News

Valentine’s Day Purchases, Audience-First Advertising, & More | Weekly Marketing News

Too Busy to Keep Up with the Latest Marketing News? We’ve Got You Covered.

Valentine’s Day Purchases, Audience-First Advertising, & More | Weekly Marketing News

5 Min Read

There is a lot to cover this week in digital marketing news. So to make it easier for you to keep on top of the most important stories, we compiled a list of interesting headlines breaking this week.

With Valentine’s Day just a couple days away, many digital marketing news sources are looking to see how the current landscape will affect the holiday in 2021. And according to global search marketing agency NetElixir, the average Valentine’s Day order value this year will reach $185 — up from $165 in 2020. Marketers in the jewelry and fashion market should also expect to see an increase in purchases, with a rise between 18% and 20% YoY expected in those categories. Ultimately, NetElixir found that there were four purchasing triggers for consumers this Valentine’s Day: hope, wellness, nostalgia, and motivation. As consumer habits continue to evolve, tapping into these concepts with digital advertising can be an effective path to conveying brand messaging to potential customers. 

And in Connected TV news, as consumers continue to split their time between traditional linear television and streaming services, many brands are adjusting their strategies to reach them. In a new interview with Beet.TV, Melissa Grady, CMO of Cadillac, discusses how the luxury car brand has been utilizing an audience-first approach to fully find and understand their consumers. That approach has involved changing their perspective from just filling their linear media plans with other mediums, to a more comprehensive understanding of their audience’s interests and devices. According to Grady, incorporating Connected TV into Cadillac’s strategies has helped them move past the more traditional metrics like reach and frequency in favor of utilizing audience data to evaluate the effects of their messaging. 

Check out the rest of the marketing headlines that caught our eye this week.

DIGITAL

Panda Express celebrates Lunar New Year with digital red envelopes – Panda Express, the U.S. chain of 2,200 Chinese food restaurants, is turning its yearly celebration of Lunar New Year into a digital experience as the pandemic limits indoor dining in many parts of the country. 

Advertising Landscape 2021: Technologies & Channels That Will Shape AdTech – Marketers and media owners are entering a period of constant flux, where the introduction of new technology, new government regulations, or policy changes by walled gardens can radically reshape the market in a matter of months.

5 Digital Marketing Trends to Watch Out For in 2021 – With 2021 around the corner, new trends are ready to hit the market. And unlike this year when the market was solitary due to the pandemic, the upcoming trends are much more flexible and wide-spread.

3 tips to boost your digital marketing in 2021 – While 2020 wasn’t great from most perspectives, it was a banner year for digital marketing. As consumers hunkered down at home, they spent more time and money online.

Valentine’s Day Purchases Driven By Four Behavioral Triggers – Despite lingering high unemployment rates and financial woes amidst COVID-19, global search marketing agency NetElixir forecasts the average Valentine’s Day order value will reach $185 – up from $165 in 2020.

CONNECTED TV & STREAMING

5 Reasons Why Apple’s Limiting IDFA Is Very Good For CTV – Apple is making dramatic changes over the next few months to how advertisers can leverage user identity across all its devices — and marketers are not prepared for it.

Fox Corp. Aims to Make Tubi a ‘Billion-Dollar Business’ – Less than a year after Fox Corp. acquired free ad-supported streamer Tubi, executives are pointing to growth at the streamer as a promising business path forward.

2021 Predictions: TV, CTV, and Video – 2020 was a mega year for content of all kinds, but particularly for video. With swathes of the population confined to their homes and seeking escape from the stress of lockdown, streaming platforms, CTV, and AVOD services saw subscription numbers balloon.

2020 Recorded More Viewing Time, But Less Viewers – Pandemic-driven, at-home TV consumption went in two different directions in 2020, according to eMarketer: A dramatic rise in time spent with TV, but lower traditional average TV viewers.

CTV Offers More Data Insights for Marketers: Cadillac CMO Melissa Grady – Cadillac has embraced an “audience-first” approach that considers the best ways to reach consumers through both linear and newer streaming video channels whose viewership has grown dramatically, especially since the onset of the pandemic.

MOBILE

Instagram Celebrates Lunar New Year With Stickers, AR Effect, Programming – Instagram is ringing in the Year of the Ox with stickers, an augmented reality effect and programming on its platform to mark Lunar New Year Friday (Feb. 12).

How some Super Bowl LV advertisers scored on mobile – On top of passive TV audiences, the annual event also generates significant social media buzz as people use smartphones to share their reactions to commercials — sometimes rivaling commentary about the game itself.

TikTok to Livestream Full-Length Justin Bieber Concert on Valentine’s Day – Justin Bieber will perform the first ever single-artist, full-length concert to livestream on TikTok live from the Drew House Feb. 14 at 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET, with a repeat scheduled for Feb. 15 at 11 a.m. PT/2 p.m. ET.

Casual Games: Big User Bases But Modest Time-Spent, Consumer Spend – Casual games — those with simpler rules that require less skill — accounted for 78% of mobile game downloads last year, compared to “core” games’ 20% share of downloads, according to WARC analysis of Apple Annie data.

WE’LL KEEP YOU UP-TO-DATE

That’s it for the roundup this week, next week we’ll be back with another list of what’s making news in marketing.