Originally published in The Commons Journal.
2021 was a momentous year in more ways than one. Dubbed the year of “transformation” by McKinsey Research, 2021 saw people, corporations and society evolve as they adapted to the “new normal” that is living amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.
As we passed the year anniversary since Covid-19 first emerged onto screens and into our lives, it was hard to not feel optimistic, with a vaccine, travel and the opportunity to (finally) shed our athleisure-wear all on the horizon.
And no one welcomed the new wave of positivity more than businesses who had spent months competing in an increasingly saturated digital space, pivoting their strategies to suit the ever-evolving needs of their customers.
But, despite the shift, over the course of the year it became clear that even though our freedoms were (slowly) beginning to return, our lifestyle, behaviour and needs were forever changed.
Now, connection rules supreme – a likely side effect from months spent working remote and plugged in 24/7 to social media.
People searched for authenticity in brands. Burnt-out Gen Zers forgoed their 9-5s in pursuit of happiness. The privacy war came to a head with the roll out of Apple’s iOS updates. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) emerged in hand with the ‘metaverse’ – it was an eventful year to say the least.
But perhaps the biggest lesson that came out of 2021 was that change is inevitable. The digital landscape will continue to evolve and if you want your business to thrive (or at the very least, survive), you need to be agile and willing to evolve, too.
To help us better understand what’s in store for e-commerce brands in 2022, we asked digital gurus and members of The Commons QV Culture Digital Agency (CDA) to unpack the year’s biggest trends and how you can take advantage of them.
Enter: the metaverse
According to Gerard Sison (Director of CDA), 2022 will be the year of the metaverse and the NFT market – in case you missed it, the metaverse is a virtual world where users and brands can create, buy and sell goods.
It combines social media, gaming, augmented reality, virtual reality and cryptocurrencies to allow users to explore new locations, interact with friends, attend events, and more.
Sison explains “Ultimately it will serve as a more powerful communication tool, where you might be able to feel as though you are in the same room as someone who might across the world and have the potential to even communicate fluently in multiple languages as you are translated in real time which is extraordinary.”
While the concept of a metaverse or a virtual world isn’t exactly new (think Fortnite and World of Warcraft, only on a much bigger scale), it started gaining global attention in late 2021 after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg rebranded Facebook to “Meta”, signalling the platform’s desire to shape the metaverse.
Other early adopters include Spotify, Zoom, Amazon (Twitch), Alibaba, Snapchat and Huawei.
In terms of what the future of the metaverse holds for brands, Sison says the metaverse and NFTs “open up a lot of opportunities for the creation of digital products”.
He says they will “change the way we shop online and try on clothes for both the real world and for our digital avatars”.
Businesses and marketers should prepare for the impact this new universe will have on the customer experience and start thinking about what role they want to play.
NFTs are on the rise
As we (and Sison) mentioned earlier, NFTs will play a large role in 2022. But first, let’s break down what an NFT actually is.
An NFT (non-fungible token) is a digital asset that represents a real-world object, such as an artwork, GIF, virtual avatar, song or item of clothing.
Like cryptocurrency, NFTs are bought and sold online and generally encoded with the same underlying software as many cryptocurrencies.
The difference, however, is that NFTs can’t be traded or exchanged for one another. Each NFT has its own unique digital signature which serves as proof of ownership and allows buyers to own the rights to the original item.
The benefit of NFTs is their ability to provide artists and creators with the opportunity to monetise their work. Where in the past an artist may have relied on galleries or auctions to sell their work, now they can sell directly to consumers.
NFTs also allow the original seller to receive a percentage of sales whenever their work is sold to a new owner.
In late December, BoohooMan dropped an NFT collection called “The Future Edit” which featured futuristic tops and pants that users could go into the draw to win.
Joining them in the metaverse was Crypto.com, who airdropped Mars-themed NFTs to users who found a hidden QR code in their film, Fortune Favours the Brave.
As the market for virtual goods continues to boom, it’s clear that brands and marketers need to – at the very least – keep an eye on the ecosystem, if not begin to explore their own digital footprint to ensure they aren’t left behind in the physical world.
People buy into stories, not just brands
While it may seem straightforward, storytelling is one of the biggest factors in connecting with your audience and converting customers into life-long brand advocates.
Sison explains “Most marketers mistake [storytelling] and think it’s about the way that brands talk about themselves and tell their story, which is like being the person at a party who just talks about themselves (boring and uncool),”
“We look at it from the opposite angle. We see the customer as the main character of the story with psychological needs, wants and desires. Our job as marketers is to understand how our products and services help the customer achieve their emotional desires, and consider how we place our products in their story.”
And in an age where customers are continually inundated with content, a compelling brand story is crucial to cutting through monotonous marketing messaging and building meaningful relationships that last.
The first step to standing out is understanding where you fit in. Think: who is my target customer? What do they care about? What or who am I competing with for their attention?
Once you understand this, consider how your brand’s mission and values align – this is especially important when you consider more than two-thirds (69%) of shoppers go out of their way to engage with brands which fit with their own values, and another 34% will stop supporting brands with values that don’t.
The power of word of mouth
In 2022, word of mouth still reigns supreme.
But it’s not always the loudest brands that make the most noise. It’s brands that are authentic in their approach and focus on providing the best possible experience for their customers.
The key here being their customers.
Often brands try to appeal to everybody, but the reality is that in doing so, they appeal to no one. This can be seen in their strategy, messaging or products, where they’ll opt for safer routes for fear of being controversial or, dare we say, disliked.
Think about this in terms of your personal relationships. Often our most valued friendships are with people who have distinctive strong personalities. Of course, this can also put people off, but the point is that you can’t be all things to all people and more often than not, people would rather have less but more meaningful relationships than many but surface level.
You see what we mean?
Which is why understanding who your audience is, what they care about and how they like to be communicated to is vital – this is what creates fan culture and spreads the word organically.
Sison explains “Fan culture happens as a result of a brand expressing their brand values in incredible and noteworthy ways that get people talking. You have to be innovative within the scope of your values.”
“Fan culture is built through peer to peer conversation. Peer to peer conversation only happens when something is worth sharing.”
And once you’ve got something worth sharing, it’s time to double down on your efforts.
“Think carefully about how you express your brand values (product, content, activations etc), invest heavily into the expression of your brand and how you are delivering those creations, experiences and conversations to new audiences (advertising, influential people, through customers etc.).”
First party data in a cookie-less world
Finally, data privacy. The big, Apple-shaped elephant in the room.
When Apple first unveiled its plans to limit app’s ability to track their users activity with their iOS 14 update (effectively limiting advertisers’ ability to target customers with hyper-personalised ads), chaos ensued.
But two years on and a handful of sequential iOS updates later, it’s all working smarter, not harder.
In order to do this, you need to leverage first-party data.
A quick refresher here: first-party data is information gathered directly from your customers. It includes both zero-party data (information that someone voluntarily gives to you like an email address or phone number) and first-party data (information gathered through their activity on your owned properties, such as your website).
In addition to nurturing the relationships you already have (very important), there are a variety of strategies you can implement to acquire new customers and gather first party data including running competitions, utilising website tracking tools, sending out customer surveys, running lead-gen campaigns and installing a newsletter sign-up pop-up form on your website.
These tools will all ensure you maintain a personalised understanding of your audience, their behaviour and how you can best meet their needs.
Second to this is putting out compelling content.
But in terms of what that looks like, Sison says there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach.
“The thing we have learned with working with such a variety of brands is that there is no one [content] trend that works universally. You have to be ultra locked in on your customer, culture and brand values and know what content feels authentic and engaging,”
“For some of our brands they rely heavily on user generated content, for some of our brands user generated content simply isn’t high quality enough to reflect certain values of the brand,”
“I believe it’s important to be in touch with trends (like TikTok and IG Reel content) but it’s also important to avoid being overly trend driven. Trends die hard.”
A solid start to understanding what content best appeals to your audience is to look at what your biggest competitors are doing. Think: what are they doing well that I can learn from and what areas could I improve on?
Once you understand this, it’s all about testing, testing and testing until you find your winning combination (AKA your secret sauce).
Final thoughts
Just like we saw in 2021, there’s no doubt that 2022 will see rapid change and progress in these and other digital trends. The important thing to remember is to – you guessed it – be willing and open to change and embrace mistakes along the way. Because this is where your biggest lessons come from and after all, isn’t that the beauty of marketing anyway?