- June 2, 2020

INTERACT Summit EP. 2 Recap: Key Takeaways and Insights

The social playbooks, strategies, benchmarks brands, publishers and advertisers often rely on have been thrown out the window. Yet, what you missed if you didn’t make it to our INTERACT EP.2 event -- is a deep desire for the leading companies to chart a new path; create a new roadmap, a new...social normal. New is a theme we heard across a day packed with leading social marketers, researchers and thought leaders from the space. Some of the best creativity and new ways of thinking are coming out of these past 8-12 weeks - forcing legacy brands, publishers and advertisers to crunch decades of change into a short window.

  • We’re at a time where 9 of the top ten most engaged Instagram branded integrations are new advertisers to the top spots. And the timing is incredible because actions on branded content so far in 2020 is up 124% on a per post basis...compared to the same period last year.
  • To communicate or not to communicate? One panel took on one of the most asked questions by advertiser/marketers: Should I mind the industry consensus and stay as active as possible during this time or do I adopt a wait & see approach? The emergence of two very distinct audience segments: Those who remain “fearful” of COVID and who probably won’t return to normal media & buying habits any time soon, and those who are “ready and willing” to get back to the business of shopping, eating, and buying outside - right now. These are two very different consumer targets and require two very different marketing/advertising strategies. An additional complication was the importance of the ‘local’ aspect given the uneven rules for communities across the country in their varying phases of COVID re-opening plans.
  • The video gaming and esports industry is no longer a small, niche market that is unknown to most. It’s the new craze, an incredibly popular and growing industry powerhouse that sees billions of social engagements. We sat down with CEOs from FaZe Clan, Allied Esports and Level 99 to discuss the current market and its growth potential in years to come. They’re not content to be a popular vertical, they see the space transcending sports, music, and entertainment.
  • At the start of 2020, there were an estimated 2.5 billion gamers with a 23% growth year over year.
  • We can’t ignore the power of influencers in the “New Normal.” Sara Grimaldi from Fullscreen shared details around how 42% of adults are wanting to start new hobbies, how authenticity is the new currency, and how Chef influencers are seeing 91% gain in actions from the pre-COVID period as people take up a new interest in cooking across the country. Influencers were also cited as an approach to make sure you are speaking to a “local” geography an in-tune with their state of COVID recovery.

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