As a raving fan of research and analyzing human behavior, I reacted with an adolescent’s Christmas morning glee upon the arrival of the 2022 Nielsen Global Annual Marketing report. For the next few blogs, I’ll take you through some of the findings that could be valuable to how you think about your business, your products and your marketing choices.
Let’s begin by sharing who I am and what Nielsen is, so you know the sources. I am Bruce Thiem, a 30+ year veteran of the media and advertising world and I am CMOco’s Director of Integrated Media. For those who don’t know about Nielsen, they are probably most identifiable as the organization that provides ratings information for television and (now) radio stations. Their numbers and ability to conduct precise market research are well known within multitudes of industries globally. In laymen’s terms, they’re the big dog in the yard when it comes to surveys, research and data gathering and analysis. When they bark, people listen.
From the 30,000 feet viewpoint, the overall key takeaway from the Nielsen report is that “Brand Awareness has never been more important.” As this is a global report, ‘temperatures’ were taken of businesses from Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, Africa…and of course, North America. The report states that “with media fragmentation and sources of brand equity sources evolving, brands need to leverage an array of channels to reach the widest audiences.” Luckily, there is a full docket of ‘channels’ to reach those wide audiences. (More on that later!)
As we emerge from the pandemic, we’re starting to see the results of new consumer behavior that got people through rise to the surface in research as well, and, for better or worse, that pre-2020 genie isn’t going back in the bottle. The Nielsen report states “…some traditional sources of brand equity are less apparent than before the pandemic simply because of reduced visibility. With many consumers shopping less regularly at physical stores, for example, the frequency of seeing a product on a shelf or a sign in the store window has declined.” With the ability to order exactly what you want from the grocery store online, then drive and pick it up without ever setting a foot indoors, the visibility, and ultimately, effectiveness of ‘end-cap placement’ and ‘display’ inside the brick and mortar is significantly diminished. The convenience of shopping remotely is now part of the normal everyday routine for many. This all makes Brand Awareness so important to sustain and grow any business and that requires some fresh thinking and fresh approaches. You may ask, “How does one do this?”
As they say on the media platforms that Nielsen rates, “Stay tuned……”.
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