff to access productive work areas.

After the cold and dark winter months, May Day is a time of spring festivities intermingled with political marches, speeches and student celebrations. As one of the biggest holidays in Finland, it brings tens of thousands of people together.

Except this year.

COVID-19 changed everything in the glimpse of an eye, as the Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin underlined that May Day would now need to be celebrated virtually.

We took a look at some of the best examples of how brands, cities and even the Tax Administration are energizing people during self-quarantine to still celebrate a beloved holiday.

Acts of solidarity — S-Group / HOK-Elanto

The Coronavirus has brought out the best in many brands, as they strive to help those in need. May Day usually means a spike in consumption, as people go shopping for traditional Finnish foods, such as mead, doughnuts, and picnic supplies.

HOK-Elanto, part of the biggest Finnish grocery store chain S-Group, decided not to advertise their own products in their ads. Instead they are asking people to care for one another in an act of solidarity. In their printed ad they give multiple alternatives of charities that are most gravely in need, like SOS Children’s Villages, the Red Cross and mental health organizations.

Togetherness using VR — City of Helsinki, Fullsteam Agency and Zoan Oy

In the heart of Finland’s capital Helsinki stands the statue Havis Amanda regarded as one of the most important and beloved pieces of art in the city. On the eve of May Day, the statue serves as a centerpiece in the celebrations when she is crowned with a student cap. Tens of thousands of celebrators gather to put on their own caps and raise their glasses. This tradition is mimicked all over the country with caps being placed on various statues.

This year the famous statue will be crowned in a virtual version of Helsinki, followed by a VR gig by massively popular rap duo JVG, who quite fittingly, has a hit song called Eternal May Day.

#StayAtHome

Over the years, May Day has become especially important for students, which is why many are arranging alternative ways to participate through a variety of challenges and pranks leading up to virtual celebrations. Packages with supplies and directives are even being sent home to students, so they can take part in the festivities and traditions from the safety of their homes.

Companies are encouraging their employees to stay at home by arranging virtual parties on the eve of May Day. In addition to the entertainment, this has created a sense of togetherness in this era of social distancing.

The Finnish Tax Office took self-quarantine to a whole new level, creating their own “quarantine dog” gif’s on Instagram. People are encouraged to create an Instagram story featuring their favorite song and the quarantine dog, all songs are then added to a May Day playlist and the best stories recognized.

As countries all over the world have seemingly been frozen in time, it is comforting to know that the uniqueness of culture, the creativity of people, and the relentless optimism of societies move ever forward.

Happy May Day, Finland.

The fact that marketing is prone to hyperbole aside, I’d like to provide a counterclaim to the daily industry spamming about how COVID-19 is going to change everything, forever.

It’s doubtful. In our three million plus years of human evolution we have seen and been through a lot. Adaptation is our game. It’s what made us unique and successful as species.

We might be over sentimentalising our current, temporary, predicament to conflate something we perhaps wish for in marketing services; that we are entering a brave new world where suddenly we will step out of our front doors and into a new post-vaccine landscape where our lives will be changed forever. So, in preparation, we better read (insert report/podcast/video/Zoom live meeting invite…)

It’s certainly a convenient platform for AdTech, eCommerce, data providers and the flux of digital crystal ball navel-gazers, but perhaps we should take a dose of our own short-term vs. long term medicine cabinet.

Two things to note in this regard:

Firstly, COVID 19 is an accelerant for change, not the cause. It is merely quickening the pace of what has been happening over the past 20 years. The truth is the 4th industrial revolution has

been gradually disrupting legacy businesses for some time now. Like natural selection, the weak and ill-equipped firms have gone bust, and many new ones emerged. The old marketing principles are still as relevant now — follow and anticipate people’s behaviours.

Secondly, behavioural economics are not going to shift overnight. With regards to following and anticipating people’s behaviours ­– we are largely creatures of habit who are genetically engineered to always seek the status quo and equilibrium. This means cultural and economic paradigm shifts are always gradual. People will look to get back to similar routines, albeit slightly accelerated in the context to digitisation platforms.

The long-term view is that the virus is a speed ramp (in the scale of human pandemics) to quicken the pace of wider change.

Any lasting impact from the virus will likely be more subtle and perhaps more to do with self-identity, community spirit, and how we value and prioritise our personal time.

I’ve stopped reading the reports. Their purpose really was only to initially orient ourselves not to navigate us. For me, true navigation happens only through experiencing the world first-hand. In this instance, in all its virtual wonder.

What I see is an increased level of productivity related to our cultural industries. And the great irony is that it’s because of lockdown.

Confinement and restriction breed creativity. I wonder at the number of new books, music, screenplays, apps, art and ways to engage in self-expression and community that will be developed as a consequence. I imagine it will be considerable.

It’s the time well spent in quality endeavours that interest me, and it brings it back to something more human, which is that the power of ideas and creativity to connect and engage is timeless. Still, it’s the ability (how) to create those ideas which have fundamentally changed in the digital economy. Evidence of this can be found on any social platform, be it Twitch, TikTok, or podcasts (shameless plug). The ingenuity, humanity and creative spirit is alive and well, perhaps even more so than ever, and you don’t need a report to witness the humanity.

As the impact of the Coronavirus unfolds, we took a look at the impact it has had on sports, how fans, leagues, and players have adapted and what opportunities and challenges these provide for marketers.

March 12th will likely be considered a significant date in the history of the ncov19 pandemic. On that date, near the opening tipoff of a game between the Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder, a doctor ran onto the court and recommended stopping the game before it even started, clearing the court and the arena all together. A player had tested positive for the virus. Shortly afterward, the NBA suspended league play indefinitely. Since then the NHL, Major League Soccer, Major League Baseball and European Soccer Leagues, including the English Premier League, have followed suit. To say, “this rocked the public,” would be a fair statement, as it became a sobering moment for millions who began to realize how much the pandemic was going to affect day-to-day life.

People turn to sports for entertainment to escape and provide a spark for social connection. As sports have become big business, impacting our economy and media behaviour, brands across the globe have come to rely on sports a vital connection point to audiences. The games may have stopped for the minute, but even in these turbulent times people are adapting their behaviours to seek moments of connectivity and group experience.

We have identified three key consumer behaviour shifts:

Reliving, Replacing, and Readying

Past-oriented — Reliving old sports events and moments
The reliving of old sporting events and moments is an old past time. But now, it has reached a whole new level. For example, The Athletic (the subscription-based sports website) launched a series of ‘REBOOTED’ articles, in which they analyse moments from old Premier League seasons from 1999. Media broadcasters, such as ESPN, NBA, and CBS, are live streaming and/or broadcasting full classic games from college basketball to World Cup matches. Even athletes, like Stephen Curry and Lebron James, are reliving their highlights on social media.

Present-oriented — Replacing IRL sports with virtual sports via gaming
Consumers and athletes are also replacing real life sports with virtual sports via live streamed gaming. Lando Norris (F1 driver) broke records on streaming platform Twitch, with over 70,000 viewers and smashing F1’s all-time concurrent record, as he took part in a virtual Australian Grand Prix. NBA athletes have taken to competing against their peers and fans on various games (e.g., NBA 2K, Call of Duty) and, yes, ESPN is reporting on it. All in all, “Twitch viewership increased 10% and YouTube Gaming by 15%, both of which reflect the popularity of the livestreaming medium now that people are consuming higher volumes of entertainment from home,” says StreamElements CEO Doron Nir.

Future-oriented — Preparing for the return of live sports
The show must and will go on. Conversations around the ‘when and how’ different leagues will return are on the way. Both the NBA and the English Premier League have indicated a strong preference to finish out their seasons. Further, the NFL’s ongoing free agency provided a brie,f but major distraction as free agents signed deals (e.g., Tom Brady leaving the New England Patriots on St. Patrick’s Day of all things). As a result, conversations among fans around future games are ongoing, and both leagues and fans are desperate for the cheers to start again.

As marketers consider what all of this means for their brand, we recommend starting with an understanding of how your specific audience relates to and engages with sports. Understanding which sports your audience loves, and misses, the most and how those sports fit into their lives (as a source of escapism, socialization or inspiration) is critical.

With this a backdrop, here’s a few questions to guide how your brand can uniquely and authentically support the fans in your customer base:

· How can you tap into the feeling of nostalgia, inspiration and social connection that comes from reliving old sports memories? Social media is a vital environment for these conversations and emotions. Partners, such as ESPN and CBS, are also great for engaging with these experiences.

· How can you enable and celebrate your audience’s competitive spirit and/or that of their favourite athletes through virtual sports? Partners, such as Twitch, YouTube Gaming and Activision, are rich platforms to engage with your audience in this way.

· How can you prepare yourself for a sense of relief and joy that will come from the return of live sports? Partners like ESPN and Fox Sports will likely have strong opportunities for prepared brands and first-mover advantage will be at a premium during this time.

The rising sales of smart speakers and visions of screenless web browsing have led many to anticipate a new golden age of audio and voice-activated marketing. But alongside the number of smart speakers sold, there is growing scepticism about the medium. In the WARC 2020 Marketers Toolkit, only 22% of marketers consider Voice to be ‘very important’ to their marketing strategy and a third of those surveyed viewed Voice as ‘not important at all’. People might be shouting about voice-search, but their cries of a golden age appear to be heard further away than once thought.

There’s a reason why Times Square exists as it does. Effective communications rely heavily on what we can see. As a result, many brands find it hard to connect with consumers in the Voice space. Without the array of visual options for their communications, brands are constricted in how they can engage consumers. Experience is the priority — no one wants the answer to “what’s the weather like today” with the response “your weather forecast is sponsored by…” As a result, Voice platforms keep responses ad-free. This denies advertisers basic options they are afforded with visual channels. How do you display ads via Voice that don’t ruin the experience?

Brands that develop voice-apps for consumers also face a discoverability challenge. A recent report by e-consultancy highlights how a majority of users — 51% — have never used a third-party voice-app. People’s behaviour on smart speakers currently only revolve around a few functional commands, so many skills go undiscovered or abandoned, consigned forever to the voice graveyard.

Alexa, are Voice assistants really worth the hype?

Our answer is yes, but not necessarily in the way we imagined it.

China leads the way in voice-display

When predicting the future of technology, it’s worth looking to the East. Three of the five biggest smart speaker manufacturers come from China. While Amazon is still the global market leader, in 2019 the Chinese Baidu overtook Google in smart speaker sales. What’s even more remarkable is that over 60 percent of speakers Baidu sold in Q3 last year came with a display. If the future of technology is more and more Chinese, it’s safe to say that the future of Voice is more and more visual.

With on-screen information providing additional context, consumers will be more easily able to engage with their devices. This will enable brands to benefit. As their voice cues are presented on a screen simultaneously, their content is made easier to discover. As a result, their product’s image helps to prompt voice-activated sales.

In the West, Voice-commerce is very much in its early stages, and consumers are hesitant to buy a product they cannot see. Consumers are literally being asked to “buy blind”. But in China, these hybrid interfaces show people relevant information, and this gives people the confidence to purchase with their voice. The visual enrichment may go some way to explaining the one million voice-activated purchases on 2019 Singles Day, China’s equivalent to Black Friday.

Smart homes unlock the potential of smart speakers

Brands that have adapted their owned properties to handle conversational engagements, with, for example, a chatbot mechanic, will be well placed to benefit from the emerging opportunities. It is also easier to imagine paid-for advertising opportunities on smart displays. On-screen ads would naturally complement the user’s experience, and they do not demand their complete attention.

New smart displays such as the Echo Show, Google Home Hub and Facebook Portal, all include an in-built camera. This means that brands may soon be able to video chat directly with their consumers and even personalise on-screen messages to who’s standing in front of the screen.

In the US, sales of voice-interactive smart displays rose 558% in 2018, and the Echo Show accounts already for a one-fifth of Amazon’s smart speaker sales. Even if this rise tapers-off over time, it will be due to them being displaced by other more advanced and more broadly connected tech, such as the smart TVs that are Google Assistant integrated.

As James Moar, a Juniper analyst says, “This (future) will be fully realised in the ability to transition between platforms — when you can ask your smart speaker about booking hotels, and it hands off the response request to a smart TV to display a variety of options.”

Brands should ‘show and tell’

Voice-enabled screens will allow brands to bring their visual assets to life via a new medium. But it can’t be a cookie-cutter approach. Advertisers should resist the temptation to insert their TV or YouTube assets and instead make use of the conversational features on offer. This means advertisers should develop new use-cases for smart displays, by creating Voice-first applications that are visual by design. To do this, we need to gain insight into the voice-audience by understanding their activity and usage.

In contrast to the functional emphasis of voice behaviours on mobile, in-home Voice activity focuses on content and entertainment. The interactions lend themselves to fun applications and tend to happen in the living room, where the whole family can play along together. Advertisers could, for example, develop fun communal experiences, such as image-based quizzes or interactive ‘Bandersnatch’ style stories that families navigate with their voice. Engagement doesn’t have to be sales orientated.

With the immense popularity of video and ‘How’ the most popular voice trigger word, it is no wonder that video is already being used to answer voice users’ ‘how to…’ questions. Sephora utilised this approach in their library of beauty tutorials, so people whose hands were busy applying make-up, could ask for the most relevant makeup tutorial, hands-free.

Diageo too tapped into the visual functionality of the Echo Show, with their mixology focused skill, ‘The Bar’. The skill answers ‘how to make…’ questions, by both showing and telling people how to make an array of cocktails. As this all happens on an Amazon device, the ingredients could then be bought immediately with a simple voice command.

Although the opportunities are not yet fully clear, voice is set to become a key way we activate and engage with images, videos and text. By mid-2020s, the number of Voice assistants is expected to surpass the number of people on the planet. Voice to visual is still in its infancy, but forward-thinking brands will do well to watch this space.

Contextual Commerce

What we said:
Contextual Commerce will allow brands to sell in places people go to be entertained. It will be most relevant for fashion & technology, especially low-cost impulse purchases, and in particular with the inclusion of rapid delivery.

What happened:
The year saw many examples of brands selling via social media and video. For some major brands in the US, the biggest event was probably the introduction of Instagram Checkout in March. While this still has not been rolled out more broadly outside of the US, reportedly brands are doing well with the feature (and Adidas has reported a sales boost because of it).

For rapid delivery, companies like Shopify are handling fulfilment for brands that are selling via social, providing a growing alternative to Amazon.

More news of brands selling via social channels seems to land every week, including Kroger on TikTok, Facebook introducing shoppable ads, and Google making YouTube more shoppable. It’s not as easy or as prevalent as in China yet, but we’re getting there.

Did we get it right?

Experiential eCommerce

What we said:
Experiential eCommerce will allow brands to let customers try before they buy. It will be most relevant for products customers are less familiar with, and also products that can be personalised or configured. It can work well for expensive items. Influencers can become sellers, but there will be pressure on them to perform.

What happened:
This year, more brands and influencers are experimenting with selling through live streams. Kim Kardashian took part in a live stream for China’s Singles Day in November (reaching 12m viewers). While in the West, Amazon co-opted Twitch into its own Prime Day for the first time. Twitch streamers got to choose their favourite Prime Day bargains, and sell them in a 2-day event, appropriately called Twitch Sells Out. Amazon is also testing its live shopping streams at Amazon.com/live, but still appearing as a trial (for example Oprah did not appear for the 1-hour stream devoted to her Christmas picks).

We’ve also seen more shoppable augmented reality, from brands like Nike, Ikea, and Kohls, and in South Korea a new 5G service lets people use their phones to see detailed 360° versions of products being shown on shopping channels.

Did we get it right?

Games in Messaging

What we said:
The inclusion of gaming into messaging will make messaging much stronger as a channel, commanding more of people’s time. As a medium, it will be most relevant to brands with a ‘playful’ persona.

What happened:
Facebook has continued to add games to its Messenger app, making communication more fun. More importantly, messaging is now a vital part of gaming, with messaging now a part of almost every game, and new services like Discord, a messaging and Viop service specifically designed for gamers.

WeChat has opened it’s in-messenger games platform to developers globally and has 400m users, nearly 40% of the platform’s active users. We don’t see brands create their own games for these platforms yet — the focus has turned to commerce rather than gaming.

Did we get it right?

Life as a Service (LaaS)

What we said:
Brands are following the lead of companies like Netflix, Spotify, Harry’s and others in trying to encourage customers to see them as a service to subscribe to rather than a product to buy.

What happened:
To say the least, subscriptions were huge in 2019. Lots of new categories and players tried a subscription model, making commerce more of a service, including Fender guitars (pay to get regular new lessons for songs to play), A barbershop (a regular haircut and shave with drink included),

and the Camp toy shop (shop out of standard times, and use the store act as a creche). Meanwhile, Apple moved more into services, with bundled access to games (Arcade) and TV (TV+), in addition to its Apple music offering.

Did we get it right?

‘By Invitation’

What we said:
Brands are encouraging their biggest fans to become even more involved by inviting them to have a deeper connection, through their own apps, or private social media communities. The creation of a self-selecting ‘by invitation’ community is most relevant to brands that are desirable, niche, cult, or used by early adopters.

What happened:
Instagram got rid of one of the main ‘by invitation’ mechanisms late in 2018 when they made it possible to share with close friends, rather than create ‘finsta’ accounts. Some are using this feature to monetise their social media followings, including Jenny Gyllander’s ThingTesting Instagram page, where she reviews new direct-to-consumer products. She charges to be part of her close friends’ network, with advance notice of new products and invites to events. There are now 600 people in her waiting list to join. We also saw other attempts to let superfans be in the know,

including Samsung partnering with restaurants to create secret menus on a page that only Samsung devices could visit. New York store, Conservatory, requiring people to visit in person to get an access code so that they can shop online.

Did we get it right?

Smart Out Of Home

What we said:
The new capabilities in out of home will be a big opportunity for clients with a large portfolio of brands, but also for small, niche brands who will be able to use OOH tactically for the first time. It is also perfect for testing new marketing messages and strategies.

What happened:
We saw lots of brands using the new digital capabilities of out of home. HBO ran a very ambitious campaign for Watchmen, featuring countdown clocks, and augmented reality integration. Pokemon Go arranged to digital posters to all ‘crash’ and get taken over by Pokemon to publicise a big event in New York. Unlike in 2018, one of the Cannes Outdoor winners for 2019 included smart targeting, but we expect the capabilities to feed into the creativity next year.

Out Of Home also proved a perfect medium for very agile brands like GSK’s Piri allergy products, who were able to include triggers like pollen counts in their targeting.

Did we get it right?

Design From Data

What we said:
New products and services are being created and modified as a result of data being processed and analysed at scale. Design from Data is likely to bring the biggest benefits to established brands with a large amount of data, or access to partner data.

What happened:
Data and measurement are being used to design products and services more than ever. This year one of our trends is the rise of ‘Own Label’ — platforms like Netflix, Airbnb, and Deliveroo taking the data they have and cutting out the middle man by creating products for themselves based on what they know is likely to work.

We are also seeing the rise of new measurement companies, including Spate, which helps beauty brands make decisions by telling them what people are searching for within the category, including new colours and ingredients.

Did we get it right?

Targeting Post-GDPR

What we said:
GDPR has brought new challenges in how marketers use data to target customers with advertising and has driven new ways of thinking. Brands will need to revise their measurement and attribution modelling to understand the effect of new parameters like emotion, in comparison to audience targeting. Brands also need more agility to be able to respond quickly.

What happened:
GDPR has ushered in a new way of thinking, with some partners leaving the European market altogether and privacy concerns being top of mind in agencies and publishers

GDPR is continuing to have an impact on marketers, and its influence is spreading beyond Europe, for example, in the California Consumer Privacy Act, which comes into force on 1st January 2020. It can be argued that GDPR has had a good effect on targeting, as it has meant that advertisers have had to clean up their data and that as a result, data is of much higher quality. But targeting now has a new threat — the fact that two major browsers, Apple’s Safari, and Firefox, are more actively blocking cookies.

We see more contextual advertising as a result of GDPR, but we also see more advertising on sign-in platforms. Spotify’s new focus on podcasts means that it can advertise to signed-in users, targeting both on the user’s ID, but also the context of the podcast itself.

Did we get it right?

Expanding Connectivity

What we said:
Faster connectivity will mean even more content, even more choice, and even more competition for attention. User experience will become even more important, as people will skip more often. Brands will be able to monitor more data from more devices and include this in more of their decisions.

What happened:
5G has arrived and is already seeing take-up. In South Korea, there were 3.5m 5G accounts by the end of September, and it looks likely that there will be more than 5m by the end of the year. We are monitoring for new services coming out of the fast connectivity, and we have already seen an augmented reality app for TV shopping. In the US many sports stadiums are being connected to 5G so that fans can enjoy extra features in their seats.

We also see lots of plans to help global connectivity through satellites, with Elon Musk’s SpaceX planning more than 40,000 to boost global broadband. Connectivity has never been more important.

Did we get it right?

Digital Detox

What we said:
Global Web Index found that 19% of those surveyed in the UK and US had been on a digital detox, and 70% had tried to cut down on screen time. If screen time falls, consumers will become more selective over the services they use, the content they consume, and the brands they engage with.

What happened:
Digital Detox was the only one of the ten trends that did not happen. We have not seen a decline in usage of digital media, and it seems that the lure of content is just too great.

However, we have seen initiatives to reduce the addictive nature of social media. Most notably Instagram making the number of ‘Likes’ on a post invisible to users, to reduce the peer pressure. While there may not be a lot of detoxing, this feels like a positive step.

Did we get it right?

From single-rider lines at amusement parks to single-ticket sales to Broadway shows– the era of the solo consumer is upon us. In fact, in a quest for solitude, Japanese consumers are renting cars just to have some solitude.

However, does the rise of the solo economy mean an increased desire for wanting to disconnect?

Today being alone is a common, everyday experience driven by two key factors. Research shows in countries with high incomes per capita, there is a delay in traditional life stages such as marriage and children. As a result, people are remaining single for longer and are living alone, perhaps multiple times throughout a lifetime. Additionally, by 2050, the UN forecasts that nearly 70% of people will live in urban environments. The move from rural to urban naturally disrupts the family unit, leaving individuals where once groups existed.

These factors create a new demand for solo-oriented consumption — or in other terms, a solo-economy.

Digital-disconnect vs solo-economy

At the same time, many are feeling detached from others due to spending less time together in-person and more time connected virtually. Both solo-ism and digitally disconnecting allow us to explore the world on our own and spend much needed ‘me-time’ to refresh from a hyperconnected world. Additionally, even married people with families need ‘me-time.’

When someone chooses to disconnect digitally, it’s often in response to the amount of time and energy spent on their phones and on social media. The reasons why someone chooses to ‘digitally-disconnect’ are varied: from mental-wellbeing to productivity to an increase in real-life connection. Whereas people in the solo economy may still choose to interact with social media and other digital information while being alone. What’s intriguing about the digital disconnect, or digitally-detoxing, is that it’s the most technologically advanced, affluent and younger demographics that are doing this the most often.

The Digital Revolution has also enabled more alone time — even when in the company of others. Consumers today can consume music, TV, videos and more through personal devices, rather than on one household device or in public spaces. In 2018, 35% of global consumers watched TV on demand “most often alone” and 3 in 10 play video games alone most often. And the always-on consumer has a constant connection with others through social media and messaging, without the need to meet up in real life. With 61% of global consumers and over 80% in many Asian countries using group chat in 2018 to connect with friends and family, can we ever say we’re truly alone? ​

Opportunities for Brands

Brands can create experiences that focus on empowering those who are doing things on their own.

1. Make offers and promotions accessible for solo dwellers

To attract new consumers who are prone to consuming solo, ensure that certain offers and promotions appeal to this mindset. Direct discounts or introductory offers will feel universally appealing.

2. Use ‘Me time’ as an invitation to treat consumers and entice new purchases

Often offers are positioned around group, family or couple savings. Instead, how can the solo consumer experience be incentivised or celebrated? Perhaps the best example is Singles Day. In China, Singles Day — a shopping event day of special promotions — was born from the idea to play on anti-Valentine’s day sentiment by providing single consumers with an alternative day to celebrate themselves. It is now China’s most prominent retail event of the year, far surpassing sales on Black Friday.

3. Elevate the solo experience

Explore how to offer consumers moments of solo: help them shop, consume, eat and browse by creating shopping environments, restaurants, leisure spaces that respect the need for space and moments of solitude. ​

4. Provide antidotes to loneliness

Create spaces and opportunities for solo consumers who seek new social interactions to engage. In-store events, shopping “dates” with experts or shared seating and communal areas are ways brands can help to provide moments for meaningful connection. ​

Solo living does not negate the need for community or the risk of loneliness among those who live solitary lifestyles. The balance between happily alone and loneliness will be a delicate balancing act for societies — especially those with rising single-occupant households or aging populations. Nevertheless, solo living is an invitation to brands to cater to the single mindset and for the desire of solitary moments. Sometimes, a table for one is exactly what the consumer is looking for.

Danielle Hemsley is Insight Director, Carat USA.

Are we alone together in the solo economy? was originally published in Carat on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When walking into a bar, a consumer faces an endless choice of drinks. Alcohol brands want to be the first choice in that consumer’s mind, but how do they achieve that? How can they create awareness for what the consumer wants, ensuring that they will pick their brand of beer, wine or spirit over the competition?

The consumption of alcohol has the context of the occasion: from a girl’ s-night out, a drink at Christmastime or buying wine for a dinner party. Culture, location, and season are all variables when deciding which brand to choose.

So how do alcohol brands take these occasion-based considerations into account and win the first glass of the night?

Bars and restaurants vs shops and supermarkets

Alcohol brands sell within two streams: ‘On-trade’ — at bars and restaurants, and ‘off-trade’ — such as shops and supermarkets. With each of those two streams, there are different occasions that create unique opportunities for planning. This is what is called “occasion-based Marketing.”

If done right, occasion-based Marketing can lead alcohol brands to be more effective in planning, driving sales.

With ‘off-trade’, consumers tend to go for the usual well-known choice or something that is on promotion. It’s habitual behaviour — we know what we like in the weekly shop. An example of this is certain brands capitalising on the increasing trend of home drinking, with campaigns that insert their product into specific occasions, such as food recipes made at home. These types of campaigns drive greater awareness around the drink and build the brand image.

Within ‘on-trade’, consumer behaviour is much more spontaneous. Consumers are more likely to try something new, or outside of their usual repertoire. After all, it’s just one drink, as opposed to buying in bulk at a supermarket and creating the opportunity to have a consumer think of a brand before they’re at the bar.

How to create spontaneous decisions in your favour

It’s all about Consideration — converting people at the right moment when it matters the most. Achieving this is about creating a spontaneous decision, driven by pure emotion. The first step is to understand the drinking culture. What are the main drinking occasions within that region? How do cultural moments impact the choices that people make when buying that first drink? An alcohol brand’s message needs to be as relevant and timely as possible. Creating that “I really need a beer” feeling. How do we do this?

1. Timing is everything

In some countries, after-work drinking can happen on any day of the week. Whereas in other markets, drinking occasions tend to occur at the end of the week. For example, a pint of beer is unlikely to be on the consumer’s mind during Monday morning rush hour commute, but once Thursday comes around, it could be a different story! Gradually increasing the intensity of your campaign as the week progresses is essential. Gordon’s #YayDelay campaign is a perfect example of how having the right timing, made for an effective occasion-based marketing campaign.

Gordon’s campaign capitalised on the misery of commuters suffering train delays. An algorithm was used to locate and target passengers who had been hit by delays and cancellations at major London stations and offered them a free G&T to claim at the train station.

2. Go beyond paid media

In today’s busy world, going out is usually a planned activity when it comes to socialising with friends. Do you remember how you planned your last outing with friends? It’s probably happened on instant messages in a chat group rather than over the phone call. Our instant-messaging culture is a perfect opportunity for alcohol brands to be part of the conversation when friends decide to go “out-out”. For example, consider the creation of bespoke gifs and sticker packs that can be used in a consumer’s friendly conversation with each other. Naturally, avoiding overly branded content will enable your drink to be associated with this occasion more broadly, and not fade into oblivion.

3. Double-down on relevance and proximity

We need to communicate with the consumer in the space of a heartbeat when he or she is just in the right state of mind to buy. Think of Digital Out of Home (DOOH), Digital Radio ads or Navigation and Maps integrations. All of these channels present an opportunity to remind consumers about your brand when they’re passing by their local bar downtown. For example, Diageo’s DOOH poster campaign featured five brands within their portfolio, serving different messages based on the weather and time of the day.

4. Associate your brand with the best choice of the night

People are always looking out for the hottest, and best-reviewed bars and restaurants in town. Appearing in ads next to this “hot or not” factor (often within lifestyle websites and apps), will provide a direct link between new and exciting restaurants and your drink.

Those moments where the cultural relevance between the brand and the consumer align, create opportunities to position your brand at the heart of the impulse decision many consumers make in buying that first drink. A well-balanced media mix will bring the most value for money with the same budget. Embracing the ability for data and technology will make every dollar of your marketing budget work harder and connect with the end consumer in the most effective way.

Cheers to that.

Renat Ageychik is Strategy Director for Integrated Clients at Carat.

Alcohol brands: how to win the first glass of the night was originally published in Carat on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We’re in a difficult place when it comes to interacting with the digital world. Consumers are exposed to 5,000 ads a day, and according to Dentsu Aegis’ Digital Society index, 30 percent of people are worried about how their mobile phone usage affects their mental health.

This over-exposure is causing audiences to disengage — or digital detox — actively limiting the time they spend, data they share and ads they see online. What’s intriguing though, is that it’s the most technologically advanced, affluent and younger demographic that are detoxing most often. The audience most likely to engage with a brand digitally, is becoming the hardest group for brands to reach.

But where are these consumers going? Have they disconnected completely? Not quite. While people cut back on their digital lives, podcast listenership has risen above a third of the population in many markets, and is only predicted to grow in the 2020s’. While the increase is across all age groups, the most active listeners are the same young adults with higher-than-average salaries, degrees and digital skills, who are most eagerly turning off their screens and detoxing.

Yes, new technology like smart speakers and platforms like Spotify make spoken-word content more accessible than ever before. But the ultimate reason for the rise of audio may be deeply human: In the flood of visual stimulus, audio content feels refreshing. Screen-less experiences provide an antidote to the fast-paced, always-on, digital overflow. Nearly half of listeners tune in to unwind and, according to a recent BBC Global News study, 94% of listeners consume podcasts while engaged in another activity. Whether relaxing in the bath or cooking, people can go about their lives, or retreat into the theatre of their minds, whilst actively enjoying the experience.

What does this mean for advertisers? It’s no secret that reaching people when they are in a good mood boosts ad effectiveness, in terms of both awareness uplift and receptivity to advertising. Research from BII reports that 55% of users pay attention to podcast ads, compared to only 34% for online video ads.

The fact that audiences are more engaged means that podcasts are making audiences inclined to buy. In research conducted by Midroll, they reported that there were significant uplifts in brand recall and purchase intent for podcast ads, compared to other forms of online advertisement. People forget what they’ve seen but remember what they’ve heard. Two-thirds of respondents could name an actual product feature or specific promotion mentioned in a podcast ad. Interestingly, in the BBC Global News study, performing other tasks while listening even boosted brand recall by 28%.

If audiences are closing their eyes to advertising but opening their ears to audio, how could brands enter the audio space, the theatre of the mind? The key is to have a solid understanding of the format (along with a sprinkling of creativity). There are no hard and fast rules for podcast success, but a few proven strategies stand out:

1. Commission branded content.

In 2018, Kellogg’s executed a podcast campaign around the hit ITV show Love Island. Due to the quality of the content, Kellogg’s were able to connect to a very hard-to-reach young audience. The podcast “The Morning After” was ranked the №1 podcast on iTunes for seven weeks straight, driving millennial supermarket visits by 16%.

2. Build integrated partnerships.

Guinness partnered with the number one podcast sports show in the UK, the House of Rugby Podcast. The weekly show covered the main talking points from the 2019 Rugby Six Nations which extended Guinness’ rugby credentials to upmarket young adults that were hard to reach elsewhere.

3. Let the host speak for you.

Two-thirds of the nearly $500 million podcast ad revenue was spent on host-read ads. Ideally host-read ads become part of the show: The tech podcast Reply All turned an ad for a metallic photo print service into a three-part narrative series climaxing with the show’s hosts surprising each other with special prints they had made.

4. Go programmatic.

With a programmatic approach, advertisers can make the adverts as unique as the podcasts themselves. It doesn’t cost the earth to create the ad asset, and with the scale of audiences and podcast topics, advertisers will be spoilt for choice. After which, they are also able to extract as much data as they receive from other digital channels. The fact that programmatic podcast ad revenue increased by 85% between 2016 to 2017, shows the power of this strategy.

The digital landscape is shifting. From visual information overload, to a more refined and engaged method of communication in audio. This is radically altering the marketing paradigm for brands, as growth is supplemented by what we hear, and not just what we see. But this is not an easy switch, or a quick-fix for audience engagement. This shift will only be beneficial for those brands that take hold of the opportunity fully, and invest long-term. In the bewildering landscape of visual ads, audio will continue to provide an oasis. If more brands are able to understand why this is the case, then the more audiences and brands will be able to cohabitate within it.

Elio LaGrua is Global Strategy Director at Carat.

Find out more about Digital Detoxing in our 2019 Trends.

Tune in to tune out: How audio is bringing growth for advertisers in the digital detox world. was originally published in Carat on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.