18 New Trend-Based Ideas from Marketing in July

From brand collabs and advanced customer experience to rediscovering your “why” in uncertain times, these are the top trends from marketing in July – to inform your future planning

Why big brands want small agencies. The big Twitter advertising guide. And forging meaningful connections with customers. We’ve collected 18 of our weekly trends-based new ideas from marketing in July 2020 into a single post. Discover new ways to supercharge your future marketing planning:

NOTE: ABOUT JULY 2020

While we all knew the Covid-19 pandemic wouldn’t be over by July, most people expected a return to some semblance of normal. But the realities of extended lockdowns and the growing economic impact meant marketing in July 2020 stretched brands to innovate even further.

18 NEW IDEAS FROM MARKETING IN JULY

1. USE EVERY TOOL TO MARKET INVESTMENT PROPERTY

The pandemic affected the property market in a variety of ways around the world. Hard lockdowns impeded the work of lawyers and property professionals. And, even though rate cuts and banks continuing business made it technically still possible (if not preferable) to trade in property, the economic impacts of Covid-19 has put some strain on the property sector.

This is where Design Infestation championed the idea of showcasing new developments and reaching audiences by using not just the property itself, but also the surrounding neighbourhood to market it as a complete lifestyle package. See it in action: Discover destination property branding.

2. WHY BIG BRANDS ARE TURNING TO SMALL AGENCIES

New ideas. Specialist services. Flexibility and faster results. These are some of the reasons comms agency Idea Hive’s CEO Yaw Dwomoh says more brands are turning to “smaller” agencies right now. With the changes Covid-19 has brought on, smaller, more specialised agencies offer the right stuff to counter-act a big brand’s normally slow-moving business model.

And these sentiments are shared by digital marketing pro, Keshia Patchiappen, who says we’re seeing the rise of agencies as business consultants – see the report here.

“You don’t even need to replace your existing creative agencies or your official agency,” Design Infestation’s Ferdi Rohrbeck concurs. “You just bring in a smaller specialist brand agency as a consultant right to help sense-check and steer your current teams to take full advantage of what’s available right now.”

Need to chat? You can drop Ferdi a message and he’ll call you back.

3. MAKE SURE YOUR IDEAS CAN LIVE IN THE REAL WORLD

Focusing on trust. Making others feel included. And ensuring it works in the real world. We got some practical insights on what it takes to make your most creative marketing ideas a reality with Design Infestation #BrandPro Sheena Crowie.

4. THE BIG TWITTER ADVERTISING GUIDE

Promoted trends, auto ads and placements. Social listening tool amaSocial’s team have created a pretty thorough guide to advertising on Twitter. See it here.

5. THINK FURTHER THAN THE DATA

Digital consultancy Horaah Digital’s CEO Shaune Jordaan reminds businesses that data doesn’t replace creativity. The two must live together. He warns against just investing in numbers and data – you still need professionals to help you turn that data into actual sales.

6. BE WARY OF SHOCK TACTICS

Marketing analyst Chris Moerdyk says that the South African media has done a good job keeping the public informed about the Covid-19 epidemic, but they’ve missed their chance at social responsibility. Because they haven’t worked to contribute to a solution, they’ve helped create a panic.

This sentiment is quite similar to what Design Infestation founder Christo Maritz said in April already (when lockdown started): The media created such a hype, they scared away their own advertisers and now publishers are in trouble. Demand more from your media.

If you haven’t seen it already, check out our guide to marketing during Covid-19.

7. IT’S TIME TO START COLLABORATING

With lockdowns winding down, markets pretty hard hit and consumer spending very tight, sponsoring marketing agency Openfield says that collaboration could be the key to getting the response you need. They cite, among others, the recent collab between Louis Vitton and savvy street-style brand Supreme as an international example. But remind us it’s been done in SA before when Disney Africa and fashion designer Suzaan Heyns collabed in 2013 (see the vid). Saying this kind of thing could be your new normal.

8. REDUCING AD SPEND? SOMEONE’S GUNNING FOR YOUR MARKET SHARE

Good news for SMEs. A warning for corporates. As most bigger companies are looking to cut marketing spend, leads tech company Digital Kungfu is actively marketing a new platform to SMEs to help them take advantage of the gap left by corporates dropping ad spend. In fact, they pitch their service specifically at helping SMEs grow market share during this crisis time.

The idea? SMEs, now might be your chance to grab market share. Corporates, in case you missed what we’ve been telling you for the past two months: Now is not the time to cut marketing spend, it’s time to increase or at least maintain it.

9. SAY HALO TO A NEW PHONE-BASED PAYMENT TECH

SA software company Synthesis has launched a new contactless payment technology that doesn’t require any POS device. The new software, Halo, lets merchants receive payment by just tapping the customer’s card to your Android phone in what’s SA’s first-ever “Tap to Phone” payment technology.

10. B2B? THINK CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

If your company mainly serves other businesses, it’s easy to fall into the standard B2B marketing style trap. But Chiedza Gonyora, a senior anthropologist (yes, anthropologist) at marketing insights company Demographica says the future of B2B is getting to know the decision-makers at your potential clients as people. Who they are. What they like and dislike. What they believe. And then tailor your marketing to them, not just “the team”. This is the B2B of the future.

11. SAY GOODBYE: MEN’S HEALTH, MOVE!, RUNNER’S WORLD AND MORE

SA is losing even more of its print titles as Media 24 has announced that it’s probably closing a number of magazines and some newspapers. Others like Drum will only be available online from now on, and it will outsource the editorial production on Fairlady, Sarie, True Love, go! and a number of other titles. And many of its publications will come out less frequently. See the full list in this media statement.

12. MARKETING IS ALL ABOUT TOUCHING LIVES

Falling in love. Creating your own destiny. And forging meaningful connections. In case you missed it, we recently got some insights on brands, design and marketing from Design Infestation #BrandPro Anton Pople.

13. PLUS: IS SA ACTUALLY INTO BLUE MILK?

SA dairy brand Clover faced some critique over its new blue milk bottle campaign recently. Not least because of the announcing video, featuring a man painted blue (which social media picked up on quickly because people are very focused on #BLM and health and safety, as a result of Covid-19, right now).

Clover said it wanted to inject some fun into the everyday milk run. And perhaps it achieved that goal. But it’s interesting to note that, while the Clover brand we know in SA updated the colour of their plastic milk bottles, their American almost-namesake, Clover Sonoma (which is privately held and in no way associated with Clover in SA) launched a new fully-renewable plant-based milk carton as part of its sustainability drive. In the same week!

Take note: The marketing decisions you make say as much about what you apparently think/believe/assume about your customers as it does your brand.

14. 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.

15. 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?

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. 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.

 

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Launch in a new area, boost sales growth and up your competitiveness. Unlock the power of simplexity with our award-winning brand agency.

And, in fashion retail, is there a way to save the depart store? Yes, if they finally learn to truly embrace the power and potential locked up inside their private label brands.

 

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ABOUT THESE #MARKETINGIDEAS

Our team scours the latest news and insights to bring you useful ideas based on actual trends in business and marketing every 7 days – see our marketing ideas this week. And then, to keep our overview scope broad and useful for you, we collect all of our trends-based marketing ideas into a monthly collective. 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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