Digital marketing agencies will have done very well from the last few months given the huge increase in web usage and television watching as a result of quarantine. There has been a fine balance to strike here as well, growth consultants Two Nil headed up by the brilliant Mark Zamuner noticed a contrast with the sharp rise in amount of people in certain spaces online, yet struggling businesses couldn’t take advantage of the opportunity because of a shortage of funds, Two Nil Managing Director Andre Artacho had the following to say on the topic:
“The increase of online audience on those channels was larger than the increase in advertiser’s
appetite to spend,”
We are seeing some contrasting figures throughout the industry, with European ad spend falling by 9 % but huge numbers coming from retail ad spending worldwide. A survey from Kenshoo found that some 67% of advertisers have it in their plans to at least maintain if not double down on investment in the likes of Amazon.
Retail Media Spending
Whilst ad spending has dropped on the whole, businesses would struggle to justify a large ad spend after furloughing staff, those who are still investing have met consumer trends and gone big on retail spending. This stands to reason of course that consumers are looking into Amazon, Walmart and other online retailers, who are experiencing a huge surge in products sold. There has been a 45% increase in media spend on retail over the last month and these retailers listed above are on the receiving end of those ad dollars.
Added Expectation
The challenge for many ad agencies is that they are having to work harder with less money coming in, and clients who want as much bang for their buck as possible. For this reason we have seen more and more ads which target individual products and promotions rather than larger scale campaigns which look to boost the reputation and the brand image of a business. This offers ad agencies a new challenge on top of the changing face of the industry and the investment in it.
Local
Whilst there are man small businesses who are struggling during this time and looking to get support from the government in order to survive, there are some which have in fact done very well throughout this pandemic. Those who have adapted to the new world in which we live have actually been able to invest a little in themselves and we are seeing more local ads being run than we have for a long time. What happens, and what especially happened, especially in the early weeks of the pandemic was that larger retailers couldn’t meet demand or couldn’t supply shipping in a timely fashion, so consumers looked elsewhere. This was met by a rallying cry of supporting local and small businesses rather than wealthy retail giants, resulting in a big increase for many small and medium sized local businesses.
Things have changed a great deal since this pandemic, who knows what things will look like afterwards.
2018 ·