Why More Brands Should Jump On The Livestreaming Bandwagon

In 2019, Singles Day broke all retail records with sales hitting more than $38 billion in the 24 hour period. In fact, merchants and brands participating in the online retail festival earned as much as 20 billion USD from livestreaming alone, selling furniture, apparel, beauty, and consumer electronics.

Livestreaming’s roots can be traced back to live television shopping shows such as QVC and Home Shopping Network, where people could shop for, well, anything under the sun. The faces of these shows were enthusiastic individuals who hoped to make the audience believe in the brand and product. Decades later, we have influencers, actors and other social media stars doing the same thing – only this time, we get to carry them around in our palms and pockets.

In China, livestreaming has become a source of entertainment, with many brands and influencers using it as a tool to launch and quickly sell their products. On livestreaming platforms such as ShopShops, luxury brands and independent re-sellers alike have found themselves a dedicated audience that is quick to lap up their offerings.

But just because a bunch of brands are jumping on the livestream bandwagon, should you? Here are some compelling reasons:

To woo your Gen-Z audience 

Young audiences want quality content at their fingertips, and they want it now. Tune in to Instagram, Facebook, Twitch, Periscope – any platform which facilitates livestreaming and it’s easy to see why.

The scope for consumer engagement and interaction is unlimited – people can ask questions, make purchases, receive updates on their favourite brands or insider information about exclusive launches, and send the host love and appreciation in the form of react buttons and stickers. What’s more, all of this occurs in real-time on people’s handphones.

Beauty brands favoured by millennials, such as Fenty Beauty, Glossier and Sephora have been innovating with their usage of livestreams, where they regularly invite influencers, makeup artists and celebrities to create looks and conduct tutorials. Rihanna herself has regularly taken to livestreaming to promote and educate consumers about the latest products.

To showcase your brand and start a conversation

Why fork out precious marketing dollars for a promotional video campaign, when you can just as easily and effectively leverage live-streaming at a lower cost, and ensure that you reach a wider audience. With livestreaming, you can kickstart a long-lasting conversation with fans and customers, and build credibility by having professionals display and vouch for the quality of the products.

Announcing new products and offering exclusive packages and deals during a livestream is also an excellent way to gauge demand for it.  However, live-streams should be more than simply getting your product to fly off the shelves. You want to connect with people emotionally so they keep coming back to watch you.

To increase authenticity

There is also something inherently raw and realistic about live-streaming, which comes across as intimate and authentic to fans. While polished video campaigns highlighting new products in detail are undoubtedly appealing, the spontaneous and uninhibited nature of a live-stream draws in people easily.  

There is no scope for editing, deleting or revising parts of the content — all the action unfolds before the viewer’s eyes. Sometimes, live-streams do not even need to be in a professional studio with perfect lighting. Influencers and indie brands will often film a session from the comfort of their homes. This makes viewers feel as though they are being included in the private world of an Internet personality.

As a brand, you would want to make yourself accessible to customers at all times. Why not turn to a tool which will help you reach a wider audience, and lend you the visibility to grow?

Want to make livestreaming a part of your media strategy? Write in to hello@mutant.com.sg and we’ll make it happen!

 

Here’s How To Get Your Singles Day 2020 Strategy Right

Taylor Swift’s recent mini-concert in Shanghai was nothing short of dazzling. Bedecked in a stunning geometric ensemble and thigh-high boots, the singer crooned her latest singles “Me!”, “You Need to Calm Down”and “Lover”. Some viewed this spectacle live at the Mercedes-Benz Arena, while others watched from the comfort of their television screens.

None of this was a promotional effort to publicise her latest album, nor was Shanghai a stop one of her world tours. No, all of this was to commemorate 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, a gargantuan shopping event that has grown rapidly to become a full-scale cultural proceeding, complete with its own set of rituals and practises employed by zealous shoppers wanting to get their hands on irresistible deals and discounts.

What started as a mega-sale day for Chinese youth who wanted a way to celebrate their lack of romantic companionship has ballooned into a global celebration of consumerism, freedom of choice, and, of course, capitalism. Spearheading this retail revolution is Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba, which earned an eye-watering $30 billion in salesfor this year’s Singles’ Day. Singles’ Day has grown to be so staggeringly massive, that major shopping holidays popular in the Western world, such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, pale in comparison.

The event isn’t limited to China: Southeast Asia seems to have caught the shopping bug known as Singles’ Day. Regional ecommerce retailers such as Lazada received a record-worthy 3 million orders within the first hour of 11th November, 2019. Fuelling this consumerist frenzy is the region’s robust Internet economy, which is projected to be worth $300 billion by 2025, and which is led by shopping via mobile channels. After all, APAC is home to more than half the world’s mobile subscribers.

While major Internet-driven sales are generally lucrative for brands, Singles’ Day is the most scrumptious pie – which means retailers both local and international are fighting tooth-and-nail to get a share of. If you want in, here’s what you must understand:

Young people are your friends:

Yes, it is Millennials and Gen-Z kids who are quick to flock to ecommerce sites hoping to get their hands on massively discounted goods that otherwise might have been out of reach for them. Ignoring these groups because you think they do not have adequate disposable income will be the beginning of the end for your brand.

After all, it is the people who grew up on the Internet who can expertly navigate even the most cluttered ecommerce interface and emerge triumphant with a big shopping basket. Remember why Singles’ Day exists in the first place – for youth people to celebrate their independence.

Mobile is everything:

If all customers can do is access and browse a smaller version of your brand’s website on mobile, you need to rethink your mobile strategy. Simply offering a mobile-optimised website is not enough in this age of technology, when bigger players are devising novel ways to enhance the consumer experience.From immersive multimedia journeys to virtual reality, interactive games and live-streaming, companies are pulling out all the stops to ensure consumers lose themselves in the story that the brand experience is trying to convey. Several Chinese brands have found success in live-streaming, with a beauty brand earning 100 million yuan in a matter of six minutes. In fact, to get a jump on the excitement for 11.11, beauty brand Estée Lauder used live-streaming campaigns to entice people to buy its products as early as October.

In 2018, more than 90%of Singles’ Day sales were made via a smartphone. And given that Southeast Asia’s penchant for handheld devices is well-documented, it would be wise for you to start perfecting your brand’s mobile experience.

Strong brand image:

Keep in mind that during Singles’ Day, most people are usually searching for the best deals. This means that their loyalty can go out the window and their purchases will go to the brands that can give them the most bang for their buck.However, if you can tie brand loyalty to great deals, you’ll find yourself on the winning side of the shopping event.

Instead of trying to please everyone with grand marketing efforts and deep discounts, use data and insights to help you focus on satisfying niche consumer segments that have patronised your business from day one. Work to boost greater brand loyalty amongst people who would naturally gravitate towards your brand, and make sure they are incentivised to find the right products at the right prices at the right time.

Singles’ Day 2020 will likely be an even grander, more extravagant affair than 2019 saw, with brands and businesses going head-to-head in order to grab precious consumer dollars. Bump up your digital strategy, know your consumers, and success will be yourself.

Start planning ahead NOW – write to us at hello@mutant.com.sg for a kickass Singles Day 2020 strategy. 

Why Brands Need Social Media Community Guidelines

We’ve likely all excitedly published a post on social media and then quickly clicked the comments only to be horrified by an off-colour message. Be it abusive, racist, homophobic, sexually explicit, or plain ignorant, inappropriate comments can feel like a punch to the gut, and are embarrassing to have underneath your post.

Though these comments sometimes come from your always-inappropriate uncle or a friend with a weird sense of humour, they can also come from trolls – strangers who post incendiary comments just to get a rise of others. And though trolls can (and do!) target posts from regular people, brands with name recognition and large numbers of followers often receive much of their focus. Trolls will work to skew the conversation a brand is hoping to nurture online via inflammatory rhetoric that ignites outrage and shifts focus away from the brand’s message or intent.

The implications of trolling on users and brands

Worryingly, these types of comments can cause users to turn not on the brand, but each other. Suddenly, users will attack and bully those with differing opinions, and these comment threads can devolve into virtual boxing matches that turn personal and can result in real mental and emotional wounds.

There is ample research surrounding the turmoil cyberbullying can bring on a personal level, including increased likelihood to engage in self-harm or suicidal behaviour. But brands, too, can see digital ire move into the real world in very dangerous ways. YouTube headquarters in California was attacked by a female shooter who was upset about the company’s policies in 2018. In the same year, CNN received a pipe bomb in the mail from a man who was disgruntled about their political coverage.

In order to discourage and curtail language that can lead to dangerous behaviour, social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr have put into place community guidelines that lay out the types of language and visual content users should not use. If users violate these guidelines, they run the risk of being suspended from the platform.

Though social media platforms do follow through and suspend accounts, trolls and cyberbullies are often barely discouraged by these measures due to the fact that if they are suspended, they can simply set up a new account using a new email address. Plus, it sometimes isn’t clear what does and does cross the prohibited content line because everyone has different personal standards, not to mention the fact that sarcasm and dark humour can be hard to discern online.

Strong social media guidelines curtail online vitriol

In order to keep comment sections from turning into cesspools, brands active on social media are now establishing their own community guidelines.

For instance, in March, the British royal family announced social media community guidelines, seemingly as a response to abusive, hateful and threatening comments made toward both Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, and Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex. The family’s guidelines detail their expectations for courteous and respectful engagement, and clearly state that they will use their discretion to determine if someone is in violation of their standards. Additionally, the famous family’s guidelines establish the actions they may take against those in violation of the guidelines, including deleting comments, blocking users and alerting law enforcement if comments are threatening.

Unfortunately, the existence of such guidelines does not mean that trolls will suddenly clean up their act. But the guidelines do provide brands the opportunity to condemn hate speech, communicate to their followers what their expectations are when it comes to engagement and establish transparent protocols for when and why they delete comments and block users.

If your brand does not already have social media community guidelines in place and is looking to establish a set, here are some things to consider:

  • Be clear in your policies: Revisit your company handbook or human resources policies and use the language regarding the sorts of behaviours that are not tolerated to begin drafting your social media community guidelines.
  • Condemn hate, not criticism: Though no one enjoys being criticised, criticism can be useful – especially when brands are hearing directly from their audience and learning how they respond to different messaging. For example, when Pepsi released a campaign featuring Kendall Jenner and tying into the #BlackLivesMatter movement, the response to it was swift and the ad was deemed tone deaf – a lesson that Pepsi needed to learn. Though this type of negative feedback can be harsh, it is very different in nature from comments that are abusive and offensive, and should not be discouraged.
  • Enforce your community guidelines: Once your guidelines are announced and in place, do not be complacent. Your social media teams should monitor comments and enforce the guidelines consistently. After all, there’s no use of putting the guidelines in place if they are only there in theory – you have to practice them, too.

Taking a stand against hate speech and cyberbullying is a just cause, and one that your brand can champion. So if you notice that the comments on your posts make you want to log out, then it’s time to get your community guidelines in place to protect both your brand, your message and your audience.

Need help fighting the trolls? We can help: hello@mutant.com.sg

 

 

Why Brands Should Consider Being Woke

Of late, brands have woken from their corporate slumber to take stances on socio-political issues. Diversity, racial and gender inequality, LGBT rights are just a few of the issues which companies have been addressing and incorporating into their brand—from marketing campaigns to core business values and beliefs.

Leading this politically aware pack is rebellion’s poster child Nike, which succeeded in raising eyebrows doing what other sports brands wouldn’t dare to do–courting the controversial Colin Kaepernick in its latest ad campaign. Nike is not alone in receiving heat for its marketing campaigns. Citibank became the first Wall Street Bank to restrict firearms sales by its business customers – a move both lauded and criticised by people on either sides of the gun control debate.

Enter purpose-driven brands, the latest entities to dominate today’s saturated, hyper-politicised media landscape. While maintaining an opinion used to be a right enjoyed solely by humans, the companies of the 21st century bear little resemblance to their corporate cousins from the previous century. Today, companies who fight the good fight resemble a sentient humanoid with well-rounded, coherent, and informed views on sensitive socio-political issues.

By right, the phenomenon of corporations being politically aware is not new — there have always been some who considered activism to be as important as their bottom-lines, if not more. In the Eighties, ice-cream company Ben and Jerry’s went against the grain by extending health benefits to same-sex couples–almost unprecedented in a time when homosexuality was deemed unnatural. The Body Shop’s Anita Roddick dedicated her entire life to being a vocal advocate for animal rights and environmental causes also while also managing a multi-million-dollar skincare and beauty business.

When firms assume positions on sensitive issues, they transcend their status as capitalist entities and resemble full-fledged humans. In short, by espousing the views of their consumer base they become just like the person they serve, or hope to serve.

Of course, brands with a global reach are likely to have a customer base diverse in thought and belief. Choosing a side in any hotly-debated political topic means alienating some customers on the socio-political spectrum–but also winning the endorsement of several others.

Down with the Youth

Many young people of today no longer view corporations (or capitalism, for that matter) as a positive force. Social media has made it much easier to document and scrutinise in detail the shortcomings of corporate entities. As millennials are one of the biggest consumers of online content, they have no difficulty in accessing vast amounts of information about the companies they patronise. More and more youngsters are taking time to educate themselves on critical socio-political and economic topics, and expect the same from the entities providing them with goods and services.

There is plenty of research to suggest that more young people resonate strongly with “woke” brands than other generations. Gen-Zs are a force to be reckoned with and command considerable financial influence. As a result, companies must work harder to retain relevance with those aged 16-35–and not just perform lip service in the form of rainbow filters and themed merchandise. Levi’s, American Eagle, and Converse are examples of companies who talk the talk and walk the walk–in addition to selling LGBT merchandise, they work with and donate to several organisations which support marginalised communities. Conversely, several consumers have boycotted fast food chain Chick-Fil-A, which reiterated its stance against gay marriage.

Look Beyond Yourself

The relationships brands share with consumers can no longer simply be transactional. Nowadays, people make informed choices regarding products, taking into account not only their own selves but also the wider ecosystem. For instance, consumers are turning to “ethically/responsibly sourced” or “cruelty-free/vegan” products (clothes, food, make-up) which are not environmentally detrimental. When a company goes out of its way to do good, it usually wins the unwavering support of loyal consumers.

If the corporations they patronise do not share their value system or do not make good on their promises, consumers will simply find another company whose actions resonate with their belief system. Consumers in the 21st century seek affirmation through the products and services they consume, and consider factors such as sustainability, inclusivity, and quality to be an integral part of their purchase and consumption journey. Urban Decay Cosmetics, Fenty Beauty, Patagonia and H&M are companies which put sustainability and inclusivity at the core of their businesses.

Court Quality Employees

The implications of a socially conscious brand extend not only to consumers, but also to employees. More millennials and Gen Z-ers are gravitating towards companies whose political stances and actions echo their own. Employees are likely to be happier and more productive in a socially-conscious firm. As an employer, if attracting the next generation of talented changemakers is a priority, then it’s time to start speaking to them in a language they understand.

Of course, purpose-driven brands are not without their naysayers. People proclaim that by latching themselves onto pressing issues, companies are distracting the gullible from considering their “dark deeds”. Keen observers of pop culture have been quick to point how the patterns of brands suddenly becoming social justice warriors is nothing more than late-stage capitalism — a ploy where companies use emotionally-charged marketing tactics to get tongues wagging, generating traction for themselves. In the case of a sports brand whose hard-hitting rebranding campaign proved to be highly profitable, netizens brought to light its unethical and inhumane business practices in foreign countries.

Picking a side is a risky move, both socially and financially. While established companies can weather consumer boycotts and other controversies, smaller firms struggling to establish themselves might not fare so well–unless they have very clearly defined goals and visions from the get-go.

Brands who wish to embrace a meaningful cause in addition to their business endeavours must be consistent in their efforts. For instance, a brand which champions gender equality while underpaying its female employees is clearly faking its wokeness to exploit the emotions of liberal youth. Its cause of choice must be relevant to the history or culture of the brand–if not, its efforts will appear to be shoehorned in and insincere.

Need help crafting an assertive voice? Talk to us at hello@mutant.com.sg

4 things Kim Kardashian can teach us about a solid social media strategy

Kim Kardashian – love her or hate her, you can’t deny that she’s created a massive empire and cult following. Having recently won the Council of Fashion Designers of America influencer award, Kim is truly one of the biggest influencers of our time. With 113 million Instagram followers (that’s the sixth most followed in the world) and 60.2 million followers on Twitter (that’s more than Donald Trump), she is truly the Queen of social media. What really catapulted Kim into fame? How does she maintain such a large following and influence despite an equally notorious reputation, and what can brands learn from her?

Know your audience

Kim brands herself around glam, beauty and luxury. In fact, all of her ventures now are centered around these themes. This is what her audience knows her for and it’s what they expect her to share with them and thus creates personalised content for them. Diverting from this may cause a scattered brand identity that people are unable to understand or follow and result in lower followership. This means keeping in mind integrated marketing communications – a single brand image across all platforms.

Also, always listen! People like to promote products, but Kim thinks it’s equally (if not more) important to listen as well. To engage with your audience makes them feel like you’ve taken their thoughts into consideration. For all you know, your audience just might be your inspiration for the next big campaign!

Capitalise on opportunities

Opportunities don’t always come in pretty packages. Kim once supported a morning sickness prevention brand once and got a lot of flak (even from the Food and Drug Administration!) for not posting the drug’s side effects. However, Kim managed to turn the situation around by taking ownership for her actions. This moment garnered a lot of publicity (negative or not) that made people more interested in Kim’s life.

It’s all about taking the opportunities that have the potential to help you build brand awareness. Kim’s #breaktheinternet moment with Paper magazine was unpaid but was something that created buzz about one of her most famous assets – her butt. If that’s not capitalising on opportunities, I don’t know what is!

Stay authentic

This is a sure way to prevent a PR disaster. When you’re that well known around the world, people will be watching your every step. Post something that’s not true to you and people will immediately catch wind of it. That’s why it’s important for you to endorse items and posts that are true to your brand identity to prevent backlash. Kim always promotes products that she herself loves and uses so that she knows she’s promoting a good product to her audience.

For example, the first product Kim launched from her beauty line was a contour kit. This was done with the vision that she wants to sell products she believes in and uses often. This works hand in hand with knowing her audience. Kim wanted to be able to sell her famous contour look to her audience, who look to her for beauty inspiration.

Use every platform

Different platforms have different strengths and Kim capitalises on that to maximise the use of different social media outlets. According to Kim, each platform has a purpose to serve.

Facebook is good for click-throughs, snapchat showcases more of your private side, Instagram is good for showing the actual product and twitter is good for having a conversation with people. Based on what you are trying to accomplish with your brand, it’s important to keep this in mind while curating social media posts and do what will work best with your audience and keep them engaged.

Still not sure how to create content for your brand? Check out some tips here on how to create digital marketing gold.

Want to break the Internet like Kim? Drop us a message at hello@mutant.com.sg