It's (Almost) Time To Get Creative Again

This week Facebook & Google each reported massive revenue increases, and at the same time live experiences across the world are starting to announce that they're coming back this summer (and some are already sold out).

Let's break down what that means and why it matters:

• Facebook's revenue is up 46%
• Overall, Google is up 32%
• YouTube is up 50%

You'd think the pandemic drove a ton of new businesses online and that drove the growth right? Not so much.

• There were 12% more ads
• The ads cost 30% more

The huge "success" that Facebook and Google just had didn't come from their innovation, or their ability to attract new advertisers. It came from the fact that they were the only two options that most businesses were stuck with for the past year.

Think about your own marketing mix – in past years it probably included a combination of sponsorship, events, PR, and advertising. You may allocate some budget to having your team travel, attend conferences, or otherwise get out into the world. Last year all of that was cut off, along with a lot of our retail expenses and anything else that we'd typically do offline. What was left? Facebook and Google. It's no wonder that their auction-based ad rates went through the roof.

Everyone's been talking about the anticipated surge in demand for offline experience that will inevitably happen once we get the all-clear sign, but I'm just as excited about the parallel surge in creativity that we're about to see.

The great reopening is going to allow us to start thinking about experiential marketing, collaborations, events, and who knows what other kinds of creative thinking. Creativity like the Molson Canadian beer fridge, for example, just wouldn't have been possible in a lockdown scenario.

The question that each of us needs to ask ourselves is: What are we going to keep, and what are we going to add back in?

Pretty much all of us were forced to pivot in one way or another - some of us added online ordering, others offered virtual experiences, or online courses. In addition, we all had to get really good at spending our marketing budgets (whatever was left of them) in one place: digital. So, now that we're able to see a glimmer on the horizon, it's time to start planning for a world where our creativity will no longer be limited to that digital duopoly.

Here are a few thought starters:

1. Live events are coming back, but they've taken a major hit – there will be significant opportunities to support live events and to tell your brand's stories to a grateful community.
2. You've likely attracted a whole new group of customers over the past year who have never experienced your brand in person. How can you create a physical experience that gives them the opportunity to get to know your business away from their screens?
3. It will be more important than ever that your offline experiences match the way that you show up online. Do people get the same message and the same quality of experience when they shift from digital to IRL?
4. Keep that digital energy going. The best social and digital content is rooted in authentic stories, so how can you use the reopening as an opportunity to fuel digital engagement?

Here are a few recent digital-specific developments that are going to help us to bridge the gap from digital-only to digitally-integrated:

• TripAdvisor is creating a subscription service that will give users preferred access to destinations, and allow TripAdvisor to more deeply partner with operators.
• Apple Maps are jumping into the ratings game. Users may soon be able to review businesses, thereby creating another opportunity to drive reviews and rank above competitors who haven't yet noticed.
• Twitter is making its live-audio feature, Spaces, available to any user with 600+ followers. They also recently made Spaces available on desktop, and are talking about allowing people to charge for access to their conversations. It's likely that these live-audio-style features are going to become integrated into live events, rather than competing with them.

Written by Conner Galway, Junction Consulting