This week in The Shaker
This week in The Shaker we're talking abour Marketing 101. These days entrepreneurs are asked to be so many things. They're no longer just experts within their field, or in a particular product. They're expected to be subject matter experts, bussiness strategists, marketers, communicators, and everything else! Amongst this long list of desireables, marketing certainly tops the list in terms of ideal entrepreneurial skills. How else will your audience find out about your product or service? For those of us that have a background in communicatios and marketing, it's second nature, all part of a go to market strategy - but for many, marketing is like a foreign language. This week we want to bring you up to scratch with leading marketing trends for 2020 through to some basic marketing 101. Our contributors will be sharing useful and snappy listicles on the topic. We'll also be hearing from Sharon Schmidt, founder and owner of Intuitive Souls, about how she grew a fledgling business into something with real gravitas and impact. We'll be sharing her podcast via soundcloud and our social channels. Don't miss out. We'll also be hearing from our contributor Barbara Wilson about how to survive the workplace conference.
To kick off the week, here are our top 6 marketing trends for 2020:
1. Go woke or go broke
Increasingly big industry and corporates have become more interested in the values that underpin their organisation. Diversity and inclusion has become a core facet of any harmonious business. Alongside this the burgeoning #metoo movement is going from strength to strength. Organisations are being asked to exemplify “woke” values internally not only to retain and attract talent, but also to drive positive agendas, leveraging their platforms to drive important issues.
Earlier on in the year Gillette’s ‘Toxic Masculinity’ ad sparked a wave of media which declared, “Go woke, and go broke”, after Gillette suffered major consumer backlash and its worst quarter in twenty years. The wave of Twitter negativity saw comments like, “When did razors have to go to political?” and “Way to irreparably damage a brand in 120 seconds.” Commentators have discussed the why around this negative backlash, concluding that it may have been too early for such a powerful statement and that Gillette might have been out of synch with their consumers. \
Despite the Gillette backlash, this is certainly a trend which corporate, commercial and government clients will need to focus on in 2020, as audiences around the world demand more from their brands, urging them to express values which underpin a modern and progressive society.
2. Authenticity
Transparency was the buzz word for 2019, and it looks to be dethroned by authenticity in 2020. The two words are virtually synonyms, but there is a sliver which separates them. Transparency relates to telling consumers and staff the full truth and nothing but the truth (we can see how this rose to the fore as a result of the Royal Commission into banking and other major events, where consumers lost trust in the institutions which underpinned society), whilst authenticity relies on invoking a more genuine approach to story-telling, a humility, a capacity to retell the personal as well as the factual.
Tim Burrows, editor of Mumbrella writes, “For all the age of authenticity hype, there’s actually never been a time when brands and individuals have been able to get away with more inauthentic behaviour. She Is Roxy,” in his weekly EDM, referring to the I am Roxyprogram which has recently aired, and Mumbrella’s podcast. However, he goes onto write, “But the thing is, it was a really good interview. She was a lot more self-aware, and self-deprecating than I’d anticipated. Honest and intense was how Viv summed up the conversation in her intro, and I’d agree with that.”
Honest and intense are indeed the underpinning values of this new wave of authenticity.
3. Thought-leadership
As we see a greater convergence between research, innovation and industry, so to do we see a surge of thought-leadership. Government Secretary’s, CEOs, MDs, but also creative thinkers, and advocates across agencies at any level are starting to drive a wave of thought-leadership, in vastly diverse topics. The underlying driver – if you have something important to say, say it.
4. Internal communication
Often the overlooked sibling in the communications space, internal communications is quickly racing to the forefront. In the past internal communications has traditionally not been done well, particularly within large-scale change management. However, organisations have quickly learned to turn their focus to staff first, with “internal-first” led campaigns, to keep their people aware of change and communication prior to external release. Alongside this is the drive to create positive work-cultures, focussed on engaged staff, fashioning happier and healthier workplaces.
5. Action-led
It’s no longer enough to be hypothesizing about change and developing strategies to deploy, increasingly consumers are seeking action-first. A wave of citizen-politics has been gaining significant momentum, with citizen-led campaign driving the demonization of plastic bags and Styrofoam cups. We see it in student strikes and in Vegan activism, Greta Thunberg, Swedish student, is often held as the pinnacle of this movement, as she acts to hold politicians accountable for climate change. How will this transpire in communications? Campaigns will need to focus on more action led approaches.
6. Integration – more than ever before
For years the industry has been talking about how advertising is dead, and a greater level of integration is required across traditionally siloed communications verticals. Nonetheless, many organisations and communication bodies have been slow with the uptake. In 2020 we’ll see innovation at the heart of communications, with bold ideas leading the charge followed by their execution methods, and bespoke campaigns tailored to audience needs.