We’re searching for the most pressing marketing insights this week. Updated daily.
Adweek
According to Tula Skincare CEO, year-over-year sales for April are up five fold, and nearly two times what they were in March. The brand is seeing increased demand from both existing customers and new ones.
Why it matters: In Tula’s case, repurposing its field team to become digital skincare advisers has helped boost sales at a time when its retail partners like Ulta and Nordstrom remain closed.
The Drum
A Twitter study found that 64 percent of people think brands should continue advertising their products as normal while 52 percent said this content helps give them a sense of normalcy.
Why it matters: Though consumers want brands to advertise as usual, 93 percent agreed that the tone needs to change.
Adweek
The pandemic has created a downward spiral in momentum for disability in advertising and creative considerations.
Why it matters: Implementing immediate disability inclusion in ads involving leveraging user-generated content from brand ambassadors with disabilities, working with disabled influencers and actors, using appropriate disability stock photography, ensuring your digital ecosystem is accessible and incorporating alternate forms of messaging to reach all audiences.
Forbes
On planning for the new normal, Pabst general manager and president Matt Bruhn says his brand is, “Making sure we can service existing demand, but then thinking about what changes when people do start to go back to some level of social activity.” For Pabst, from a brand perspective, that means a focus on continuity of manufacturing and supply to retail.
Why it matters: The US can study what’s happening in countries further along in the pandemic, like China and Italy, to prepare for what’s next.
Marketing Week
In addition to devising promotional campaigns, marketers throughout the 1950s, 60s and 70s devised product development and distribution strategy and worked out the optimum price. According to the most recent CMO Survey, the 21st century marketer is increasingly little more than the communications department.
Why it matters: The evolution of marketing as a discipline is exemplified by data from the CMO Survey which found that market research and analytics, as well as market entry and revenue growth, are less and less at the direction of the marketing department.
Business Insider
Starbucks said it plans to have more than 90 percent of its location open, with adjusted operations, by June 1. Reopenings will be based on analysis of customer frequency, local government guidance, countries’ infection rates and sentiment among customers and workers.
Why it matters: Though Starbucks will begin opening stores next week, most will not allow customers inside, requiring they pick up at the door or by drive-thru. Only select stores will reopen their interior to the public and allow customers to place orders with a cashier, and those that do will remove seating and add social-distancing markers. In addition, Starbucks employees will require pre-shift temperate checks.
Adweek
The pandemic is an opportunity to reflect how marketing mixes should look from product to promotion if we could start over.
Why it matters: Millennials are looking for happiness in other places than their wallet, which requires brands to create products and services that can make them experience, do or become.
AdAge
Spotify’s earnings report shows usage in car, wearable and web platforms dropped while television and game-console use increased materially, or over 50 percent.
Why it matters: Social distancing has caused two in five consumers to listen to more music to manage stress, according to Spotify. The streaming company now reports a total of 286 million monthly active (MAU) users after it added 15 million new MAUs in the first three months of 2020.
Forbes
Executive coach Ray Foote encourages employees to think about “who” we are in different situations instead of “what” I would do.
Why it matters: After the pandemic, there will be a need for better commitment to company culture, empathy for challenges employees are facing and more flexible workforce models.
The Drum
The Ad Council, Comedy Central and ViacomCBS’ Entertainment & Youth Brands released the second phase of #AloneTogether, a campaign to help people whose mental health has been affected by the pandemic. The campaign builds on the #StayHome campaign Ad Council, Google and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) launched earlier this month, with participating brands updating their logo with a roof icon.
Why it matters: The campaign follows a survey conducted by MTV in which 56 percent of respondents said they were not seeking help for their mental health despite a 37 percent decrease in the general mental wellness since the coronavirus outbreak.
Mobile Marketer
Bloomberg Media rolled out a self-serve ad tool called Boost that lets brands repurpose their existing social media ads into mobile display ads across Bloomberg’s editorial ecosystem.
Why it matters: At a time when mobile advertising is down due to the pandemic, Boost could save mobile marketers the extra cost of redeveloping their existing creative for use on Bloomberg’s media outlets.
Adweek
To navigate marketing in the time of the pandemic, brands should quickly move from brick-and-mortar to a delivery service model, if necessary, create additional value through packaging, distribution or usage, use content to enhance customers’ lives, partner with competitors to create essentials like hand sanitizer and ventilators and explore new and unexpected brand partnerships.
Why it matters: The pandemic has cut off many paths to traditional advertising, requiring brands to reframe marketing entirely.
Forbes
Some examples of brands tapping into their creativity amid coronavirus include Red Pipe Studios and Familjen developing a white noise generator with which you can hear sounds from the office dog and coffee machine, Behr launching virtual backgrounds to use in Zoom calls and Getty challenging people to create art with household items and share the creations on social media.
Why it matters: Exercising creativity in times of crisis can be an inherently positive act.
The Drum
To maintain company culture amid coronavirus, RAPP CEO Chris Freeland recommends exercising empathy, fostering individuality and supporting innovative ideas and their authors.
Why it matters: Company culture is critical to keeping business ticking.
