Many digital marketing agencies will have experienced an increase in business as a result of the quarantine, as this has led to an increase in internet usage and television watching66. Growth consultants Two Nil, headed up by the brilliant Mark Zamuner, have seen a contrast with the rise in the number of people online, but on the other hand, struggling businesses who were not able to capitalize on the opportunity because they didn’t have the cash flow. Two Nil Managing Director Andre Artacho had this to say on the subject:
“The increase of online audience on those channels was larger than the increase in advertiser’s
appetite to spend,”
There are contrasting figures throughout the industry, with European ad spend falling by 9 % but huge numbers coming from retail ad spending worldwide. A survey from Kenshoo found that some 67% of advertisers have it in their plans to at least maintain if not double down on investment in the likes of Amazon.
Retail Media Spending
It’s true that, as a whole, ad spending has dropped because many businesses would find it hard to justify a large ad spend after furloughing staff. However, some have seen an opportunity and have gone big on retail spending. A lot of this is due to many consumers using Amazon, Walmart, and other online retailers, who are experiencing a rise in sales. There has been an increase of 45% in media spend on retail over the last month and it’s the retailers mentioned above that are benefitting from that.
Added Expectation
Many ad agencies are having to put more work in, with less money, and clients who expect just as much for their fee. For this reason, more and more ads which target individual products and promotions are being noticed, rather than larger-scale campaigns that try to improve the reputation and brand image of a business. For ad agencies, this is a new challenge in addition to the changes in the industry and the investment in it.
Local
Whilst there are many small businesses that are struggling at this time, there is a number that has done very well throughout this pandemic. More often, it’s the ones who have adapted to this ‘new world’ that have actually been able to invest a little in themselves and the result is that we are seeing a larger number of local ads being run than we have for some time. so consumers naturally looked elsewhere. At the same time, there was a message to support local and small businesses rather than the big retail giants, resulting in a large increase for many small and medium-sized local businesses.
Changes have been many during this pandemic, and who knows what further changes will come and what things will look like afterward.
