Fresh inspiration in under 1 minute: Every week, our team distils the latest trends and analysis into innovative marketing ideas for you to use
17 July 2020
Stories of loyalty. Championing a cause. And 3 new businesses born of the pandemic. Our team has distilled the latest marketing news and insights into useful bite-sized chunks for business. Here are some trends-based marketing ideas this week to help inspire you:
BUT FIRST: QUICK NEWS UPDATES
- Alcohol ban: The SA liquor industry is reeling from the latest blanket ban. Having lost some R18 billion in revenue in the first 9 weeks of lockdown, experts say the industry now faces losses of R10 billion per month – see the report
- Faced with more lockdown, South Africa has now officially entered its 80th month (6.5 years) of consistently weakening economy, the longest downward cycle since WW2 – get the insights here
On the rocks: #Liquor industry faces losses of R10bn p/m in sales – #LouiseBurgers with @NielsenAfrica @HeinWine @Danie_Cronje #RoadFreightAssoc #SALiquorLaw #SAWine #COVID19SA #alcoholban #retail #retailers #retailing #marketing #brands #lockdownSA https://t.co/Rg0F8vod1B
— Retailing Africa (@RetailingAfrica) July 16, 2020
Plus: The ban won’t last forever, but will you be ready when it’s lifted? See our guide to using your brand to sell your wine.
NEW MARKETING IDEAS THIS WEEK
START A LOYALTY PROGRAMME
Create a deeper meaning for customers. Reward them for staying in touch. And make your rewards valuable. That’s the guidelines that Customer Relationship pros LoyaltyPlus give as they recommend brands foster better relationships with consumers.
Citing Starbucks as a prime example of using loyalty to bounce back, the team says Starbucks suffered during the pandemic, having to close down many stores globally. But they maintained their core clientele elsewhere, by negotiating better deals with suppliers and then passing those on as rewards to consumers. But you don’t have to be a Starbucks-sized brand to create real value for people.
CHAMPION A CAUSE
A quest for radical change. Sustainability we can trust. And when fear stops us from buying. Global PR firm Havas’s global consumer survey ReACT 2020 shows that by far most consumers are concerned at the state of the world and want brands to help them act to protect it. See the results here.
Note: This was even before Covid-19, so you can imagine the sentiment now. As many as a third of millennials, Gen X and 22% of boomers say they expect a change so radical, it could even entail drastic societal collapse, just to get to a “clean slate” space again. That’s huge. But also important is that 60% of respondents say they don’t trust brands’ current sustainability commitments. Which begs the question: How can you do more?
PROTECT YOUR CUSTOMERS’ INFORMATION
Communications firm The DCF’s MD Mkhuseli Vangile says business shouldn’t fear the Protection of Personal Information Act. If you look closely, the new additions don’t seek to restrict how you collect and manage customer data, it’s more about how you protect the data. So it pays to have an expert go through the POPI regulations, and then invest in added cybersecurity.
GAMIFY YOUR MARKETING
Communications agency Flume MD Jacques du Bruyn says that while your website, good SEO, a bit of direct marketing and earning external media space are essentials for your marketing mix, he believes more brands should look at adding gaming too.
With the rise of online media consumption, he reckons a simple but addictive online game, with a strong, targeted message could open new doors for brands today.
LOOK TO FILL A REAL NEED
You might remember at the beginning of the hard lockdown in March, and in our look at marketing in April, as well as May and even in our general look at marketing during Covid-19, we said that the real opportunities are going to come from serving real-world needs. Well, now there are a few awesome examples:
As a result of the pandemic, most businesses had to up their online presence. But township dwellers had a very real problem: They couldn’t always get even essential items delivered to their doors like you might find in other neighbourhoods of SA.
And how did business respond? Well, Pretoria entrepreneur Reneilwe Aphane launched app-based food delivery service KasiMenu in Soshanguve. In Soweto, we saw the rise of the app White Fox. And, in Cape Town, Order Kasi serves areas from Khayelitsha to Paarl.
Remember those names, because word is that these services are now doing so well, the operators are starting to get delivery contracts with big retail chains in SA.
ABOUT #MARKETINGTHISWEEK
Our team scours the latest news and insights to bring you useful ideas based on actual trends. If you want to share ideas or have a question about any of the ideas we’ve shared here, contact us at design@infestation.co.za.
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