Cannes Lions Highlights & The Future of AR Shopping – Social Media News

Cannes Lions highlights & the future of AR-led shopping. Here’s our breakdown of the latest social media news, through a digital marketing lens…👇

This week: 

🦁 Cannes Lions 2022 Brings Together Marketing Leaders & Innovators 

💸 Gen Z’s Spending Habits To ‘Disrupt The Global Market’

🤖 Snapchat And The Future Of AR-Led Online Shopping

Cannes Lions 2022 Brings Together Marketing Leaders & Innovators

The 2022 Cannes Lions international advertising and creative marketing showcase kicked off this Monday. Hosted for the first time in-person in two years, it’s bringing together marketing leaders and creative advertising innovators alike. 

This year’s festival is focused on a few themes, including *deep breath* sustainability, diversity, equity and inclusion, data and technology, business transformation and creative effectiveness. Executives from the biggest brands, including Pepsi, McDonald’s, the New York Times, Disney and Netflix will be presenting and discussing all things creative marketing. 

Lions CEO Simon Cook says “CEOs, CMOs, activists and world leaders will convene to collectively address them, take action, find solutions and drive progress through creativity.”

With so many bright minds in the marketing space being brought together, there’s no lack of fascinating ideas to tackle. Take a look at their page to see what talks and events you can get involved with, even remotely. 

One particularly juicy piece of content coming out of Cannes is the discussion surrounding ‘triple jeopardy.’ Unless you were lucky though to attend the event, check out this podcast for more on the relationship between performance, brand and measurement. You can listen to Peter Field, Karen Nelson-Field and Orlando Wood talk about all things attention economy and ad effectiveness here on Spotify.

Snapchat And The Future Of AR-Led Online Shopping 

The future of online shopping has arrived… this means the future of online advertising needs to catch up!

Snapchat has released new data in partnership with Publicis and Alter Agents, exploring how AR technology can be used in eCommerce marketing plans.

This research touches upon many aspects of the customer journey, namely the saturated, (if not outright confusing), path-to-purchase customers are faced with. Gone are the days of the simple funnel. Thankfully, new tech is emerging to aid this customer journey. 

Augmented reality technology adapted for eCommerce could offer a seamless, engaging solution for brands looking to continue to engage their customers online. With a projected value of  $1.2 trillion by 2030, AR is fast becoming a tech solution used by big and small brands alike. 

For smaller eCommerce brands, AR could play a critical role in driving purchases and keeping returns low. According to this new report. “more than two-thirds of AR shoppers say they intend to purchase products after using AR, a finding consistent across markets and categories.” These findings were the most significant in the retail, beauty and clothing industries.

Furthermore, an effective AR experience provides more pre-purchase confidence, resulting in a reduced likelihood of returns. This all-important buyer confidence is a crucial roadblock brands need to overcome when delivering their online shopping experiences. 

We know that Snapchat is working at the forefront of developing eCommerce AR tech. Around 37% of shoppers are discovering AR experiences on Snapchat, making Snap the second-largest facilitator of AR shopping worldwide. Could you make AR part of your campaign plan journey? 

For more information, you can read the full report here. 

Gen Z’s Spending Habits To ‘Disrupt The Global Market’

In the marketing world, it’s no secret that mobile-first advertising is the future. Or for many of us, it’s the present we’re already working in. This means we need to maintain a tight grasp on the digital marketplace.

New data has revealed just how influential Gen Z will become as digital consumers in the coming years. As the first generation to be entirely comprised of digital natives, Gen Z’s spending habits are largely influenced by digital trends. Also, despite the current post-COVID economic downturn, Gen Z hasn’t indicated they’re going to slow down their spending any time soon. 

Brands are now facing the challenge of leveraging the biggest online trends in order to maximise engagement with Gen Z audiences. This includes catering to their new spending patterns and behaviours, which largely happen online. 

RAVE has broken down some key aspects of the Gen Z consumer demographic, including how Gen Zers relate to brands and what kind of impact this has on marketing targeted at them.

Some of the key takeaways include: 

• By 2031, Gen Z’s income will surpass that of Millennials
• Gen Z currently hold $143 billion in annual spending power, with a further $127 billion spent on behalf of family members 
• Diversity is a defining element of Gen Z. There is more diversity in terms of age, ethnicity and sexuality among the 2 billion young people who make up Gen Z than any other generation

Based on this data, it’s clear Gen Z is a disruptive generation, unphased by the financial habits of generations before. And when it comes to marketing, Gen Z’s disruptive reputation continues. 

Brand loyalty appears lower among Gen Z. Only 36% of Gen Zers say they have a strong connection or loyalty to a brand. The data also shows that values like trust, sustainability ethics and inclusion are increasingly important to Gen Z shoppers. They’re expecting more from brands and their marketing alike. 

Also, with such widespread mobile adoption, some of the biggest cultural moments in recent years happened online. This means there needs to be a focus on mobile-first advertising which allows for likes, comments and shares for better engagement from Gen Z.

Another interesting data point suggests that Gen Z are the first generation to actively groom and train the algorithm so social media advertisements show them more of what they want to see.

For more information on Gen Z customer behaviour, check out this infographic from RAVE. 

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