Marketing News Digest: April 2017

What happened in the world of marketing news last month? When you had your head down analyzing ad performance or creating your next campaign, it's easy to miss some of the headlines. Our monthly digest takes a bird's eye view of the month in marketing so that you can catch up and get back to your business. Now, onto the news...

Marketing News in April 2017

Here are some of the stories, news, and analysis you might have missed last month:

• Billions in Brand Loyalty - The American Marketing Association (AMA) reported on a Journal of Marketing Research study that brand loyalty is worth an 11% increase in long-term valuation. Spread across the average market cap of the S&P index companies, that equates to a cool $1.1 billion. So yes, brand building is worth billions!
• Flight or Fight? - United Airlines offered an exemplary (or excruciating) lesson in how not to handle public relations problems. Its CEO's non-apology and subsequent back peddling show how important it is in the digital era to admit to mistakes and act quickly to resolve customer complaints. This article from travel PR veteran Rolan Alonzi explains what went wrong and the lessons other brands must learn.
• Rise of the (Chat)Bots - With the launch of Messenger 2.0 at Facebook's F8 conference last month, the machines took another step towards replacing customer service reps. Okay, that's a little premature. Nonetheless, the wealth of bots that users can explore and the rapidly improving level of artificial intelligence should act as an alert to marketers and business owners: be ready to offer customers what they want. New providers like Botway are arriving all the time, so this is an area that marketers and business owners must keep an eye on.
• Linkedin Hits Half a Billion - After its purchase by Microsoft last year, many are wondering what's next for the professional side of social networking. With this major milestone reached that question becomes even more important. As a business marketing on the site, here are some useful tips to improve your Linkedin page from the data-driven folks at Buffer.
• April Fools' Advertising - Winning brand attention on the largest pranking day of the year is a risky proposition, fraught with the potential to damage your brand. Get it right, however, and the opportunity to entertain potential customers is sure to create a positive association that improves brand recall. Are there upcoming holidays or events that you can use to make your business more memorable?
• Instagram Eats Snapchat's Lunch - Snapchat was the VC media darling for a while there, but it's old favorite Instagram that seems to be winning the war. Insta's new 'Stories' feature racked up 200 million daily active users, 39 million higher than Snapchat's original. More tellingly, Snapchat's growth plummeted by 82% after that same feature launched last year.
• Burger King Hijacks Your Home - Your Google Home, to be precise, as the also-ran of burger making aired a commercial that includes the device's activation phrase "OK Google." From there, the ad spot asks the home assistant to talk about the Whopper, until Google shut the whole scheme down a few days later.  Good for a bit of short-term press attention, certainly, but smaller brands are better served thinking about how they can gain a legitimate presence on smart home assistants.

  That's all for another month. Join us for another marketing round-up next month. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter for the latest marketing news.  [search-tag]