Here’s what we’re reading for the week of June 8th, 2021.
The Rise Of The 50-Plus Influencer
The Drum
David Whyte, founder and chief executive of Edge, believes that now is the time for brands to wake up to the opportunities of Gen X and Baby Boomer influencers who are shattering stereotypes and creating new models, particularly on YouTube. Whyte cites the success that 57-year-old guitarist Rick Beato is having on YouTube, where his music channel boasts over 1.7 million subscribers.
Why it matters: Sixty-eight percent of consumers age 55 or older shop online every month yet just 5 percent of advertising in the US is targeted at these consumers. As Whyte notes, though the influencer landscape was for years the sole domain of millennials and Gen Z, advertisers should also consider that Baby Boomers are over ten times wealthier than their millennial counterparts.
Research: How Cultural Differences Can Impact Global Teams
Harvard Business Review
To determine when teams whose members live in different countries perform better, HBR observed the behaviors and interactions of 5,728 individuals in 804 remote international teams while they worked during several months on business consulting projects.
Why it matters: Their analyses found that personal diversity, such as differences in age and culture, can negatively affect team climate. These members find it less enjoyable to spend time together, trust each other less and generally communicate less–which leads to more conflicts.
In contrast, HBR found that contextual diversity, created by members that come from countries with different economic and political systems, can positively affect task performance because it allows for more perspectives, which boosts creativity and creates a better solution to problems.
How Two DTC Brands Revamped Their Video Creative For Performance
AdExchanger
After simply throwing money into video creative without measuring performance, Kuru Footwear partnered with VidMob, whose creative intelligence tool analyzes the creative variables in a video frame to isolate why the video is performing or not. Atom Finance partnered with VidMob on a similar approach to grow in-app engagement.
Why it matters: After a round of A/B testing, KURU Footwear learned that lifestyle footage of people wearing its shoes and engaging in everyday activities like running in the park, alongside direct response calls-to-action, performed best. This new creative had a 15 percent higher return on ad spend and a 15 percent lower cost per purchase than the brand’s previous video assets.
For Atom Finance, the partnership with VidMob resulted in modified videos that generated a nearly 30 percent lift in app engagement after signup.
Mastercard Enters Five-Year Partnership With World Rugby Women’s Game
Campaign
Mastercard and World Rugby have announced a five-year partnership that will see the former use its Priceless platform to curate experiences with World Rugby and brand ambassadors. Mastercard, whose goal is to connect with consumers in new ways, will also be developing rugby-specific content as an extension of its dedication to gender equity and ‘Girls4Tech’ STEM education program.
Why it matters: Mastercard will become the first worldwide partner for Rugby World Cup 2021, Rugby World Cup 2025 and the first Global Partner of WXV, the annual global women’s competition set to begin in 2023.
