This year is all about authentic experiences, story-telling, exceptional customer service, relationships, connections, niche content, niche apps and big insights instead of big data. Presentation by Melissa Chetty, Head of Digital Marketing at Creative Spark.

1. DIGITAL MARKETING
TRENDS AND INSIGHTS
Melissa Chetty | Head of Digital Marketing

2. The Landscape
Out of our total population
of about 54 Million
people, 24.9 million are
active internet users, 11.8
are active on social
media, and 10.6 million
are active on mobile
social media. Note how
many mobile connections
there are compared to the
population – how many
devices do you have?

3. The Landscape
Whatsapp is still
dominating the top social
platforms in South Africa.

4. Top Trends and Insights
• Content Marketing
• Big Data
• Next Generation Social Networks
• Social Commerce
• The Age of Relevance
• Customer Experience
• Hyper-local Mobile Marketing
• Wearables
• Sharing Economy

5. Content Marketing
“Content marketing is a strategic marketing
approach focused on creating and distributing
valuable, relevant, and consistent content to
attract and retain a clearly-defined audience —
and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer
action.” - CMI Institute

6. Content Marketing
Content Marketing moves
from buzzword to a
specialised, insight-driven
marketing tool and is still
the most commercially
important Digital Marketing
trend of the year.
Source: SmartInsights.com

7. Big Data  Actionable Insights
“Data has become such a powerful force in marketing that
it can no longer be left up to analysts to capture and
analyze every piece of information.
Data is becoming essential to every marketing role, making
it necessary for everyone to have a hand in analytics. In
2015, data analytics will increasingly become more user-
friendly so that every marketer on your team will be able to,
on some level, analyze the results of their marketing
efforts.”
~Business2Community.com

8. Next Generation Social Networks
Consumers have
more social network
choice – from
Snapchat, Whatsapp,
WeChat to Tinder and
Telegram. How do we
join the conversation?

9. Next Generation Social Networks
Marriott Hotels is the first hotel brand
on Snapchat, reaching the next
generation traveller with an influencer-
led content strategy.
“The majority of brands are using
Snapchat to push out ads, we’re
actually partnering with influencers to
co-create content” ~ David Beebe –
Marriott Hotels

10. Social Commerce
Shopping on Instagram? Why not. It’s the
equivalent of going to the malls with your friends…
“Think Amazon meets Facebook, with executions
like one-click ordering from Instagram. It appears
this generation of shoppers prefers to do it with
their friends for recommendations and
reviews. No surprise compared to the offline
analog of going to the mall with your friends.” ~
George Deeb (Forbes).

11. Social Commerce
Estimated global social commerce revenue is projected to
grow to 30 billion U.S. dollars in 2015
A prognosis for
worldwide social
commerce revenue
from 2011 to 2015. In
2014, the estimated
global social
commerce revenue is
projected to amount to
20 billion U.S. dollars
and grow to 30 billion
U.S. dollars in 2015.

12. The Age of Relevance
“Where engagements must be meaningful,
attention is won by relevance & insight is
the new currency.” - Idio.com
Idio is a new generation Content Recommendation,
Personalisation, Retargeting and Effectiveness Review
Tool.

13. The Customer-centric Experience
Brands are shifting focus
from customer conversion to
customer experience.

14. Customer-centric Experience
Smart brands will be brave enough to be honest about
product limitations, and to confront common customer
pain points.
We’ll also be seeing brands opening up this year, becoming honest
and more transparent about product limitations and customer pain
points – this is a great opportunity to innovate and partner with other
companies.
Ebay recently launched a “Click and Collect service” to answer the
growing issues surrounding postal delivery delays, theft etc.
Customers can simply purchase and choose to pick up their products
at a nearby supermarket chain.

15. Hyperlocal Mobile Targeting
“Onsite discovery or communication, in-the-aisle
shopping offers, and iBeacons are tracking mobile
users every step of the way. Scary to some, but
very useful and relevant to others.” – George
Deeb (Forbes)

16. On The Radar
Wearables and Shared
Economy in your
marketing strategy

17. Wearables – for Marketing?
YES. Think hyper local, integrated,
highly engaged, real time and so in-
tune we’ll be able to track your online
purchases, browsing and in-store
reactions to products at first glance.
This could get really creepy though…

18. Wearables – for Marketing?
“Wearable technology is widely forecast to be one of the
most disruptive technology developments since the
smartphone. But that disruption is likely to happen much
quicker than was the case with mobile.
The adoption curve of new technologies is getting
increasingly fast and wearable technology rides on the
back of the trends of mobile, Internet of Things (IoT), big
data and cloud computing.” ~ A Marketer's Guide to
Wearable Technology (eConsultancy.com)

19. Sharing Economy & Microjobs
Airbnb and Uber let individuals act as an ad hoc
taxi service, car-hire firm or boutique hotel as
and when it suits them. But what does this
mean for marketing?
“The sharing economy is the latest example of
the internet’s value to consumers. This
emerging model is now big and disruptive
enough for regulators and companies to have
woken up to it. That is a sign of its immense
potential. It is time to start caring about
sharing.”
~ The Economist

20. Sharing Economy & Microjobs
Microjob platforms such M4JAM offer a new,
creative opportunities for marketers to tap into.
“The M4JAM platform connects brands and
communities. From market research to brand
activation, social investment, research and
auditing, our growing community of Jobbers are
here to help your brand get ahead. Not only do
you get the job done; you also get to engage with
the person that completes your job.” ~
M4Jam.com

21. In Summary
Digital marketing is becoming
more integrated and
connected. This year is all
about authentic, unified digital
experiences, story telling,
exceptional customer service,
relationships, connections
and big insights instead of big
data.

22. Thank you!
Call: +27 21 422 0683
Email: info@creativespark.co.za
Browse: www.creativespark.co.za
Tweet: @creativesp