In Glasgow, on a very rainy morning, my group of enthused marketeers waited to be wowed by the next instalment of trends across our industry. Hosted by the formidable Rod Gillies, throwing in his book recos throughout we all hoped we were in for a thought-provoking morning!
The Youth Bias
Are we completely forgetting about our consumers who don’t fit nicely into the young, glamorous, full of energy category, bouncing around on tik tok?
Have we missed the point that Oasis, and classic 90s fashion, is cool?
Times are tough, and finding a way to authentically talk to all target demographics can be a challenge, however there are some great examples shared from The Leith Agency.
The demographic who have some of the highest rates of brand loyalty, and significant disposable income, are not being represented in advertising (only 9%), social and comms – and this session asked why? Brands can (and some do) tap into this such as; Irn Bru using humour to engage with Scottish comedians and Marks and Spencer celeb chef tie up with Tom Kerridge, helped to link to humour and provenance as examples, whilst hero’ing consumers from the age group.
As a really brand loyal group, catching them and bringing them into your brand could be a huge opportunity, alienating them, and making them feel like the brand is no longer for them (now it makes me look/feel old) is a simple lost sale!
AI and the death of the brief…
Everyone expects things to go cheaper and faster, but are we all considering how to get the best and most value?
A great discussion in this session around what AI is, what the limitations, watchouts, and opportunities are. I really enjoyed Andrew (Dobbie – Made Brave) demonstrating how he used AI to learn new skills, building and coding a talking ‘scottish, sweary’ fish no less!
Malena (Roche) joined to talk more about optimising AI, and getting the best out, and how to really use it as a thinking partner. Firstly using the best prompts – suggesting ways to get the best critique and feedback on ideas - tell it “don’t be afraid to hurt my feeling” or “tell me the strengths and weaknesses of my idea”, ask it to interview you! LLMs are programmed to be polite and this could be holding you back from getting the best results/work.
She also demonstrated how LLMs are also bias, and we need the human brain to cut through and balance that, weigh up what the truths actually are.
We have all seen sloppy examples of AI use, and we have all heard the ‘doomers’ say don’t believe anything! But looking at AI as a tool to support critical work, to make it better (as the benchmark for good just got a whole lot higher).
The risk overall with AI isn’t backlash its irrelevance.
The new shopper mindset
Kate (Fenton) from Multiply joined the stage to walk through a real focus on the changing landscape in shopper marketing, and a focus on FMCG.
The biggest takeaways from the the session for me were
- 3500 pieces of marketing content hits a consumer every day, and they ignore/don’t absorb 99% of it – that really boosts marketers morale!
- Almost 50% of shoppers purchasing/baskets have changed with the impact of GLP-1s – that is HUGE, and possibly one of the biggest consumer shifts in decades!
Consumers work through a cycle in our present climate, they EXLORE, EVALUATE, REPEAT – was the price worth it, were the reviews nonsense? They do this ON EVERY PURCHASE, its exhausting if you think about it, the fatigue from consideration on your weekly shop alone!
So we naturally rely on, what we had before that was good, what we like, brands that have been part of our purchasing cycle for years, friend recommendation, and then the arbitrary stars/reviews.
As brands and marketers the opportunity in this space physically or digitally how you create stopping power. In a store it may be physical, online its halt the scroll, but its hard and its getting harder, it means everything has to SIMPLIFY be CLEARER, and you have only up a second - so do it QUICKLY!
In a world where money doesn’t go as far, brands have to compete to be a part of the ever shrinking basket, and only by removing the noise in the consumer product space whatever the category can this be achieved.
Purpose
It starts with a great product or story, and telling it in the most compelling, and truthful way is what delivers engagement and impact. We heard two very different stories around purpose and how the stories are told, and the standout for me was all about asking WHY? A thought provoking session on creating authenticity, truth, delivering impact, engaging wide audiences, all with a core purpose led objective at its heart.
One memorable quote from the whole day for me:
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should!”
In summary I would say -
- Regardless of the event, or workshop title – AI is going to come up as the thread throughout everything we hear! The more we explore, the more we will learn, and understand the huge opportunities and also the limitations.
- AI can move to being perceived as a tool, like a pen, canvas, or document, to help us deliver demonstrate our work, and support brilliance, but there is a still a balance between creating EFFICIENCY and utilising the key elements of HUMANS.
