Brad Johnson is an author and blogger who helps writers discover their niche, build successful habits, and quit their 9-5. His books include Ignite Your Beacon, Writing Clout and Tomes Of A Healing Heart. For strategic content and practical tips on how to become a full-time writer, visit: BradleyJohnsonProductions.com.
As writers, we are artists. We create through inspiration—a spark brought to fruition through discipline, hard work, and practice. And we draw inspiration from everywhere around us.
I had some inspiring moments this week as a result of following up on a suggestion from my mentor, Dean Wesley Smith. He told me to go watch a few episodes of blind auditions from the TV show The Voice and see what I could pull from it in terms of lessons for my writing.
In case you’re not familiar with it, let me explain the premise of the show. Essentially, it’s a competition between four teams, and the blind audition is like when the team captains are picking their teams. It’s called a blind audition because the coaches start out by sitting in chairs that face away from the stage. They can’t see the performers—only hear them.
If what they hear catches their interest, they hit a button that turns their chair toward the stage. This signals that they want this performer on their team. If more than one coach turns their chair, they are in competition for that performer and must pitch their coaching skills. The performer chooses their coach and the teams are formed.
Now and then, someone will sing and no chairs will turn. Sadly, that person takes their ball and goes home. They didn’t make the cut.
5 Writing Lessons From The Voice
It’s fun to watch, with a variety of great music and vocal delights. Here are a few nuggets we can apply to writing that I got from watching the show.
1. The value of real-life experience
After one stellar performance, Nick Jonas said to the singer: “I’m excited to see what inspires you because I feel like you’re the kind of vocalist that real life is going to have a major impact on how you perform on stage.”
Our unique experiences, and the way we react to them, are what set us apart and make us individuals. They give value to what we can offer others and expand our range of expression.
I remember a conversation I once had with a musician friend, a violinist who hit her stride late in life. She told me she used to mourn the fact that she delayed her development to focus on other concerns. But as she came to understand how life events had shaped her, giving her depth and maturity she could have gained no other way, she grew to appreciate how that enriched her playing.
As writers, our real-life experiences do the same, providing a larger emotional palette from which we can draw to create our stories.
2. Figuring it out
The Voice shares highlights and human interest moments about the performers. I listened to one girl tell how she started singing at six years old and her father became her biggest supporter. He set himself up as her sound technician and they traveled, finding gigs. She said, “We didn’t know what we were doing, but we figured it out as we went.”
I don’t know what your writer’s road has been like, but when I took my first steps, I didn’t know what I was doing either. I figured it out as I went along, learning new skills, adding knowledge and contacts, expanding my toolbox. I’m committed to continuing in the same way.
I still have a lot to learn and a long way to go. We all do.
3. It’s all about the emotion
Here are some coaches’ comments I noted down as I watched the show.
“You carry all the emotion that storytellers need.”
“We want to be moved. That’s the point of being an artist.”
“You hit me in an emotional spot.”
“You’re telling a story. The message matters.”
The singers who got the coaches to turn their chairs were the ones who did more than sing on pitch or hit the high notes. They were the ones who used their art to tell a story that engaged the emotions.
It’s the same with writing. Readers read to feel something, to be stirred in some way. As writers, learning how to create those emotional moments is something worthy of our time and effort.
4. More than just an ugly rock
One of the performers shared how she was a rock collector. She laughed about how, when she told people she was going to a rock show, they thought she meant a concert, but really she was just going to look at rocks.
She talked about her favorite kind of rock—a geode. On the outside, it looks like just an ugly rock. But if you crack it open, it’s full of beautiful crystals on the inside.
Sometimes, our books can be like that. They are filled with wonderful, exciting, even life-changing material, but they have to be cracked open before anyone can benefit from all the beauty. That’s why covers, sales copy, and opening paragraphs are so vital. They are what gets a reader to crack open the book.
5. Rejection is not failure
Every singer that appeared on the episode was remarkably talented and put on a great performance. But not all of them got a chair turn. In those instances, the coaches just didn’t quite hear what they were looking for.
When we send our work to an editor and it gets turned down, it’s kind of like that. And a rejection doesn’t mean our story isn’t good. It just means it didn’t work, at that time, for that particular editor. Another quote from the show:
“As an artist, you get so many doors slammed in your face. You should never, ever quit.”
Every writer collects a lot of rejection slips. It’s part of the journey and we can’t let it stop us. Nick Jonas also said this:
“Through success, failure, and everything in between, stay true to your art.”
There’s another huge and inspiring lesson I got out of watching The Voice. It’s what my mentor sent me there to find, but it’s too big to tack on the end of this article. I’ll save it for another time so I can give it the attention it deserves.
I think it’s amazing how much marvelous inspiration I gleaned from a single episode of a television show. But it’s all around us, everywhere, all the time. Like cracking open a geode, we can find value and beauty where we look for it.
How about you? Have you ever watched The Voice? What’s your favorite source for inspiration? Tell us about it in the comments.
PRACTICE
Let’s go on The Voice. Drawing inspiration from what you learned in the article, write a scene where your character auditions on The Voice.
What song does he or she perform? What emotions course through her? How does it go? Do the coaches turn their chairs? Can you sprinkle in the bits of backstory that make the show such a success?
Write for fifteen minutes. When you are finished, post your work in the comments and don’t forget to provide feedback for your fellow writers!
B2B marketing can sometimes seem to play second fiddle to its more glamorous sister, B2C marketing. When it comes to content marketing, campaigns built for consumer audiences are often more intuitive, more fun, or more colorful for the audiences and the marketers who implement them alike. However, as I like to tell my graduate students, marketers get tired of our own marketing way faster than our audiences do.
When it comes to B2B marketing, your content marketing campaigns can be highly valuable, highly sought after, and highly relevant to your audiences. These campaigns resonate most strongly when you are focused on your audiences’ goals, challenges, and mindsets.
Here are five B2B content marketing examples from companies that understand their audiences well and use their content marketing to provide Youtility.
CES Tech Talk Podcast Distills Key Takeaways
B2B Content Lesson: Leverage Your Experts and Break Down the Facts Through a Podcast
CES is such a huge trade show that there is no way that attendees can absorb even a tenth of the content, information, and demos that are presented at the event. How can the Consumer Technology Association, which puts on this massive annual event, create more value for its audiences, reinforce its reputation year-round, and extend its reach?
It produces robust content as part of its marketing approach, such as its Tech Talk Podcast. Each episode of the podcast features industry experts going deep on one specific topic area, such as tech in healthcare, self-driving cars, or the future of innovation.
This series leverages the experts that the organization is already working with and builds upon the brand recognition of its marquee event to build an audience of loyal listeners. This series works particularly well, because it synthesizes the information around each topic area into what you need to know today, as Michael Barbaro of The New York Times says in his podcast, “The Daily.”
The CES Tech Talk Podcast is a great example of B2B content marketing.
Athena Health Teaches Business Skills Through Webinars
B2B Content Lesson: Help Solve Their Other Problems
I was recently asked by a client what kind of content they should be publishing for their audience that doesn’t give away the types of frameworks that they offer as part of their services.
While I actually believe you CAN give away some of your frameworks (see the next example), an effective type of content for B2B brands is acknowledging the kind that acknowledges that problem that your product or service solves isn’t the (only) one that’s keeping your client up at night.
For instance, Athena Health is a provider of a suite of services such as electronic health records (EHR) and medical billing. But they offer webinars that help their clients deal with their most critical business challenges: to improve the ways in which they run their practices, recognizing that doctors don’t necessarily have MBAs and don’t always know how to grow their businesses effectively.
Webinars from AthenaHealth help their clients deal with their most critical business challenges — excellent example of B2B content marketing.
B2B Content Lesson: Provide Your Recipe to Build Trust and Authority
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you may have noticed that we actually give you quite a lot of tools and frameworks that we use with our clients. That’s because we recognize that for B2B businesses like ours, there is a difference between the DIY segments and the segments that want you to help them take those frameworks and put them to good use for their organizations.
Therefore, we give away templates, like the one in this example, along with a video and blog post to explain to visitors how to use it. It builds trust, and when those visitors (maybe like you!) are ready to take their digital marketing practices to the next step, we are already at the top of their list in terms of trust and authority. Not only does it build trust, it also helps us to build an audience—content like this has great value in search.
In this B2B content marketing example, we offer a downloadable template, along with a vide introduction.
Mailchimp Profiles Its Customers on Instagram
B2B Content Lesson: Showcase Your Community of Users
For many B2B companies, social proof takes the form of reviews or testimonials; however, as more and more B2B decision makers turn to social media, creating content that reflects your community is vital. In fact, 51% of all B2B customers turn to social media to do initial research, according to Accenture.
51% of all B2B customers turn to social media to do initial research.
Furthermore, the lines between social media and content marketing are blurring more than ever. More often than not, the content that our teams are creating live on social media channels, rather than on our websites. Therefore, looking at ways to create content within social media makes a ton of sense.
Mailchimp, for example, has used its Instagram account as a place to showcase the stories of what its customers are achieving every day, their creativity, and their stories to showcase the kinds of people who use Mailchimp to power their businesses. It publishes microprofiles on each Instagram post.
It showcases their ethos, and it reassures potential users that they’ve found their tribe.
In this example of great B2B content, Mailchimp uses its Instagram account as a place to showcase the stories of what its customers are achieving every day, their creativity, and their stories to showcase the kinds of people who use Mailchimp to power their businesses.
CMI Facilitates Conversation Through Monthly Twitter Chats
B2B Content Lesson: Create Points of Interaction
If we’re talking about strong examples of B2B content marketing, what better place to turn that Content Marketing Institute itself? CMI not only educates marketers, but it also connects them through events like Content Marketing World.
An ongoing example of its content marketing practice is its monthly #CMWorld Twitter chat, where guests are invited to answer pre-selected questions, posed by a moderator, while Twitter users participate in answering those same questions, asking each other questions, and picking the brains of the guest. It’s like “Inside the Actors Studio” if the audience were up on stage participating too.
Not only does this approach create a strong network of devoted brand followers, but it (like our first example) helps the brand to leverage and extend its marquee brand. In this case, Content Marketing World’s #cmworld hashtag gets to be used once a week, rather than for one week a year. This keeps it front and center, when it comes to marketing conversations (their key market).
The #CMIWorld Twitter chat is an ongoing example of CMI’s content marketing practice.
Remember: As you’re developing your B2B content marketing campaigns, keep in mind your target audiences’ goals, challenges, and mindsets. If you are able to address those specific areas and make it easy for them to do so, your content will resonate and be effective.
As writers, we are artists. We create through inspiration—a spark brought to fruition through discipline, hard work, and practice. And we draw inspiration from everywhere around us.
I had some inspiring moments this week as a result of following up on a suggestion from my mentor, Dean Wesley Smith. He told me to go watch a few episodes of blind auditions from the TV show The Voice and see what I could pull from it in terms of lessons for my writing.
In case you’re not familiar with it, let me explain the premise of the show. Essentially, it’s a competition between four teams, and the blind audition is like when the team captains are picking their teams. It’s called a blind audition because the coaches start out by sitting in chairs that face away from the stage. They can’t see the performers—only hear them.
If what they hear catches their interest, they hit a button that turns their chair toward the stage. This signals that they want this performer on their team. If more than one coach turns their chair, they are in competition for that performer and must pitch their coaching skills. The performer chooses their coach and the teams are formed.
Now and then, someone will sing and no chairs will turn. Sadly, that person takes their ball and goes home. They didn’t make the cut.
5 Writing Lessons From The Voice
It’s fun to watch, with a variety of great music and vocal delights. Here are a few nuggets we can apply to writing that I got from watching the show.
1. The value of real-life experience
After one stellar performance, Nick Jonas said to the singer: “I’m excited to see what inspires you because I feel like you’re the kind of vocalist that real life is going to have a major impact on how you perform on stage.”
Our unique experiences, and the way we react to them, are what set us apart and make us individuals. They give value to what we can offer others and expand our range of expression.
I remember a conversation I once had with a musician friend, a violinist who hit her stride late in life. She told me she used to mourn the fact that she delayed her development to focus on other concerns. But as she came to understand how life events had shaped her, giving her depth and maturity she could have gained no other way, she grew to appreciate how that enriched her playing.
As writers, our real-life experiences do the same, providing a larger emotional palette from which we can draw to create our stories.
2. Figuring it out
The Voice shares highlights and human interest moments about the performers. I listened to one girl tell how she started singing at six years old and her father became her biggest supporter. He set himself up as her sound technician and they traveled, finding gigs. She said, “We didn’t know what we were doing, but we figured it out as we went.”
I don’t know what your writer’s road has been like, but when I took my first steps, I didn’t know what I was doing either. I figured it out as I went along, learning new skills, adding knowledge and contacts, expanding my toolbox. I’m committed to continuing in the same way.
I still have a lot to learn and a long way to go. We all do.
3. It’s all about the emotion
Here are some coaches’ comments I noted down as I watched the show.
“You carry all the emotion that storytellers need.”
“We want to be moved. That’s the point of being an artist.”
“You hit me in an emotional spot.”
“You’re telling a story. The message matters.”
The singers who got the coaches to turn their chairs were the ones who did more than sing on pitch or hit the high notes. They were the ones who used their art to tell a story that engaged the emotions.
It’s the same with writing. Readers read to feel something, to be stirred in some way. As writers, learning how to create those emotional moments is something worthy of our time and effort.
4. More than just an ugly rock
One of the performers shared how she was a rock collector. She laughed about how, when she told people she was going to a rock show, they thought she meant a concert, but really she was just going to look at rocks.
She talked about her favorite kind of rock—a geode. On the outside, it looks like just an ugly rock. But if you crack it open, it’s full of beautiful crystals on the inside.
Sometimes, our books can be like that. They are filled with wonderful, exciting, even life-changing material, but they have to be cracked open before anyone can benefit from all the beauty. That’s why covers, sales copy, and opening paragraphs are so vital. They are what gets a reader to crack open the book.
5. Rejection is not failure
Every singer that appeared on the episode was remarkably talented and put on a great performance. But not all of them got a chair turn. In those instances, the coaches just didn’t quite hear what they were looking for.
When we send our work to an editor and it gets turned down, it’s kind of like that. And a rejection doesn’t mean our story isn’t good. It just means it didn’t work, at that time, for that particular editor. Another quote from the show:
“As an artist, you get so many doors slammed in your face. You should never, ever quit.”
Every writer collects a lot of rejection slips. It’s part of the journey and we can’t let it stop us. Nick Jonas also said this:
“Through success, failure, and everything in between, stay true to your art.”
There’s another huge and inspiring lesson I got out of watching The Voice. It’s what my mentor sent me there to find, but it’s too big to tack on the end of this article. I’ll save it for another time so I can give it the attention it deserves.
I think it’s amazing how much marvelous inspiration I gleaned from a single episode of a television show. But it’s all around us, everywhere, all the time. Like cracking open a geode, we can find value and beauty where we look for it.
How about you? Have you ever watched The Voice? What’s your favorite source for inspiration? Tell us about it in the comments.
PRACTICE
Let’s go on The Voice. Drawing inspiration from what you learned in the article, write a scene where your character auditions on The Voice.
What song does he or she perform? What emotions course through her? How does it go? Do the coaches turn their chairs? Can you sprinkle in the bits of backstory that make the show such a success?
Write for fifteen minutes. When you are finished, post your work in the comments and don’t forget to provide feedback for your fellow writers!
B2B marketing can sometimes seem to play second fiddle to its more glamorous sister, B2C marketing. When it comes to content marketing, campaigns built for consumer audiences are often more intuitive, more fun, or more colorful for the audiences and the marketers who implement them alike. However, as I like to tell my graduate students, marketers get tired of our own marketing way faster than our audiences do.
When it comes to B2B marketing, your content marketing campaigns can be highly valuable, highly sought after, and highly relevant to your audiences. These campaigns resonate most strongly when you are focused on your audiences’ goals, challenges, and mindsets.
Here are five B2B content marketing examples from companies that understand their audiences well and use their content marketing to provide Youtility.
CES Tech Talk Podcast Distills Key Takeaways
B2B Content Lesson: Leverage Your Experts and Break Down the Facts Through a Podcast
CES is such a huge trade show that there is no way that attendees can absorb even a tenth of the content, information, and demos that are presented at the event. How can the Consumer Technology Association, which puts on this massive annual event, create more value for its audiences, reinforce its reputation year-round, and extend its reach?
It produces robust content as part of its marketing approach, such as its Tech Talk Podcast. Each episode of the podcast features industry experts going deep on one specific topic area, such as tech in healthcare, self-driving cars, or the future of innovation.
This series leverages the experts that the organization is already working with and builds upon the brand recognition of its marquee event to build an audience of loyal listeners. This series works particularly well, because it synthesizes the information around each topic area into what you need to know today, as Michael Barbaro of The New York Times says in his podcast, “The Daily.”
The CES Tech Talk Podcast is a great example of B2B content marketing.
Athena Health Teaches Business Skills Through Webinars
B2B Content Lesson: Help Solve Their Other Problems
I was recently asked by a client what kind of content they should be publishing for their audience that doesn’t give away the types of frameworks that they offer as part of their services.
While I actually believe you CAN give away some of your frameworks (see the next example), an effective type of content for B2B brands is acknowledging the kind that acknowledges that problem that your product or service solves isn’t the (only) one that’s keeping your client up at night.
For instance, Athena Health is a provider of a suite of services such as electronic health records (EHR) and medical billing. But they offer webinars that help their clients deal with their most critical business challenges: to improve the ways in which they run their practices, recognizing that doctors don’t necessarily have MBAs and don’t always know how to grow their businesses effectively.
Webinars from AthenaHealth help their clients deal with their most critical business challenges — excellent example of B2B content marketing.
B2B Content Lesson: Provide Your Recipe to Build Trust and Authority
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you may have noticed that we actually give you quite a lot of tools and frameworks that we use with our clients. That’s because we recognize that for B2B businesses like ours, there is a difference between the DIY segments and the segments that want you to help them take those frameworks and put them to good use for their organizations.
Therefore, we give away templates, like the one in this example, along with a video and blog post to explain to visitors how to use it. It builds trust, and when those visitors (maybe like you!) are ready to take their digital marketing practices to the next step, we are already at the top of their list in terms of trust and authority. Not only does it build trust, it also helps us to build an audience—content like this has great value in search.
In this B2B content marketing example, we offer a downloadable template, along with a vide introduction.
Mailchimp Profiles Its Customers on Instagram
B2B Content Lesson: Showcase Your Community of Users
For many B2B companies, social proof takes the form of reviews or testimonials; however, as more and more B2B decision makers turn to social media, creating content that reflects your community is vital. In fact, 51% of all B2B customers turn to social media to do initial research, according to Accenture.
51% of all B2B customers turn to social media to do initial research.
Furthermore, the lines between social media and content marketing are blurring more than ever. More often than not, the content that our teams are creating live on social media channels, rather than on our websites. Therefore, looking at ways to create content within social media makes a ton of sense.
Mailchimp, for example, has used its Instagram account as a place to showcase the stories of what its customers are achieving every day, their creativity, and their stories to showcase the kinds of people who use Mailchimp to power their businesses. It publishes microprofiles on each Instagram post.
It showcases their ethos, and it reassures potential users that they’ve found their tribe.
In this example of great B2B content, Mailchimp uses its Instagram account as a place to showcase the stories of what its customers are achieving every day, their creativity, and their stories to showcase the kinds of people who use Mailchimp to power their businesses.
CMI Facilitates Conversation Through Monthly Twitter Chats
B2B Content Lesson: Create Points of Interaction
If we’re talking about strong examples of B2B content marketing, what better place to turn that Content Marketing Institute itself? CMI not only educates marketers, but it also connects them through events like Content Marketing World.
An ongoing example of its content marketing practice is its monthly #CMWorld Twitter chat, where guests are invited to answer pre-selected questions, posed by a moderator, while Twitter users participate in answering those same questions, asking each other questions, and picking the brains of the guest. It’s like “Inside the Actors Studio” if the audience were up on stage participating too.
Not only does this approach create a strong network of devoted brand followers, but it (like our first example) helps the brand to leverage and extend its marquee brand. In this case, Content Marketing World’s #cmworld hashtag gets to be used once a week, rather than for one week a year. This keeps it front and center, when it comes to marketing conversations (their key market).
The #CMIWorld Twitter chat is an ongoing example of CMI’s content marketing practice.
Remember: As you’re developing your B2B content marketing campaigns, keep in mind your target audiences’ goals, challenges, and mindsets. If you are able to address those specific areas and make it easy for them to do so, your content will resonate and be effective.
Of course, this has wide-ranging ramifications for marketing, advertising and ecommerce – as well as a number of other sectors like travel, entertainment and FMCG.
To help marketers keep on top of what this means for them, their jobs and their industry, we’re collecting together the most valuable and impactful stats in this roundup, updated on a weekly basis since 20th March.
Read on for statistics on ad revenue, ecommerce usage, grocery spending, media streaming subscriptions, social messaging and much, much more.
Experts predict a 15% year-on-year decline in travel ad revenue
Expert analyst Rob Sanderson from Loop Capital Markets predicts that Google and Facebook’s ad revenue will be severely impacted by the decrease in ad spend by travel brands (as reported by Search Engine Land on 10th March).
According to his research, Google could see a 15% drop in year-on-year ad revenue during Q1 from lower spending in the travel sector as customers hold off from booking holidays until the outbreak has passed. This drop could increase to 20% by the end of Q2 depending on the duration and scale of the outbreak in key markets around the world.
Google and Facebook are likely to take an additional hit from other industries who have been affected by changes in consumer behaviour since the Coronavirus spread globally. Analysts Laura Martin and Dan Medina from the Needham Research Institute claim there is already evidence that ad spend has decreased in sectors such as entertainment, retail and FMCG as cinemas and restaurants close, consumers avoid malls and people alter their spending habits.
Combining this with reduced spend in the travel industry, it could represent between 30-45% of Facebook’s overall ad revenue.
Furthermore, continued uncertainty could cause marketers in other areas to reconsider their ad spend and may consolidate with the hardest hit industries to produce an even bleaker picture for the revenues of Facebook and Google over the coming quarters.
55% of frequent vacationers ‘may’ or will ‘likely’ book future holidays while confined to their homes during the coronavirus outbreak
Despite an unprecedented number of people cancelling pre-booked holidays and choosing not to travel, it doesn’t mean they haven’t stopped looking at holidays altogether, according to a report from Izea published on 18th March.
In fact, 55% of US consumers who usually travel five or more times per year say they ‘may’ or will ‘likely’ purchase a future holiday while confined to their homes during the coronavirus outbreak. This likelihood rises to 61% for those who travel frequently for business purposes.
The data also reveals how future booking intentions differ depending on how far in the future they are. Thirty-eight percent of US consumers say that they ‘would never buy’ a non-refundable hotel or plane reservation if the required travel date fell within the next 1-4 weeks. The number declines steadily as the number of weeks pass. Once the travel date falls over nine months from now (around Christmastime), just over one-fifth still refuse to make non-refundable bookings but more require increasingly higher discounts of up to 50% in order to be persuaded.
This suggests that consumers will take a while to come back around to the idea of travelling abroad on a non-refundable basis once the coronavirus has died down; certainly longer than a timeframe of 9 months. As a result, holiday companies must look to the future and focus on targeting loyal, frequent customers (whether travelling for business or pleasure) who will more likely take the risk sooner than more casual vacationers.
Retail & FMCG
50% of Chinese and 31% of Italian consumers say they’re using ecommerce ‘more frequently’
Respondents from affected regions have revealed their lifestyle changes, opinions and reactions brought about by the pandemic in a study from Ipsos MORI conducted from 12th-14th March.
While footfall in physical retail stores is understandably decreasing due to social distancing measures, this is an interesting time for ecommerce. According to Ipsos MORI, 50% of Chinese and 31% of Italian consumers say they’re shopping online ‘more frequently’ to purchase products they’d usually buy in-store. Other countries such as Vietnam, India and Russia have also seen their populations turning to ecommerce more often to shop – with increase of use measured at 57%, 55% and 27% respectively.
Only 18% of UK respondents said that they were using online stores more frequently, with close to half reporting there was ‘no change’ in their ecommerce habits.
It’s been common knowledge that, in some regions, many consumers have been stockpiling, whether via online shopping channels or brick-and-mortar supermarkets. In fact, those from the UK are the most likely to blame stockpiling for shortages of food and other essential items (89%) than any other country. France (87%) and Australia (86%), which have also experienced problems with panic buying, came close second and third. Meanwhile China (46%) and India (40%) commonly cite supply-chain issues as the reason for shortages, despite more respondents from Asian areas actively stockpiling than those from Europe and the US.
This data on ecommerce habits in virus ‘hot spots’ may help to predict what is to come for those countries still grappling with the earlier stages of the pandemic, such as France, Germany, the UK and the US.
UK retail industry forecast to lose £12.6bn in 2020
A new forecast by GlobalData published on 24th March suggest that UK retail sales are set to dramatically plunge in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the forecast, the overall UK retail industry will see a loss of £12.6bn this year. Clothing and footwear brands are predicted to suffer the most, seeing a sales decline of 20.6% to £11.1bn. In contrast, the UK food and grocery market is forecast to grow 7.1% in 2020, which is £6.8bn up on the previous forecasted annual spend.
US grocery apps experience record numbers of daily downloads
Grocery apps in the US have experienced record numbers of daily downloads in March, according to app analytics company Apptopia.
As the virus begins to take its toll in the US, it appears that more and more consumers are turning to online grocery delivery, rather than risking a trip out themselves. Sunday 15th March saw a record number of average downloads, with Instacart experiencing a 218% increase when compared to download activity in February. Earlier this month, the brand claimed that overall sales growth had improved tenfold during the first week of March compared to the previous week – results which no doubt have been aided by increased interest in its app.
Walmart, which has a standalone grocery app called ‘Walmart Grocery’, saw a 160% growth in app downloads over the same period, despite an announcement from the brand that it will be phased out and consolidated into a single flagship app by the summer months.
Meanwhile US retail giant Target experienced similar month-on-month growth in its mobile app downloads Shipt (124%) and Target (98%) as shoppers order essentials to their homes. It is thought that the introduction of contact-free delivery options by big brands has had a partial role to play when it comes to recent app demand.
This trend appears to show no signs of slowing and it would be unsurprising to see new download and usage records being set in the future as the situation worsens in the region.
UK shoppers spend an additional £467m on groceries amid coronavirus fears
New data from Nielsen has revealed that grocery sales at UK supermarkets during the week ending 14th March increased by more than 22% compared to the same period in 2019. This equates to an additional £467m more in purchases than this time last year.
This rise has been attributed to stockpiling amid fears about the spread of coronavirus (and the threat of imminent lockdown). Higher spend on certain categories demonstrates this. For example, household and pet care items saw a 65% increase in sales compared to the same period last year, while sales of non-perishable groceries increased by 62%. Nielsen also states that there was also a significant increase in sales of frozen food (33%), as well as for beer, wine and spirits (11%).
In terms of individual product sales (and a week by week comparison), sales of children’s medicine grew by 228% for the week ending 14th March versus the week before that. However, the biggest weekly growth was in long-life milk which increased sales by 181%.
Advertising
Chinese ad spend growth forecast re-evaluated to 3.9% from 6.9%
Industry experts have re-evaluated the Chinese ad spend growth forecast as the impact of the coronavirus comes to light, according to the March spend forecast from Dentsu Aegis Network. It is now predicted to reach 3.9% year-on-year, falling from a much larger previous estimate of 6.9%.
While the coronavirus is very much to blame for this, there are also other factors at play such as slower retail sales and a decline in economic output which has been an ongoing trend in the region for a number of years. However, the newly predicted 3.9% growth remains higher than that of 2019, (despite the pandemic) and this is mostly driven by a spike in mobile ad spend which is expected to rise by 17.6%.
Although China has certainly borne the worst of the brunt, ad spend estimates have been revised in other regions of the world. Since the last forecast was released in June 2019, estimates for the APAC region have declined by -0.7%, while UK estimates have declined by -0.6% (although this may be more due to Brexit uncertainty than the coronavirus).
Meanwhile, ad spend in areas of mainland Europe such as Spain, Italy and Germany are expected to see an overall decrease in ad spend growth this year and in 2021. Italy is predicted to be worst hit, after a national ban on gambling advertising came into effect last year, followed this year by the coronavirus outbreak.
Imagery of human interaction declines 27.4% in social ads
A new study by Pattern89, published on 24th March, has noted a shift in the type of imagery brands are using in social media ads since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Analysing more than 1,100 brands and advertisers active on Facebook and Instagram, Pattern89 found that there are 27.4% fewer images and videos ads of models displaying human interaction (such as hugging or shaking hands).
Since 12th March, imagery featuring people washing hands or faces, and images and videos that display water splashing or cleaning have risen at six times the normal rate. Meanwhile, headline and body copy mentioning “Sports & Fitness” topics has quadrupled (rising from 5.7% to 21% of all ads) since March 12th. Similarly, electronics (such as smartphones or TVs) are now appearing in 39% of social ads.
Netflix’s YoY subscription growth in US and Canada now expected to reach more than double previous estimates
Data from expert analyst Michael Olson of Piper Sandler, as reported by NASDAQ on 8th March, predicts that Netflix’s year-on-year subscriptions growth for the US and Canadian markets is now expected to reach more than double previous predictions of 1.6%.
Indeed, Olson expects this figure to reach closer to 3.8% as the public are encouraged to stay mostly indoors during the outbreak and therefore resort to popular streaming platforms. The research also suggests that the growth of international subscriptions will rise to 30.9% year-on-year compared to previous estimations of 29.9%.
Streaming services are potentially one of the very few sectors that are set to withstand or even benefit from the coronavirus as it continues to spread. It will be fascinating to see what impact staying at home will have on major providers like Netflix, Prime Video, Now TV and Hulu once enough data has been collected.
PC gaming platform Steam attracts record number of concurring global users in mid-March
According to data from SteamDB, Steam (the global PC gaming platform) attracted a cool 20.3 million concurring users on Sunday 15th March – setting a record for the number of users online at any one time in its 16-year history.
#Steam has just reached a new concurrent online user record of 20 million, with 6.2 million currently in-game, likely due to many people staying at home due to the #coronavirus.https://t.co/bzLMfMOJvD#COVID19
Despite this record being broken on a weekend, when gamers have more time to play, it is likely that the worldwide Coronavirus pandemic has had an impact on the steady increase in online activity as many more find themselves at home than usual.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, a particularly popular eight year-old game available on the platform, also reached a record number of simultaneous players on the same date.
It seems that some of the global population have turned to online gaming as an attempt to relieve boredom (and to socialise) while stuck inside. This could be good news for the gaming industry in a time when other market sectors are struggling as the general public make significant changes to their lifestyles in order to help slow its spread.
However, in light of the vast cancellation of events, including eSports tournaments, and the uncertainty facing hardware-reliant games companies like Nintendo, it remains to be seen what the true impact of the virus will be on this industry going forward.
Young people in the UK most worried about impact of coronavirus on jobs and wages
A new study by YouGov has revealed that people aged 18 to 24 are more worried than any other age group about the impact coronavirus will have on the job market in the long-term. According to figures published on 24th March, in a survey of 1,619 adults in the UK, seven in ten 18 to 24-year-olds say they worry that the coronavirus will cause higher unemployment for a long time. This figure drops for every other subsequent age group.
The survey also found that 54% of 18 to 24 year olds believe that coronavirus will affect wages in the long-term, compared with 43% aged 50 and over.
As the pandemic continues to spread, anxiety levels about the economy are rising. The number of people worried that coronavirus will cause long-term unemployment jumped from 26% to 62% in just the space of a week. Similarly, two thirds of Brits now believe there will be lasting damage to the economy, which is up from 36% a week before.
Image via YouGov
Coronavirus drives surge in job applications to retailers
Retailers have seen their normal rate of job applications skyrocket in the past week or so, with the majority of applications coming from people in the hospitality industry who have just been made redundant.
According to TribePad, the daily rate of applications to retail businesses increased from 5,000 per day to more than 200,000 on Friday 20th March. After supermarkets issued an urgent appeal for staff, Saturday evening saw another big spike, with more than 300 people applying for roles every minute (compared with nine per minute in the previous week).
While hiring activity in the food and grocery sector is on the up, other sectors are seeing a downturn. TribePad data shows that job applications have dropped by 73% in recruitment, 33% in hospitality, and 23% in healthcare compared to the same week in 2019. Meanwhile, organisations in other sectors like fashion retail and hospitality have paused all recruitment activity.
Image via TribePad
Social media
Activity on Facebook’s messaging apps has increased more than 50% in hardest-hit countries during the past month
In a blog post published on 24th March, Facebook outlined how the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in a surge in usage of its messaging apps.
According to Facebook data, total messaging has increased more than 50% over the last month in many of the countries hit hardest by the virus. Similarly, in places hit hardest, voice and video calling has more than doubled on Messenger and WhatsApp. In Italy, specifically, Facebook has seen 70% more time spent across its apps since the crisis started, while Instagram and Facebook Live views doubled in a week. Messaging in Italy also increased over 50%, and time in group calling (with three or more participants) increased by over 1,000% during the last month.
Despite this, Facebook stated that its business is being adversely affected by coronavirus, in particular its ad platform. This has been echoed by Cowen & Co, which forecasts Facebook ad revenue for 2020 to be $67.8 billion, which marks a drop of $15.7 billion from Cowen’s previous forecast.
45% of global consumers spending more time on social media
A new report by GlobalWebIndex highlights changes in consumer behaviour during the coronavirus pandemic. In a global survey of over 13,000 consumers, conducted between 16th-20th March, GWI found that 95% of consumers are spending more time on in-home media consumption. Unsurprisingly, there’s been a marked increase in watching news coverage, with two in three global consumers spending more time doing this activity.
Across the 13 countries involved in the survey, over 50% are watching more streaming services, 45% are spending more time on messaging services, and almost 45% are devoting more time to social media. Interestingly, over 10% also say they are creating and uploading videos.
Elsewhere, the report notes that views on advertising are polarised. When asked if brands should carry on advertising as normal, just over a third agree, just over a quarter disagree and just over a third aren’t sure. Gen Zs (38%), men(39%) and the higher income group (39%) are the most likely to agree that advertising should continue as normal.
Poem along with the first ever April PAD Challenge Countdown, in which Robert Lee Brewer shares a prompt and a poem (to get things started) in the 10 days leading up to the 2020 April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For today’s prompt, write a hope poem.
For today’s prompt, write a hope poem. In these odd, time-warped days, the world really could use a little more hope. So let’s share some today—even if it’s just the hope for the possibility of hope.
Remember: These prompts are just springboards; you have the freedom to jump in any direction you want.
Re-create Your Poetry!
Revision doesn’t have to be a chore–something that should be done after the excitement of composing the first draft. Rather, it’s an extension of the creation process!
In the 48-minute tutorial video Re-creating Poetry: How to Revise Poems, poets will be inspired with several ways to re-create their poems with the help of seven revision filters that they can turn to again and again.
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