Thoughts from the CEO – October 2020

In the last quarter of this calendar year, digital marketing’s response to the global pandemic is becoming clear.

In hard hit industries such as travel, China’s recovery has been driven by a focus on younger demographics in emerging social platforms to drive up local demand for transport and accommodation. So while international travel remains profoundly changed in our remote-first world, a new customer base is active and willing to engage with brands they have not used before.

And it is also true that the landscape of marketing has shifted decisively online for travel, with a collapse in offline spending signaling a seismic break from the old approach to marketing that have been relied upon as a matter of rote, rather than validated performance and results in recent years.

This shift is also true for the world of retail, and as marketers it is now our responsibility to support the move to new brands and behaviors that is our ‘New Normal’. In the UK for retail, we now have 75% of consumers trying new stores, sites or brands since the start of the global pandemic. 60% of consumers expect to integrate these brands into their lives post-pandemic. In the U.K., online commerce peaked at 33% share, the highest ever.

We are in a new reality, and digital marketing is at the forefront of brand’s toolkit to rebuild their customer base. There is no more exciting time to be a marketer.