TRENDING NORTH: APRIL ‘21
A monthly look at the marketing and advertising industry from NORTH’s point of view.
Cookie Jar
A monthly series focusing on a world without third-party cookies and the “privacy sandbox”
Nicole Bell, Media Director
Last month, we talked about Google’s plans to phase out third-party cookies by the end of the year. Earlier this year, Google released its solution to replacing cookies: Federated Learning of Cohorts or FLoC (yet another acronym to add to the media dictionary). FLoC is a complicated technology that several ad tech companies are hesitant to use because it’s completely dependent on the browser maker.
Third-party cookies focus on an individual and their online browser behavior, for example I may jump from BuzzFeed to NY Times to All Recipes to Ford. I would be classified as someone in the market for a new car, and someone that likes to cook and someone that stays current on world affairs.
FLoCs focus on a group of people with similar browsing histories. If I follow the same path above, I could be placed in a news bucket or in-market for a new vehicle or a home chef. It appears that FLoC is a little more fragmented, but so few ad tech companies have tested it that it’s unknown what impact FLoCs will have. All we can do is wait and see.
TikTok Adds Lead Gen Ads to Their Capabilities
Madelyn Engel, Performance Marketing Manager
TikTok has launched new lead generation ads to all businesses globally, which allow businesses to prospect and capture data directly from their instream ads. These ads are fully customizable, including the background images, logo images, and questionnaire text. The business can download this information at any time and even integrate it into their CRM lists. The information that users provide can also be auto-populated for an efficient experience to the user. This feature comes at a perfect time as growing first party data and CRM lists is a top of mind strategy as Apple is rolling out their newest iOS update that will limit third-party app data.
eCommerce is Leaning in to Shoppable User Generated Content
Madelyn Engel, Performance Marketing Manager
Word of mouth and recommendations from family and friends have long since been a top driver in purchasing decisions. 70% of consumers say they trust UGC more than branded content and 79% say UGC highly impacts their purchasing decisions. Because of this trust and perceived authenticity, consumers are 6x more likely to purchase a product if the page includes pictures from social media.
Brands are leaning into this strategy by shifting the spotlight from themselves to their loyal customers and fans, and feeding that content into their marketing strategies by featuring UGC on their websites, marketing emails, and social feeds. Brands are looking to make the shopping experience as seamless as possible, with one of the leading strategies being looking for opportunities to make UGC shoppable, ensuring customers are only 1–2 clicks away from purchase and can buy when inspiration strikes.
YouTube Ad Revenue Increased 49% Year over Year
Madelyn Engel, Performance Marketing Manager
As more users are switching their viewing behaviors away from traditional TV and instead watching more on-demand, always available content through connected TVs, advertisers are following suit and investing more on YouTube than traditional TV buys. YouTube also reaches a younger audience than traditional channels, with more 18-to-49-year-olds watching YouTube than all linear TV combined. As a digital platform, YouTube offers the opportunity to connect TV/Video ads with action, unlike Traditional TV buys. YouTube is looking to take advantage of this by adding more ecommerce opportunities to their platform to allow users to discover and buy in the same place.
Podcasts Swing from Free to Premium
Stephen Lawrence, Media Planner
It comes as no surprise that podcasts have been on the rise during the pandemic, with an estimated 116 million Americans, or 41% of the U.S. population over the age of 12, being monthly podcast listeners, an 11% increase over 2020, says the Wall Street Journal. With that comes a shift into a different way of steaming podcasts from the two major players, Spotify and Apple. Apple announced last week that they would now be allowing podcast creators to release both free content and premium paid content, while Spotify is following suit, but with a twist to allow creators to distribute their listening experiences to other podcast platforms. It will be interesting to see how the popularity of podcasts moves from here, as most listeners have become accustomed to a free listening experience.
Zoom Offers an Immersive View
Stephen Lawrence, Media Planner
For many people around the world, the idea of Zoom fatigue has become commonplace — the feeling of exhaustion from back-to-back video calls and limited in-person human interaction leads to a feeling of tiredness and video fatigue. However, Zoom has released a new feature to combat this exhaustion — Zoom’s Immersive View. The immersive view allows the host of Zoom meetings to create a panelist-like set up, with hopes of recreating “a classroom, a boardroom, a conference auditorium, or your favorite place to catch up with friends” says Zoom. With this update, Zoom is hoping to create a more natural environment for individuals, with the same customizable background features that Zoom-users love.
Cottagecore: The Social Media Trend for Dreamers
Stephen Lawrence, Media Planner
If you’re someone who loves wide-open gardens, idealistic farm life and whimsical country-sides, then you’ll probably love the newest social media trend hitting Instagram, TikTok and Youtube — cottagecore. Good Housekeeping describes cottagecore as embracing “the charm of the English countryside (hence its name), creating an idealized representation of farm life — no matter where in the world you may live.” With over 1.75 million posts tagged with cottagecore on Instagram and 6 billion views on cottagecore tags on TikTok, this social media trend seems to be exactly what a lot of us need in the midst of a pandemic — an idealistic landscape where we can take a deep breath and relax.
