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Beth Sidhu

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This week marked the National Retail Federation’s 2022 conference, the premiere summit of the world’s largest retailers. Stagwell was listening in, as well as talking with lead retail experts and practitioners from brands like Johnson & Johnson, AERIN, Bayer, Snap, and more.   

So what do marketers need to know? We recap the top five trends and takeaways to emerge from the week below.

If you’d like to learn more, email Beth Sidhu. Interested in more retail insights?  Click here for our retail report card and please sign up for more insights here.  

1. Blended Retail Experience is Here to Stay  

The pandemic accelerated a new template for the shopper journey that sees consumers move frequently across brick-and-mortar and digital touchpoints. Consumers want to shop, browse, and discover on their own terms, using the full range of devices, delivery mechanisms, and in-store ecosystems available to them. Expect retail to continue to trend towards convenience – defined on the consumer’s terms – that is supported by digital layers that add function, streamline experiences, or collapse multiple aspects of the purchasing funnel. Marketers need to invest in seamless handoffs between touchpoints urgently.  

2. Safety Will Keep Driving In-Store Shopping Behavior  

With variants extending the pandemic for who-knows-how long, health and safety will continue to be top of mind for consumers. Telegraphing your brand’s investment into COVID-19 protocols without veering into the realm of pandemic theater/fearmongering is one way brands can remain in favor with today’s consumers. Marketers should ensure their messaging around safety connects with reality for employees, as the employee-as-brand-ambassador trend popularized by big box retailers like Walmart continues.  

3. If Your Commerce Isn’t Connected, What Are You Doing?  

Enduring supply chain disruptions will put additional pressure on retail shops to adapt technology and digital tools to further connect their enterprises. To keep apace with customer expectations for faster delivery and order fulfilment, brands need to adapt sophisticated inventory tracking and real-time retail dashboards, as well as look to further synchronize marketing and sales activities.  

4. Social Commerce Gets a Lift From Live Streaming   

Live commerce – a staple abroad but gaining traction across the U.S. – will mainstream in 2022 as brands need to bridge consumers’ platform and content experiences with their shopping habits. The models abound, from the 24-hour shopping livestreams that drive billions in sales during China’s major retail holiday, Double 11, to more curated influencer streams that tap into micro and nano influencers to tell the stories behind products in more authentic ways. This engagement renaissance will be powered by integrated payment portals, QR codes picture-in-picture digital displays, and other technology enabling a seamless step-through discovery to purchase.  

5. Retail Cautiously Experiments with the “M” Word  

In the absence of the technology infrastructure to support the much-buzzed about Metaverse, retailers are experimenting with what’s available now – mixed reality tools — to power exciting new experiences that tie the physical world to the digital world. Live events and retail supported by augmented reality can power more engaging shared experiences for consumers, while virtual tokens, avatar outfits, and other digital tokens can extend a brand’s product suite into this burgeoning new dimension of the web.   

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As we reflect on the marketing implications of CES 2022, Web 3.0 is by far the most impactful development that showed up across industries, technologies and capabilities. While in some ways it may be another victim of CES’ shiny veneer versus reality, there are components that are impossible to ignore – namely, the influx of and investment in the metaverse and NFTs.

Stagwell is one of the first movers when it comes to helping brands activate in this nacent space, having supported the launch of MilkPeP’s activation in the Roblox metaverse. On Thursday, January 6, Stagwell convened a lunch and learn, moderated by Axios’ Sara Fischer, to discuss the tactical and theoretical challenges and opportinities presented by Web 3.0. Here are our top 5 takeaways from the conversation: 

1. COVID WAS A CATALYST, bringing the metaverse into the real world 
2. BRANDS WILL PLAY A KEY ROLE IN BUILDING TRUST with these technologies and platforms
3. NOT EVERY BRAND SHOULD BE IN THE METAVERSE, and not every metaverse is created equal
4. METAVERSE + IRL should be a seamless experience
5. NFTS are here to stay

Web 3.0 is a nuanced topic, and one that is the opposite of a one-size-fits-all approach. Depending on brand, product, buyer demographic and existing marketing activity, the metaverse and NFTs can fill a very important role (which may be… no role at all. More on that later). Learn more about what it means for brands, creative and the future of the online/offline world.

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1. COVID was a catalyst, bringing the metaverse into the real world

The metaverse would have come eventually (in fact it’s already been here…hello, gaming community!), but the pandemic undoubtedly accelerated the timeline. With the majority of the world going digital, tech companies were pushed to develop products, tools and software that allowed us to do so much more from a virtual setting, exposing a more urgent demand for expanded virtual experiences and capabilities from brands.

2. Brands will play a key role in building trust with these technologies and platforms 

 3. Not every brand should be in the metaverse, and not every metaverse is created equal

4. Metaverse + IRL should be a seamless experience

 5. NFTs are here to stay

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Stagwell Insights

CES 2022 is in the rearview mirror. The technologies that debuted this year will bring accelerated innovation and transform the way consumers get and share information, engage with brands, and experience culture for years to come.

This year, Stagwell hosted a series of virtual floor tours featuring expert commentary on the trends we expect will transform marketing in 2022 and the implications for marketers. Below, we share our top four takeaways: 

More Screens, in More Places, More Often (Doing Different Things):  

• The trend: Television is evolving from a purely entertainment-focused device to a multi-faceted video display, enabling a sprawling universe of entertainment, lifestyle, home décor, news & information, and communication possibilities supported by the assistance of your favorite AI and voice-enabled tech.  
• The implications: More screens, in more places, more often means more media placement channels for brands, greatly expanding the array of consumer distribution touchpoints available. The way content is displayed isn’t the only thing changing; the nature of content itself will adapt to streaming-era behaviors that can more seamlessly connect content to commerce-driving actions via things like QR codes. Perhaps unexpectedly, the TV console in 2022 may find new life as a portal for discovery, addressable content marketing, and a rich source of first-party data.  

The Creator Economy is Here – For Everyone:  

• The trend: Tools for video creators continue to evolve, giving both the quality and bells and whistles of strong video content that were once reserved for professionals. At the same time, brands are experimenting with ways to give consumers creative control over branded products and services, seen in products like the L’Oreal Colorsonic which allows consumers to make their own custom lipstick.   
• The implications: 2022 will be the year technology and brands converge to empower everyone to be a creator of products, not just content. For brands with an imperative to scale compelling across increasingly niche consumer segments, marketing activations that empower the average consumers to use brand assets, products, or other associated content will be a powerful tool for awareness and top-of-funnel marketing.  

Problem-Solving Tech: 

• The trend: Technology is shifting to focus on the key economic and social challenges that were illuminated by the pandemic, such as food sustainability and labor and supply chain shortages. We saw a heavy emphasis on artificial intelligence and robotics as a tool for tackling these complex challenges of human scale, exemplified in products like John Deere’s fully autonomous tractor or the tradeshow-wide trend towards Electric Vehicles. 
• The implications: Brands will have new opportunities to scale the best practices enabled by problem-solving tech, which can unlock exciting new business models, product offerings, and service capabilities. At the same time, renewed corporate interest in the environmental and social footprints of businesses will add pressure for CMOs to ensure marketing communications and operations address their businesses’ impact. 

Scaling In-House Marketing:  

• The trend: The tech on display in the C Space for marketers underscores the need for a toolbox of scalable, DIY-marketing tools for in-house teams, who are increasingly present at major brands. At CES this year, Stagwell showcased the Stagwell Marketing Cloud, our suite of solutions supporting business transformation for in-house marketers, arrayed across real-time business intelligence, AI-powered comms tech, AR for events, and end-to-end influencer marketing management.
• The implications: With over 77% of organizations now having some form of in-house agency, expect investment in tools & services to support in-house marketing creation and execution to continue. Specifically, brands will be on the hunt for solutions that enable them to unify first-party data, create content at scale, and drive efficiency through their operations via automation.    

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To dive deeper into the technology on display at CES 2022, stream a recording of Stagwell’s Virtual Floor Tours here, and reach out to beth.sidhu@stagwellglobal.com if you have questions.   

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Mark Penn

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It’s 2022 and there are still no driverless cars. Don’t be discouraged — the hype was always greater than what technology could master. As you bring new products to market, consider this: what is the right “digital” layer to your customer experience and marketing? Some companies overshoot when answering this, envisioning beyond the current limitations of technology. Others fall short and lack a vision for how to refine their digital layers for transformation.

As former Chief Strategy Officer for Microsoft and now CEO of Stagwell, I have sifted through thousands of digital layer ideas. I once proposed opening an online bank only to be told those transactions were commodities. Just try to get into fintech now, one of the hottest areas of emerging tech innovation.  

Physical money, physical meetings, and yes even physicals at the doctor’s office are being replaced with direct digital experiences that take simple technologies and combine them with great logistical operations to generate winning digital layers. Look at what has happened in the last few years to ordering groceries. Grocery services adapted the physical shopping experience into an intuitive digital process of food and recipe selection that powers enviable conversion.

To pioneer digital transformation at your brand, you don’t need to engineer the next iPhone. But you must understand and master the potential new digital layers of your product or service to find ways to enhance them. Put simply, the trick to building a successful digital layer is strategically adapting a physical process into a digital one to add convenience and value to the user journey.

Hailing a cab is an everyday physical process that has been transformed into a digital exercise. Before, consumers braved an awkward street-side system that used to generate its fair number of street brawls. Uber saw the unlimited potential in bringing the act of cab hailing and driver management into the digital layer. It wasn’t a breakthrough of engineering so much as a breakthrough in adding the benefits of already-developed technologies to the service experience.

Sometimes people overshoot their potential digital layer and invest in expensive digital layers that only add confusion for consumers. Movie theaters, for example, learned the hard way that the impressive customization options available on those complex, multi-brand touch-screen soda machines only goes so far. Lemon lime cherry diet cola, anyone? No – your consumer wants a Coke.

Real estate maps that let people sort nearby options and view video tours are an extremely helpful tool for people navigating the rental and relocation process, but most people are still going to need to see a tour of the apartment to close the sale. The digital layer in real estate enhances the discovery process but doesn’t replace the entire user journey. This is an important limitation: while most things can be made digital, not everything can be replaced by a digital layer. 

And if the product itself lacks a digital layer, the marketing around it is where to look for your layer. How can digital help you better display product, provide information, and make the shopper experience convenient and enjoyable? Brands like Amazon build relatively straight-forward digital marketing templates for UX, so there are still many possibilities remaining for making product presentation more engaging with 3D and AR layers.

Entering 2022, now is the time to break down every step of your current product and marketing process and ask – is this better accomplished in the real world or in the metaverse? Then you can more easily identify the outer bounds of your potential digital layer.

Imagine big, then implement layer by layer. Some ideas will be duds and some will be game changers. Most of what we are able to do with digital has in theory already been invented in the last decade, but much of what we can do in practice with this technology has yet to be accomplished. Finding the right digital layer for your product or service is at the core of how you can you transform your business in today’s digital economy.

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Beth Sidhu

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Stagwell Chief Brand and Communications Officer Beth Sidhu visits the Stagwell Marketing Cloud at CES 2022 and highlights key priorities for tech investment for in-house marketers.  

There’s a reason the marketing calendar begins each year with CES: there is no better place to track the technologies that will transform the way consumers get and share information, engage with brands and experience culture. Stagwell is on the ground in Las Vegas and virtually at CES this week sharing ARound, a location-based AR platform, which is the latest addition to our suite of tools for in-house marketers: the Stagwell Marketing Cloud.

Why build an in-house marketing cloud? CMOs need a trusted toolbox of solutions to help support business transformation as, per Forrester, 77 percent of global organizations now have some form of in-house agency. We’ve built the Stagwell Marketing Cloud to support in-house teams in four ways:

Powering real-time business intelligence

Empower and manage secondary brand ambassadors

Supercharging communications with predictive AI

Forge new mediums to connect with consumers
 

Powering Real-Time Business Intelligence 

Real-time business intelligence tools like the Harris Brand Platform can provide in-house teams with daily insights on brand perception, equity, sales funnels and the impact of marketing campaigns on consumer behavior and perceptions. In an era where errant tweets and unfortunate headlines can cause your brand’s stock to soar or sink, there are few better ways to fireproof your operations than regular pulses of brand perception.

Supercharging communications with predictive A.I.

Marketing communications evolve but the mission remains the same: get the right message to the right person at the right time. When harnessed strategically, earned media can help a team offset (or if they’re lucky, supplant) the need for a hefty paid investment.

PRophet is a tool that enables in-house marketers and PR professionals to predict media interest, sentiment and spread of a press story prior to pitching. The product is powered by the latest developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning and bolstered by expanding partner databases such as with Podchaser to give teams the predictive intelligence they need to tie amplify their great creative ideas with earned media coverage. As A.I. gets more sophisticated, tools like PRophet can free-up PR pros to focus their creativity on brand-building efforts and growing brand mandates like ESG, DEI, and engaging new stakeholders.

Empowering Brand-Safe Ambassadors.

In a platform dominated society, influence is currency. With the rise of social commerce, live streaming, and yes even the metaverse, it’s more important than ever for brands to have strategies for authentically activating influencers that dominate their respective categories. At the same time, marketers need assurances that the influencers they partner with are brand-safe and services rendered are compliant with agreed-upon contracts.

Koalifyed is an end-to-end influencer marketing application that brings helps brands manage complex influencer programs. Underpinned by a bot-detection solution, SNIFF (which stands for social network influencer friend or foe), Koalifyed is a great tool for in-house marketers handling complex influencer campaigns.

Pushing the New Frontiers of the Consumer Experience

Without a doubt, 2022 will bring all the tools of mixed reality and the metaverse into marketing efforts. Just as brands are looking into the virtual world, consumers will be clamoring to return to the physical world, pending the control of the Omicron variant. In-house shops can use location-based AR as an easy, cost-effective investment into developing more engaging digital layers to live events.

ARound is an augmented reality creation tool for live events that empowers brand to bring audiences together at scale so they can engage, interact, and socialize in a completely new and meaningful way. By giving partners the tech and a content interface to experiment with the medium, ARound empowers in-house teams to invest now in the budding metaverse to enhance the journey for consumers.

Where to From Here? 

In-house marketers need the best tools available and we’re excited to that support in-house marketing transformation for modern businesses. See ARound, our AR product, on the floor this week at CES, peruse our digital CES booth featuring more products from the Stagwell Marketing Cloud, and reach out to hello@stagwellglobal.com.