Chat GPT is not the only thing challenging Google’s market dominance this year. Aside from the rise of generative AI and the AI-takeover of search, Google is also having to contend with the increasing rise of exploratory search on social media sites, particularly Instagram, TikTok and Reddit, implying how people are searching out information online is also changing on this front, particularly for Gen Z, an audience with a truly mobile-first mindset.
A Generational Shift in Search Behaviour
According to Google themselves, about 40 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds are turning to social media sites, as opposed to Google’s own products (Chrome, Google Maps etc.), to discover information, with the generational shift largely attributed to Gen Z’s preference for more visual content. Research from M&C Saatchi Performance suggests this number is actually as high as 62 percent, with only 8 percent of Gen Z using Google Chrome or another traditional search engine for this purpose and the remainder using an alternative social media platform.
“So, is TikTok, the “new blue ocean of global traffic”, going to upend Google’s dominance in search?”
For a brief period, TikTok even managed to dethrone Google as the world’s most popular domain in 2021, and its increasing market dominance in search amongst younger audiences suggests it might do so again. It is clear that the future of how younger audiences interact with search is evolving, giving rise to new opportunities for both sellers and advertisers, not just in terms of engagement but in terms of social commerce.
This trend is already well underway is some parts of the world and is being facilitated by the integration of native shopping features into social media apps like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest, blurring the traditional distinctions between e-commerce and social media.
The Global Rise of Social Commerce
Globally, social commerce generated $728 billion in 2022, with that figure expected to reach $6.2 trillion by 2030. Thailand has the highest share of social commerce buyers globally, with nine in 10 Thai consumers having purchased directly through social media, followed by India and the United Arab Emirates. Browsing and shopping through social media is also a mainstay of Chinese commerce, accounting for 52 percent of total commerce in 2022.
“Not only is YouTube the most popular platform for teens to watch videos, but they are also watching ads, willingly”
Social commerce is expected to see rapid adoption and growth in the US market in the next few years. As could be predicted from their emerging dominance in search, TikTok and its ability to capture and hold the scarce commodity that is consumer attention, is key to this trend, with social commerce sales projected to account for $79.6 billion in the US market alone by 2025.
In the UK, traditional search is still king for motivating purchase behaviour for now; however, this is slowly changing for younger audiences, according to a recent UK Direct to Consumer Report which shows social media has doubled to six percent in popularity amongst 18–25-year-olds as the starting point of a purchasing journey.
TikTok Made Me Buy It
Gen Z audiences are particularly receptive to advertising they see on TikTok’s platform, with 59 percent reporting having purchased something they saw advertised on TikTok and a further 34 percent saying if they’re open to doing so, according to research by M&C Saatchi Performance. In fact, as of August 2023, the hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt had garnered almost 70 billion views.
“It is clear that the future of how younger audiences interact with search is evolving, giving rise to new opportunities for both sellers and advertisers”
As Gen Z’s purchasing power continues to grow, their appetite for video-and image-driven content could threaten Google’s AdTech empire in the years ahead, as advertisers begin pivoting more and more ad spend to social platforms like TikTok to reach this key demographic, which research shows is already 93 percent purchase-ready.
And TikTok doesn’t just see itself fulfilling part of the customer journey, pushing traffic externally as has been traditionally done through social media advertising; instead, its embracing the concept of full-funnel commerce – from discovery right through to purchase. TikTok recently launched its own in-built e-commerce solution, TikTok Shop, enabling SMEs to sell direct to consumers on the app with the aid of a Shopify integration, thereby reducing the steps in the purchasing journey between discovery and purchase.
“In the UK, traditional search is still king for motivating purchase behaviour”
TikTok Shop has several features which prove useful for businesses, including shoppable livestreams, videos and product showcases ads, though it is not yet available in all markets. Many brands have already enjoyed significant success from this close-the-loop ecosystem, notably in the fashion and beauty space. For example, indie British brand Unicorn Cosmetics which launched its TikTok Shop in late 2021 and through experimentation with one of TikTok’s lower funnel ad features, Video Shopping Ads, enjoyed an 18% in conversion rate, a 17 percent reduction in CPA and a 4 percent increase in ROAS.
As recently as August, TikTok announced plans to launch a new fulfilment service, Fulfilled by TikTok, in the US, to make it easier for people to sell on its platform. This is already being tested in the UK market, and has the added benefit of diversifying TikTok’s revenue stream from just solely advertising.
YouTube, the Most Popular Platform With Gen Z
So, is TikTok, the “new blue ocean of global traffic”, going to upend Google’s dominance in search? Not right now perhaps, but in the near future it certainly could, especially now that TikTok is also integrating a conversational AI chatbot called Tako into its platform to answer user search queries, just like Open AI’s ChatGPT. This could also radically change consumption habits on social media.
Not all is lost for Google, however. Its savvy move in acquiring YouTube back in 2006 for the hefty price tag of $1.65 billion has paid dividends, with the brand value now closer to $30 billion, making it the eight most valuable media brand in the world. It’s also the second most popular social network across all generations, based on number of monthly active users – second only to Meta’s Facebook, and specifically, with Gen Z, enjoys huge popularity.
“Globally, social commerce generated $728 billion in 2022, with that figure expected to reach $6.2 trillion by 2030”
And that’s not all, brand-new research from Precise TV and Giraffe Insights shows that not only is YouTube the most popular platform for teens to watch videos, but they are also watching ads, willingly (six in 10 would watch, rather than skip), and are twice as likely to recall an ad on YouTube as they are on TikTok. The research also shows that YouTube is a firm part of Gen Z’s daily routine.
What Does this Mean for Brands and Advertisers?
If they want to connect with Gen Z audiences and haven’t already pivoted away from traditional TV, YouTube should be a priority media channel for ad spend, followed by TikTok. Marketers should keep a close eye on the development of social commerce on TikTok’s platform, test out new formats at different stages of the funnel and be nimble enough to adjust their media planning as consumption trends shift and change.
To summarise, yes, the increasing adoption of social commerce amongst young people has the potential, in time, to significantly weaken Google’s grip on the advertising industry; however, a savvy investment in YouTube and the impending launch of its search generative experience (SGE) snapshot, might be its saving grace.
While Chat GPT is a powerful tool for marketing and has the fastest growing user adoption of any consumer application in modern history, surpassing more than half a million downloads in its first week, the majority of people have never actually used the stand-alone interface.
Microsoft Bing’s conversational AI, on the other hand, is embedded into a commonly used search engine and pulls in information from the web and summarizes it to answer users’ search queries. However, Microsoft Bing only makes up about nine percent of global desktop search traffic, while Google Chrome accounts for just under 84 percent; from a mobile perspective, Google Chrome accounts for 94 percent of all global search traffic.
“One of the biggest causes of concern for marketers will be the impact of the SGE snapshot on organic traffic.”
So, where does Google, owner of the market leader browser, and a global tech behemoth, fit into this rapidly changing AI-powered conversational search landscape? Will a stand-alone conversational chatbot like Chat GPT upend its market dominance?
A Moment of Vulnerability for Google
Only time will tell but certainly the threat of Open AI’s GPT technology was enough to cause Google CEO Sundar Pichai to declare a code red back in December 2022, with insiders noting it as a moment of significant vulnerability for Google due to Open AI putting forward a new vision for what the future of search might look like.
Unlike Open AI, a small San Francisco start-up, Google has a lot to lose by releasing an AI search experience that it is not fully tested and ready for widespread adoption – not just from the public’s perspective, but from the publishers and advertisers it serves through its giant walled garden of interconnected products.
In 2006, Google’s co-founder Larry Page was quoted as saying, “The ultimate search engine would understand everything in the world. It would understand everything that you asked it, and give you back the exact right thing instantly”. Larry’s vision looks set to become a reality this year, with Google’s new Search Generative Experience (SGE) announced in May 2023 with the promise of “supercharging search through generative AI”.
Google’s search algorithm currently ranks web content based on an internal set of criteria, notably relevance and quality of content, and returns answers to search queries through a three-step process of crawling, indexing and serving – the last step resulting in a list of top organic results being displayed on its search engine results page (SERP) in addition to related paid ads. Queries typically fall into three categories: (1) navigational, (2) informational and (3) transactional and are answered with a mix of paid and organic results.
Augmenting the SERP
With SGE, Google will use AI to augment the SERP, enabling new types of queries – conversational queries – to give users a better user experience. SGE will enable users to ask natural language questions like “What’s the weather like today” and have the search query answered with a human-like response which takes into consideration things like location and browsing history.
“While organic traffic will likely drop off, what makes it through to the website will be more qualified traffic and, therefore, more likely to convert, making it inherently more valuable.”
The impact of the incorporation of the SGE snapshot on SEO is expected to be significant, with beta testing currently showing that it pushes organic results down the SERP quite significantly, particularly for product or informational searches. One of the biggest causes of concern for marketers will be the impact of the SGE snapshot on organic traffic.
Every significant iteration to Google’s search engine has effected some level of change, so why would SGE be any different? For example, when Google first introduced featured snippets, which saw a greater amount of content featured on the SERP than ever before, organic traffic fell. Why? Because more content was available on the SERP itself without users needing to click through for more information and therefore spending more time on the SERP.
In the case of SGE, for example, if a user asks for a recipe for a cake, the recipe will feature directly on the SERP and facilitate follow-up questions like “what kind of icing should I use?”. This could actually be a net positive for marketers, however, as while organic traffic will likely drop off, what makes it through to the website will be more qualified traffic and, therefore, more likely to convert, making it inherently more valuable.
“The richer the data, the easier it will be for Google to understand the content its taking context from and the better chance of being featured in the SGE snapshot.”
Increasing share of voice (SOV) on Google’s SERP is one of the most important SEO KPIs and proven to be a driver of long-term brand growth and fighting for that SOV is likely to become even more competitive with the introduction of SGE.
Impact of SGE Snapshot on SEO
With that said, the question on every marketers’ mind is how will SGE impact SEO and what can brands do ahead of its release? The answer is simple – optimise your content and consider how Google will parse your content. In essence, tell a story with your data so that Google can understand and contextualise it.
Marketers should focus on improving their schema markup – especially user generated content like reviews, in addition to their usual product or service details (price, availability etc.). Google’s E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) formula is still king when it comes to SEO, with the second “E” for “experience” being a recent addition to the best practice guidelines. Google values first-hand experience in the form of user-generated content. SGE takes context from web content, so it will take things like reviews and pull them into the generative results.
“Tell a story with your data so that Google can understand and contextualise it.”
The richer the data, the easier it will be for Google to understand the content its taking context from and the better chance of being featured in the SGE snapshot. Long-tail keywords, more specific queries that have lower search volume, are also likely to become more and more relevant due to SGE’s natural language-style search and are likely to be cheaper due to less competition.
Crucially, in line with SEO best practices of old, marketers should focus on creating a variety of high quality, well-structured content in a variety of formats (video, infographic etc.) which addresses the intended audience’s questions or problems, helping create authority for your brand.
While the full impact of SGE has yet to be determined, US-based marketers can sign up to test out the beta version of SGE now through Google’s Search Labs. The full version is likely to be rolled-out globally in December 2023, though no official date has yet been announced.
Last November, generative AI in the form of Chat GPT entered public consciousness and instantly went viral, captivating widespread imagination with its uncanny ability to mimic human chatter, which in turn fuelled rampant speculation as to its myriad applications, both positive and negative. While many of the early innovators and adopters in marketing communications have embraced the technology, seeing its utility in a wide array of areas, others have speculated that generative AI will ultimately replace people and take jobs, particularly in regard to content creation, copywriting, and advertising.
Chatbots, even AI-powered chatbots, are not a new phenomenon. Eliza, the world’s first chatbot, was created by MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab in the late 1960s and trained to rephase speech input as a question. Many different iterations of chatbots have followed since and have attempted to pass the Turing test, the most famous test of machine intelligence which aims to see if machines can think – or, in essence, if they can write and speak in a manner indistinguishable from a human.
“Generative AI has been credited with the potential to hypercharge productivity and creativity, rewriting the very internet as we know it.”
The Challenges and Opportunities
Open AI’s GPT, upon which Chat GPT is based, soon followed suit – its ability to mimic human dialogue also deemed sufficient to pass the Turing test, though critics, as with LaMDA, disagree that it has the ability to reason. Nonetheless, the spawn of LLMs, which in essence are defined as deep learning algorithms that can recognize, summarize, translate, predict, and generate content using very large datasets and include Google’s LaMDA, Open AI’s GPT, and Meta’s LLaMA. This technology is being used to create extremely powerful AI chatbots and interfaces such as Google Bard, Chat GPT and Bing AI, which have the power to revolutionise the internet as we know it, specifically how we search out and interact with information.
In 2021, LaMDA, a new large language model (LLM) developed by Google, managed to convince Google engineer Blake Lemoine that it was not just intelligent, but also sentient. While some partially agree, arguing that LaMDA is much closer to consciousness that we realise, Blake’s beliefs are somewhat of an outlier amongst his peers. Regardless, the life-like nature of LaMDA’s responses are uncanny and widely considered a significant breakthrough for the technology.
“As one copywriter puts it, the possibilities are endless.”
Some argue, we are putting the cart before the horse and that maybe AI isn’t quite as ready to be applied to business use cases as we might think. That would certainly seem to be the case for Microsoft Bing’s new AI chat feature, Bing AI, which is powered by Open AI, the makers of Chat GPT. Microsoft touts Bing AI as being “your co-pilot for the web” and anticipate it to improve the user experience by providing more applicable results and creative inspiration from user prompts. Unlike, previous chatbots, it has the ability to provide realistic human-like responses to search queries. Sounds great, right?
Unfortunately, since its launch in February 2023, Bing AI has been mired in controversy, spawning negative headline after negative headline. It has been heavily criticised for spewing misinformation and hate speech and even making inappropriate romantic declarations, leading many to suggest maybe Bing AI isn’t quite ready for human contact. Chat GPT hasn’t escaped criticism either, with reports that it returned search results of how to build a nuclear bomb, despite supposedly having guardrails in place to prevent the AI from responding to harmful search prompts.
“It’s better for marketing communications practitioners to think of generative AI chatbots like Chat GPT as a stimulus that can help augment the creative process, not supplant it.”
Augmenting, Not Supplanting the Creative Process
Yet, despite these serious flaws and their inherent ethical implications, there seems to be broad agreement that the positive capabilities of generative AI outweigh the bad and are only beginning to be conceived. Generative AI has been credited with the potential to hypercharge productivity and creativity, rewriting the very internet as we know it. It has application in a wide array of areas, including customer experience and retention, boosting website conversion through chatbots, the automation of business-critical marketing tasks using compatible third-party integrations like Zapier, drafting emails for lead nurturing sequences, writing meta descriptions for blog posts, writing code, generating lists of short and long-tail keywords and so much more. And it can do all of that with just a few creative prompts which can be understood by the AI, not just in terms of the keywords themselves, but in terms of their semantic context. As one copywriter puts it, the possibilities are endless.
” We shouldn’t fear AI creativity or worship it, but simply use it as a tool.”
While a terrific creative resource for those working in marketing communications, caution needs to be exercised as to the accuracy of its results. As AI generative content is generally based on an amalgamation of internet sources, its result can suffer from unintended content bias or contain downright misinformation. With this in mind, it’s better for marketing communications practitioners to think of generative AI chatbots like Chat GPT as a stimulus that can help augment the creative process, not supplant it. We shouldn’t fear AI creativity or worship it, but simply use it as a tool.
Last month, Ulta, one of the largest retailers of beauty products in the United States (Statista, 2022), launched its brand-new “Beauty&” campaign platform in a bid to connect with younger audiences by reinforcing its position as a retailer committed to making a positive social impact.
The 360-campaign, rooted in cultural insights and a desire to drive progress, is “designed to move the industry forward and inspire all to reclaim beauty on their own terms” (Ulta, 2022). The idea, Ulta says, came from the insight that “consumers want companies to stand for something” (Sandler, 2022).
The star of the campaign is a bi-monthly podcast series called the “Beauty of…”, which Ulta says is intended to push the boundaries of traditional beauty topics, such as representation and beauty ideals, “expanding the lens of beauty” (Ulta, 2022).
With the goal of building brand affinity with Gen Z, Ulta’s new campaign is intended to “spark dialogue” and “shift perceptions” around what beauty means (Ulta, 2022). Ulta has enlisted the help of a wide array of influencers that resonate with Gen Z consumers to help achieve its aim.
Maintaining Competitive Advantage
On average, Ulta’s shoppers are several years’ older than that of its direct competitor Sephora (Statista, 2022). So why then is Ulta looking to specifically speak to Gen Z, the generation born between 1997-2007, with its ‘Beauty&’ campaign?
Ulta attracts a wider age range of customers (Danzige, 2019), and is seen as more accessible and welcoming than Sephora (Danzige, 2019). This is largely because it appeals to both mass-market and prestige consumers (Milnes, 2018), whereas Sephora has traditionally only catered to the latter (Danzige, 2019).
Fig 1 : Average age of female beauty consumers who shop at Sephora, Ulta and Target in the United States as of 2019 (Statista, 2022).
Despite Ulta enjoying overall brand favourability (Statista, 2022), when it came to that all important Gen Z demographic, until recently, Sephora had the market cornered (Statista, 2022).
Ulta only took the lead from Sephora as the beauty shopping destination of choice for Gen Z last year (Statista, 2022). It now owns 46% of the market share among this key demographic versus Sephora’s 21% (Statista, 2022).
Ulta’s success has largely come from courting Gen Z via the launch of a strategic partnership with Target, which saw the beauty retailer set up ‘Ulta Beauty at Target’ concessions in over a hundred US locations last year (Target, 2021).
Ulta has been able to leverage Target’s audience through the partnership, leading to an almost 30% net sales boost (Salpini, 2021).The partnership is also designed to ward off Amazon’s encroachment into the mass-market beauty space, which has seen sales of its own beauty and personal care products increase 58% year-over-year (Hunt, 2021).
On the whole, the beauty retail industry has shifted its focus to a new target audience. Technologically savvy, Gen Z are the newest trend-setters and the drivers of important cultural conversations, having no issue calling brands out when they get it wrong (Statista, 2022).
Gen X and Millennial earners are still driving sales of beauty products in the US at present, with close to $9 billion spent in the first half of 2022 (NPD, 2022).
While Millennials still have the largest disposable income (Statista, 2022), Gen Zs are coming of age and also have a sizeable disposable income; the trick for brands is getting them to spend it (Pollard, 2021).
Building Brand Affinity With Gen Z
Gen Z are often “sceptical of brands, celebrities and being sold to” (Wilkinson, 2022) making them a challenging cohort to reach; however, highlighting issues of importance to them in a way that feels authentic is an approach that has proven effective (Wilkinson, 2022).
Brand values are extremely important to Gen Z and significantly influence their purchasing behaviours (Statista, 2022). When it comes to beauty brands specifically, research shows that Gen Z especially value diversity and inclusivity (Statista, 2022).
Fig 2: Share of consumers that rank diversity and inclusion as the most important beauty brand values in the United States in 2021, by generation (Statista, 2022).
Ulta’s new ‘Beauty&’ campaign, only a few weeks into its flight, is aiming to tap into this by starting constructive conversations about topics like fatphobia, gender fluidity, transgender identity, and mental health, where people can discuss their lived experiences.
This is a smart move on Ulta’s part, as campaigns that tap into psychological well-being are known to help brands “foster a deeper connection with their audience, improving brand perception and brand affinity” (Wilkinson, 2021).
Brand affinity, the two-way emotional connection between a brand and a consumer (Harker, 2020), is built on giving consumers a reason to keep coming back, and Ulta is doing this through its new podcast series which speaks to Gen Z about topics of interest to them.
Gen Z: Agents of Change
Agents of change, Gen Z are redefining cultural and gender norms (EY, 2022). For them, diversity and inclusivity is not a preference, it’s a requirement, and brands should be listening. Both Gen Z and Millennials expect companies to engage in meaningful conversations about topics like equity, diversity and inclusivity – both in terms of their own employers and the brands they buy from (Miller, 2021).
According to a recent Gallup poll, 1 in 5 Gen Z now identifies as LGBT, a number that’s more than doubled since 2017; this underscores the pace at which societal norms are changing (Doherty, 2022). A closer look at the data reveals that the majority of Millennials also eschew traditional gender norms, believing gender exists on “a spectrum rather than a man/woman binary” (Kenney, 2020).
Companies who recognise and respond to these changing cultural and gender norms have the potential to significantly benefit as new, previously untapped opportunities open up – such as the creation of gender-neutral product ranges (Kenney, 2020).
An Ethical and Economic Opportunity
With the “power and influence to shape norms, values, and perceptions in the minds of the audience” (Good Agency, 2020), like Ulta, brands need to consider how minority voices, autonomy, and agency are being represented within their campaigns.
Brands also need to give thought to the quality of representation, ensuring they are foregrounding minority voices (Poole, 2020) as well as taking care to accurately depict people’s cultures and experiences so as not to inadvertently reinforce negative stereotypes through their messaging (Alcantara, 2022).
Ensuring diversity at every strata of a brand’s operation can really help inoculate against this as it brings a level of awareness that can protect a brand from its own blind spots, ensuring campaigns connect with their intended audiences and are not offensive or culturally insensitive (Poole, 2020).
Influencers as a Cultural Intermediaries
At a time where consumers are seeking more inclusive and realistic depictions of beauty and social media is being used as a “catalyst for inclusivity” (Mintel, 2022), Ulta has chosen to partner with influencers who represent the communities it’s looking to speak to – and those that support them.
A quarter of beauty product users say that the influencer a brand chooses to work with speaks volumes about their values (Mintel, 2022).InUlta’s case, it has been extremely thoughtful in its choice and use of social media influencers as cultural intermediaries.
For example, its brand-new ‘Beauty of…’ podcast is hosted by David Lopez, a Black gender fluid influencer who embodies Gen Z and Millennials’ desire to express themselves more freely (Kenney, 2020). As the host of the podcast and one of the main influencers representing Ulta in this campaign, David is shown in an aspirational, lead role, which is key when looking at how brands can be more representative and inclusive in their campaigns (Poole, 2020).
Another influencer to appear on the new ‘Beauty of…’ podcast, Dylan Mulvaney is a transgender TikTok star who recently found fame with ‘100 Days of Girlhood’, a series of videos chronicling her transition journey.
This hugely influential figure, who has accrued a following of more than 8 million people, is ideally placed to represent Ulta’s brand values which count a commitment to championing diversity and amplifying underrepresented voices among the six key pillars underpinning its brand (ULTA, 2022).
The Bottom Line
The success of Ulta’s ‘Beauty&’ campaign is yet to be seen, however, if early indications are anything to go by, it does appear to be connecting with Ulta’s intended audience, Gen Z, and their intersectional allies.
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Unfortunately, due to the sensitive nature of the topics being discussed, Ulta’s ‘Beauty&’ campaign has proven polarising, receiving some negative feedback online. Some consumers have tweeted that they’ll never shop with Ulta again while others have promised to exclusively shop with Ulta to show their support for what they see as a progressive, well-intentioned campaign (Cohen, 2022).
Despite this, including more diversity in advertising is a win-win for brands as research shows that campaigns that do so are invariably more memorable and commercially successful (Poole, 2020). In Ulta’s case, while the backlash is certainly not ideal, it gives the brand an opportunity to reaffirm its brand values and demonstrate its commitment to driving positive social change.
New York-based start-up Aether Diamonds burst onto the scene in 2018 as the world’s first manufacturer of net zero, sustainable diamonds, sourced from thin air; it has achieved this, the brand claims, via a technology called direct air carbon capture which siphons Co2 from the atmosphere and stores it – in this case turning it into lab-grown diamonds (Ettinger, 2022).
A well-established technology, carbon capture and storage dates back to 1996; however, it is typically used to store Co2 in underground geological structures (Parliament UK, 2005) or carbon sinks – ecosystems that can naturally absorb carbon – such as the ocean (European Environmental Agency, 2021) and not in diamonds.
Diamonds Are…the Environment’s Best Friend?
With a growing awareness of climate change and the need to reduce the carbon footprint of both people and products (Stanford University, 2021), the prospect of sustainable, lab-grown diamonds being used to fight climate change is an attractive one.
Aether claims that each diamond carat it creates can offset the carbon footprint of an average American for more than a year, equating to removing approx. 20 tons of Co2 from the air (Fialka, 2021).
This novel use of direct carbon capture technology and Aether’s unique marketing proposition has caught the eye of investors and consumers alike, with the nascent brand raising more than $21 million in funding since its launch (PR Newswire, 2022).
The Aether Difference
Whereas traditional lab-grown diamonds rely on extracting fossil fuels from the ground, Aether uses a process called hydrocarbon synthesis, powered by 100% clean energy, to turn captured carbon into a material that can be used to grow diamonds (Aether Diamonds, 2022).
This is a key difference between Aether’s diamonds and that of other lab-grown diamonds which actually generate, on average, three times the greenhouse gas emissions than their mined counterparts (Millman, 2020).
Put simply, if the original energy source isn’t clean, the volume of energy required to grow a diamond in a lab will emit significant carbon pollution back into the atmosphere (S&P Global, 2022), rendering claims of being environmentally friendly inaccurate at best and wilfully misleading at worst.
In 2019, the FTC clamped down on the lab-grown diamond industry’s use of terminology like “natural”, “eco-friendly” or “eco-conscious”, stating that those claims could not be used unless fully substantiated for fear of misleading consumers (Pinnock, 2019; Fair, 2019).
Lab-Grown Diamond Sales Surge Globally
Lab-grown diamonds are expected to make up 10% of the global diamond market, which is valued at approx. $76 billion (Fialka, 2021) by 2030 (Garside, 2019), with China, India, and the US among the top producers of lab-grown diamonds worldwide (Garside, 2021).
There is growing consumer interest in lab-grown diamonds for two main reasons: ethical and sustainability concerns and price (Garside, 2021). Mined diamonds, also known as conflict diamonds, have a troublesome 150-year history of both environmental and human rights abuses (FIALKA, John. 2021) – from corrupt governments to acid-mine run-off destroying habitats and, indeed, hazardous working conditions for miners (Isselbacher, 2021).
Unlike mined diamonds, lab-grown diamonds are perceived to be more environmentally and socially ethical, making them an attractive prospect to many consumers (Garside, 2021).
Ethics as a Driver of Purchase
More and more consumers are adapting their spending habits, shopping from brands that align with their own value system – this is especially true for Gen Z who are basing their purchasing decisions on a brand’s sustainability credentials and espoused social conscience (World Economic Forum, 2021).
In fact, research suggests that Gen Z care so much about sustainability, that they’ll happily pay 10% more for it (World Economic Forum, 2021), and when it comes to purchasing high ticket items like engagement rings, both Gen Z and Millennials say they consider the ethics of diamond sourcing (Kavilanz, 2022).
Fig 1: Generation Z prefers to buy from brands it considers to be sustainable and is willing to pay 10% more to do so (World Economic Forum, 2021).
Of course, Generation X is also influenced by a brand’s sustainability credentials, although to a lesser degree, with Baby Boomers being overall the least likely to be influenced by sustainability factors (First Insight, 2020).
That suits Aether as the typical consumer buying lab-grown diamonds is under 40 anyway (Kavilanz, 2022).
Value-Alignment as a Driver of Purchase
With prices ranging between $7,000 for a ring and $40,000 for a pair of earrings, Aether is going after consumers with significant disposable income who are value-aligned to its own brand purpose (London, 2020; Isselbacher, 2021).
For these consumers, sustainability is both an imperative and the latest fashion trend. Lab-grown diamonds are significantly cheaper than mined diamonds (Garside, 2021), especially now as Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine has impacted the mined diamond supply chain (Kavilanz, 2022); however, is not what they cost but what they signify socially and culturally that communicates their real value.
As Currid-Halkett (2018) explains, markers of conscious consumption are the new way to signal one’s own cultural capital and status. Due to the increasing accessibility of material goods, diminishing their power as symbols of status, the aspirational classes are looking elsewhere for signifiers (Currid-Halkett, 2018).
As a symbol of conscious consumption, thanks to Aether’s brand purpose positioning, its lab-grown diamonds are in high demand, with significant waiting lists since the launch of its first products in December 2020 (Fialka, 2021).
Aether’s First Mover Advantage
Carbon capture is among the low-carbon technologies being considered increasingly important to tackling climate change and even formed part of US President Joe Biden’s recent multi-billion-dollar clean energy bill (Science Daily, 2021).
However, despite being around for decades and receiving extensive support from both private industry and governments around the world, the majority of large-scale projects that have tried to commercialise carbon capture have failed (Science Daily, 2021).
Aether – a company embracing the sustainability imperative – defined as a company’s purpose beyond its profit (EY Global, 2021) – is using carbon capture technology to create and sell products directly to consumers and in the process futureproof and meet both environmental and consumer demands; it has first mover advantage in the global diamond market which makes it a significant disruptor in the space.
Though Aether says it is the first and only company to create “fashion-certified, gemstone-quality diamonds out of the air” (PR Newswire, 2022), a direct competitor in the form of UK-based company Sky Diamonds has already sprung up (Sky Diamonds, 2022).
As Millennials and Gen Z begin to shun mined diamonds in favour of lab-sourced diamonds (Mellor, 2021), a paradigm shift is being triggered right across the industry. Large retailers like Pandora, which makes the most jewellery pieces globally, have begun to drop mined diamonds from their inventory entirely (Bloomberg, 2021).
Even DeBeers, the world’s largest producer and distributor of diamonds with whom the marketing slogan “Diamonds are Forever” is synonymous (Britannica, 2022) is investing in lab-grown diamonds.
Their Lightbox jewellery line, which is pitched at a more accessible price point and intended to attract younger consumers, (DeBeers Group, 2018), is aimed at repositioning the company and attempting to protect its market share by making noise about futureproofing.
However, unlike Aether, DeBeers’ lab-grown diamonds still rely on extracting fossil fuels from the ground and are not sustainable. DeBeers, a company which isn’t expected to be carbon negative until 2030 (Danziger, 2022), will keep a foot in both camps for now.
The Tesla of Diamonds?
Aether’s novel concept of siphoning Co2 from the sky and turning it into fine jewellery, offsetting the purchaser’s carbon emissions for a year or more, is certainly alluring. But is it true? Is it really cleaner than traditional lab-grown diamonds? The answer is yes, but it’s complicated.
Aether really is producing carbon neutral lab-grown diamonds, which is what earned it its recent B Corp certification, a stringent process designed to stop corporations from “donning the persona of a responsible citizen, while continuously performing practices to maximize profit” (Kim et al., 2016), and it really is working to become a carbon negative company by also tackling the impact of its logistics and supply chain (London, 2020); however, its marketing claims are somewhat misleading.
In reality, the amount of carbon being offset by buying a diamond is not stored in the diamond itself, which is what Aether implies in its marketing communications and its value proposition; instead, for every carat Aether produces, the company is pledging to remove 20 metric tons of Co2 from the atmosphere, with the majority of it being stored in tanks as liquid methane and only a tiny fraction of it stored turned into actual diamonds (Isselbacher, 2021).
Still, environmental responsibility is a key pillar of CSR, (Fernando, 2022), and Aether goes much further than that – walking and talking its brand purpose by embracing the sustainability imperative and working to offset not only its own environmental impact but the wider industry’s through the licensing of its patented technology to other companies who want to follow suit (Isselbacher, 2021).
Its practice of targeting its products at a luxury price point which only people with means can afford could be called into question, however. Is that ethical? Maybe it is – research shows that high-socioeconomic status individuals are more likely to have a disproportionately large carbon footprint and as such, have the most potential for emission reduction (IPCC, 2022).
Aether also says it is investing 10% of revenue from every carat sold back into direct air capture technology and other novel climate projects (Aether Diamonds, 2022). This is hugely important as direct air capture is an expensive technology that requires subsidies to be a financially viable technology for other start-ups to harness (Peters, 2020).
Ultimately, this is just the beginning for Aether as it strives to become the world’s first carbon negative diamond brand, and it is already making positive inroads, proving its commitment to accountability and transparency in its practices through its B Corp-certification.
But like any company – even a purpose driven start-up like Aether, they have to ultimately turn a profit. According to the World Economic Forum (2021), the two are not mutually exclusive; truly sustainable companies can “consider both profits and the planet” (World Economic Forum, 2021).
As Aether continues to grow, it must continue meeting its ethical obligations by tackling future challenges and balance its drive for profit with the need for doing good (Good Agency, 2020). Only time will tell if it succeeds.
Bibliography
AETHER DIAMONDS. 2022. ‘Diamonds from Thin Air’. Aether Diamonds [online]. Available at: https://aetherdiamonds.com/ [accessed 20 October 2022].
ETTINGER, Jill. 2022, ‘For Aether Diamonds, B Corp Status Is Just Part of a Much Bigger Sustainable Journey’. Ethos [online]. Available at: https://the-ethos.co/aether-diamonds-b-corp/ [accessed 20 October 2022].
KIM, Suntae, Matthew J KARLESKY, Christopher G.MYERS, and Todd SCHIFELING. 2016. ‘Why Companies Are Becoming B Corporations’. Harvard Business Review [online]. Available at https://hbr.org/2016/06/why-companies-are-becoming-b-corporations [accessed 29 October 2022].
SCIENCE DAILY. 2021. ‘Why commercialization of carbon capture and sequestration has failed and how it can work’. University of Chicago, San Diego [online]. Available at: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210322174959.htm [accessed 29 October 2022].
SKY DIAMONDS. 2022. ‘Homepage’. Sky Diamonds [online]. Available at: https://skydiamond.com/ [accessed 29 October 2022].
S&P GLOBAL. 2022. ‘S&P GLobal Trucost has been accessing risks relating to climate change, natural resource constraints, and broader environmental, social, and governance factors since 2000.’ S&P Global [online] Available at: https://www.spglobal.com/esg/trucost [accessed 20 October 2022].
Cadbury, a brand owned by confectionary giant Mondelez International, has been in the business of making chocolate for almost 200 years (Mondelez International, 2022).
Cadbury’s wide portfolio of confectionary products is available in 30 countries (Mondelez International, 2022), and its famous Dairy Milk bar is still the top selling chocolate bar in the UK (The Grocer, 2022), with the average Cadbury costumer estimated to indulge in 22 per year (Chandler, 2018).
The new rules, which were brought in in 2017 but not enforced until 2018 (Bray, 2018) extended existing restrictions on advertising HFSS products on television to all other children’s media, including print, online, cinema, and social media.
This was done to better reflect the changing nature of children’s media consumption as data showed that children were spending more time online a week than they were watching television (Roderick, 2017).
‘The Obesity Health Alliance’ and ‘Children’s Food Campaign’ groups, which advocate for policies that can “improve population health and address obesity” (Obesity Health Alliance, 2018), jointly filed three complaints against Cadbury with the ASA.
The complaints related to a joint Easter campaign between Cadbury and National Trust Scotland, which had been ongoing for several years at that point (ASA, 2018).
Specifically, the complaints called into question three core elements of the campaign: (a) a landing page on Cadbury’s website which included its logo and messaging which encouraged people to visit a variety of National Trust Scotland locations to take part in an Easter egg hunt, (b) downloadable content in the form of a storybook aimed at children which featured Cadbury’s rich purple brand colours, and (c), an activity pack, aimed at children, which again featured imagery that was identifiably Cadbury (ASA, 2018).
A Breach of HSFF Product Placement Rules
Following an investigation, the ASA upheld two out of the three complaints, (b) and (c), citing a breach of CAP 15:18 – ‘HFSS Product Ad Placement’ (ASA, 2018; ASA, 2022).
CAP 15:18 sets out clear requirements for advertisers to ensure that ads for HFSS products are not directed at children through the selection of media or the context in which they appear; additionally, HFSS advertisements are prohibited on any medium where 25% of its audience is under the age of 16 (ASA, 2022).
Despite Cadbury’s protestation that the downloadable storybook and activity pack were not aimed at children, instead intended to be used at the discretion of their parents, the ASA determined that they were “created as content for children under 16 years of age and would be given to children to use” (ASA, 2018), making them HFSS product advertisements.
As the two parts of the campaign found to be in contravention of CAP 15:18 did not feature any reference to the National Trust, National Trust Scotland was not implicated in this breach (ASA, 2018).
A Self-Regulating Industry
In the UK, the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) lay down the codes of practice for media owners, advertisers, and agencies to follow (ASA, 2022).
There are very few laws governing advertising and marketing practice in the UK; instead, industry professionals are expected to adhere to codes of practice which ensure that they (a) preserve the truth, (b) not be deceitful, and (c) not mislead (ASA, 2022).
The ASA is the body responsible for enforcing the UK’s non-broadcast CAP code which covers non-broadcast advertisements, sales promotions and direct marketing communications (ASA, 2022).
The code is intended to supplement the law, filling in gaps where needed and providing “an easier way to resolve disputes than by civil litigation or criminal prosecution” (ASA, 2022); however, it often falls short.
HFSS Advertising and the Obesity Crisis
50% of British adults are now classified as obese (NHS, 2020), while 1 in 3 children leaving primary school in the UK are already overweight or living with obesity (NHS, 2019). Obesity rates are typically highest amongst members of deprived, vulnerable groups (NHS, 2019).
The UK’s existing advertising codes contain extensive rules around protecting the vulnerable, including children, and cover the scheduling and placement of HFSS ads; the codes do not allow advertisers to promote pester power or mislead consumers as to the nutritional value of food products (ASA, 2019).
Despite this, children are becoming more aware of brands at an earlier age, with research suggesting that children under ten do not distinguish the difference between advertisements and entertainment, potentially leaving them open to predatory HFSS advertising (Clarke, 2011).
At the end of 2022, the UK government intends to bring in more stringent restrictions on HFSS advertising on TV and online with the view to tackling the childhood obesity crisis (Gov.UK, 2021).
The UK-wide policy will institute a 9pm TV watershed for HFSS products and a restriction of online HFSS advertising; on-demand services will also have to comply with the TV watershed for HFSS advertising (Gov.UK, 2021).
Cadbury and National Trust Scotland Part Ways
With even stricter rules around the advertising of HFSS products impending and growing criticism from watchdog obesity advocacy groups like ‘The Obesity Health Alliance’ and ‘Children’s Food Campaign’, the writing is on the wall for HFSS brands.
Since Cadbury’s own ASA breach, the number of breaches concerned with HFSS advertising on children’s media has fallen, with the ASA only finding 27 ads in breach of the rules between October and December 2020, as opposed to 102 in the previous quarter (Ali, 2021).
Cadbury’s parent company Mondelez has said it will also take steps to help tackle the childhood obesity crisis by instituting a 100-calorie cap on some of its most popular HFSS products (STATISTA, 2021).
Against the backdrop of Cadbury’s 2018 ASA ruling and the publication of the UK government’s policy paper on tackling obesity in 2020 (Gov.UK, 2020), Cadbury and National Trust Scotland recently decided to part ways.
After 13 years of Easter hunts, National Trust Scotland said it was “time for change” as it looked to put a “greater emphasis on nature and the outdoors” (National Trust Scotland, 2020). Understandably, the brand explained that it wanted to make chocolate “less of a focus” (National Trust Scotland, 2020).
The Future of the Industry
Interestingly, complaint ‘a’, Cadbury’s landing page, was not upheld in the 2018 ASA judgement in part because the ASA was unable to determine if more than 25% of Cadbury’s website visitors had in fact been under the age of 16 (ASA, 2018).
As Google Analytics does not track the web usage of site visitors under the age of 18 (Google, 2022), there was no data available to the ASA to determine if CAP 15:18 was really breached (ASA, 2018).
With this in mind, it is unclear how the ASA could ever make a proper determination as to whether a brand was inappropriately advertising HFSS content on a website with an audience comprising of more than 25% 16-year-olds.
Ultimately, regulatory bodies like the ASA can only work within the existing framework, always reactive and never proactive, because ethical standards are set by consumers and society at large and then enforced (somewhat) by regulatory bodies.
This is an area in constant flux, with adverts often needing to be looked at on a case-by-case basis, but marketers and brands can do their best to be fully compliant by adhering to CAPS and utilising services like Clearcast.
Third-party cookies are used to track internet users’ browsing behaviour to enable advertisers to serve them with hyper targeted ads. To facilitate this, vast quantities of user data are harvested – enough to identify individuals without their knowledge or consent. This is done by dropping small text files on the browser of any user who visits a website that loads third-party server code (Epsilon, 2020).
With the demise of third-party cookies impending due to data privacy concerns, the AdTech industry is scrambling to provide alternative technologies. Google’s Privacy Sandbox, Unified ID 2.0, and NewPass ID are some options being proposed.
Do IDs Belong on the Open Internet?
Unified ID 2.0 (UID2) uses a hashed version of the user’s email to generate an encrypted token, which can be shared throughout the advertising supply chain (Cyphers, 2021). At the point of log in, the user gets to determine if and how their data is shared, which on the face of it seems to aid transparency and give users control, but what of those who do opt out?
As more publishers adopt the technology, they’ll be incentivised to use log-in only content to force the hand of the users who’ve chosen to opt out. And for those who opt in? Whereas cookies are attached to a single browser, UID2 is attached to the person, making it even easier for advertisers to track users than at present (Cyphers, 2021).
Similarly, NewPass ID, a new type of ad network, relies upon a centralised log in system to enable users to access multiple publisher websites. Like UID2, it generates an encrypted token, which is again shared with anyone in the ad supply chain, and access to publisher content is brokered by the level of personal data consent given.
According to Google, post-cookie tracking solutions based on email are unlikely to withstand further regulation (Temkin, 2021), and it’s almost certainly correct. Despite many publishers and advertisers having already adopted UID2 in the US, its future in Europe remains in doubt due to GDPR, the gold standard for consumer data protection globally (Schiff, 2021).
The Rise of Cohort-Based Targeting
Unlike UID2, Google’s Privacy Sandbox doesn’t target the individual; instead, it uses federated machine learning to group people into flocks based on their browsing behaviour. Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) stores and processes the user data locally in Chrome.
Once FLoC has done the work of clustering users under a single interest group identifier, another API, PIGIN, tracks the group across the web, using cryptography to ensure that there is at least 1000 users clustered into a group before letting advertisers know what that membership is.
Unfortunately, FLoC is not a perfect solution either in that it has the capacity to match browsing behaviours of vulnerable groups, which could then leak sensitive information about these groups to third parties (Cyphers, 2019). This is because once a user has been added to a flock, the flock name is written in the HTTP headers, which anyone the user interacts with online can see (Southern, 2019).
As Cyphers (2019) points out, this could potentially manifest as a behavioural credit score. Just imagine a scenario where advertisers are able to filter out or target vulnerable users – for example, low-income people targeted with ads for payday loans.
Ethics and the Rise of the Privacy Active
In many respects, the demise of third-party cookies stands to benefit Google by making its walled garden even stronger. Google already has a massive competitive advantage, with Chrome accounting for 63% of global web usage (gs.statcounter.com, 2022).
This means that Google will continue to have access to a trove of first-party data from its consumer-facing products, which it can in turn use to strengthen its ad products while killing off its competition.
There is a real opportunity for brands who are responsible with customer data to gain trust and, therefore, competitive advantage (Roland, 2018). Take the ‘Privacy Actives’, as an example. Coined by Cisco (2019), the term describes a growing number of consumers who make decisions based on how companies treat their data.
Information systems ethics is key to this, as laid out in the ACTIVE Ethics framework (McBride, 2014). ACTIVE stands for autonomy, community, transparency, identity, value, and empathy, and is a useful tool for helping brands develop more ethical practices in the digital era.
Is Privacy Sandbox a direct replacement for third-party cookies? No, but neither is UID2 or log-in technologies like it which don’t resolve existing ethical and privacy concerns or meet ACTIVE’s standard for autonomy – the ability for consumers to manage their data and make choices, transparency – who is using the data and for what, and identity – how is its use impacting people (McBride, 2014).
Google has committed to phasing out the use of third-party cookies by the end of 2023 due to increasing consumer data privacy concerns (Goel, 2021). As the owner of the world’s most commonly used browser, accounting for more than half of all web traffic (Statista, 2022), Google’s decision has sent shockwaves across the advertising ecosystem, which is heavily reliant on third-party cookies for things like cross-site tracking, retargeting and ad-serving (Epsilon, 2020).
So, with a change of that magnitude impending, what, if anything, can marketers do to prepare for it?
Leverage First-Party Data
First-party data, the kind collected directly from customers, site visitors and social media followers (Bernazzani, 2019), enables brands to deliver a better user experience as well as a level of personalisation which users have come to expect as a “standard of service” (Meltzer, 2020). Brands should look to improve their existing data collection efforts by developing a solid first-party data strategy for connecting with existing customers as well as attracting new ones.
At the heart of this strategy is a value exchange, the “foundation stone of relationship marketing” (Ballantyne et al., 2003). Brands will need to offer something of value to consumers to incentivise them to part with their data. This can be achieved through gated content, such as industry reports, prospectuses and e-books, or by offering access to exclusive content or discounts for creating an account, signing up to an email newsletter or by simply being logged in. The reciprocation effect, one of Cialdini’s six key principles of influence (1984), suggests consumers would be more likely to give up their data if they know they’ll be given something in exchange.
Build Trust With Transparency and Best Practice
From a legal perspective, data collection can be a complicated business. A global patchwork of privacy laws presents a challenge for brands and can increase the risk of ligation, especially in international markets (WARC, 2021). Take GDPR in Europe as an example, the onus is now on brands to acquire explicit consent from consumers. This has obvious implications for email marketing and customer relationship management (CRM).
Governments around the world are introducing laws like GDPR to protect consumers, for whom data privacy is clearly a growing concern. 25% of internet users in the US are now taking steps to protect their privacy by installing ad blocking technology (eMarketer, 2022); globally, this number rises to 37.5% (Kirsch, 2021).
Conversely, we also know that a vast majority – 81% – of consumers are willing to share their data with brands but only if they are transparent about how they will use it (Matthiesen, 2019). As Cavey (2021) points out, this is now a two-way conversation, with consumers now getting a say in how their personal data is being used and by whom.
In a post-cookie era, brands that are honest about how they collect and use consumer data can gain a distinct competitive advantage (Cavey, 2021) because transparency is key to building consumer trust (WARC 2021). From trust comes loyalty – by following data collection and management best practices, brands will be one step closer to achieving brand saliency – “the brand’s propensity to be noticed or come to mind in buying situations” (Romaniuk and Sharp, 2004, pg. 327).
The Return of Contextual Targeting
With the future of behavioural targeting still unclear, it’s no surprise that more than half of all marketers say they plan on increasing their use of contextual targeting over the next two years (Ping, 2021). Crucially, contextual targeting doesn’t rely on third-party cookies; instead, it tailors ads to the environment in which they are consumed (Dimitrov, 2021).
Contextual ads are typically used to target consumers who have shown some level of search intent – a person researching the best fitness wearables being served ads for Fitbit or Garmin, for example. This ad could take the form of a SERP result, video (both YouTube and CTV), display, native, or even audio – based on a listener’s proximity to a podcast location.
In 2014, The Economist showed just how impactful contextual targeting could be when it launched a programmatic campaign matching display ads with pithy, thought-provoking headlines to associated breaking news stories elsewhere in the online press. The campaign, intended to get The Economist in front of new, intellectually curious readers, was an incredible success, generating 325,000 prospects in just nine days – all of whom The Economist could then retarget with the view to converting (Davis, 2016).
Though behavioural and contextual targeting have been shown to be most effective when used in combination (Lu et al., 2016), contextual targeting is still a powerful tool, as The Economist case study demonstrates, and may have to do for now until the removal of third-party cookies can be fully reckoned with.
Bibliography
BALLANTYNE, David, CHRISTOPHER. Martin, and PAYNE, Adrian. 2003. Relationship marketing: Looking back, looking forward. Marketing Theory. 2003 (3) 159–166. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1470593103003001009 [accessed 12 February 2022].
BERNAZZI, Sophia. 2019. ‘A Basic Definition of First Party, Second Party, & Third-Party Data’. HubSpot [online]. Available at: https://blog.hubspot.com/service/first-party-data [accessed 12 February].
Media planners are tasked with determining how best to reach a target audience to deliver the right message at the right time on the right channel (Katz, 2016). Audience fragmentation, the “division of the available audience between ever increasing numbers of media options” (Franklin et al., 2005), has made this job even more challenging, presenting several problems for media planners, chief among them the ability to scale.
As consumers continue to splinter off, media planners have had to factor in a wider array of channels to reach them. A muti-channel approach utilising four or more channels seems to be key to driving maximum results (Jordan, 2020). While this can make planning more complex, it has also presented opportunities to tailor messaging to niche audiences who may be more engaged or have a higher purchase intent.
Think like a User to Capture Attention
To create effective global campaigns in an increasingly fragmented media landscape, media planners have to put themselves in the shoes of their target audience to capture their attention. To do this, they familiarise themselves with their target audiences’ cultural interests i.e., media consumption patterns (Lee, 2016).
Sometimes the results can be surprising, take baby boomers as an example. The generation born between 1947 and 1965, baby boomers are one of the fastest growing audience segments on both Facebook and Instagram and, crucially, have high engagement rates, particularly amongst women (Hootsuite, 2021). This is key for media planners to know, as data from Visa shows that baby boomers are staying in the workforce for longer and outspending millennials (Best, 2022). This presents an opportunity for brands to speak directly to this high-value audience without requiring a big budget.
Brands can no longer re-cut an ad intended for a TV audience for social media and expect to it be effective. With social media primarily consumed on mobile – 61% in the US (Statista, 2022), a social media ad needs to deliver its message upfront and capture the viewer’s attention within the first three seconds before they move on (Lewis, 2017). While the same core idea can work across multiple platforms, the execution needs to be different. Though more costly, media planners need to allow budget for creating suites of distributed ad extensions tailored to each individual channel in order to achieve campaign success.
Explore New Formats: Over-The-Top (OTT)
TV, one of the channels most affected by audience fragmentation, according to Franklin et al. (2005), also offers a significant opportunity to media planners. Though expensive, TV is still one of the most effective advertising mediums globally (WARC, 2021a). TV ads are also viewed more favourably than ads on other advertising mediums across all demographics, even those inclined to view ads negatively (WARC, 2021a).
Growing smart TV adoption – 36.5% of global internet users now have access to a smart TV (WARC, 2021a) – is giving rise to new advertising formats, such as addressable TV, which enables media planners to deliver different TV ads to different audiences during the same TV show (linear programming). Using first-party data to match customers to specific households, addressable TV enables media planners to target specific audiences (USIM, 2021). This helps eliminate ad waste and improves campaign efficacy (Harcus, 2021).
CTV, a sister format powered by programmatic, is also a massive growth area for advertising. According to IAB Europe (2020), CTV offers the only way for media planners to reach two critical audiences via television – the cord-cutters, those who watch TV on their own terms, and the cord-nevers, the digitally native who reject linear TV outright. As pointed out in WARC Best Practice, “With 75% of European audiences watching CTV, this channel is now an essential element of TV planning for advertisers” (WARC, 2021a).
Ad Fraud and ‘The Leaky Bucket’ Programmatic Supply Chain
Programmatic, essentially advertising space being bought and sold in real-time by a computer algorithm using AI, is key to building scale and reaching audiences – particularly in international markets. However, while programmatic helps increase ROI by optimising ad spend (Hughes, 2021), it is not without its challenges.
Uncertainty exists around its future due to changing privacy laws and the phasing out of third-party cookies, but despite this, programmatic advertising spend has more than doubled in recent years and is showing no signs of slowing down (Chaffey, 2021).
Even so, there are huge issues with ad fraud, such as click farms and non-human views, in the so-called ‘leaky bucket’ programmatic supply chain, with CTV being one of the most targeted channels (WARC, 2021b). It’s not just CTV either, according to WARC (2021b), almost 10% of programmatic display ads are impacted by fraud, wasting huge chunks of media planners’ budgets.
Tools like sellers.json are now available to media planners to enable more transparency in the programmatic supply chain, with buyers ultimately being able to see who the final seller is on the supply-side, provided they are ads.txt or app-ads.txt verified (IAB Europe, 2020). This isn’t fool proof, however, with further third-party verification needed, but it is a step forward in trying to shed some light on the supply chain.
FRANKLIN, B., HAMER, M., HANNA, M., KINSEY, M., & RICHARDSON, J. 2005. Audience fragmentation. In Key concepts in journalism studies (pp. 20-20). SAGE Publications Ltd. Available at: https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781446215821.n16 [accessed 12 February].
KATZ, Helen. 2016. The Media Handbook : A Complete Guide to Advertising Media Selection, Planning, Research, and Buying. New York/London: Routledge.
LEE, Monle and JOHNSON, Carla. 2005. Principles of Advertising: A Global Perspective, Second Edition, Taylor & Francis Group, Florence. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central [accessed 22 February 2022].
Brand salience is the propensity of a brand to come to mind during a purchasing situation. It goes far beyond mere memory recall. It concerns the identity of your brand and the all the elements that differentiate it from competitors. Who are you, what do you stand for?
If you achieve true brand salience you’ve completed the first step in the journey towards brand equity. Our pillars of brand salience are as follows: Authenticity, Personality and Brand Differentiation. Cultivating a clear brand voice is key to strong brand messaging as is figuring out what makes your brand distinctive. We’ll cover these in more detail in the following sections.
Authenticity: A powerful, consistent expression of your company’s identity.
Your brand voice is a powerful, consistent expression of your company’s ethos and identity online. It’s not an immutable fixture, but something to be constantly monitored and updated as the company progresses. Your voice should be evocative and on-message. A well-developed brand voice cultivates engagement and builds brand affinity.
“Defining your Unique Selling Point (USP) is a key way of differentiating your brand from a sea of competitors.”
Brand voice generally refers to your communication style and tone of voice etc. but can also extend to include the psychology of colour, typography and visuals. What do the words you use and their presentation say about you and your brand? What do you want them to say?
Personality: Ask yourself, what personality traits do I want my brand to embody?
Choose three words or expressions that you feel sum up your brand. For example, funny, disruptive and clever. You might find it helpful to draw up a brand voice chart. Think of the customer demographic you’re trying to appeal to. What story are you trying to tell? Is a funny or irreverent tone suitable for a big bank or an insurance company? The answer may surprise you, and that is that it depends.
“Your brand voice is a powerful, consistent expression of your company’s ethos and identity online.”
Build consumer archetypes. What do they look like? Are they a millennial with a disposable income and a penchant for avocado toast or a Starbucks denizen? What are their triggers and pain points? What problems can you solve through your content? Think about the emotions you want to elicit in people when they think of your brand.
Brand Differentiation: What’s your USP?
Every single piece of content that your brand puts out should be consistent with your developed brand personality. Before you write a single blog post, tweet, post, or indeed video or live stream content, this must be locked down.
Web 2.0 and the proliferation of the digital brand persona has given rise to a phenomenon called content shock. People are so overloaded with content that they are finding it difficult to discern what is of value and what is not.
“Build consumer archetypes. What do they look like? Are they a millennial with a disposable income and a penchant for avocado toast or a Starbucks denizen?”
Defining your Unique Selling Point (USP) is a key way of differentiating your brand from a sea of competitors. What makes you different? Figure out your niche, your distinct calling card and your brand will always be in mind during important purchasing decisions. Remember, you don’t always have to reinvent the wheel, though sometimes you might choose to.
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A Blog by Sarah OBrien 