Forrester Predictions 2022: Disruptive Forces Necessitate Bold Decisions

BY

Seamless cross-channel experiences, convenience, reassurance. Consumers are demanding more from companies but the latter have their own obstacles to overcome: supply chain disruption, the “Great Resignation” and pandemic fallout. Forrester’s latest guide shares marketing predictions for 2022 and how the events of the past two years will motivate brands to make bold moves in digital and technology. 

“In 2022, business leaders will invest in technology and refocus business strategies. AI adoption and tech spending will accelerate. Tech companies will jump into adjacent markets, equally capitalizing on opportunity and sowing confusion. Greenwashing will wash away as sustainability becomes a must-have,” said the report.

Consumers See The World As All Digital

Since the pandemic, consumers have upped their technology usage and adoption.

In April 2020, 35 percent of internet-using adults in the UK upgraded their in-home technology. Even consumers who were once considered digital holdouts anticipate continuing the online behaviors they picked up in the pandemic.

As a result, consumers have higher expectations for seamless digital experiences. Forrester found that 56 percent of US consumers believe companies should have discovered solutions to such pandemic disruptions by now, and 58 percent expect companies to organize their digital resources in such a way that would allow them to better respond to future public health emergencies.

Forrester’s prediction: 80 percent of consumers will see the world as all digital, with no divide. Companies will have to double down on offering effective and sustainable digital customer experiences.

Tech Execs Leap From Digital To Human-Centered Tech Transformations

In 2021, just 21 percent of global purchase influencers reported that their firms deemed digital transformation a key action to address business model change. Forrester anticipates that figure will drop to less than 15 percent this year, but that doesn’t mean pandemic-sparked technology acceleration will shrink.

As a means to transcend ongoing digital sameness and falling returns on IT investments, leading firms will tap into their employees’ creativity and equip them with intelligent tech such as automation and prediction engines that focus on outcomes, not just financial results.

“This shift will establish a new era of transformation comprising human-centered technology initiatives that form a tight link between customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX), drive competitive advantage, and deliver a 3 percent to 5 percent net gain in productivity,” according to the report.

Forrester’s prediction: 10 percent of tech executives will prioritize investments in strategic partnerships and innovation practices at three times the rate of competitors to drastically expand creative and innovative potential.

Brands Dance And Spare With Marketplaces

Today in the US, 57 percent of business-to-consumer ecommerce sales flow through marketplaces. In China, that number rises to 98 percent. This year, Forrester believes the mantra for brands will become “commerce anywhere” as they prioritize direct relationships and better shopping experiences to keep customers away from marketplaces and coming back for more. This means pursuing a presence in every possible shopping moment, from an owned website or influenced marketplace to a social slot or paid retail media placement.

To enhance these experiences, brands will invest in the following: commerce building blocks like order management, payments and inventory control to make every touchpoint a shoppable moment; immersive experiences to turn browsing into virtual inhabiting and subscription billing to make loyalty a business model pivot.

Forester’s prediction: Global spending on order management software will grow to over $1 billion in 2022, and $1.5 billion by 2024. 

B2B Marketers Accelerate Tech Investments, With Uneven Results

With 70 percent of marketers adopting an always-on digital engagement strategy, persistent digital engagement will become the new normal this year, according to Forrester. 

To meet these always-on goals, marketing leaders will utilize more autonomous and automated solutions with complex tech stacks. Marketing tech comprises 19 percent of the marketing budget but will increase to 25 percent in 2022, predicts Forrester.

Only 10 percent of business-to-business organizations will identify metrics to measure the value created for buyers during the buying process in 2022. To meet these personalization goals, B2B marketing leaders must incorporate customer-centricity into planning and execution processes.

Forrester’s prediction: 75 percent of personalized engagement strategies won’t meet ROI goals.

Brands Take Bold Actions To Advance ESG Goals

B2C marketers will commit to further advancing their environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals. Forrester’s March 2021 Global Trust Imperative survey found that American, British, French, and Indian consumers are more trusting of companies than they are of their governments and expect brands to use their platforms to lead social change.

Leading brands have already answered this call. In 2021, many mainstream companies took a public stance on political and social issues; the MLB relocated the All-Star Game after Georgia passed the Election Integrity Act, TJX and many other companies required all employees to be fully vaccinated and Airbnb offered free housing to Afghan refugees.

Forrester research from 2021 also found that year-over-year, more adults in the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, Spain and Italy consistently buy from brands that align with their personal values. The largest increase took place in the US as 48 percent of adults reported doing so that year as opposed to the 40 percent who did in 2020. This year will see that figure increase to 50 percent.

Chief marketing officers will continue to face an increasingly divided political and vocal consumer base in 2022. To do this effectively, they’ll have to ensure that company values and brand strategy are inextricably linked.

Forrester’s prediction: 10 big brands will step in where governments fail to act.

Cloud-Native Takes Center Stage In Enterprise Cloud

Rapid digital acceleration has caused companies to experience new levels of cloud scale. Cloud-native adoption increased in 2021 as developers reported increased usage of containers (33 percent in 2020 to 42 percent in 2021) and serverless (26 percent in 2020 to 32 percent in 2021) at their organization.

This year, cloud-native technologies will become the core of the cloud strategy rather than a nice-to-have. They’ll transcend all major technology domains, including big data, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, according to Forrester.

Rather than layering cloud-native onto their existing plans, enterprises will re-platform their cloud strategies to be based on cloud-native.

Forrester’s prediction: Container adoption will hit 50 percent in 2022.

Xbox Commemorates 20th Anniversary With Virtual Museum

BY

On November 15, 2021, Microsoft celebrated 20 years of Xbox and Halo with a series of activations including the early launch of the free-to-play Halo Infinite Multiplayer Beta and Season 1, a backward compatibility program that lets you replay thousands of games spanning the franchise’s 20-year history, a six-episode documentary series that takes you back to the company’s scrappy beginnings and more.

The one that topped them all: Xbox’s virtual 3D museum, where gamers can choose their avatar and camera POV to immerse themselves in the franchise’s history of consoles, games and infamous mistakes like Microsoft’s attempt to acquire Nintendo in 2000.

Digital exhibits scattered throughout offer details about the creation and debut dates of each Xbox console and their iterations, including Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One and the more recent Xbox Series X and S.

In your personal Xbox museum, you can reminisce on your previous gameplay as Xbox provides a personalized overview of what and how many games you’ve played and the date of your first Xbox Live login.

Some notable milestones in Xbox’s history: Bill Gates and The Rock unveiled the first Xbox in January 2001, Xbox went global in March 2002 with European and Australian launches and Xbox launched Live in November 2002. In 2012, Microsoft launched Xbox Entertainment Studios and two years later, it purchased Mojang for $2.5 billion.

Users have to log in with their Microsoft account for the full Xbox museum experience but those who don’t have one can still access a basic digital timeline of the franchise’s history.

Active Theory developed the interactive Xbox museum, utilizing visuals that would evoke nostalgia for fans. “This involved looking at how the graphics and visuals of different generations of Xbox over the years, ranging from the evolving UI in the menu screens to iconic games themselves,” Active Theory strategist Eddie Benson told Muse.

This week, Microsoft announced its acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion in an all-cash transaction that will make it the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony. The tech giant says it plans to launch Activision Blizzard games into its subscription service Game Pass, which boasts over 25 million subscribers. Upon the deal’s close, slated for the 2023 fiscal year, Microsoft will have 30 internal game development studios.

US Consumer Video Game Spending Reaches Record $60.4 Billion In 2021

BY

The NPD Group has released its US games industry report, covering digital, retail and e-tail sales for December 2021 and all of last year. 

According to the findings—based on the firm’s monthly POS tracking services as well as consumer data from other NPD trackers, monitors and reports—compared to one year ago, consumer spending across video game hardware, content and accessories dropped by 1 percent to a total of $7.5 billion in December 2021. Consumer spending in all of 2021 increased by 8 percent to a record $60.4 billion.

Spending on content in December 2021 remained roughly the same as December 2020 at $5.7 billion as increased subscription and recurrent spending across PC, console and mobile platforms countered reduced spending on premium games. Spending on hardware and accessories dropped 3 percent and 9 percent, respectively, in December 2021 as compared to the same time in 2020.

Video Game Hardware

Video game hardware sales in December 2021 fell 3 percent to $1.3 billion compared to December 2020. Despite the decline, overall spending on hardware in 2021 increased 14 percent to reach $6.1 billion as compared to the same time in 2020.

Nintendo Switch was the best-selling hardware platform in units sold in December 2021. In terms of dollar sales, Nintendo Switch and Sony Playstation 5 were tied. As for all of 2021, Nintendo Switch led in unit and dollar sales.

Premium Game Tracked Dollar Sales (Excludes Post Launch Spending)

Call of Duty: Vanguard was December’s best-selling game. As a video game franchise, Call of Duty was the best-selling in terms of tracked dollar sales for its 13th consecutive year. In 2021, Call of Duty: Vanguard and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War ranked as the top best-selling games.

Halo: Infinite was both the second best-selling game in December 2021 and the best-selling game on Xbox platforms, according to NPD.

Pokémon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl was the third best-selling game in December 2021 and ranked first on Nintendo platforms for December as well as for 2021. Last year’s dollar sales of Pokémon franchise physical software reached its highest annual total since 2000. 

Resident Evil: Village was the eighth best-selling game in December 2021 and franchise dollar sales reached a new record annual high in the US market.

MLB The Show 21 – the best-selling baseball game in the US – was the ninth best-selling game in December 2021. It ranked fifth on Playstation platforms and 18th on Xbox (excluding digital sales).

Of the 20 best-sellers in 2021, seven also ranked among the top 20 in 2020, including Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Mario Kart 8.

Mobile

Based on mobile spending data from Sensor Tower, NPD found that December 2021 was the third-largest month for spending in the last three years for the US, and the best December ever. Compared to 2020, US consumer spending on mobile games increased by about 14 percent in 2021.

Consumers spent more than $2 billion on mobile games through the App Store and Google Play each month including and between February and December 2021.

Candy Crush Saga, Roblox and Coin Master were among the top US mobile games by revenue in 2021.

Video Game Accessories

Compared to December 2020, video game accessories sales were down 9 percent in December 2021 to reach a total of $493 million. Throughout all of 2021, accessories sales amounted to $2.7 billion – a 2 percent increase year-over-year.

The Xbox Elite Series 2 Wireless Controller was the best-selling accessory of December 2021, while the PS5 DualSense Wireless Controller White was the year’s best-seller.

IPG Mediabrands Elevates Lynn Lewis To Global Chief Marketing Officer

BY

This week in leadership updates, IPG Mediabrands promotes Lynn Lewis to global chief marketing officer, Berlanti Productions and Berlanti-Schechter Films appoints Suzanne Gomez as chief marketing officer and head of talent relations, Red Lobster hires Patty Trevino as chief marketing officer and more.

IPG Mediabrands Promotes Lynn Lewis To Global Chief Marketing Officer

IPG Mediabrands has appointed Lynn Lewis as global chief marketing officer, according to Adweek.

Lewis enters into the role after having served as Universal McCann’s chief executive officer for the US.

Berlanti Productions and Berlanti-Schechter Films Hires Suzanne Gomez As Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Talent Relations

Berlanti Productions and Berlanti-Schechter Films have tapped Suzanne Gomez as chief marketing officer and head of talent relations.

Gomez joins from The CW where she served as senior vice president of publicity.

Red Lobster Taps Patty Trevino As First Chief Marketing Officer

Red Lobster has named Patty Trevino chief marketing officer.

Previously, Trevino served as CKE Restaurants’ senior vice president, marketing.

IBM Chief Marketing Officer Carla Piñeyro Sublett Exits

IBM’s chief marketing officer Carla Piñeyro Sublett has stepped down, reports Adweek.

As the company streamlines roles, Jonathan Adashek has taken on additional responsibilities in his new role as chief communications officer and senior vice president of marketing and communications. Adashek joined IBM as chief communications officer in January 2020.

Variety Elevates Dea Lawrence To Chief Operating And Marketing Officer

Dea Lawrence, Variety’s chief marketing officer since October 2015, has accepted a promotion as the company’s chief operating and marketing officer.

Since joining, Lawrence has dramatically expanded Variety’s business operations, according to Variety.

Lawrence previously led Variety’s digital sales and marketing departments from 2001 to 2008.

Priscilla Kotey Elevated To Senior Vice President At Warner Music Ireland

Priscilla Kotey has been promoted to Warner Music Ireland’s senior vice president.

Kotey enters her new role after having served as Warner Music Ireland’s marketing and promotions manager since 2008.

Understanding The World Of Brand And Music Partnerships With Columbia Records’ Jennifer Frommer

BY

Jennifer Frommer is the Senior Vice President of Creative Content and Brand Partnerships at Columbia Records, a division of Sony Music.

In this episode, Jennifer and I discuss how she broke into the music industry, the brand partnerships she’s worked on, which includes products like Beats headphones and musicians like Lil Nas X, Beyonce, Adele, and many others. The brands she’s helped partner with include Tiffany & Co., Jaguar, Taco Bell, Pepsi, Samsung, Microsoft, Google, and many more. Jennifer believes the future of differentiating your brand comes with partnering with the musicians and artists your customers love.

Later in the show, we discuss brand partnerships and collaborations, how they work, what works best for brands, how to work with artists, and how those artists’ collaborations come together. Listen to find out more about the world of marketing and music.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • The creative, organic integration of brands and music
  • The advantage of brands partnering with musicians
  • The keys to success for a brand and an artist collaboration

Key Highlights

  • [01:36] Working with Lil Nas X
  • [04:12] Getting to be SVP of Creative Content Brand Partnerships
  • [06:40] Miracle Whip and Lady Gaga
  • [09:34] Lil Nas X and Taco Bell
  • [10:32] The current state of branded partnerships
  • [12:53] What success looks like
  • [20:10] Which brands are executing partnerships well
  • [23:49] The importance of mutual trust
  • [24:44] An experience that defines Jennifer
  • [25:37] Jennifer’s advice for her younger self
  • [26:40] What marketers should be learning more about
  • [27:41] The brands and organizations Jennifer follows
  • [28:31] The biggest threat and opportunity to marketing today

Resources Mentioned:

Follow the podcast:

Connect with the Guest:

Connect with Marketing Today and Alan Hart:

Alan B. Hart is the creator and host of “Marketing Today with Alan Hart,” a weekly podcast where he interviews leading global marketing professionals and business leaders. Alan advises leading executives and marketing teams on brand, customer experience, innovation, and growth opportunities. He has consulted with Fortune 100 companies, but he is an entrepreneur at his core, having founded or served as an executive for nine companies.

App Annie: Mobile Ad Spend Reaches $295 Billion In 2021

BY

Mobile adoption soared in 2021 with growth across usage, downloads and app store consumer spend. App Annie’s “State of Mobile 2022” report breaks down those numbers and trends across mobile gaming, finance, retail and other sectors.

Globally, last year saw 230 billion downloads, $170 billion in consumer spend and a combined 3.8 trillion hours spent on mobile. The US experienced tremendous growth in consumer spend due in part to mobile gaming and in-app subscriptions going mainstream, adding an additional $10.4 billion on top of 2020’s figure for a total of $43 billion in 2021.

Emerging markets, on the other hand, had the most growth when it came to downloads. Pakistan, Peru and the Philippines were among the fastest-growing markets for downloads at 25 percent growth year-over-year each. China had the most with close to 100 billion downloads, followed by India (about 28 billion) and the US (about 11 billion).

The weighted average of time spent in mobile apps globally in 2021 approached five hours per day, an increase of 30 percent since 2019. South Korean, Brazilian and Indonesian users surpassed five hours per day while Americans spent just over four hours per day on mobile devices.

The pandemic stimulated existing mobile habits which were solidified in 2021. Users engaged more deeply in early-mover categories like social and communication and photo and video, App Annie found. Seventy percent of the time spent on mobile last year was spent in social and photo and video apps like YouTube and TikTok.

Despite the fact that photo and video apps experienced an increase in market share of time spent, current habits haven’t shifted much. Rather, consumers converted historically ‘non-mobile’ time into time spent on apps and playing games.

In 2021, 233 apps and games generated over $100 million as consumers shifted their consumption of entertainment and games to mobile, a 20 percent increase from 2020. Improved connectivity, screen size and hardware are a few explanations for why the shift was so seamless. Thirteen apps and games even surpassed $1 billion in consumer spend, according to App Annie.

The top Gen Z app by monthly active users by likelihood of use in 2021 was Instagram. for millennials it was Facebook and for Gen X and baby boomers, it was BOM Weather.

Global mobile ad spend increased by 23 percent YoY to reach $295 billion in 2021. Amid an economic rebound and cyclical events such as the EUFA European Championship and the Tokyo Olympics, coupled with engrained mobile habits, ad dollars flowed to mobile as the primary channel for engaging users—representing 70 percent of ad spend. 

With the Beijing Olympics and the US midterm elections slated for next year, the majority of digital ad spend is expected to be driven by mobile. App Annie expects global mobile ad spend to reach $350 billion next year.

Brands seeking to capitalize on this phenomenon should keep an eye on changing best practices in mobile advertising, determine which ad creatives perform best and study growth strategies employed by leaders in the mobile user acquisition landscape.

Moving on to mobile games, App Annie found an additional $16 billion in gaming consumer spend was added in 2021 for a total of $116 billion. Additionally, 2021 saw mobile game downloads hit 82.98 billion with 3.03 billion having been added last year alone.

Hit games such as Roblox and Genshin Impact experienced tremendous growth globally while Harry Potter Magic Awakened and League of Legends: Wild Rift saw growth in China. 

In finance, Gen Z are most likely to use trading apps and neobanks across regions while Gen X and baby boomers largely use retail banks. Gen Z also prefer to use money transfer apps like Venmo due to their increasing comfort with—and reliance on—their mobile phones. 

Finance app publishers seeking to capture some of this market should recognize Gen Z’s expectations involving fast and simple money movement and financial flexibility.

Mobile retail apps fared extremely well last year. Time spent in shopping apps reached over 100 billion hours globally, up from roughly 85 billion in 2020 for an 18 percent YoY increase. Fast fashion, social shopping and mobile-savvy big-box players experienced particularly strong movement.

Indonesia (52 percent), Singapore (46 percent) and Brazil (45 percent) were among the countries that experienced uniquely strong growth in retail apps.

The total number of hours spent watching video streaming apps grew by 16 percent globally since before the pandemic with Indonesia, Russia and Argentina contributing the greatest increases. China saw a decline of over 40 percent as consumers gravitated toward short-form video apps like TikTok and Kwai, which saw total time spent in-app increase by 205 percent and 225 percent since 2019, respectively. 

Among video streaming trends, the research shows exclusive content releases drove surges in video streaming app downloads as more people were forced indoors due to the pandemic. Providers remained competitive by utilizing exclusive content releases to capture market share. The TV series Made for Love, for example, coincided with a 61 percent spike in HBO Max app downloads, while Squid Game’s release coincided with a 6 percent increase in Netflix app downloads, according to App Annie.

In the quick-service restaurant (QSR) space, branded food delivery keywords dominated the top searches in 2021 in established markets such as the US, UK and France, followed by QSR brand names. 

“Food” was a top-five keyword in several regions and the first most-searched keyword in Canada, Mexico and Australia, and the second most-searched keyword in Turkey.

In terms of social media, the amount of time mobile users spent in the top 25 live streaming apps outpaced the social market by a factor of nine and experienced YoY growth of 40 percent compared to all social apps (5 percent). Live streaming apps drove significant consumer spend in social apps as consumers tip their favorite content creators. Global consumer spend in the top 25 live streaming apps experienced YoY growth of 55 percent.

TikTok was 2021’s clear winner in terms of per-user engagement among the top five social apps that command the most time spent. TikTok also experienced the greatest in-depth engagement over the last four years, reaching an average of roughly 20 hours spent per user per month, matching Facebook and outpacing WhatsApp Messenger, Instagram and Facebook Messenger.

Demand for avatar social apps has increased as consumers gain interest in metaverses, including Litmatch, REALITY by Wright Flyer and ZEPETO, with downloads having grown 160 percent YoY. Litmatch downloads alone grew 405 percent YoY.

2022 State Of Customer Data Platforms Report

BY

The combination of the uncertainty of COVID-19, accelerated digital transformation and the impending end of third-party cookies has made customer data platforms (CDPs) an essential part of marketers’ technology portfolios. 

Research firms predict annual growth rates of more than 25 percent in the CDP market for the rest of the decade. Tealium’s third annual study “2022 State of the CDP Report: The Art of What’s Possible in the Age of Data” shares how marketers can remain competitive in the rapidly changing digital landscape using CDPs.

Technology Spending Continues To Rise

According to Tealium’s report, 87 percent of marketers expect to increase technology spending in 2022 while 40 percent plan substantial increases—up from 32 percent reported in 2021. 

Of the solution areas reported as the most important for marketers’ CDP to address, customer experience (41 percent) ranked highest, followed by loyalty and customer retention (38 percent) as well as growth and customer acquisition (33 percent). 

CDPs were critical in helping businesses achieve their highest objectives in 2021, including protecting customer data (cited by 57 percent), expediting customer acquisition (54 percent), creating more personalized customer interactions (53 percent) and offering a more unified experience across channels (51 percent).

Among the top five reasons why respondents invested in a CDP, protecting customer data privacy and/or complying with security regulations were listed first, followed by leveraging real-time data collection to be more responsive and improving capability across technology investments.

CDPs Yield Tangible ROI

As CDPs become more defined, so too are CDP use cases to see a return on investment. Because CDPs drive more timely and relevant interactions, business growth and organizational processes across internal departments have become more efficient.

Roughly 70 percent of marketers reported earning positive ROI within six months of investing in a CDP while 96 percent earned a full return within one year. Of the metrics marketers use to measure ROI, 37 percent cited data quality as the most important—especially true in the financial services industry—followed by customer experience (22 percent) and operational savings (22 percent).

Many External Factors Are Disrupting Business

Privacy regulations, third-party cookie loss and the COVID-19 pandemic are the three most-cited external factors that are rapidly producing change in the business landscape. Data-driven businesses are increasingly relying on CDPs as the fundamental change agent necessary to adapt. In fact, 91 percent of respondents told Tealium digital transformation is a primary driver of CDP adoption.

Regulatory changes around customer data (40 percent) are the external market factor expected to have the greatest business impact in 2022, followed by technology disruption/advancement (40 percent) and the lasting effects of COVID-19 (38 percent).

Retail respondents cited hurdles involving the management of customer identity and changes to privacy consent management regulations as considerations during CDP selection significantly more so than did other industries.

Ninety-two percent of respondents in retail cited pandemic-related disruption as one factor in their CDP choice, compared with 79 percent of respondents in all fields and 68 percent in the technology sector. Healthcare respondents cited the pandemic’s ripple effects as having a sizable influence on their sector in 2022.

Besides accelerating the shift to ecommerce, the pandemic also caused consumers to increase reliance on reviews and promotions and to demand greater value from retailers. Thirty-one percent of respondents to a survey conducted by Vericast consider themselves “price-conscious,” an increase from 23 percent in 2020.

Budgets Are Bouncing Back

After budget cuts were experienced during the first chapter of the pandemic, between 50 percent and 60 percent of marketers increased spending in eight of the nine critical technology categories in 20221. 

Digital marketing comprises 58 percent of the overall marketing budget and is expected to increase by 15 percent in 2022. Virtual engagements are the primary area in which marketers intend on investing in customer engagement this year. Five percent of respondents said budgets are a limiting factor in purchasing artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

Age Of Intelligence Is Dawning

Ninety-seven percent of executives report that AI capabilities were crucial to successfully carrying out marketing objectives in 2021. Consumers have grown to expect or rely on AI’s input in their customer experience, and IDC anticipates 90 percent of new enterprise applications will utilize AI by 2025.

Marketers across the board have enjoyed AI’s ability to enhance the customer experience, increase agility and improve productivity. Data-informed machine learning algorithms are delivering value in a number of ways. 

Voice recognition systems, for example, are now able to detect emotion in a customer’s tone and transfer them to the service representative best suited to handle their needs. Machine-generated content is now indistinguishable from that created by people. And predictive insights enabled by machine learning allow marketers to target prospects more accurately and suppress individuals less likely to become profitable.

Despite its many uses in retail, AI was ranked less important to marketing efforts there than it was in other sectors. 

Customer Trust Is King

Customers now demand increased privacy and respect for how their data is gathered, stored and utilized. At the same time, customers are seeking more from the use of their data by the business they interact with. Marketers have responded to this dichotomy by prioritizing customer data protection, citing privacy protection as the primary reason they invested in a CDP. 

About 75 percent of respondents to Tealium’s survey—and 84 percent of those in the retail landscape—reported privacy consent management as an important market factor that influenced the decision to choose a CDP. Respondents’ top criteria for selecting a CDP were customer service (cited by 61 percent) and compliance (57 percent).

For 57 percent of executives, heightened protection of customer data is the most desired and important outcome in 2022. Technology respondents indicated substantially less interest in customer privacy protection than retail respondents, healthcare and financial services. Only 38 percent of technology executives reported privacy as a priority in 2022. Similarly, tech respondents also showed the least interest in improving brand perception compared to other sectors studied, with only 13 percent citing it as a top business trend in 2022.

The Future Of Sports Marketing With Learfield’s Jennifer Davis

BY

Jennifer Davis is the chief marketing and communications officer at Learfield, which has been around for over 50 years. Learfield works with intercollegiate athletics of the U.S. They offer licensing, multimedia sponsorship management, publishing, audio digital, and social media, data analytics, ticketing, tickets, sales, professional concessions, expertise, branding, and campus-wide business and sponsorship development, as well as venue technology systems for many of the college athletic programs in the United States and the greater ecosystem.

In this episode, Jennifer and I discuss college sports and the big business behind them. We also talk about Jennifer’s role transition through the pandemic and how she wrote a book called Well-Made Decisions during that transition.

Listen to find out more about why marketers should spend more energy on the decisions they make and how sports marketing plays into the future.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Spend more energy on making decisions
  • How marketers can partner with sports organizations
  • The opportunity for growth within sports marketing

Key Highlights

  • [02:20] About Jennifer’s book
  • [04:04] Where Jennifer got her start
  • [05:45] What is Learfield?
  • [08:33] The first 100 days of onboarding
  • [11:44] Current trends in college sports
  • [18:51] What are collegiate e-sports?
  • [23:54] The growth of B2B brands in sports marketing
  • [28:44] How athletes are able to market themselves
  • [34:54] An experience that defines Jennifer, makes her who she is
  • [39:14] Jennifer’s advice to her younger self
  • [41:43] What marketers should be learning more about
  • [44:12] The brands and organizations Jennifer follows
  • [45:48] The biggest threat and opportunity for marketers

Resources Mentioned:

Connect with the guest:

Follow the podcast:

Connect with Marketing Today and Alan Hart:

Alan B. Hart is the creator and host of “Marketing Today with Alan Hart,” a weekly podcast where he interviews leading global marketing professionals and business leaders. Alan advises leading executives and marketing teams on brand, customer experience, innovation, and growth opportunities. He has consulted with Fortune 100 companies, but he is an entrepreneur at his core, having founded or served as an executive for nine companies.

Hub Study Finds Voice Command Is Commonplace Among Consumers

BY

Every year, voice control technology and usage continue to advance for media uses, home appliances and other applications. In its newest study “Voice Control 2021: The Future Speaks” Hub measures the impact of smart speakers and voice technology on entertainment.

The firm predicts that, despite the hurdles associated with advancing technology such as voice-controlled devices, including privacy concerns, consumers will become progressively more comfortable using voice commands and voice will become the primary method for controlling media within the next decade.

Hub conducted an online survey of 2,500 US consumers aged 16 to 74 in November and December 2021 and found that consumer experience with voice control is widespread. Eighty-three percent of respondents have used voice commands with at least one device with 91 percent of those under age 35 and 73 percent of those 55 or older reporting the same.

Of all devices on which voice commands have been used, smartphones (70 percent) are the most common, followed by smart speakers (45 percent), TV (32 percent), tablet (28 percent), computer (26 percent) and in-car (24 percent). Seventy-seven percent of respondents reported being overall satisfied with how responsive their smart speaker is to voice control.

Hub’s survey also sought to understand what the most important uses and capabilities of voice are. Thirty-two percent of respondents reported that Answering Queries like internet search, asking questions and navigation is the most important. Communication (18 percent) including text messages, emails and phone calls is the second-most important capability. 

“Voice command is here to stay, and very likely will end up being the main way we interact with our media choices,” said David Tice, senior consultant to Hub and co-author of the study. “But there are hurdles to overcome – some as simple as getting people to try it, and some as complex as assuaging consumer privacy fears. As we often see with new tech, consumer education is needed throughout the adoption cycle.”

Of those hurdles to increased usage, privacy is the highest concern. Fifty-three percent of respondents report privacy as a vital consideration when using voice-controlled devices—a decrease from 59 percent who reported the same in 2019. 

Other concerns include unauthorized listening (38 percent) and the type of data being collected (39 percent). The number of respondents concerned about these lesser issues dropped from 46 percent and 48 percent, respectively, since 2019. Even respondents who don’t own or use a smart speaker—and don’t intend on owning one—cite privacy as a primary concern (down from 66 percent in 2019).

At 33 percent, Amazon Echo is the most common smart speaker today, up from 26 percent in 2019. Despite the fact that it was not first-to-market with voice, Amazon had a first-mover advantage in smart speakers with its 2014 US debut of the Echo and built-in voice assistant Alexa. Since then, it has consistently released new features that make the Echo easier to use. It’s expected that by 2025, 130 million Echo speakers will be shipped globally (https://safeatlast.co/blog/amazon-alexa-statistics). According to Hub, trailing behind Amazon Echo are Google Nest (Home) at 14 percent and Apple HomePod at 5 percent.

As mentioned previously, media control is a primary use of voice command. Of the Amazon Echo owners who responded to Hub’s survey, 68 percent use it to search for media content, 61 percent to control media playback and 57 percent to control other media devices. 

Among Google Nest owners, 69 percent use it to search for media content, 67 percent to control media playback and 65 percent to control other media devices. And among Apple HomePod owners, 87 percent use it to search for media content, 90 percent to control media playback and 88 percent to control other media devices.

Apple’s HomePod is the most likely of the three devices to be used to consume or control media. Sixty-one percent of HomePod owners chose it due to its compatibility with other devices compared to 31 percent of Echo and 39 percent of Nest.

Eighty-eight percent of HomePods control other media devices compared to 57 percent of Echo and 65 percent of Nest. Sixty-eight percent of HomePods are used as radios versus 48 percent of Echos and 49 percent of Nests. Ninety-six percent of HomePods are used to control video or audio apps and services compared to 78 percent of Echos and 79 percent of Nests.

Respondents ranked voice control as the least important feature, among eight, for a new TV. Twenty percent of respondents reported using voice commands with TVs, TV remotes or TV-connected devices—most often to search for programs or movies and less often for device control such as volume adjustment or playback. Of those respondents who don’t use TV voice commands, 42 percent have a TV-voice-capable device.

Lexus’ Digital-Heavy NX Car Campaign Targets Young, Diverse Drivers

BY

Lexus’ new NX car campaign, “Hustle for What Matters,” which introduces the luxury carmaker’s new plug-in electric vehicle, the NX 450h+, aims to appeal to young, diverse drivers with different definitions of accomplishment. 

Leaning heavily into the digital and streaming space, Lexus says the campaign is designed to reach “those with great ambition who are carving their own paths,” whether that means being able to travel, taking over the esports world or leveraging technology to create better balance in their lives.

The fully integrated media campaign for NX will come to life via Twitch, 100 Thieves, Google and Roku. Lexus will take aspiring Twitch creators for a ride in the NX vehicle, where they’ll have the chance to pitch their most unique stream ideas. Fans will then get to decide which creator will be able to make their idea a reality. 

This marks the carmaker’s second collaboration with Twitch. For their first partnership, which centered around the launch of the 2021 Lexus IS sports sedan, Lexus hosted two livestreamed events on Twitch that concluded with a takeaway for gamers: a Lexus IS concept car designed by the attendees.

Next, Lexus plans to create a graphic representation of 100 Thieves’ League of Legends Championship win using gameplay data from the victory. It’ll then turn the graphic into a car wrap for a customized 100T x Lexus NX that highlights the car’s connected features and tech-forward design.

Lexus also developed a custom, Google Cloud-streamed augmented reality experience around the NX, available to watch via YouTube and on Lexus.com.

Lastly, for its media campaign, Lexus is teaming with Roku through the OneView platform and leveraging Roku’s proprietary first-party data to maximize unique omnichannel reach to traditional pay-TV.

Seven broadcast spots are also part of the “Hustle for What Matters” campaign and will air during primetime and sports including the Winter Games, March Madness and NBA. According to the release, some of these were created for black, Hispanic, LGBTQ, East Asian and Asian Indian audiences. 

One spot shows a pair of black filmmakers leveraging the tech found in the NX to “capture something truly extraordinary,” according to the press release. Another spot, focused on the Hispanic audience, shows how the NX helps forge a new path amid hardships.

In addition to broadcast, the NX campaign will utilize social videos and out-of-home media, including airports, rideshare, ski resorts and billboards.