Pinterest users pass Snapchat, Google cuts out cookies, and Clorox wants to woo millennials on digital.
Your weekly digital marketing matchbox to kindle creative content.
January 24, 2020
Me Want Cookies!
… and by “me,” we mean digital media companies. Like a parent swatting your hand away from the cookie jar, Google has decided to phase out support for third-party cookies, leaving marketers scrambling to supplement their sugar addiction, er, data strategy. The initiative, called Privacy Sandbox, is Google’s effort to protect consumer privacy and level the playing field by encouraging the use of other ad tracking mechanisms, like browser APIs. As expected, brands are disappointed by this move. But marketers can prepare for the two-year transition by getting familiar with new technologies that will help target certain demographics (think groups of web users with similar interests or search behavior) without being too invasive. All in all, Google’s cookie cutting will (hopefully) curb the industry’s tracker addiction and promote a healthier, more creative way to stay on top of consumer activity.
(Under)dog-Eat-Dog World
In an unexpected turn of events, interest-sharing platform Pinterest surpassed Snapchat in an eMarketer report highlighting the U.S.’s most used social apps. Ranked No. 3, it rounded out 2019 with 82.4 million U.S. users and 9.1% growth, while Snapchat finished with 80.2 million. Even more, Pinterest is expected to have 86 million users by the end of 2020 — reflecting the platform’s appeal to a wide range of people. (Snapchat’s audience is generally limited to Gen Z and younger Millennials.) As Pinterest continues to rise in the social space, digital marketers should look to this old dog for some new tricks and use Pinning to gain consumer insights, dig for content ideas, or fetch a broader audience.
Sound Off, One, Two
Look, we know we’re not spilling any tea when we say that video content is a marketing necessity these days. But what you may be less aware of? The vast majority of viewers (we’re talking 92% on mobile) prefer to watch without sound. That doesn’t mean you should make all your videos silent — they should be viewable (and enjoyable) with sound on or off. By adding subtitles or closed captions to videos, not only do you improve searchability, you’ll entice more viewers to watch (37% say captions make them more interested in actually turning sound on). Want to take your video content even further? Invest in translating your captions in languages like Spanish, Simplified Chinese, and Arabic to expand your reach and improve accessibility for global audiences.
WHAT LIT US UP THIS WEEK
In Need of an Influencer Marketing Cleanse
We love an industry disruptor … almost as much as we love to see how influencer marketing can take shape in just about any field. Enter Clorox’s latest digital marketing efforts. The household cleaning brand is building an influencer advisory council — made up of hundreds of social media creators — to partner with and help it better understand how to reach and resonate with YouTube viewers, as well as audiences across advertising mediums. By sponsoring videos of popular family-friendly YouTube influencers completing TikTok-esque challenges, Clorox hopes to entice younger customers (namely Millennials).
Now we could never forget the last time a cleaning product went viral. (Tide Pod challenge, anyone?) But Clorox is less focused on virality, and more on increasing its general brand presence across digital platforms, a space it hasn’t focused on heavily in the past. To do so, it wants to shift away from the traditional (*cough, cough, boring*) formula of advertising household cleaning products, to marketing that feels more human and authentic. And it’s strongly relying on the help of prominent young family influencers and their ability to make sponsored content that doesn’t look or feel like ads. While influencer marketing is traditionally associated with industries like beauty, gaming, or tech, Clorox’s strategy goes to show that this tactic knows no bounds as long as you work with those that feel authentic to your brand.
