2024 Begins On An Upward Note, U.S. Ad Market Posts Best January Ever (mediapost.com)

With growing calls for consumer privacy on the web, Google parent company Alphabet Inc. and Apple Inc. plan or already have made major changes to customer tracking. Apple now requires user opt-in for apps to track users, and Google is getting rid of third-party cookies on its market-leading Chrome browser. While these changes hearten privacy advocates, they’re likely to disrupt online retailers’ longstanding marketing practices. Without accurate consumer tracking, merchants are worried that a portion of their ads will be less effective at driving sales. In response, merchants plan to shift their marketing dollars to other channels that are more predictable at driving revenue. Online cookies are small pieces of text websites placed on a site visitor’s browser to track preferences, such as language, to know what consumers are interested in, and facilitate other functions. More companies started using cookies in late 1995 after Microsoft Corp. integrated them into its Internet Explorer browser. There are many different types of cookies, but third-party cookies are controversial because advertisers, marketers and data-analytics firms place them on consumers’ devices to know where a consumer’s been on the web, leading to more targeted ads.

R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company (RRD), a leading global provider of marketing, packaging, print, and supply chain solutions, earned recognition in Ad Age’s 79th Agency Report as one of the world’s biggest agencies. The 2023 report represents the fifth consecutive year RRD Marketing Solutions is featured in the agency report. Produced by Ad Age DataCenter, the industry’s most authoritative source of competitive intel, the Ad Age Agency Report includes listings of advertising, marketing services, and media agencies based on 2022 revenue.

Along with “storytelling” and “authenticity” the word “community” gets tossed around a lot these days by brands and marketers alike. While all three of these terms, and the sentiments they carry, are often used as empty platitudes or attractive phrases to sprinkle in an ‘About Us’ page, in their best uses they come from a place of sincerity and real consumer ramifications. In a 2021 study from ebbo, ‘community’ was the second highest factor that contributed to customer loyalty after product quality. But what does community mean for a brand? How can it be grown and nurtured? What does it look like? To answer these questions I want to take a look at three different brands each instilling community with their consumers in vastly different ways. Some take place in online chat rooms, others in secret shopping opportunities, and some through in-person engagement. No matter how they approach it, each of these brands takes what people love about their products and their mission and create a space for that to flourish. read more at: https://www.jschmid.com/blog/creating-community/