Don’t Sweat It: Beat the Heat With These Summer Strategies

5 Min Read

Economic headwinds, like rising inflation and gas prices, are putting pressure on both businesses and consumers this summer, but the season is still laden with opportunities. “Memorial Day is always a good predictor of what’s to come for summer travel,” said Paula Twidale, Senior Vice President, AAA Travel. “Based on our projections, summer travel isn’t just heating up, it will be on fire. People are overdue for a vacation and they are looking to catch up on some much-needed R&R in the coming months.”

The National Retail Federation predicts sales to grow between six to eight percent this year, and Morgan Stanley’s mid-year economic forecast indicates that the Ukraine war will leave commodity prices uncertain, but supply chain issues should continue to normalize, with consumer goods inflation subsiding later this year and into 2023. Amid this uncertainty, there’s one thing you can control as an advertiser—and that’s your marketing campaigns. Read on to find out how you can make the most of summer.

Summer Consumers Are Out and About

As the AAA indicated, this summer, people will be getting their travel on, with 85% of Americans planning their OOO accordingly—but it’s not only vacations getting them out of the house. Commuting is also on the rise, as workers start returning to the office (84% expected to commute to the office part time). They’re also spending more on outdoor recreational activities versus last year—59% plan to spend more money on domestic travel and 62% said they would spend more on international travel.

One thing that hasn’t quite managed to catch a break is mobile device usage (we’re all guilty of it)—as mobile apps across all categories have typically been downloaded more during the summer months as shown in the chart below.

Then, there’s also data usage as a whole – while global mobile data usage will be increasing globally, it’s North America who is the region set to have the highest average mobile data usage per smartphone, with 52 gigabytes of data per month by 2027.

It’s not only mobile usage that’s accelerating this summer—the same applies to the big screen (TV). Last year was a streaming summer, with 79% of Americans sticking with streaming TV. So, multi-device usage, an increase in streaming consumption and lots of outdoor adventure…shouldn’t be too hard to nail down a creative strategy, right? We’ve shared some of the major know-hows in our annual report and white paper, but there’s no such thing as not too much knowledge. Continue reading for some more actionable tips to level up your creative strategy.

Ride the Creative Wave

First things first—the last thing you want to do this summer is go silent—’tis the season to drive that share of voice and make the most of this opportunity, otherwise your competitors will get to it first (and potentially poach your customers). Here’s what you can do to stand out:

• Ticking off creative elements are important in every ad creative (i.e. including CTAs, including your URL and logo etc), but it’s time to go beyond the basics. Consider testing out different types of emotives in your campaigns, ad lengths and (if budget permits) pay attention to the number of talent that you’re casting, too. You’d be surprised with the results that you find, and our newly launched MNTN Research arm sheds more light on how these different elements can greatly drive campaign performance.

• Shoppers love deep discounts and last-minute offers, but there’s nothing like the word ‘free’ to really get consumers riled up. Not only is this a different way to approach your campaigns, but if you’re a smaller brand keen to generate brand awareness and get new eyes in front of your products, it could be the strategy you need to catch their attention. Besides, why should summer fun be strictly relegated to the outdoors? Bring the gamification and giveaways directly to the biggest screen in the house to pique some interest and ultimately drive site visits (and conversions).

• Why reinvent the wheel if you can repurpose existing creative from your other marketing channels? A lesser known fact about Connected TV advertising is its ability to turn TV advertising, well, turnkey. If social media advertising is already part of your forté for example (97% of brands rely on social media one way or another), you can even take some user-generated-content (UGC) and turn it into an ad fit for the big screen instead of having to blow your creative budget on a standalone production.

We’ve armed you with the tools you need to get started, but if ever you’re in doubt or need some extra guidance, check out our blog here.