Since March 2020, the world has faced a series of economic crises—from the COVID-19 pandemic to ongoing supply chain woes and creeping inflation, to the Great Resignation. Many of these predicaments are due to global shifts beyond the control of anyone company or brand. However, as a result of this myriad of challenges, brands are facing an unprecedented test when it comes to maintaining customers’ patience, focus and allegiance.
Loyal No Longer
As supply dwindles, prices rise and challenger brands emerge from the digital world to threaten the supremacy of legacy brands, brand loyalty is very much under threat. In 2021, more than 80 percent of consumers bought a different brand than their usual choice, driven largely by lower prices and/or dwindling supply. Of those, more customers said they’d prefer to stick with their new brand than return to old go-to’s. In light of this, brands will need to change how they advertise and present themselves to the world. The key for advertisers will be to go beyond products and services to highlight their brand’s heartbeat —the traits, culture, goals, mission, vision, and community that the brand embodies.
Be Yourself
Generationally, this is a matter of particular import. Studies have found that half of the millennials and nearly 60 percent of Gen Z say they don’t trust companies, while around 40 percent of millennials and almost half of zoomers believe most brands come across as inauthentic. In an era where audiences/consumers have more choices than ever—and many Gen Z and millennial consumers aspire to support companies whose corporate values and “style” reflect their own —showcasing ethos can drive brand loyalty in an era where stickiness is increasingly hard to come by. Ads trumpeting values and purpose help lend a brand some much-needed authenticity, and that is a currency that’s always in short supply but in high demand.
It’s no surprise that the digital world will dominate marketing in 2022. However, amidst the focus on technology, digital marketers will still need to work at meeting consumers’ desire for marketing that feels a little more human. Even as they embrace the latest digital trends, brands will need to ensure advertising initiatives continue to highlight the things that matter most to the people (yes, people!) who trust their product and services, in order to meet consumer demands.
Seeking Cookieless Clarity
For those who might be unfamiliar, when we talk about cookies in a digital advertising sense cookies are text files with small pieces of data that are used to identify a computer as you use computer networks. Specific cookies known as HTTP cookies are used to identify specific users and shape their web browsing experience.
Google announced earlier this year that they would end the use of cookies in its Google Chrome web browser in 2023. This has forced digital marketers to begin to think of what’s next.
There is no shortage of discussion around the deprecation of cookies. However, there is still little clarity —and advertisers still have a lot of questions. Most are wondering about the impact on targeting and performance: How will I reach my target? How will I know my media is working? How will I measure conversions? Many prospective solutions are still in beta stages, while others promote foggy offerings that don’t address deeper concerns.
As it stands, Google Chrome, the world’s most popular web browser holding 64 percent of the global market, is looking to transition marketers and advertisers over to an alternative identity solution after the withdrawal of third-party cookies.
In place of cookies, Google hopes the industry will leverage Privacy Sandbox —a set of tools that let advertisers run targeted ads without having direct access to users’ personal details. When cookies do finally disappear from Chrome in 2023, one alternative for advertisers will be to use Google’s first-party data within its own tools. The general expectation is that first-party (loyalty/customer) digital data will become highly relied on and that the digital landscape will evolve to allow advertisers and publishers to expand the current possibilities of programmatic/digital advertising.
The impending loss of third-party cookie deprecation doesn’t demand that advertisers only sweat over what will be lost. Instead, it offers an opportunity for brands and businesses to reassess what’s most important to them —to rethink consumer engagement strategies and approach marketing as a two-way conversation between brand and consumer. Without cookies, marketers must leverage new tools and techniques to learn more about their customers and deliver more targeted and relevant communications to them.
There are many emerging identity solutions that businesses and marketers are tasked to consider. Accordingly, each potential identity solution must be thoroughly considered before adoption.
