A cup-half-full look at 2020 and what we can expect for 2021
By: Natasha Hill | Managing Director
As we stumble into December, reflecting on the past year (WTAF?), it’s so tempting to use a bunch of adjectives – and expletives - to round up the year we’ve had.
But rather than fall into the trap of using the <begins with u, ends with d> word which, according to the Oxford English Dictionary’s Word of the Year 2020, we’ve all been (over?) using, let’s celebrate the ‘phenomenal breadth of language change’ as well as other positives that have come out of 2020 in the world of communications.
Sometimes, there are no words
Communicating without words – we’re now experts at it. In Facebook Messenger alone, we send 900m emoji-only messages (no text) per day 😲.
During April - the first full calendar month of Lockdown #1 – the 3 top emojis were 😂 😭 🥺
Tears of joy emoji always take the top spot – and it’s comforting to know we didn’t lose our sense of humour, but its use has declined this year by 5.6% according to Emojipedia. The pleading face emoji was the fastest growing emoji as this chart tracking its use over the last two years shows:
As our worlds contracted, we nose-dived into the world wide web
Imagine this last year without the internet. It helped us stay in touch with each other, get the products we needed, organise our work, and kept us entertained.
Digital was also the saving grace for brands.
The IPA Bellwether Report has been tracking the decline in marketing spend each quarter with Q3 seeing the second sharpest decline since records began.
Predictably, the latest calculations show a drop in marketing spend this year of 7.5%, with the drop being caused predominantly by cuts in traditional media, such as TV advertising. Digital spend weathered the storm (wipes brow with relief that Bottle switched to Digital PR a few years ago) although there will be no champagne corks popping for a tiny 0.3% growth in digital ad spend.
We’re all online, even more of the time. So it’s no surprise that it accounts 71.7% of marketing spend – although in reality, it is far higher as these figures don’t include earned and social media,
Brands have had to sharpen their toolkit to optimise all aspects of their digital customer experience. It pays. During the recent Black Friday, shopping apps grew by 23% year on year, according to Apptopia.
But we’re not just shopping. We’re living, looking and buying online. It feeds our needs, but also introduces us to things we weren’t even looking for, connecting us to what’s going on outside of our small circles.
We got behind issues
Perhaps the unity we’ve felt by all sharing this experience has bought a sense of solidarity. We’ve waged this pandemic collectively. We’ve joined together to recognise the selfless acts of the NHS and keyworkers - not just in words, but in the real world. Neighbours standing together in a never-seen-before public display of support each week as we clapped together outside our homes.
We put our hands in our pockets to support the very special Captain Tom who completed his 1,000 steps and raised a tidy £39m along the way.
We also rallied to fight against injustice.
The UK quickly got behind Marcus Rashford on social media, which caused the Government to make a u-turn – twice - to help feed hungry children from low income households during the school holidays. And the brutal killing of George Floyd caused the biggest reaction, and a huge rise in support for BLM movement.
The Google Trends graph shows a surge in interest in the topics, in comparison to some of the other issues such as Brexit.
There’s no real way of knowing, but these surges in interest suggest we had more time during lockdown to spend time looking up, searching for information on these issues. Virality through digital has played a big part, but so has our capacity for compassion.
So perhaps disappointingly, the chart also shows a drop in interest soon after the initial peaks, but let’s assume that the knowledge, consciousness and emotions that arose will have a last impact on us all.
We opened up as we locked down
2020 has had a positive impact on many things but arguably one of the biggest has been how we engage with each other. With glimpses of our homes and family life when on video calls, doing yoga with a load of strangers on Zoom, sharing the ups and downs of the ‘coronacoaster’ of life – it’s added to a healthy rise of authenticity.
If only Dominic Cummings had read that memo.
Of course, this doesn’t beat physical connection, but by opening up, many relationships have got closer and stronger having shared - and rallied together – through the ups and (many) downs of the year. According to YouGov’s British Mood Tracker, frustration saw the biggest rise but perhaps surprisingly, loneliness only grew 2 percentage points from its typical 17% position to 19%. So our digital connections really did help.
So what does all this mean? How will it help?
5 growth predictions for 2021
We didn’t expect the year we had. We would have done anything to change it. But with a growth mindset we will recover, better.
Budgets (however tight) will be directed to online channels. Brands will be seeking not just digital reach, but experiential ways to attract and remain front of mind with their audiences. Money put behind SEO tools will make brands more findable online.
Earned and social channels will grow too. Marketing teams will have seen what they can deliver (in many cases, in isolation of other media channels) during 2020. They are influential, agile, authentic and can achieve cost effective impact at both ends of the sales funnel. 2020 may have been the year for proving their role within the omnichannel mix.
Plans will keep changing as the context changes. Short-termism is usually a negative phrase. In 2021, it’s a pragmatic one - until things become more predictable. The brands (and agencies) that win, will be the ones that keep changing plans to stay culturally relevant.
Kindness will continue to increase its contribution in commercial success. Kindness for the planet, employees, supplier relations, customers and society as a whole. Brands that are generous, and have a clear purpose, will get repaid with strength and stature.
There will be a large swathe of new business opportunities, as marketing teams review their budgets, strategies and agency rosters. Agencies who, during the crisis, have shown flexibility, transparency and a willingness to put their profit margins on furlough, will be rewarded with client loyalty. Others could find themselves on a hamster wheel of pitches for short-term projects.
At Bottle, we’re so grateful that we can call our clients partners, and we haven’t had to say goodbye to any of our team. We’ve supported each other through a challenging year, and we’re all looking forward to a 2021 together, fully united in the world of digital PR.
“The future is so much bigger than the past”
- Tim Berners-Lee