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advertising

Marketing’s next frontier: Why up to 80% of consumers are embracing the great outdoors

The outdoors has never been more ‘in’. Recent years have seen a range of once niche pastimes hit the mainstream, with outdoorsy brands like Patagonia and The North Face enjoying a whole new cachet as the masses look to show off their rugged credentials.

From wild swimming, camping and kayaking to bouldering, trekking and climbing – everybody’s at it. If someone told you ten years ago that two of the hottest labels on the high street would be climbing brands, would you have believed them? It used to be only geography teachers wore ‘outbound clothing’, now it’s fashionistas, rappers and popstars.

So, what’s prompted the shift? Why are more and more people jumping on the outbound bandwagon? And what is it about the last decade that’s made people go ‘wild’ for the great outdoors?

We asked our global community why it’s more important than ever to connect with nature and spend time in the outdoors. The answer is overwhelmingly about mental health and wellness – and it’s a reaction to anxieties surrounding social media, technology and the digital age. Your North Face puffa might be bang on trend – but it’s also about what it represents: freedom, escape, physical endeavour, the big, wide world. The antithesis of what for many are the trappings of modern technology.

Outbound boom 
The Association of British Climbing Walls (ABC) tells us numbers of climbers are growing by 20% year-on-year. While the Outdoor Swimming Society saw numbers grow to 70,000 in 2019, compared with just a few hundred ten years before. Our global community is part of this trend. 78% of our Bulbsharers now go on holidays that are based around outbound pursuits and 40% do outdoorsy activities once a week or more. When asked about the types of things they get involved in, hiking, camping, cycling, wild swimming and fishing come out on top.

The motives 
97% of our community say connecting with nature can help with their mental health. But even before we directly asked that question, an overwhelming majority mentioned it when talking about their love of the outdoors – drawing associations with positivity, calmness, self-esteem and beating anxiety. And just as our community associates the outdoors with positive mental health, they blame social media for those anxieties they need to escape. 89% of our users said connecting with nature is more important in the age of social media, and in our open text responses, social media and technology loom large in our word cloud.

Return to the source 
What we are seeing is a mass reaction to the pressure of social media and the trappings of modern technology. As people’s lives are increasingly being made more tracked, more monitored, more digital, nature offers the exact opposite – freedom, calmness, release.

The great outdoors then, can be seen as a new frontier for brand marketing, messaging and positioning. Brands should be aware of the new role nature has to offer in the lives of consumers – as well as their concerns about technology and the impact of mental health. It’s time to bake ‘the great outdoors’ into campaigns, competitions, and content. Wild swimming and outbound holidays are no longer the preserve of a niche, ‘intrepid’ crowd – they have mainstream relevance and mass appeal.

Key Quotes 
“(Spending time in the outdoors) is paramount for our mental and physical health. Whenever I am struggling, a walk is the perfect way to clear my head…” (Bulbshare user, 29, UK)

“I like to get outside… It’s nice to get a chance to disconnect from devices and get a bit of sun.” (Bulbshare user, 37, Australia)

“In this day and age of people with eyes always glued to a screen, it is important to get outside and look around. To get the wind in your hair and the sun on your face is a great way to relax and recharge.” (Bulbshare user, 66, UK)

“It is a soothing mechanism to be able to connect with nature – I find it calming and relaxing for both my peace of mind and my relationship with others.” (Bulbshare user, 43, Toronto)

“Because only when I have close contact with nature, I feel that everything is possible…” (Bulbshare user, 28, Poland)

“We all know that nature gives us peace and health. Outdoor activities make us feel calm and relaxed and can ease tension and depression.” (Bulbshare user, 18, Malaysia)

“Social media is exhausting for our brains – unlike anything that has come before…” (Bulbshare user, 30, Poland)

 

Key take-outs

  • Our global community is committed to outdoor pursuits: From hiking and trekking to climbing and bouldering, the great outdoors is seriously in vogue.
  • Positive mental health: The outdoors is seen as an escape from technology and social media and the assault on mental health that these represent. Outdoorsy messaging should be framed around positivity, calmness and escape.
  • Bake ‘the great outdoors’ into campaigns, competitions, and content. Wild swimming and outbound holidays are no longer the preserve of the niche, ‘intrepid’ crowd – they have mainstream relevance and mass appeal..

To find out how Bulbshare could benefit your organisation, please contact Michael Wylie-Harris on michael@bulbshare.com

Do you really know how to connect to Gen Z? 4 steps to true social listening

Gen Z spend their lives on social networks, right? Therefore, it follows that ‘social media listening’ is the best way to find out about their lives, interests and aspirations – unmediated and in their own words. But that’s not what we’ve observed. Social listening can tell you about brand mentions and offer some limited sentiment analysis, but on any subject outside the brand world, the insights are severely limited.

Research conducted with our global community in 2019 tells us that social media platforms are the not the environments to get a candid view of how young people think. While Gen Z will share and like content within their filter bubble, everything they do is strictly guided by what they want their ‘public persona’ to project. They don’t hold meaningful conversations on public platforms – and rarely give an entirely open view of how they actually think or behave.

Social listening means brands end up monitoring a carefully curated point of view – it’s like eavesdropping an interview, or a constructed reality. Look at the top social networks for Generation Z: Whatsapp, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter. Instagram is a stage. It’s for following people and curating a personal brand. For most of the young people in our global community, this makes it a passive network. Gen Z don’t post anything that is ‘off brand’ on their Instagram.

Facebook is still widely used, but it’s for news content and video discovery. Young people are more comfortable sharing content than posting status updates and comments. Gen Z know their parents are on Facebook and keep things strictly PG. Twitter is seen, at best, as a real-time news feed and at worst, confusing, insular and cliquey. That means that all the meaningful conversations, questions and recommendations between friends (where the real insight is) happen in private groups. Snapchat, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger. So, how do you get the insight that young people share in their private conversations?

A targeted approach – in a ‘safe’ environment 
A private, ‘safe’ space that replicates the social media environment – with all the positive associations of a community – but allows for direct, private feedback is the only way to get true insight. Creating the conditions for young people to talk in person is the best way to facilitate real ‘social listening’ – using the conventions of social media that Gen Z have grown up with and curating dedicated digital communities to discuss and create, away from their carefully managed social media identities, or the prying ears of parents or teachers.

In short, social listening projects are often mining for insight in barren land. The best way to listen to the candid conversations of Gen Z is to cultivate the conditions for them to occur within your earshot. At Bulbshare, we do exactly this: provide an intuitive interface that replicates social media platforms, while also allowing for confidential, one-to-one feedback. Check out our toolkit for how to engage Gen Z for true social listening.

Four steps for true social listening:

  • Don’t trust ‘social’ when connecting to Gen Z. Young people don’t speak candidly on the social media platforms you know. Everything they share is subject to a carefully curated public persona.
  • Build your own communities. Going direct is the only way for authentic, unguarded interactions. Private, owned communities allow for direct feedback in a trusted environment.
  • Engage with the right conversations. At Bulbshare we ask the right questions to ensure we’re engaging our youth communities in meaningful conversations – in order to guarantee feedback, ideas and content that work for our clients..
  • See how we connected the skincare brand Simple to 1,000 Gen Z consumers across the UK and the US to inform a social purpose campaign that would resonate with young audiences. Click here.

To find out how Bulbshare could benefit your organisation, please contact Michael Wylie-Harris on michael@bulbshare.com

How to be in the 26% of brands that audiences actually care about

The broadcast model of advertising is dead. Audiences, especially younger audiences, do not trust mainstream media outlets, Government, politicians, banks or big business and if brands are not careful, they will also fall into this growing bucket of institutions that have lost touch with their audiences. Young people are becoming increasingly disenfranchised. This is hardly groundbreaking news, but recent global events seem to be making matters much worse. The banking crisis, Brexit and Trump getting elected all typify the disconnect between Gens Y & Z and the ‘establishment’. Add to this fake news and who could blame these young people for being suspicious of what they see on TV or read in a newspaper. Young people have a serious problem with traditional sources of information. The ways that information is shared has changed dramatically. Anyone can now be a publisher, a brand or media owner in their own right. Audiences don’t have to rely on news organizations for their news any more.

“Brands need to engage at a deeper level

with their audiences who are making purchasing

decisions based on what a brand stands for.”

The world has changed for brands and brand marketing too. Brands have long understood the need for an authentic connection with their audiences. But smart advertising alone is not enough to engage young people who are searching for meaning in their relationships. Brands need to engage at a deeper level with their audiences who are making purchasing decisions based on what a brand stands for. A popular and successful way to create an emotional connection is to align with passion points of the target. Using music or sport has been hugely successful. Cause is also now rapidly becoming a significant mobilizing agent for youth audiences who care about the world around them. Young people don’t just want to know that a brand has integrity. They want to be involved; they want to be part of the conversation and play an active role.

 

Creative agencies largely still believe that they have the best ideas. And why wouldn’t they? There are some incredible minds in the creative agency world, but there is also a great deal of ego. And there has to be. You have to come up with the best ideas in the world for the biggest brands in the world – and for the biggest fees in the world. Who owns the idea? What does that even mean? Why do the majority of brands insist on developing their marketing strategies in isolation from their audiences? Concepts are developed by creative teams, then in some cases, they then hit qualitative testing – which can either meet with approval or the idea gets killed. It’s the way it has been done for a long time. Creative agency groups have a significant chip in the game, with billing for global powerhouse brands numbering in the many millions. So its understandable that they should want to maintain the status quo. But the audience has already moved on.

There is more audience research & data than ever before – which should mean good news for audiences. However, a recent study by Havas found that “Some 60% of the content created by the world’s leading 1,500 brands is “just clutter” that has little impact on consumers’ livesThat failure means globally consumers would not care if 74% of brands disappeared, with that figure rising to 94% in UK”. If this research is to be believed, there is a fundamental change needed in the way brands operate, especially in the UK.

 

So how do brands break out of the old model, create an authentic connection with their audiences and start making content that isn’t just ‘clutter?’ Co-creation is where brands are brought together with the audiences in creative communities to generate insights & ideas that lead to content. It seems painfully obvious that brands who want to know what their audiences think and feel should involve them in the creative process, but remarkably few actually do. Brands have the opportunity to be a facilitator for new ideas, to become a platform for creative expression. Young people today want to be the architects of the brands and the causes they care most about. Empowering the audience gives a sense of shared ownership and sense of shared purpose that cannot be achieved through traditional approaches to marketing.

 

If you are a brand that is interested in co-creation, here are a few pointers to consider:

 

1.     Start by building a community. It’s important to find the right voices to contribute, so make sure you are talking to experts in community recruitment and management.

2.     Allow innovation to travel upstream. Don’t be afraid to let your audience explore new approaches to old problems – be brave.

3.     Be dynamic. Allow the ideas (not the old model) to drive the solution.

 There is a huge opportunity for creative agencies to harness the power of co-creation for their clients by getting involved now. It’s just the ideas may not always be born in the boardroom. If you are a brand that is looking to get closer to your audience, create content that has a much greater chance of landing successfully and all for a fraction of the price, then perhaps co-creation is for you.

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Co-creation toolkit: Becoming a participation brand in five easy steps

Co-creation is the future for brands. As audiences increasingly seek two-way conversations, collaboration and the opportunity to create their own content, brands must adapt to survive. The smart ones are those that are prepared to shift the balance of power: democratise, give audiences a say, realise they need to put consumers at the heart of their brand. The brands that will own the future, are those that co-create.

In an age when audiences are increasingly cynical towards brands, trust, authenticity and transparency are all key. Co-creation is the most direct way of achieving this. For a more savvy, entrepreneurial generation of consumers – with the technology at their fingertips to connect to brands when and where they want to – the brands to trust, the brands to love, the brands to recommend to friends are those that treat them not as customers, but as colleagues and collaborators. People no longer respond to being told what to buy. They want to be involved, they want to feel like they are part of the process, they want to shape the way their brands behave.

“Co-creation is all about one, very simple idea:

that working together is better.”

A new era

This is the era of co-creation. Marketing messages that merely seek to ‘broadcast’ rather than engage with their audience are falling on deaf ears (or worse still – at least for the brand – are being blocked entirely by increasingly sophisticated ad-blockers). Where once, the core brand marketing objective was one of interruption, it’s now premised on interaction. Indeed, some of our most successful brands have rejected the idea that there are consumers that need to be interrupted at all.

Airbnb describes its customers as a ‘community’; its business model premised on creating value by connecting people on a global scale. For Uber, its model not only moves people from A to B without owning any cars, it also drives customer-centric innovation and improvements to its services through user ratings and driver reviews. This is breeding an evangelical zeal in its users which goes way beyond the word of mouth advocacy that most brands dream of.  As Ubers CEO Travis Kalanick put it: “Our virality is almost unprecedented. For every 7 rides we do, our users’ big mouths generate a new rider.”

But with deeper, more authentic relationships with your audience, so too comes a rising threshold of expectation as to how you as a brand behave. These expectations are either left unmet and risk undermining your brand (see Uber pay disputes) or when expectations are met, help elevate a brand’s status to newfound heights in the hearts and minds of its audience.

But what exactly is co-creation? Co-creation is all about one, very simple idea: that working together is better. Not exactly rocket science. The thought that when we collaborate, when we listen to each other, when we embody a community spirit, we’ll create something far better than if we don’t listen, if we work in silos, if we resist the collaborative process.It goes beyond asymmetrical relationships where a brand sits on the one side and the user or customer on the other. It’s about acknowledging that all parties bring different expertise to the process, and that these different forms of expertise are of equal value and fundamental to this collaboration.

When co-creation goes beyond the stakeholders in your office and brings in your customers to problem solve and create new products and services, that’s where the magic happens. Blurring the lines between creator and consumer, turning customers into creative partners and empowering people to influence the decisions brands make, doesn’t just lead to customer-centric products and services, it also has the potential to transform brands into a force for good in the world. And as they begin to understand the power of listening to their audiences, we’ll increasingly see brands that care, brands with a conscience and brands with a level of transparency that was previously unheard of.

The remarkable shift that Paul Paulman has taken across the portfolio of Unilever brands is a case in point and one that signifies that this isn’t just a periphery fad – he’s made it central to the brand story of a corporate giant. Better still, it’s contributing to the bottom line. According to the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan (USLP) annual progress report, about half of Unilever’s growth in 2015 came from its sustainable living brands, which grew 30 percent faster than the rest of the company’s business. 

The recent Iris Participation brand index report also recognised that those companies putting “customer participation” at the core of their brand offer are not only increasing workforce retention, they’re also outperforming competitors with a return four times higher than that of the bottom 20 brands.” See: http://participationindex.iris-worldwide.com/

Tech-enabled

As ever, technology has also been a driving force behind the growth of co-creation. The advent of big data, alongside the evolution of social media and mobile technology has enabled new levels of brand-consumer connectivity and inspired heightened audience expectation around how brands behave. While social media has allowed consumers to have two-way conversations with brands, publicly endorse the brands they love and create and share their own content, it has also opened the door to brands seeing their audiences as friends, fans and collaborators – rather than just customers. It is this cultural shift that’s revolutionised the relationship between brand and consumer, giving rise to audience collaboration, brand democracies and co-created content. And as mobile technology continues to evolve, more and more platforms will emerge that will make co-creation a daily event for audiences.

Take the LEGO Ideas Community for example. This creates a space for LEGO fans to submit new LEGO creations that are voted on, reviewed by LEGO, and if approved, sold and marketed worldwide. Original creators also receive a percentage of the sales. Similarly, the MyStarbucks Idea community has created over 300 implemented innovations and more than 150,000 ideas from customers and members that includes free Wi-Fi at Starbucks and skinny drinks. Lego and Starbucks represent a new breed of company that has embraced the existence of bespoke co-creation platforms as a vehicle for launching products, services and campaigns that are led by their audience. This will spell a new era for the way brands approach their creative process, making it far more collaborative, far more transparent, far more democratic.

People power 

Co-creation tech is already a thing. Technology that allows brands to connect with their audiences on-the-move, gaining valuable consumer insights and feedback, creative ideas and user-generated content. These platforms create closed communities of specific consumer groups, then let brands share questions, ideas and briefs to a specific community, getting targeted responses from people they value and trust. While this kind of activity has existed for a long time via brand’s websites and social media pages, a new wave of co-creation technology marks a transformative shift in how brands can connect with their audience.   

Much of this growth is fuelled by traditional innovation cycles failing to deliver results in an increasingly hyper-competitive and convergent market place where customers expect personalised experiences, not one size fits all. The ‘build it and they will come’ mantra of the consumer age is being replaced by a new philosophy that believes the most fertile ground for product and service innovation instead lies in the intersection between customers, brands and the various stakeholders that surround them.

The existence of bespoke brand specific co-creation platforms is fuelling this shift and ensuring that before brands launch any products, service or campaign, they will go straight to their own audience communities to ask their opinion or gain creative ideas. This will spell a new era for the way brands approach their creative process, making it more agile and responsive to the demands of the consumer.

The age of the content curator

Co-creation doesn’t end with brands. It is changing the way media channels and entertainment companies look at themselves, too. Audiences are no longer happy to be spoon fed content; they want to curate their own schedule from the wealth of online content at their fingertips, the bustling landscape of places to go for it, and technology that lets you watch anything, whenever and wherever you want.

The reality for broadcasters is that we don’t go to content anymore, it comes to us – either through word of mouth, peer recommendation or thanks to algorithms that fill our social feeds and drive our auto-play suggestions. The ever transient audience no longer has a loyalty to the ‘publisher’, the TV channel.  We’re indifferent as to where Games of Thrones is hosted – be it SKY Atlantic or Amazon Prime – which channel we tune in to is increasingly irrelevant.  The ease and immediacy of migrating from one platform to the next means our loyalty lies not with anyone channel but to the content we consume and our relationship to the shows community of loyal viewers. Its unsurprising therefore that Netflix has built such a strong online community grounded in discovery based on shared interests.  Curation, peer recommendation and word of mouth will win every time.

Generation co-creation

Added to this is the advent of the YouTuber generation: an army of bedroom content creators with enormous audience reach and influence who are changing the way broadcasters see their audiences. The apex of a generation that is empowered by social media to broadcast themselves, create video content and share it among their friends and followers, YouTubers force media channels to see their audiences as collaborators more than ever before. With their own online channels commanding millions of views daily, they have become as influential as traditional media channels and are increasingly being used by brands and broadcasters as a means of gaining influence and creating content.

As active, creative audiences with the ability to make and distribute their own content change the way we consume our media, traditional broadcasters must look to their audiences for inspiration. Established media channels must realise they no longer own the broadcast space and – just like brands – look towards a more collaborative future with audience co-creation at its core.

A case in point is Snapchat and their latest venture with Snap Spectacles. The premise of Snap Spectacles unlike Google Glass’ is principally as a creation device – for audiences to make and share video between themselves on the move. Unlike Google Glass with its focus on consumption, its Snaps ability to allow audiences to be part of the story, to go beyond passively observing and instead to create that is the key drivers of this smart technology. Might this be the key to ensuring Snap’s fortunes don’t go the way of Google Glass? With 150 million users already loyal to Snap, Mediakix forecasts sales of 11 million units by 2020, if they get just a one percent adoption rate this year, it might give us a clue.

The future for brands

So then, how should brands most effectively ride the co-creation wave? At its best, co-creation has the power to transform the way audiences perceive the brands and organisations they care about, building trust and authenticity, and closing the gap between consumers and brands. In order to build a true affinity with its audience, then, co-creation should become a key part of an organisations DNA and brand strategy. Future-facing brands that realise this are in constant conversation with their consumers, gaining feedback and insights about every new product or service they launch.  There are clear commercial benefits, and the brands that understand co-creation are those that will flourish – while those that don’t will be left behind, and find it hard to survive in the future. Beyond commercial gain, brands that collaborate have the power to create social change too, creating a more fluid and agile relationship with a more engaged, active and fulfilled audience.

By embracing co-creation, brands, organisations and media channels will see the benefits of getting their consumers on board. Here’s five ways to be truly collaborative:

  • Involve your audiences in a constant conversation, gaining insights, feedback and ideas relating to every product and service you launch – and engaging them at the every stage of the decision-making process.
  • Realise the power of peer-to-peer. Create opportunities for your audiences to comment on and validate each other’s ideas and your offering.
  • Utilise technology that facilitates audience collaboration and co-creation. Social media is no longer the only platform on which to connect with consumers; co-creation specific tech is out there.
  • Set challenges to your audience communities and create campaigns that invite collaboration. Encourage your audiences to get onboard, submitting creative ideas and responses.
  • Be transparent. Invite your audience into the heart of your brand by being honest and open about the decisions you make and the way you operate. Transparency builds authenticity and trust.

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Interaction. Not interruption: The death of traditional advertising?

Are advertisers getting desperate? It certainly seems so. The deluge of ‘wacky’, disruptive characters that have come to dominate modern advertising is beginning to point towards an industry that’s running out of ideas… 

In 2015, profit margins at the top 50

ad agencies were at their lowest

for seven years.

Aggressive disruption 

It seems you can’t move these days for eccentric ad characters screaming ‘look at me’ in increasingly ‘madcap’ ways. There’s a man sitting on top of a fibre glass hippo, who tells you – in self-aware deadpan – that he’s a man sitting on top of a fibre glass hippo (TopCashback). There’s the ridiculous American car rental guy at Enterprise. There’s the annoying ‘Love Mondays’ Matt Berry impersonator at Reed. And, of course, there’s the Welsh Pavarotti at Go Compare.

At a time when more and more brands are dramatically cutting what they perceive as ineffective ad spend, it seems that creatives are reverting to desperate tactics as they vie for audiences’ rapidly dwindling attention. The result is a sea of same. After the success of Go Compare and comparethemarket.com (meerkats), a formula has been established. How do I get cut though? It’s obvious, isn’t it? Invent a zany character. But as we’re bombarded (and bored) by more and more of these irritants, the question must be asked: Are we actually engaged by this shameless strategy of aggressive disruption? Or just annoyed? 

Ad blockers 

Millennials and gen Z are all but lost to TV advertisers. With 200 million people currently using ad-blockers (a figure that’s rising), trust in brands is at an all time low. Young audiences simply don’t want to be reached by advertisers – unless it’s on their terms – and being force-fed disruptive, patronising characters will surely only push them further away.  

With ITV’s ad revenue declining by eight per cent year-on-year in the last six months, and giants like Procter and Gamble cutting their ad spend by more than $1 billion since 2013, it seems that brands are struggling to cope with digital transformation, reviewing their ad and marketing budgets and asking themselves the question: Is our advertising just not working anymore? 

So, what’s the way forward? How do brands achieve cut-through in the modern era? Aside from a zebra in a fez, playing the mandolin while telling me I need to buy more car insurance. For many, the next phase of consumer communication lies in interaction, not interruption. More and more brands are building their own online communities in order to directly engage customer networks in the conversations that matter for them.

Digital revolution 

With Forrester telling us that 87% of companies agree online communities drive better customer engagements, it’s clear the tide is turning. Brands have lost faith in traditional advertising as a means by which to connect, engage, drive awareness and sales. Instead, they are reaching out to consumers on a far more conversational level: asking them what they think of their products and services and inviting them to collaborate on content. 

The last fifteen years have seen a digital revolution, facilitated by enhancements in tech – with people taking back the power from big institutions. Just as MySpace empowered musicians to market their own music in the early naughties – putting thousands out of work at the major record labels – other social media platforms are encouraging user-generated content and the rise of influencers, meaning ad agency messages are increasingly being ignored by younger audiences. 

With Nielsen telling us that a staggering 77% of modern consumers are more likely to buy through peer recommendations, the message is clear for brands: connect directly with consumers, collaborate on campaigns, drive word-of-mouth and user-generated content. 

In 2015, profit margins at the top 50 ad agencies were at their lowest for seven years. A clear indication that agencies must look towards new solutions if they’re to sidestep the fate of the record labels that failed to react to MySpace, these are nothing if not uncertain times for advertising. The industry might not be dead quite yet, but it’s certainly in need of a renaissance.

Toolkit: How to interact. Not interrupt… 

  • Build private communities and engage with your customers direct.
  • Collaborate with audiences on campaigns and content. 
  • Encourage two-way conversations, finding out what resonates with your audience and how they see your brand.
  • Utilise social reach, activating campaigns through your audiences’ own social channels.
  • Understand the power of influencers, picking the right ones to champion your brand. 

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