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NFTs are everywhere and you’ve likely heard of them, but just what are they? Are they linked to cryptocurrency or are the two the same thing? What relevance do NFTs have for brands?

We’ll give you a short breakdown and take you through why all the big brands are jumping on the NFT train.

What are NFTs?

NFTs is short for non-fungible token. The Forbes definition describes it as a “digital asset that represents real-world objects like art, music, in-game items, and videos” that are “bought and sold online”.¹

Since its introduction in 2014, NFT application has expanded widely to all sorts of areas, from premium auction houses like Christie’s to regulating and authenticating NBA tickets.¹

Are NFTs and cryptocurrency the same?

The short answer is no. Though NFTs are built on a similar platform³ to cryptocurrency, it is more of a subset of crypto culture.

Do NFTs have any value?

Source: The New Yorker

Let’s start with where NFTs derive their value from. According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, NFTs have value in these ways.

First, NFTs are a new class of digital assets

NFT value first lies in its mimetic nature—meaning it holds value because other people value it.

This means the value of an NFT hinges on its community. Harvard Business Review goes as far as to say that the success of an NFT project is dependent on a robust community of users or early adopters to establish the NFT’s value.⁴

Second, the tech underlying NFTs has practical usage

The value of NFTs to brands begins beyond their current image as a digital collectable. NFT technology offers a realm of opportunity for brands seeking to expand their digital touchpoints.

Certain features include:

• Clear ownership. This prevents counterfeiting and can function as a⁴ membership card, ticket, or a key to a virtual community space.
• Making it easy to send additional digital or physical products to anyone who owns a specific token.

This is where brands can explore, experiment, and integrate NFTs into a successful strategy.

So NFTs are cool, but what does it do for my brand?

NFTs in the now and the future could be the central, digital touchpoint between brands and their consumers.⁵ Unlike NFT-focused brands, a brand-backed NFT is about “tying the core of the brand” with the brand and core product.

As NYU Professor Arun Sundararajan puts it, “brands must look further ahead than the design and implementation of the NFT sale itself… and think about what this means for the evolution of their relationship with their customers…”⁶

Here are 3 ways brands can benefit from and dabble into NFTs:

1. Improved brand perception

Source: ONE37PM

Budweiser’s NFT Royalty drop combined philanthropic efforts with a commercial NFT project to offer micro-sponsorship, “allowing the brand to rise above the more prosaic philanthropy” of donating the proceeds like other brands have tried.⁸

What they did⁷:

• Budweiser sponsored 22 rising musicians via their Royalty NFTs, creatively using the capabilities of NFT technology for micro-sponsorship.
• The Royalty NFTs enable anyone to invest in these emerging artists before they are famous and to extend their support to them.
• They sold 11,000 tokens in total, with 500 NFTs per artist distributed across three tiers (core, rare, and ultra rare).
• The NFTs were intended to represent users’ loyalty to their favourite artist.
• The higher the tier of NFT, the better the perks, including one-on-one video calls with their favourite artist.
• NFTs were available to purchase with credit cards and certain types of crypto-currency.

This launch improved Budweiser’s brand perception in two ways.

• First, the philanthropic dimension to their NFT drop complemented their existing reputation as a contributor to the entertainment space.
• Second, their early NFT adoption “positioned the brand as an innovative leader in [its] space.”⁸

2. Modernised loyalty marketing

Source: Vogue Business

“Branded NFTs represent a new way for people to bring physical belongings into virtual worlds and articulate brand affinity. They’ll do this for the same reason that some people buy limited-edition vintage sneakers in the real world—to be seen wearing them.”⁹

Put another way, NFTs will become a social currency that connects people to brands⁸ and this is possible across various industries.

Beauty brand Clinique eschewed treating their NFTs as an asset with monetary value and instead used them to build community and loyalty.

As Carolyn Dawkins, Senior VP of Clinique Global Online puts it,

“These NFTs are a uniquely contemporary way to celebrate loyalty and put our consumers in the driver’s seat, with storytelling and engagement at its core.”¹⁰

What they did:

• They hosted a giveaway where the terms to join included signing up for a loyalty programme.¹⁰
• Created NFTs inspired by cult favourite products as part of a rewards scheme to shoppers who signed up for the loyalty programme. Shoppers got to own 1 out of the 3 NFTs, got early access to buy often unavailable items, and gained free Clinique products. ¹⁰
• Set up crypto wallets for the winning customers and got their foot in the proverbial Metaverse door, setting them up to easily join their VR (Virtual Reality) community spaces.¹⁰
• Used the loyalty programme to gather first-party data and insights.¹⁰
• This use of NFTs to engage the customer rewarded existing members, incentivised new members to sign up, and offered some social currency to owning a Clinique NFT.

3. Enhanced consumer experiences

Source: Stylus

Due to the nature of NFTs, they can be endowed with increased purpose over time⁴. This means early NFT offerings such as a ticket or brand collectable could become a digital key to exclusive experiences later.
This can take the form of⁹:

• Exclusive admittance to in-person events, conferences, VIP lounges, special venue sections, and so on.
• Access to private, moderated Discords where brands can reward super customers through giveaways, surveys, gifts, tutorials, and even one-on-one chats.
• Commercial ownership in part or in full, turning the customer into an investor, a member of a club, a brand shareholder, and a participant in a loyalty program all at once.

As the metaverse becomes a reality, NFTs will become invaluable to marketers, in part because of their ability to work with other digital products and systems. Thus, making them usable across virtual communities.⁹

With improvement in technology, there will be questions. Two common concerns consumers have in the ever-evolving digital era are about privacy and accessibility. Though tools like NFTs provide opportunities to better personalise consumer experiences, are consumers themselves able to receive these experiences or would NFT accessibility present a point of friction?

Further food for thought includes privacy concerns the educated consumer might have, how their data might be collected and used, and so on. For brands, will there be a need to address these concerns?

We’re in very early stages of the metaverse and by proxy, our adoption of elements like NFTs. Naturally, brands are taking a largely experimental approach. Brands are either early adopters and address issues as they come, or they wait and see.

However, one thing is clear. These concerns have yet to hit the mainstream while brands that have embraced NFTs are in a win-win situation for themselves and customers.

Get in touch to see how we can help you. 

References:

• ¹ What Is An NFT? Non-Fungible Tokens Explained
• ² NFTs, explained
• ³ NFTs vs Cryptocurrencies: What is the difference between the two?
• ⁴ How NFTs create value
• ⁵ How your brand should use NFTs
• ⁶ Arun Sundarajan, LinkedIn
• ⁷ What is the Budweiser Royalty NFT Project?
• ⁸ Advantages of Being a NFT First-Mover: A Budweiser Case Study
• ⁹ How NFTs can help brands modernize their loyalty programs
• ¹⁰ Clinique’s first NFT ties to loyalty and products as uses expand

In part 1, we covered how TikTok differs from Instagram Reels, what subcultures are (aka community), how trends form, and why audio both does and doesn’t matter.

This round, we’re breaking down how your brand can create for TikTok, why subculture matters, and finally, we’ll shine a light on brands that are flourishing and what the takeaways are.

But first, the pre-requisites for effective content creation on TikTok

From the metrics the algorithm values to what captures user attention, success on the app comes with a set of rules. Though open-ended, these rules offer guidance towards understanding the algorithm and leveraging it to create compelling content.

One of these so-called rules is neatly wrapped up in the term “account authority”.

Account authority

In a nutshell, this impacts how your content is distributed to new viewers. Think of it as your content being graded by TikTok’s algorithms, based upon a few elements which are worth taking note of for a successful TikTok strategy.¹

Why do view tiers matter?

View tiers are levels of distribution to a cold audience (people who aren’t following you) and your followers based on certain metrics¹ such as:

• Watch time completion and re-watches
• Engagement variety (e.g., Likes, comments, shares)
• Engagement velocity (how quickly users engage with a piece of content)

There are 5 view tiers in total, where each level up increases the number of cold audiences TikTok shows your videos to. Whether your video is shown to additional viewers is dependent on overall performance, including the above mentioned metrics.

This brings us back to the fact that TikTok is extremely user-centric. They want to show their users videos that will capture and retain their attention. Hence, watch time is the most competitive metric and the most important one.

While trends abound, people also enjoy content that is unique. This leads us to a big part of what it means to really create for the app.

Create for TikTok

You mean I can’t just jump on trends or repurpose existing videos?

Jack Gordon, an experimental YouTuber, went viral on TikTok in 7 days.³ Here is what he found:

• The algorithm values standalone videos created for the app. A 6-part series repurposed from a YouTube video needs context and hence, does not do too well.
• Doing what is popular doesn’t make sense. People would easily get bored and are going to seek out unique videos.
• The algorithm is like a person who wants to be entertained, hence the algorithm is going to look for fresh new content.

These findings drive home the point that creating FOR TikTok is important. It emphasises that the community and culture on TikTok are different from other apps.

We chatted with our behind-the-scenes TikTok expert and their process.

On top of repurposing TikTok content to Instagram (not the other way around), they added, “most of my content is TikTok-relatable, so if you’re not on the platform, you wouldn’t get it.”

A big part of being relatable on TikTok is understanding who your audience is and creating content that resonates with them. This leads us to the value of finding your subculture, A.K.A your community on TikTok.

Find your subculture

First, themes or verticals are not the same as a subculture. A theme or vertical is broad. It can be a category or niche, while a subculture is a community. For example,

Theme: Food

Subcultures:

• #CookingASMR: Relaxing videos that showcase recipes or the cooking process with an emphasis on showcasing sound.
• #TooGoodToWaste: A sustainability-focused food subculture that revolves around using up food and reducing waste.
• #BrunchTok: An aesthetic foodie community committed to creating beautiful meals.

To find your subculture, consider niche interests that align with your brand.⁴ Subcultures often rise around similar interests or mindsets regarding these topics.⁴ If a large enough hashtag exists (like #BrunchTok), chances are that there’s an audience there interested in what you might offer.

Doing enough research into a subculture helps your brand⁴:

1. Connect with highly engaged and interested communities
2. Understand these communities’ interests, mindsets, and psychographics to create content that resonates
3. Tailor your content and approach to effectively target an audience
4. Establish genuine connection, garnering enormous reach and engagement
5. Create a brand image around the way you want to be perceived

To give you a clearer picture of how different brands achieved this (beyond funny videos, dance trends, or the classic fashion and cosmetics industries), we’ve analysed two case studies below.

Case Studies

Ryanair: Building a successful community

Source: Extra.ie

Subculture: #Flying

Stats:

• 6M followers
• Their hashtag #RyanAir hit 655.1M views

Ryanair blew up on TikTok by delivering traditional PR in a way that’s entertaining and relevant.

What they did well⁶:

• Comedic content revolving around their value proposition, affordability.
• Customer experiences and their criticisms flipped into jokes that are both self-aware and entertaining.
• Videos that leverage trending audio and text memes.⁷

Takeaways:

• Show up early and experiment.
• Lose the corporate tone of voice and change the language to suit the audience on TikTok.
• Read comments to see how people engage with your brand and interact with your viewers.
• TikTok is a creator-first platform. Creators do more than sell, they build personality.

A testament to the community they’ve built is clear based upon the user-generated content (UGC) from fans of Ryanair. Gen-Zs are so committed they purchased Ryanair flights simply to film they’ve been inside the TikTok famous plane.⁵

Little Moons: Sparking engagement and driving mass awareness

Source: Hydrogen

Subculture: #ASMR #SatisfyingVideos #Mochi

Stats:

• 137K Followers
• 7M Impressions
• 15,000 User Generated Videos
• #LittleMoons hit 150.7M views
• #LittleMoonsMochi hit 107.7M views

Little Moons Mochi ice cream went viral in the UK after TikTokers shared themselves discovering these small, aesthetically packaged treats.⁸ As the brand gained traction on TikTok, Little Moons took advantage of its virality and put out content to further sustain momentum.

What they did well⁶:

• Brand-created content leveraging trending or viral sounds, while tapping heavily into the #ASMR and #Satisfying videos community.⁶
• User-generated content involving food reviews and how users can get their hands on the sell-out ice cream.⁶
• To date, their best performing videos involve hands-on squishing and smush-ing the ice cream balls.

Takeaways:

• Leverage FOMO and user curiosity to drive store traffic.⁸
• Harness an organic trend and prolong a viral moment.⁹
• Gen-Z uses TikTok as a source of inspiration and is primed to discover food brands and share them.
• Support organic content with a well-placed ad strategy⁹. Little Moons ran a One Day Max In-Feed Ad. It displayed natively in the For You feed, intended to retain an organic feel to maximise engagement. This paid off, resulting in a 1300% increase in sales in Tesco.

Conclusion

TikTok is an experimental platform with the ability to complement the rest of your marketing channels. It has demonstrated sales impact, opportunities for community engagement, and ramped up awareness for brands. It’s a channel well worth pondering and pursuing.

Kickstart your TikTok strategy with us today. Get in touch.

• References:

  • ¹ How to Grow your TikTok Following and Authority
  • ² New studies quantify TikTok’s growing impact on culture and music
  • ³ I Rigged the TikTok Algorithm To Make Me Go Viral
  • ⁴ How brands can authentically join in with subcultures on TikTok
  • ⁵ How Ryanair became one of the most successful brands on social media
  • ⁶ Using TikTok for customer service: 4 brand examples + takeaways
  • ⁷ The Best Of Brands Using TikTok In 2022: What Are Their Secrets?
  • ⁸ TikTok Boosts Sales by 700% for Little Moons: What Can Food Brands Learn From This Trend?
  • ⁹ Little Moons

TikTok’s been abuzz for some time now and for good reason, the app is a hub for virality with influence on mainstream culture and consumer interest. Naturally, brands are interested in getting a piece of the pie. Especially if they’re already familiar with Instagram. Yet there isn’t much discussion covering TikTok’s fundamental difference from the Instagram equivalent, Reels.

So, before your brand sinks time into the predominantly Gen-Z app, let’s break down why it does what it does, and what’s different from Instagram.

The quick ABCs of TikTok

TikTok comes in with around:

• 800 million¹ monthly active users worldwide, with 240 million in Southeast Asia²
• Their largest age group is between 18–34-year-olds¹
• Users spend an average of 52 minutes a day on the app¹

The premise of TikTok is that anyone can go viral, and this is largely because of the way the app’s community participates and interacts with content.³

First, the app’s users find new people and brands via a single source, the For You Page (FYP). This is the discovery equivalent of Instagram’s home feed, Explore page, and Reels tab all in one. The For You Page is fuelled by an algorithm entirely focused on keeping consumers watching. The algorithm even evaluates content based on key metrics including engagement velocity, re-watching, and watch time.⁴

In a nutshell, TikTok is highly user-centric. This encourages users to keep watching and for Creators to create engaging content.

Difference No.1: On TikTok, sound is creative

Music is a core part of TikTok and is where its first difference from Instagram Reels appears.

*Original music includes non-artist and artist sounds. This can be voice overs, voice recordings, licensed music, remixes, etc.

And here is the kicker,

TikTok’s penchant for virality stems from having this creative audio freedom.

Viral trends sprout in response to songs and audio clips that are available to users to “remix, re-purpose, and reimagine in their own creative ways.”⁷

The implications of this are huge—enough that TikTok has become a channel that revives old music, improves discoverability of new artists, and through their viral trends, catapult Creators to fame.

What TikTok audio does for brands

TikTok’s viral songs have massive impact on brands too. TikTok helps drive “record-high engagement rates”,⁸ and through a partnered study with Kantar, discovered it is the only platform where ads with audio generate significant lifts in both purchase intent and brand favourability.⁷

Brands this is news for you.

73% of respondents said they would “stop and look” at ads on TikTok with audio.⁷

But wait, there is more. Utilising trending songs offer brands the opportunity to improve awareness and their image. According to TikTok’s MRC Data report,³

• 68% of users say they remember the brand better
• 58% say they feel a stronger connection to the brand
• 58% of users also say they’re more likely to talk about the brand or share the ad
• 62% say they’re curious to learn about the brand.

Here is a key fact: audio really matters here. More so than you might think.

Difference No.2: Trends, micro-trends, and subcultures originate from TikTok

Trends & micro-trends

Source: YouTube, TikTok Made Me Buy It Compilation

Let’s begin by defining the difference between a trend and a subculture.

Trends are something, from a dance to food recipes (like the baked feta pasta recipe), that are popular at a point in time. They encourage participation but tend to be fleeting.

Trends largely begin on TikTok and then spread through mainstream channels and culture.

Our behind-the-scenes TikTok expert agrees and adds that “most content pushed out on Instagram are either about filters or joining in on trends which were found on TikTok weeks, if not months, ago.”

Compared to Instagram’s slower trend uptake, TikTok’s trend lifecycles are in-built into the app’s community. Within TikTok, trends or micro-trends can effectively turn into their own native subcultures, or in other words, a highly invested community united through like-minded interests and passions.

One instance of a trend-turned-subculture is #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt. What began as a micro-trend featuring products consumers and creators were influenced into buying escalated into a community on TikTok with massive sales impact. A report by Similarweb tracking product sales noted that

“Beauty products that went viral on TikTok earned an average of 85.3% month-on-month sales growth on Amazon.”⁹

Paula’s Choice is one such brand. After dermatologist TikToker Dr. Muneeb Shah endorsed the Paula’s Choice BHA Exfoliant in a TikTok video (hitting 3.3 million views), sales on Amazon increased 13% month-on-month.⁹

Subcultures

So, what about subcultures? The opposite can happen where a subculture sows the seeds for wider trends.¹⁰

A subculture is a community united by similar passions and interests; it’s often an interest that deviates from the mainstream.

Take #CottageCore for example. This subculture revolves around romanticised western agricultural life and carries a soothing, often nature-inspired air revolving around a sense of comfort. As of 2021,

“#CottageCore (…) garnered over 3.5 billion views on TikTok and spurred various microtrends in fashion, lifestyle, food, and home décor.”¹¹

Source: Cosmopolitan Magazine

What began as a subculture has trickled down into mass consumption, where #CottageCore became a massive fashion trend with real-world impact. In 2021 alone, fast fashion retailers stocked thousands of whimsical dresses emulating this trend.

Omnilytics data showed “over 4,000 new dresses tagged under ‘puff sleeves’ at [these] retailers”¹² while other defining #CottageCore characteristics like checks patterns were tagged in over 51,000 products.¹²

Subculture impact is not limited to beauty or fashion, #BookTok is a clear indicator of that. “The #BookTok hashtag has racked up over 5.8 billion views, and some authors have seen a tenfold increase in book sales for works that are often decades old.”¹³

It’s clear micro-trends and subcultures have a significant impact on not just products, but whole industries.

TL; DR: What should brands take note of?

The short answer comes down to three things. Authenticity. Storytelling. Community interaction.

While audio plays a big role in raising view count, it doesn’t do all the heavy lifting. Our TikTok expert notes, “if an audio fits my idea, I’ll use it. If not, there’s no need to force it.” TikTok at the end of the day is an algorithm that wants to show people what they like.

And people don’t just like viral, catchy hooks—as evidenced by the For You Page’s unique quagmire of entertainment that spans education, inspiration, and even flat-out tragic comedy.

Next up: We’re breaking down how your brand can capitalise on TikTok, how to build a loyal, invested community, and why TikTok account authority matters.

Want to kickstart your TikTok strategy? Get in touch.

References:

• ¹ I Rigged the TikTok Algorithm To Make Me Go Viral
• ² Why we need to look at TikTok to understand Southeast Asia’s Gen Z
• ³ New studies quantify TikTok’s growing impact on culture and music
• ⁴ TikTok Account Authority: How To Go VIRAL Every Time (1M+ Views)
• ⁵ The Legal Side Of TikTok: Music, Copyright and Ownership
• ⁶ Instagram Reels vs TikTok: Which should you be using?
• ⁷ TikTok Shares New Insights Into the Importance of Sound for Marketing Promotions on the Platform
• ⁸ Kantar report: How brands are making noise and driving impact with sound on TikTok
• ⁹ #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt is driving Amazon beauty sales
• ¹⁰ How brands can authentically join in with subcultures on TikTok
• ¹¹ Cottagecore
• ¹² Welcome to Cottagecore, Quarantine’s New Fashion Trend
• ¹³ TikTok for Publishers: Thoughts, stats and an exploration
• ¹⁴ 5 TikTok Subcultures That Are Boosting Sales

Creativity in your ads matter. It’s the meat to an ad’s bones, the “wow” factor, and the secret to an impression that sears itself into memory. Without creativity, there is little room to try something new nor the opportunity to tailor your ads to your audience.

Before you think “personalise and optimise”, you must embrace creative.

Statistics¹ show:

• You have 7 seconds to engage a user on a social platform.
• Facebook users click on 12 ads every 30 days.
• Only 16% of advertising is both recalled and correctly attributed to the brand.²

A creatively strong ad is 27% more effective than a weak one. How so?²

• Compelling ads deliver 11x higher ROI than non-creative campaigns.
  People believe a brand is high-quality and worth their attention because they’re impressed by the effort that went into producing a creative ad.²
• Creative ads make a brand more competitive.
  The advent of social media upped the need for constant content. This churn in a bid for relevance means simply being present isn’t enough. The brand must stand out.
• Creative ads reach more people (and save on media spend).
  Ads that elicit a “wow” or some kind of visceral reaction are more likely to be shared organically, especially on social media.

Why creativity impacts the consumer response

What is it about creativity that inspires people to buy product more than its catalogue of attributes and benefits? Harvard wondered that exact same thing. Better still, they conducted a study. In that study, they took apart the elements of creativity and examined which ones linked directly to sales and consumer response.³

More interestingly, of the five elements of creativity examined, the top two forms that drove sales were called elaboration and artistic value.³

• Elaboration
  An unexpected twist, detail, or extension of a simple idea.
• Artistic value
  Where an ad is viewed as a piece of art rather than a blatant sales pitch.

If you read only one sentence today, let it be this: the Harvard study found that highly creative ad campaigns, on average, nearly double the sales impact of a euro spent on a non-creative campaign.³

Creativity is more than visual, it’s also copy

Often, we perceive creativity as visual and forget the other stuff. Yet, the underrated hero in any ad campaign is copy. Whether in branding or lead generation, the words you write matter. From the way copy shapes brand identity to the subtle recognition it offers your ads through consistency, copy matters.

A unique brand voice differentiates your brand from the competition; persuasive language incites urgency and emotion. Good, creative copy not only raises a brow, it speaks to your audience. Makes them feel valued, seen, and heard.

To fully leverage the returns creativity offers, tailor both your visuals and copywriting to your target audience.

What is the next step for marketers?

• Embrace that creativity and digital go hand in hand. Focus on authenticity and what resonates with your audience.⁴
• Build for each channel.⁴ Don’t simply repurpose. Make sure creative is native to the platforms (or even unique).
• Use analytics to understand what your audience is seeking and how they react to those ads.
• Test your ad elements one at a time (like a CTA) and don’t be afraid to experiment with different ad versions across platforms. Who knows? Maybe your audience prefers video to static, or comparison to carousel.

Conclusion

Digitisation has made reaching your audience easy, and yet tough, because every brand has gone digital. The key to leveraging digital and differentiating oneself is through embracing creativity. Hook your audience with creativity that sparks, better understand them through the data you collect, personalise your creative assets, and repeat. You’ll get better engagement, better performance, and improved brand recognition. Over time, this could reflect in improved ROI.

Looking for help with personalising your ads? Or to take your creative storytelling to the next level?

Get in touch.

• References:

  • ¹ Creativity and data, the force behind paid social ads
  • ² The importance of creativity in advertising
  • ³ Creativity in advertising: when it works and when it doesn’t
  • ⁴ The power of ad creative [and how it impacts your social strategy]

Chances are the first place you heard about the metaverse came hand-in-hand with Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement: Facebook is now called Meta.

Except, what is it exactly?

WHAT is the Metaverse?

Our head of strategy, Edmund Lou, shares “being in the metaverse is essentially you in the digital world; portrayed by a virtual or digital you, an avatar¹. A you-niverse that allows you to experience everything you want in that space.”

This digital rendition of everyday life, Lou notes, “is essentially [shared] virtual space[s] for people to gather”² and do what they do in physical reality.

WHY is the Metaverse happening now?

You might wonder, why is the metaverse only happening now? In fact, elements of metaverse have been “happening” for some time. This is evident in the self-contained virtual realities and what passes as “everyday” to the gaming community.³

So why is this reaching the rest of us now? First, you likely heard it from Zuckerberg. Second and more importantly, this was digital’s natural next step. It just needed an impetus.

Prior to the pandemic, consumers already lived their lives online. The allure of whatever-you-need-at-your-fingertips, from food to entertainment, meant few things were truly experienced physically. The onset of at-home mandates, spurred by a contagion, only took this up a notch.

The last two years were a flurry of digital-first services meeting consumer demand. Businesses took advantage of existing infrastructure and innovation to pivot online, cementing the existence of today’s digital-physical reality.

WHO & HOW will this affect them?

1. Consumer experiences will be increasingly personalised

Consumers
Expect even more consumer-focused experiences because whether it’s through hyper-personalised content or persuasive tech, the goal is to keep users scrolling. Consumers will be further incentivised to join and stay on certain platforms.

A notable example is Facebook’s feed algorithm.⁴ Briefly, the social network takes inventory of posts available in a user’s network and scores them according to predetermined ranking signals. Taking information from the user’s past engagement, Facebook demotes content and scores posts to show you a personalised feed tailored to your behaviour.

Brands
As tech giants work to keep users on their platforms, attention as a commodity will only become scarcer. Your best bet against attention scarcity? Take your cue from the giants and focus on the customer. Dig into personalisation, customer data, and targeting.

The value in understanding your audience will only go upwards as competition rises and consumer attention wanes.

Gucci Garden on Roblox via TechCrunch

2. Consumer needs & expectations will evolve

Consumers
A. Expect changing consumer-brand interaction

Consumer behaviour changed alongside the rise of digital spaces and social networks. More than likely, they’ll also keep up with the integration of the metaverse and its elements.

We look back to the impacts of social networks. Social media enabled users a never-before-seen way to communicate with brands and vice versa. This offers brands more personability, but it also meant brands had to deal with issues in a faster and more humanised manner.

The advent of the metaverse offers even more connective, engaging ways to interact with the consumer. Gone is the clear line between branded and humanised content when it comes to dealing with an online community. In its place is an expectation of organic interaction.

B. Consumer values (digitally) are going to evolve

As people, the things we own have value to us. Up till now, these things primarily consisted of tangible items. The stuff you can grasp in your hands. Oftentimes, the reason we valued our belongings so much were because we invested time, energy, and money into gaining these things.

That extra skin involved in owning the item matters. This does not change even if the item is digital, and gamers know this — collectables, avatar skins, and limited-edition digital items have value and are worth collecting to them. Soon, that’s going to translate beyond the gaming community.

In fact, some mainstream consumers have already made this shift. Think of mobile games that incentivise users to spend money on digital items with zero physical value. Not convinced? Covet Fashion, a gaming app that teams up with fashion brands, sees around USD10 to USD15 spent in-app per session.⁵ While not quite on the same level as shelling out USD 4115 for a Roblox-exclusive, digital-only Gucci bag, it still centres around the same concept; online product value is still considered value.⁶

Brands
As consumer expectations shift, brands can increase their focus on community experiences.⁷ This draws a rough guide of what to expect: a new level of immersive and interactive experiences.

For brands seeking to⁸:

• Make press headlines with first or early-move media innovations,
• Test and learn as the metaverse evolves toward its vision,
• Reach a subset of Gen Z-ers and young Millennial audiences,

The metaverse is ripe for experimentation. The key is:

• To work with existing creators, influencers, and communities that are most primed for the metaverse.⁷ Learn from the innovators and early adopters who are most familiar with this sphere.
• To keep your expectations low and your imaginations high. Though a revenue-based ROI from metaverse custom media buys⁸ aren’t in the books yet, there are plenty of options to enhance consumer experience and brand awareness.

As Pringle eloquently puts it, “… the metaverse is a place where creativity and curiosity can flourish like never before.”¹

Above all, the key is to lead with creativity. In the metaverse, because marketing expectations have not yet been set, there are virtually zero limits. Nick Pringle, R/GA London’s SVO Executive Creative Director, invites brands to consider “virtual first” products and services.¹

How might the next generation discover and perceive your brand virtually, and what positive values can be transferred to the offline sphere? From D2A (direct to avatar) goods like Nike’s virtual Jordans, to an energy drink brand supplying rocket packs, anything goes.¹

Nike’s D2A virtual Jordans via The Industry.Fashion

In this leap forward, brands and marketers now can create multi-channel products, incorporating several platforms with varying executions, all leading to a more organic and interactive experience.¹

This is the best reason for brands to “increase [their] marketing dollar and expand [their] digital ideas to include more than one platform,” emphasises Lou, our head of strategy.

He highlights, “after all, this strengthens brand relationships with consumers, and isn’t that the goal?”

Conclusion

In short, the metaverse is here to stay. Brands need to get ready, get set, and ride this technological evolution. “Remember Nokia, Blackberry, and Kodak? They didn’t evolve.” Lou adds.

Need inspiration? See how Coca-cola, Nike, and even Louis Vuitton made their move.⁹

Get in touch to see how we can help you.

References:

• ¹ Why the ‘metaverse’ will prove to be more than a buzzword
• ² The future of an immersive Metaverse | Artur Sychov | TEDxUNYP
• ³ The Metaverse: How it will end the Internet
• ⁴ How the Facebook Algorithm Works in 2021 and How to Make it Work for You
• ⁵ This mobile game lets you “buy” clothes the instant they hit the runway
• ⁶ A Digital-Only Gucci Bag Sold for $4,115 on Roblox, as Brands Continue to Look to Gaming to Reach Gen-Z
• ⁷ What the metaverse means for brand experiences
• ⁸ Consumers Aren’t Ready For The Metaverse Yet
• ⁹ 7 Consumer Brands Reinventing Marketing in the Metaverse

Your ad campaigns are underperforming; you’re not getting the click-throughs or conversions you’re expecting.

Ad-blindness might be one reason, but it’s a commonly cited frustration without a clear next step to guide improvement.  Here, we’ve compiled 5 other not-so-obvious reasons why your target audience could be ignoring your ads.

Table of Contents

1. You’re not personalising enough (or at all)
2. You’re not aligning your ads to the channel
3. You’re not on the channels your audience is on
4. You’re not making use of creative and copywriting
5. You’re fusing branding with lead generation ads

1. You’re not personalising enough (or at all)

If your content isn’t resonating with your consumer, you risk losing them. Your messaging, key visuals, call-to-action, language, and so on, each need to be tailored to your consumers’ needs and demands.

Statistics¹ show:

• 66% of consumers expect brands to understand their individual needs
• 42% of customers are frustrated by impersonalised content
• 72% of customers will only engage with personalised messaging

In short, deeply understanding your consumer and personalising the ad experience is key to standing out in a cluttered ad space.

2. You’re not aligning your ads to the channel

Consumers have varying expectations depending on the platform and are primed to respond differently.

A user would engage with videos differently on TikTok compared to YouTube. Likewise, someone on Google search is going to seek information and an experience that is different compared to Facebook.

To better align ads to the channel:

• Fit your visual storytelling to the platform for the best possible user experience. 
  Eg. Someone who is willing to sit through a 2 minute ad on YouTube will not do the same on Instagram.
• Adapt your elements to the platform.
  A call-to-action on Instagram Stories should take advantage of native features while a CTA on Twitter should be optimised for skimming.
• Adjust sizing to the platform.
  Instagram’s users respond best to images in portrait mode because they tend to scroll vertically when on mobile.

These platforms  have done the necessary research to hook their audience and keep them interested. Don’t reinvent the wheel, take advantage of it.

3. You’re not on the channels your audience is on

Sound obvious? It’s less so in practice. By assuming your audience is not on a platform, you’re missing out on a group of potential customers.

In fact, your ad could be exactly what they need; there is simply no way to be certain of it without testing it out on that specific platform and gathering information from their responses.

4. You’re not making use of creative & copywriting

Copywriting is essential. Without it, customer data can’t be translated into emotionally-triggering language and you’ll find your consumer captured by a different ad.

But how do you know it’s the right copy? You test it with multiple ad variations. By changing specific elements of your ads — your visuals, design, and copywriting — you get to find out just what makes your customer tick.

5. You’re fusing branding with lead generation ads

One ad does not fit all. Lead generation and branding campaigns fundamentally do different things. Even if they’re targeting the same audience. While the former is about selling products or services, the latter is all about creating lasting impressions and retaining mindshare.²

Rather than aim to have one ad do everything, it is ideal to segment them according to your audience. A fresh potential customer needs to know why they should buy from you, versus a ready-to-buy consumer who you could tempt with promotions or discount codes.

By recognising what consumers are seeking at their stage of the buying journey, you’re better able to personalise their experience.

Conclusion

Paid ads come in all shapes and sizes. The key to making your ads really work is to understand your consumer, tailor your ad assets to their needs, and finally test it out. By leveraging personalisation tools to help you test your ads, you’ll gain better insights and be able to optimise your campaign for improved performance.

Get in touch to personalise your next ad campaign.

References:

• ¹ Startup Bonsai: Personalization Statistics
• ² Hubspot: Branding or Lead Generation

Attention scarcity is at an all-time high. If you have just 7 seconds, how do you capture your consumer? How do you ensure they go from hooked to purchase? The facts¹ show that:

• Users ignore over 80% of digital ads.
• Fully engaged customers represent a 23% higher share in profitability, revenue, and relationship growth.
• 54% of customers think companies need to transform how they engage.
• 64% of customers expect tailored engagement that is based on past interaction.

The solution to this lies in a combination of hyper-personalised messaging and engaging, digital features. In other words, interactive marketing.

Table of Contents

• What is interactive marketing?
• How do interactive features drive marketing campaigns?
• Interactive marketing examples
• Case studies

What is interactive marketing?

Interactive marketing is about catching consumers’ attention and triggering a direct response from them through innovative means.

It is a method that takes into account a target audience’s preferences² and engages them through interactive features that range from simple Instagram polls to complex, immersive video.

How do interactive features drive marketing campaigns?

Image via our campaign for Nutox

Interactive features are adept at garnering consumer interest and engagement.

Why? For these simple reasons:

1. Interactivity makes users feel involved

Interactive features help consumers see themselves in the brand’s experience.³ Whether it is time spent joining a brand’s product development process, or effort used to play a gamified campaign for a discount, these investments give users some skin in the game.

2. Interactive features support the Awareness stage within the marketing funnel

During the Awareness stage, these features differentiate a brand from its competitors and delivers impact during that critical first impression. This first discovery experience leads a customer to further engagement down the road.⁴

In fact, 75% of marketers agree that offering customers a “sample” of the brand through free, interactive content resulted in a higher degree of lead nurturing.⁴

3. Interactive content streamlines the purchasing process

Demand Gen Report⁵ found that interactive content led to 2X more conversions than passive content. This is likely through showcasing the product in an engaging manner and by providing social proof to ease the fear of buyer’s remorse.

Used this way, interactive features become a tool that reduce friction at buyer touchpoints and supports conversion.

Interactive marketing examples

There are numerous types of interactive features marketers and brands can incorporate into their strategy. These features are flexible enough to suit a short-term campaign or become a mainstay of their content marketing strategy. Below is a non-exhaustive list of features brands can incorporate into their marketing.

Simple interactive features

Image via piktochart

1. Animation

Animation in marketing ranges from website features to short videos. It can convey simple messages or break down a complex concept in a visually appealing way.⁶

2. Infographics

Dynamic infographics take educative content to the next level. Layering an element of engagement with informational content combines expertise with memorability. Users are more likely to remember the brand associated with impactful, valuable content.

Advanced interactive features

Image via Braze

1. Gamified elements

Gamification is a well-known interactive marketing tool that engages users. It is easy to customise to a brand’s needs, be it simple or complex. Popular features range from calculator-like tools to trivia and lottery-style games. AR too is another form of interaction and it’s extremely flexible, used in custom IG and Facebook filters to full-fledged games like PokemonGo.

Though gamification requires some time and effort, it yields great results both for product exposure and increasing user engagement.

Adact⁷, a gamification company trusted by leading global brands, shows gamification offers:

• A 16% bounce rate compared to the industry average — between 25.2% and 62.8%
• Engagement time ranges from 9 minutes to 60 minutes
• A completion rate of 98%

2. Video

Personalised, otherwise known as dynamic video, turns “just” a video into a piece of content users resonate with. It makes the audience feel like the video is speaking to them and addressing their needs.⁸

Interactive video

Interactive video is where participants navigate a video through the choices they make. This could be the short surveys YouTube shares before a video loads, toggling left and right within a video, or entering a storyline and making choices like a character.

Compared to other types of video content, 43% of consumers prefer interactive video content because they’re able to decide what information they’re in control of and what they’re viewing.⁹

Immersive video

Immersive video, otherwise known as 360° Video, records video in all directions at the same time.

These sorts of videos are memorable and impactful. They’re great for creating an ultra-immersive user experience while also allowing the user to frame themselves within the video environment.

Case studies

Here are two examples of how interactive marketing supports different stages of the marketing funnel and can be tailored to a campaign.

1. Shiseido X Watsons: #MyJapaneseBeauty Asia Campaign

Image via our campaign for Shiseido

Shiseido sought to pivot online in the middle of a pandemic to spotlight their brands and products.

To digitally recreate the sensorial experience consumers get at physical events, we designed an interactive microsite to meet Shiseido’s multiple markets and corresponding languages.

Interactive features included:

• Parallax animation and asymmetrical layouts that pushed the boundaries of traditional web design.
• Engaging website navigation that led consumers to discover the 6 pillars of Japanese Beauty philosophy and the persona of Shiseido’s brands.
• Integrated gamification elements that highlighted each brand’s USP, product, and essence.

This direction, supported by our digital strategy, strengthened top of mind awareness for Shiseido and its sub-brands. Results-wise, we gained 25K+ unique page views and drove 18k traffic to Shiseido’s e-commerce partner, Watsons.

2. KSK: YOO8 serviced by Kempinski Interactive Campaign

Image via our campaign for KSK Land

KSK Land sought to promote their upcoming YOO8 branded residences under 8 Conlay.

Due to MCO (Malaysia’s national quarantine measures) constraints upon physical sales galleries, we offered an alternative method to engage with consumers: an interactive digital experience that showed customers “the art of living” with Kempinski at YOO8.

This digital alternative:

• Took the consumer through YOO8’s hospitality in first-person perspective within a mini movie. As the main character, consumers could make choices to navigate the storyline.
• Personalised the consumer experience. We offered viewers 6 possible endings to uncover, thus increasing playability and encouraging further discovery.
• Hosted the mini-movie on a mobile-first microsite with interactive elements to improve user experience.

This campaign was the first of its kind among Malaysian property companies. The campaign raked in 2.8 million social media impressions and close to 28K site visitors.

Conclusion

Staying top of mind is crucial and a strategic interactive campaign could be the tipping point that captures the consumer’s attention amidst the noisy ad landscape.

Interactive marketing has near-endless possibilities and is proven to work. Its highly personalised messaging and impactful, engaging features are the antidote to ad fatigue today.

Want to include interactive marketing in your next campaign? Talk to us today!

References:

• ¹ Outgrow: 31 Marketing Stats That’ll Help You Drive Your Marketing Strategy in 2021
• ² Campaign Monitor: Interactive Elements That Can Increase User Engagement
• ³ Content Marketing Institute: Interactive Content Quizzes
• ⁴ Hubspot: 21 Interactive Content Stats That Marketers Need to Know in 2020
• ⁵ Demand Gen Report: 2019 State of Interactive Content Marketing
• ⁶ Raka Creative: Eye-Catching Uses for Animation in Your Marketing Plan
• ⁷ Adact: Are you using Gamification in Your marketing?
• ⁸ Idea Rocket: What Is Dynamic Video Content Or Personalized Videos?
• ⁹ Marketing Charts: Top Online Video Qualities Aiding Consumers Decision Making