2021 has already proved to be a defining year. While we may be doing well, the unfortunate truth is that most businesses have struggled.
The rest have some big decisions ahead. In a world full of unknowns, connecting to what’s happening will be the only option.
Brands that stay connected to the heartbeat and movements in culture will be the ones that emerge as winners. And it starts with being on digital platforms that are consistently adapting to the new norm.
The world is changing fast. This year will be more important than ever for brands to take on the challenge by demonstrating five key factors; agility, interactivity, relevance, efficiency and safety.
Agility
2020 put businesses’ agility to the test and 2021 will be no different. As the world continues to change, brands must be agile and be able to quickly respond to rapidly evolving consumers in real time.
We encourage brands to leverage Twitter’s strength as the world’s largest focus group by identifying trends as they take shape.
Harnessing the power of data for in-the-moment insights around crises such as COVID-19 allows brands to shift their strategies and responses in real time.
This enables businesses to report risks during the very early stages. Audience insights are also key to better understand when and how to communicate with stakeholders. Bespoke audience dashboards, for example, arm brands with insights rather than intuition. Data and audience insights therefore give marketers more confidence in the crucial decisions they make for their business.
Interactivity
People want more control over how they socialise digitally. They want a connection to everything they’re excited about. Businesses therefore need to add a more human, and more connected touch to the way they communicate.
They should seek moments that add a little sparkle and delight when people engage with their content. According to a recent Twitter study, a 10 percent increase in brand conversation could grow brand sales revenue by up to 3 percent.
In order to maintain momentum in today’s market, marketers need to focus on the right solutions to advertise new products or services, ensuring a reach of target audiences, while providing the necessary insights for optimization of ads.
For example, Ford was aware that its Mustang fans love a good engine roar. @FordMiddleEast jumped on the new ‘voice Tweets’ feature to record the engine sound of the Mustang and share it with their fans on the platform.
This Tweet demonstrated how a brand managed to add its own flair and personality to create a more human experience with its audiences.
Brands should build partnerships that adapt to what’s happening in the world
Relevance
A year of lockdowns, curfews and other restrictions altered the way we connect, decreasing the number of touchpoints for human connection and turning up the volume of noise across digital.
Brands should build partnerships that adapt to what’s happening in the world. Whether it’s the Olympics or Expo 2020, content partnerships with premium publishers bring brands closer to their audiences.
Last year, Mobily partnered with Millenium Arabia’s Saudi Gamer (@SaudiGamer) to produce a series of episodes around Mobily Fight Club – a unique concept that provides fans with content centered around the fighting game Tekken 7.
The four-week fight club consists of a weekly tournament featuring a match between two well-known amateur and professional gaming influencers residing in Saudi Arabia.
Filmed in a virtual studio, the episodes include short lighthearted interviews with the players. The show allowed Mobily and Mindshare to connect with the brand’s audiences by leveraging Twitter’s growing gaming conversation, which was over 1 billion Tweets in the first half of 2020. The first episode alone generated more than 928K views on Twitter.
People want more control over how they socialise digitally. They want a connection to everything they’re excited about
Efficiency
Efficiency is as important as ever and advertisers are continuously seeking easier ways to meet their goals. When launching something new, marketers seek massive reach to generate the most valuable video impressions for their campaign.
Whether brands have an objective to drive traffic to their website, or download a mobile app, direct response advertising gives brands more access to advertising demand that may be more resilient through a downturn.
Earlier last year, Twitter acquired CrossInstall to up our game on Performance Ads. This helps us identify opportunities across Twitter’s Ad Stack and create new systems and features to accelerate Mobile App Promotion. CrossInstall’s creative expertise also lets us provide optimized, rich creative in programmatic buying.
Safety
Brands should advertise on platforms that commit to ensuring a safe environment. First, the involvement of third-party brand safety measurement solutions is imperative.
At Twitter, we’ve recently selected DoubleVerify (DV) and Integral Ad Science (IAS) to be our preferred partners for providing independent reporting on the context in which ads appear on the platform.
Advertisers need solutions that will give them a better understanding of the content appearing adjacent to their ads, and this should help them make informed decisions to reach their goals.
Second, it’s critical that digital platforms receive accreditation from the Media Ratings Council (MRC) in demonstrating transparency. At Twitter, we are undergoing the accreditation process across all four of MRC’s offered accreditation services: Viewability, Sophisticated Invalid Traffic Filtration, Audience Measurement, and Brand Safety.
Third, partnership with industry leaders is key. Twitter is a founding member of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) and we’re working across our organisation with our advertising and agency partners and industry leadership.
Continuing to partner with industry leaders to define and refine the work that is needed to keep platforms safe for advertisers is essential. The conversation is far bigger than brand safety, it’s about social responsibility and leadership from the top-down.
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