Digital American Newsletter

66% of Americans want brands to share their opinions on social and political issues, and the majority think social media is the best place to do it.

According to Sprout Social, self-identified liberals are more interested than self-identified conservatives in hearing brands’ points-of-view. Those on the left are also more likely to respond to cause-oriented posts with increased engagement, incremental purchases, brand loyalty and brand recommendations.

Liberals are more apt than conservatives to withdraw support from brands whose publicly-stated values do not align with theirs.

Americans scrutinize the causes that businesses support. They are turned off by companies that appear to be just jumping on the band wagon. Brands that champion causes that impact their customers or employees are the most credible and appealing.

Consumers think roughly 10% of a brand’s social media activity should be dedicated to social and political issues. The most compelling posts highlight donations companies have made and steps their followers can take to help specific causes.

Americans’ desire for brands to speak up on issues is relatively new. Historically, consumer research indicated that brands were best served by keeping their opinions to themselves.

Sources: Bloomberg 2017, Comscore 2017, eMarketer 2017, NPD 2017, National Public Radio 2017, Search Engine People 2017

The good news: smart speakers—Amazon Echo/Alexa, Google Home—are on track to become a compelling new sales channel for a wide array of businesses. The bad news: Amazon will soon have even more power over brands.

At the end of the 2017 holiday season, roughly 15% of US households owned smart speakers. Amazon’s Alexa and similar technology are now used more frequently than smartphone voice assistants like Siri.

57% of smart speaker owners have bought something using voice commands. Of that group, a third spent over $100 on their purchase. Surprisingly, buyers are more likely to make first time rather than repeat purchases. And, a significant group of smart speaker users (31%) say they have spent more money shopping since they acquired the hardware.

If a consumer verbalizes the desire to buy something without specifying the brand, Alexa will make a suggestion, oftentimes the product designated "Amazon’s Choice." According to recent research by Bain & Co., roughly 20% of the time the recommendation is an Amazon private label product. That is far greater than Amazon private label’s "fair share" based on sales volume. Yikes!

Americans who have bought smart speakers tend to be younger, African American or Asian, or parents with young children. 45% of them say they plan to buy additional smart speakers soon.

Sources: Bloomberg 2017, Comscore 2017, eMarketer 2017, NPD 2017, National Public Radio 2017, Search Engine People 2017

Reddit has long confounded marketers. On one hand, it is home to a passionate, engaged group of people who have self-organized into tight-knit communities (subreddits) based on interests.

On the other hand, Redditors (as Reddit participants call themselves) historically have been staunchly anti-marketing and belligerently vocal about what they don’t like.

So, what’s changed? Two things. Reddit has “grown up” and figured out how to support brands that want to participate. And, companies have figured out that if they show up authentically, time and again, they can create a loyal following among the over 300 million monthly Reddit users.

Reddit has aggressively improved brand safety by white listing subreddits, deleting questionable subreddits, and banning ads/”news” from Russia and Syria. They have created new highly targeted marketing vehicles, including autoplay video and sponsored Ask Me Anythings, with more in the works.

Cutting-edge marketers have figured out how to succeed on Reddit. Non-marketing approaches—like quirky group games—have been a hit. Showing up consistently as a true community member also pays off for those with patience. Asking Redditors for input and responding to it with products and services may be the best approach of all.

Sources: AdAge 2017, CNBC 2017, Inverse 2017, MarTech Today 2017

The Thanksgiving weekend set the pace for holiday 2017 ecommerce. The headline: it’s on fire. The details:

• Cyber Monday was the biggest online sales day ever at $6.6 billion, up 17% vs last year.
• Black Friday—which has traditionally been focused on brick and mortar—-was not far behind with $5 billion in ecommerce purchases.
• Almost half of all website visits on the two days occurred via mobile, a big jump vs 2016.
• The share of mobile website visits that led to purchases reached an all-time high. But, mobile sales conversion still lags vs PC.
• Small retailers saw dramatically higher mobile conversion rates than large ones. Experts are trying to figure out why.
• 67% of ecommerce sales in November occurred via desktop/laptop.
• Amazon captured over 50% of online transactions on Black Friday.
• Brick and mortar foot traffic is estimated to be down 1-3% over the Thanksgiving weekend, which led some experts to say, “It could have been worse.”
• And, because everyone needs to know some obscure fun facts: Whole Foods sold more turkeys for Thanksgiving than ever before—driven by discounts and special prices for Prime members.

 
Sources: Adobe 2017, TechCrunch 2017

The statistics are somewhat grim. 46% of Millennials, and 35% of all consumers, use a second screen every single day when they watch TV. Those numbers are going up year-over-year.

Not surprisingly, Americans are more likely to "media multi-task" during commercials than programs. And, they only pay attention to ads roughly one-third of the time.

What are consumers doing instead? 31% browse the internet for content related to what they are watching. 20% try to watch two programs at once. 19% follow online discussions about what’s on TV.

Recent research provides hints about how to recapture viewers. Consumers are significantly less likely to multi-task when streaming TV versus watching live or time-shifted TV. Additionally, streaming viewers are much more likely than others to "second screen" about something that is completely or mostly related to what’s on TV.

Finally, when Americans watch TV with another person, they are much less likely to use a second screen and much more likely to stay actively engaged with both the program and the commercials.

Sources: Council for Research Excellence 2017, eMarketer 2017, IAB 2017, Marketing Charts 2016