With much misinformation, the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccination has been low within ethnic minority groups.

GottaBe! together with the NHS, began raising awareness on vaccinations to educate the ethnic communities in Hampshire. As multicultural marketing specialists, they know how to engage the ‘hard to reach’.

Their community champions began to spread the word, starting conversations in the communities. This allowed GottaBe! to merchandise ethnic stores and connect with local employers to effectively reach the Eastern European community in Hampshire. GottaBe! used their knowledge of ethnic minorities to make COVID-19 vaccination more accessible by sharing targeted information via social outreach.

Along with all the above, a series of radio ads were delivered across Hampshire to ethnic media outlets. All materials were delivered in the appropriate language to allow people to make educated decisions.

Keep an eye out; GottaBe! have made a few changes not to be missed!

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Read what Bryan Gildenberg, SVP of Commerce at OCG, sees as the most important commerce technologies to emerge from this year’s CES show and the implications it has on future trends.

Well, CES 2022 (Consumer Electronic Show), was certainly interesting – having never been before I have nothing to benchmark it against but was great to connect with old friends and new! Earlier this month we posted a three-part series of thoughts on what I saw there through a decidedly retail and commerce lens. These thoughts ranged from the future of data, analytics the “practical metaverse”, data twinning and simple AR applications to name a few – and of course, it wouldn’t be 2022 without some thoughts on the Metaverse! An internal acronym here for Omnicom is OMC, which I’ve begun to joke it should stand for “Obligatory Metaverse Conversation”. Enjoy reading these “Through A Commerce Lens” observations, as all these trends should be interesting to watch in 2022 and beyond. 

Data science in the 2020s will be less about data and more about science – true science. You will be able to know anything, and EVERYTHING will be easy to measure. The amount of money being put into systems that monitor, record, recognize and process people, things, environments, and body functions is, truly, astonishing. Leaders will have to pick and construct meaningful KPIs out of this ocean of observed phenomena.

Commerce Implications: combining granular metrics into meaningful metrics is the real work of commerce data science in the 2020s.

The gap between omni-present granular data and how resources and capital are allocated in most of the companies that represent most of the GDP in the world is gargantuan. VCs are investing in millions of companies that act as aggregational middleware between this ocean of data and scalable opportunities. Watching players that can be more commercially nimble and less constrained by the old regulatory restricted model outmaneuver entrenched players will be a multi-trillion-dollar re-allocation of market value during the 2020s as improved data gets linked to better health outcomes and lower healthcare costs.

Commerce Implications: retail-centric healthcare will use this new ecosystem of alternative health management models, combined with commercial data, to help shoppers manage their healthy lives better.

Parallel ecosystems are evolving in the B2B metaverse which is “twinning”, or the practical metaverse. The idea is to build an exact replica of something and then observe how it responds to complex stimuli – it’s the metaverse with a purpose. Whether it’s the COVID-19 virus, the human heart, traffic patterns or the composition of the atmosphere, it is now possible to build an accurate model of complex systems, and then test/validate shocks and changes to that system.

Commerce Implications: Using the practical metaverse to predict the impact of anything that happens in a physical/digital retail space, and then modelling those spaces based on how it drives the most important KPIs, will gain traction across retailers.

The other critical part of the practical metaverse is the development of low-cost unobtrusive AR enabled eyewear, allowing a machinist to see exactly how to assemble a hydraulic pump, or closer to home for us, a store associate to see exactly how to planogram a shelf.

Commerce Implications: Planogram compliance will become more like “pick to the light” DC fulfilment – a remarkably accurate and old technology that allows simple visual cues to govern repetitive and highly detailed work.

The metaverse appears to have some much better near-in applications when compared to the world of NFTs/blockchain/Web3.0. A lot of the use cases discussed at CES were around NFTs, particularly NFTs of visual images.

Commerce Implications: The way the visual art world has been able to create an entire ecosystem out of NFT’s, is a harbinger of things to come as it tries to address some key issues that are endemic to creativity in the digital space. Expect the entire world of entertainment & commercial commerce to begin to develop attributes of this. Of particular interest is the ability to enforce commercial terms around resale of an item, which could have massive implications for industries like recorded music and event ticketing.

The underrated critical part of the metaverse is a decidedly un-metaversey comms platform Discord, a community management platform that enables large group-text style chats between friends or people who share an interest. Originally a platform used by gamers interested in the likes of Minecraft and Roblox it is today, according to some NFT experts The Headquarters of the Metaverse.

Commerce Implications: Discord does not support advertising so will require real endemic understanding to participate in the ongoing conversations that surround the metaverse. Parallel ecosystems are evolving as “twinning”, or the Practical metaverse.

The NFT world can create scarcity, uniqueness, and authenticity in a digital world of easy replication, zero marginal cost production and a high propensity to fakery. The art market needs all these things to function, hence where you would see this ecosystem take root.

Commerce Implications: NFTs will be a huge part of the economics of fame, style, and status – in the same way Amazon took root as a bookstore because the economics and user experience of bookselling lent itself to a different solution, the economics and experience of fandom and fame seem ripe for NFTs to take root here.

It seems impossible to care about the future and not have a significant, strategic presence in the Korean market. It became a running joke to ask the companies where they had gone live with whatever technology they were selling – the answer was inevitably, “We have x number of these up and running in Seoul”.

Commerce Implications: Companies should use Korea for what they’re using China for today – a Dr. Strange like portal to see the future through. China’s future is so distinctive to China, and in many ways markedly less certain than Korea’s.

Adaptivity will be critical. Coresight Research [quotes] 24% of Americans identify as having a disability – and this number will only increase exponentially, globally, as huge parts of the world’s population pyramid become more top heavy. Simple tools to assist visual and auditory impairment, mobility or even lamps that are designed to improve reading for dyslexics will be enormous growth areas.

The economics and necessity of labour force management will accelerate robotic development and adoption – one of the simplest and best things I saw was a simple model from Bear Robotics that basically handles the scut work of waiting tables (it delivers food and picks up dirty dishes). Brilliant in that it helps the restaurant manage predictability, improves job satisfaction for the human and improves service levels/tips (slow basic service is a tip-killer). Robotics that doesn’t need hand-like function are WAY cheaper to develop than robots that have to grab things (the human hand is one of the most complex machines on earth). 2022 should permit the narrative around robotic technology.

Gaming remains a strangely isolated ecosystem. Much of the excitement about the metaverse is from people enamoured with Blockchain, but its basic premise is most easily imagined in the gaming world. Think of popculture 30 years ago existing entirely contained within subculture, instead of being its foundation. Add to that the fact that most people’s first experience with the metaverse will be through some sort of gaming experience, yet it remains a mysteriously under-invested platform by marketers.

Written by Bryan Gildenberg, SVP of Commerce for the Omnicom Commerce Group (OCG).

The post Through a Commerce Lens: Predictions for 2022 and Beyond appeared first on IPM Bitesize.

Experiential marketing experts N2O helped bring Christmas cheer to Tesco shoppers. At a time when the country was under the severest conditions of lockdown this campaign delivered on two fronts, providing some heart warming entertainment for shoppers as they queued to get into store whilst providing employment opportunity for the cultural industry, which was perhaps the hardest hit sector after frontline workers.

This innovative campaign was based on providing a live Panto experience in short, 3 minute sketches ending with a song (repeated every 20 minutes) and at other times the cast would interact casually with customers. In addition, every 3 hours there was a 30 minute carol and song service.

[vimeo url=”https://vimeo.com/541575711″ width=”500″ height=”300″]

The cast of 775 were professionally sourced, rehearsed and costume fitted. The scripts were specifically written for three old Panto favourites; Aladdin, Cinderella, and Peter Pan. These entertainers performed at 125 stores over two days and brought much needed cheer to well over 1m customers queuing to get into store because of restricted access. This campaign was a winner on so many levels.

Judges’ quote

“N2O’s campaign for Tesco was full of festive spirit. Creating panto magic to put a smile on shoppers’ faces without demanding anything in return, creates goodwill with customers well beyond the pandemic. To also provide work to nearly 800 actors when theatres were closed, showed how a campaign can benefit everyone involved – Oh yes, it did!”

N2O; Nigel Clifton, Head of Creative

Tesco; Will Baker, Head of In-Store Customer Communications

The post Covid Featured Case Study-Setting the stage for some extra festive fun appeared first on IPM Bitesize.

At the very peak of the Covid pandemic, the DfE needed to find a solution to providing school meals for a growing number of household beneficiaries. The quickest and most flexible solution was to provide eligible families with vouchers that could be downloaded or requested by post and redeemed in nominated retailers.

Speed to market was absolutely key to the success of this much needed benefit support. The DfE turned to Edenred, an existing voucher scheme organisation who through their “Select” platform had a model that could be adapted for the campaign, with its own tool kit and business rules specific to the benefit programme. Within the dedicated portal there was advice and guidelines to ensure the public, schools and retailers could engage with the scheme with minimal fuss.

[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqg0oj1Yzac” width=”500″ height=”300″]

This scheme was delivered in an incredibly short lead time enabling the DfE to mobilise this very high profile programme in record time. The scheme came in for a lot of press and public scrutiny, but the results were quite spectacular, over 128m meals were delivered by the end of summer through £483m government spend and 94% of user satisfaction with the scheme and its processes.

Judges’ quote

“The scale of the activity was amazing, and it must have been a pretty monumental undertaking. To maintain above 90% satisfaction in the process is seriously impressive, particularly for a scheme surrounded by negative publicity.”

Credit: Colin Hodgson, Edenred

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We continue with our showcase of incredible campaigns carried out by members of our community through the Covid pandemic period. These cases were selected by our panel of judges as having used creativity or incredible management skills to support the Covid cause or to overcome the problems created by it.

Our feature this week includes Promotigo; using their data and marketing skills to assist the leisure sector to manage the restricted opening up regulations.

Guest Visit by Promotigo; Helen Millichamp Managing Director

Scan, track and welcome back

[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xqkt5jvLyYQ” width=”500″ height=”300″]

In June 2020 as the Covid pandemic looked to be easing, pubs and restaurants had the opportunity to reopen but only under very specific controls. Businesses already in considerable turmoil faced the challenge of having to register every guest who came back to their venue, making sure they adhered to all the government guidelines, and with the specific outlets having responsibility to ensure it complied with fairly complexed data rules and privacy policies.

Promotigo, a promotional platform used for campaign and data management, evolved their platform to create an end‐to‐end journey for venues and visitors to meet government requirements. Outlets could register themselves and create their own unique QR code identity so guests could safely and efficiently register themselves via their phones. The QR code was easy to use and could be displayed throughout the venue where appropriate. As the system was virtually self managed it allowed staff to focus on reopening their doors without the risk of hefty fines or complex procedures. It was so successful it was later adopted by the government with the launch of their tracking app in October 2020.

Judges’ quote

“This was a simple and easy solution to an increasingly relevant challenge across pubs and restaurants in the UK, and the fact that the government later followed this same method with their tracking app is testament to the efficiency of the product.”

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We continue with our showcase of incredible campaigns carried out by members of our IPM community through the Covid pandemic period. These cases were selected by our panel of judges as having used creativity or incredible management skills to support the Covid cause or to overcome the problems created by it.

Here we feature Work Perk, who demonstrate the power of sampling within a case related focus.

Moments of happiness in the toughest of times

Maddi Graham, General Manager, The Work Perk

Campaign Video Watch

Employee rewards and sampling specialists The Work Perk, know more than most the benefit and effectiveness of product sampling. In this case study they demonstrate real creativity in bringing their operational expertise to the aid of critical workers within the NHS and other frontline organisations.

Faced with difficulties in maintaining normal sampling distribution techniques The Work Perk inspirationally directed all its sampling campaigns towards supporting critical workers. With a staggering total of almost 4 million samples from the likes of Kenco, Cadbury, Cif, Heinz and more, which were specifically targeted to appropriate sectors, The Work Perk showed how existing resources could bring moments of happiness to critical workers both in the UK across the globe, at a time when they needed it most.

Judges’ quote

“The Work Perk were flexible and nimble in adapting their core services to effectively leverage their

pandemic‐driven campaign through a multiplicity of channels, underpinned by a digital hub and

upscale it through the power of big brand support around a worthy cause.”

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In the second of our 6 featured cases from campaigns carried out through the Covid pandemic we have another case that we think showcases our industry’s specialism and creativity in overcoming very difficult circumstance.

All of the 6 case studies were selected by a panel of judges from a much wider pool of impressive work carried out by IPM member organisations and this week we are featuring this submission from Whistl.

Whistl

Campaign Management

Karen Roberts, Account Director and Mark Davies, Managing Director, Whistl (Doordrop Media) Ltd

Becs Phillips. Marketing Manager, RNLI

An impressive doordrop rescue

Many of the RNLI’s conventional forms of fundraising were closed-down due to Covid 19 restrictions, stemming vital funding. In addition, the organisation faced increased cost in ensuring their lifesavers were kept Covid safe during continued operations. Alternative methods of fundraising needed to be found to raise a targeted £880k in donations.

The RNLI turned to Whistl who by using donor data and their refined predictive modelling techniques identified specific areas to target potential donors. Whistl also provided support in the creative to help ensure it had maximum impact on delivery.

The campaign helped raise almost £1 million for RNLI, exceeding previous expectations and ensuring that Covid‐19 hadn’t meant a lost summer of fundraising for this remarkable life‐ saving cause. The ROI on this campaign was outstanding and the very nature of this technique meant that 45% of responding donors were new to the RNLI.

Judges’ quote

Whistl did what all good marketing should – target people where they are most receptive. And during a national lockdown the power of doordrops became even more relevant, helping a well-deserving cause stay front of mind even when they couldn’t be face to face, to exceed RNLI’s fundraising targets

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In the first of our 6 featured cases from campaigns carried out through the Covid pandemic we have this example that we think showcases our industry’s specialism and creativity in overcoming very difficult circumstance.

All of the 6 case studies were selected by a panel of judges from a much wider pool of impressive work carried out by IPM member organisations and this week we are featuring this submission from TLC.

One Million Meals

Campaign Managers

Rob Scott, Group Creative Director, TLC Marketing Ltd

Client name,  OMM

Feeding frontline workers for free

Campaign Video

One Million Meals (OMM) was the creation of an entrepreneur who wanted to tackle two of the highest profile aspects the Covid 19 pandemic in one solution. Support and feed our frontline hero’s – Keep our catering industry alive. Through the creation of www.onemilliommeals.uk donors were able to donate at various levels and the proceeds were used entirely to supply frontline staff with wholesome hot food created from local restaurant / catering organisations. A truly fantastic concept but as with many philanthropic endeavours in a not-for-profit enterprise they lacked the media exposure to get the traction needed to be successful.

OMM engaged TLC’s creative department who used design, creativity and its media contacts to achieve valuable cut through at a time when every other charitable cause was trying to do the same. Donating their time for free, TLC breathed new life into the logo and secured over £100,000 of free media, including celebrity endorsements from David Beckham and Amir Khan. The campaign was recognised by the Prime Minister Boris Johnson who sent a personal message of thanks to the founders. How they managed to get the Proclaimers to agree to the re-wording of “500 miles” is just one fantastic example of their boundless energy and resourcefulness.

Judges’ quote

“While, by their own admission OMM was “late to the party” you can’t deny the impressive list of media‐friendly names who endorsed the activity and the positive intent behind it.”

The post Covid Featured Case Study-One Million Meals from TLC Marketing appeared first on IPM Bitesize.

As things begin to return to a semblance of normality, the IPM looks back at some of the fantastic work delivered by its members during the pandemic months. The promotional industry has always risen to the challenges thrown at it by constantly evolving client and consumer needs, however the past 18 months presented us with our biggest challenges yet.

But our IPM members did us proud. They showed they had the skills and the commitment and delivered work that allowed brands to succeed in turbulent times and became the backbone to some of the nation’s most important Covid-19 beating initiatives. We take a look at some of the impressive case studies that have tackled Covid-19 challenges head on.

The IPM called upon its members to submit work showcasing creativity or exceptional management to overcome the difficulties the pandemic created. The response was remarkable and the extent to which our members made a telling contribution was incredible. It would be impossible to showcase all the campaigns, so we asked our panel of expert judges to select their top six. We will share these with you, along with the panel’s thoughts, two case studies at a time over the next three additions of Bitesize.

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The Big Issue (TBI) has launched SVOD channel The Big Issue TV in partnership with Alchimie as its latest innovation in a year of seismic digital change for the social change organisation.

The organisation is capitalising on the fast-growing SVOD market which is seeing a huge uptick in consumers wanting to subscribe directly to premium content that appeals to their interests and resonates with their outlook

TBI TV, will showcase documentary films that are challenging, provocative and vital viewing.

From the environment and politics to social activism, finance, culture, health and technology, the range of subject matter mirrors The Big Issue magazine’s focus on the key stories that shape the world.

All the films have been hand-picked by TBI’s editorial team from Alchimie’s library, one of Europe’s largest libraries of premium programming and are ready to view when and where viewers want, with hours of new content added each month. For a cost of just £3.99 per month, subscribers will have access to a raft of brilliant, thought-provoking documentaries.

“We’re delighted to partner with this fantastic media brand to bring TBI TV to life. Our partnership not only provides TBI TV with a vast pipeline of premium documentaries to choose from and direct management of the channel, but Alchimie Studio provides the editorial team with the ability to create original and exclusive content, animations and highlights –  creating a truly bespoke SVOD channel for TBI TV with unlimited opportunity for creativity and expression. Finally, Alchimie’s technology and distribution network work together to deliver a new revenue stream for the organization, without compromising its brand values.” Said Barry Llewellyn, Managing Director, Alchimie UK

One of the opening offerings on TBI TV will include The Climate Change Cover-Up, which reveals the scandalous suppression of information about the impact of fossil fuels on the planet, right up to the Trump White House era, while A Revolution in Four Seasons charts two women on opposing sides of a battle for the democratic future of Tunisia – the country that sparked the Arab Spring. Fight Hate With Love follows a former prisoner’s battle to prevent children from following in his footsteps.

TBI TV is the latest exciting development in a year of innovation for The Big Issue. In the last 12 months, TBI had to rebuild and recreate the business model almost overnight when the Covid-19 outbreak forced vendors off the street during the first lockdown.

Russell Blackman, MD for The Big Issue, says: “Covid changed everything for The Big Issue and our vendors. The launch of TBI TV is yet another way in which we are adapting and innovating in an ever-changing landscape to grow our reach, influence and impact in order to support some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

“As part of our commitment to digital growth, TBI TV will build a new audience, raise awareness of issues that matter, and inspire viewers to take action. The greater the awareness we can generate, the greater the impact we can have on people and the planet.

“It will also help drive alternative sources of income to The Big Issue that will allow us to continue to provide the essential services and support to vendors, which they desperately need.”

The Big Issue has supported more than 2,000 vendors during the Covid-19 crisis, making payments of almost one million pounds to help them with accommodation, food, bills, connectivity and so much more, as well as maintaining contact with vendors during the difficult months when they were unable to sell the magazine and interact with their customers and local communities.

More than 500 vendors across the UK have signed up to TBI’s new online subscription page, meaning customers can buy the magazine directly from them even while they are off the street. TBI also released a podcast, The Big Miss You, which explored stories of connection between vendors and customers during the lockdown. And the organisation’s digital edition, The Big Issue app and website have been launched, overhauled or re-energised. February 2021 was the website’s busiest month on record.

In addition, TBI has been able to create new products such as a vendor app, to improve digital inclusion for vendors who are frequently amongst the most digitally excluded in Britain.

To subscribe for the introductory rate of £3.99 per month, visit www.thebigissue.tv.

With Big Issue vendors still unable to sell, you can support The Big Issue’s 100 Days of Action Appeal by buying a subscription from your vendor or by subscribing online at bigissue.com/support.

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