From Summer to Fall: The Digital Marketing Roundup
Staying on top of everything that goes on in the world of digital marketing can be a full-time job. This is an issue for those of us that already have a job and also enjoy luxuries like sleeping, eating and a social life. To give you a helping hand, we’ve been monitoring the web to bring you some stories you may have missed over the past month.
Nike and Asos May Have Changed the Game
Fashion powerhouses Nike and Asos have teamed up on an innovative new tool that allows shoppers to upload a picture of a model/Instagram influencer/random person in the street to their site. The tool will then analyze the image and suggest clothes from the brands’ inventory that match the image you’ve uploaded. We’ve tried this out ourselves and learned a few things:
- The AI that recognizes the clothes in the tool is pretty accurate, it can recognize style, color and fit. Although it does depend on the quality and clarity of the picture that you submit.
- Some people in our office aren’t the most stylish.
We love the innovative approach to shopping and the sophistication of the artificial intelligence involved in recognising the elements in the image.
In terms of marketing, it is clever as the tool will take all images regardless of original brand and convert them into Asos and Nike products.
Influencers may be looking to ensure that clothes are clearly displayed in their posts to allow users to search for their clothes. This may mean that the ‘natural’ look that is featured in many influencer sponsored posts could be replaced by a more catalogue style.
It will be interesting to see whether other brands follow suit (pun intended).
AI Trucks, Coming to a Motorway Near You?
Self-driving cars have been in the news for a couple of years now. Big businesses like Uber have been exploring the possibility of trucks that can transport goods autonomously. There are a number of technological, moral and logistical issues that offer problems to the innovative technology.
Trials have taken place in Europe with a convoy of wifi connected trucks successfully travelling from Germany to Holland. The UK government has £8.1m to trial ‘platooning’ convoys — where vehicles are guided by a lead vehicle. Each vehicle will have a human driver inside the cab who can take over if required.
It is hoped that self-driving vehicles can help to reduce congestion on our roads during rush hours, as well as improving efficiency in the logistics industry as robots aren’t required to stop every couple of hours to do inefficient things like sleep, visit the bathroom or have a coffee.
The chief executive of TRL, Rob Wallis, said: “The UK has an unprecedented opportunity to lead the world in trialling connected vehicle platoons in a real-world environment.”
We’re excited about the idea of self-driving vehicles. It not only offers more marketing opportunity to passenger/drivers, but additionally the prospect of being able to catch up on Twitter and emails on the way to the office which is an exciting proposal.
Younger Users favour Snaps and Insta over Books
A breaking story that will be of interest to social media managers and strategists is the news that younger audiences are dropping away from Facebook. Teenage social media users favour image-based platforms.
For those in the UK 12-to-17 and 18-to-24 age brackets, this year there will be a decline in Facebook usage by 2.8% and 3.1% respectively according to research by eMarketer.
‘Across all age groups, more than a quarter of the UK population will log on to Instagram at least once a month by the end of 2017 meaning in total 16.7 million people will be regular Instagram users; an increase of 35% on 2016.’
21% of Brits will be using Snapchat every month by 2018, but while Snap will enjoy 20% growth on last year’s UK figures, eMarketer is slightly more pessimistic regarding the platform’s long-term future. This indicates the eMarketing feels that Instagram’s policy of copying everything Snapchat does will continue to work.
This is interesting news for those planning social media strategies for the next 12 months. If you’re targeting teens and early twenties you may want to spend your budget on places other than Zuckerberg’s social goliath. Of course, it’s always best to create a complete social media strategy and do some social media listening first.
What’s Changing in Whatsapp?
If you’re one of the one billion people that use Whatsapp, you’ve probably seen some of the changes that Facebook has made to the platform recently. As part of its ongoing crusade to crush Snapchat, a ‘stories’ option was added that allows users to share images and videos for 24-hours.
The messaging service is also testing photo-editing technology (sound familiar?). This seems like a slightly strange decision considering that filters exist on Facebook owned Messenger and Instagram platforms. Additionally, these platforms have likes, shares and comments that incentivize touching up photos and provide an impetus to make your photos look as interesting and impressive as possible. For Whatsapp, if a user is sharing a photo directly from the app, it’s likely to be a quick snap to convey a message rather than a well thought-out piece of art. You’d probably create that on another platform and share it quickly via Whatsapp.
Finally, on our Whatsapp roundup, brands could soon be able to communicate with consumers and customers via the app. WhatsApp is giving business accounts verified green badges if their contact information checks out. So far, business verification is limited to the small number of businesses that are participating in the pilot program. If the phone number of a contact belongs to a business account, it earns a green check.
Soon you could be including Whatsapp in your marketing strategy. We think it could be a great way to get feedback, announce special offers, do a bit of subtle remarketing or encourage some up or cross-selling.
That’s your lot for this month. Hopefully, this will give you enough ammunition to impress your colleagues while you wait for the meeting to start, or the kettle to boil. See you next month for more stories you may have missed.
