What’s New In Marketing This Week — Marketing News February 4th Week
A loyalty program in the food industry, Adidas’ campaign, a meme, and hybrid working makes up the marketing news February 4th week
In the 1990s, companies from a specific industry could advertise their product in any way they wanted. Now, legislations have changed so much that they can’t write their brand names outside the stores.
Marketing changes every day, week, month, and year. Only when we compare changes between decades, we understand how fast the industry has changed. Such rapid and unanticipated changes often make some companies obsolete.
The “Marketing News” series, aims to highlight key changes in the marketing world to help you stay in touch with this everchanging world.
In today’s edition, let’s start with an advertisement.
Marketing News February 4th Week-Adidas’ I’MPOSSIBLE campaign
Adidas has played on their tagline “Impossible is nothing” to create the I’MPOSSIBLE headline. This campaign aims to break the gender stereotypes and wants to show that anyone and everyone can make their story count.
The world doesn’t provide a fair and equal playground to everyone. This campaign tries to show those at a disadvantage that what they want to do is not impossible because of them.
It’s a very strong and relevant message in today’s world. We have seen competitors of Adidas come up with similar messages in the past. While the concept is not that novel anymore, it’s still a very important one as a lot of change is yet to be made in this area.
Hybrid Working is Very Important to Marketers- Next up in Marketing News February 4th week
According to the 2022 Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey, ~82% of marketers said that hybrid/flexible work is either important or very important.
Hybrid working ranks fourth in terms of most preferred job characteristics. The first three places belong to “A good working environment”, “Fair Financial Rewards” and “The opportunity to advance your career”.
While most companies are allowing hybrid working these days due to the pandemic, not all marketers could get approval on this method. With the pandemic into its third year, companies can become less willing to allow hybrid working — like they were before Covid.
What companies can do in this situation
Ultimately, it’s about bringing the best out of every employee. As a marketer, I felt almost everything (except office networking) can be done at the same (or even more) level of efficiency from home. So, companies should allow hybrid working whenever possible.
However, if companies feel they want their employees at work to foster work culture or for any other reason, they should be careful about how they roll that out. We have seen the “Great Resignation” in different parts of the world.
Given marketers have rated three other factors in their preference list above “Hybrid working”, companies can use those to reorient employees back to the workplace.
Pizza Express Loyalty program
“Initially with two exciting propositions — the launch of the Pizza Express Club, the first loyalty program that rewards you every time you dine, and our innovative lunch wrap, your favorite pizza in a wrap for under 600 calories — both sit alongside a new look that feels stand out for the casual dining sector.” — Shadi Halliwell, chief customer officer at Pizza Express.
Since joining last year, this is Shadi Halliwell’s first major campaign. She joined when the company was in the middle of a change that included closing off 17% of its outlets.
The new tone of voice is also something quirky & designed to break the clutter.
In recent months, we have seen other brands coming up with loyalty schemes to create a stronger relationship with their customers. McDonald’s Loyalty Scheme is a success story in this industry. It’s great to see Pizza Express doing the same as retaining existing customers is always a very important move.
Lastly, let’s just end with this meme (SPOILER of Spiderman No Way Home included)
In the world of memes, you have probably seen the one where two spidermen point at each other.
Marvel has recreated that meme with real actors — thanks to their hugely successful movie Spiderman — No Way Home. It’s incredible how they’ve pulled off the entire movie with so many characters. And a nod to the meme acts as the final touch.
To Summarize Marketing News February 4th Week
Once again, the customer remains the key. As we have seen in the ads, loyalty programs, and memes, marketing works when customers accept them.
In recent weeks, it’s been interesting to see how marketers (the people in the background) are working and feeling during this pandemic. That completes the whole picture.
Read previous editions of “Marketing News” here.
