At the start of 2021 we reflected on the rollercoaster that was 2020 and looked ahead to 2021’s trends and media landscape. One more lockdown, a few variants and a “tidal wave of Omicron coming” (as Boris eloquently put it) and this year may have been almost as insane as the last.
Many of the trends adopted in 2020 stayed for the better, with virtual launches still proving a powerful tool. Hosting a virtual Marshall event with Iggy Pop was a definite highlight for the Coop! However, IRL events came back with a bang, and everything from Smeg’s Galileo unveiling to the Archive by Sanderson launch with Nick Grimshaw saw media delighted to be reunited. But aside from events, how has the world of PR, social media, communications, and everything in between changed?
How have the press been impacted this year?
Re-evaluating how to spend trade budget
With more brands selling directly, many trade publications have fallen victim of declining circulations and readership across all verticals. With press releases often adapted, brands are questioning whether to use all of their trade budget here when they can speak directly to their industry, peers and customers on your own terms and track it via LinkedIn? Brands are looking for more value from paid activity and only the trade titles that add this are likely to survive.
The effect on print media
Surprisingly, there has not been as big an impact on national newspaper circulations as we might have thought, with the majority returning to pre-COVID figures.
Predictably, numerous newspapers have reported promising jumps in digital subscriber bases. For example, The Guardian has a relatively low print readership but recently hit 1,000,000 digital subscribers, while the FT added digital 30,000 subscribers this year. A few titles have also seen an impressive increase in digital sales – with the Daily Mail reporting an increase in digital edition sales of almost 78,000 in the last year.
Some papers are supplementing falls in print readership with free copies (i.e., 41% of the FT’s circulation is now bulk free copies), while many glossies do the same. Things have gone a little quiet over at Hearst as it opted out of reporting on ABC figures in 2021, however, it reports subscribers jumped 233% during the pandemic. Another frontrunner of the last two years was Immediate Media. Home to the likes of BBC Good Food, Homes & Antiques and BBC Gardeners World, it was the only publisher to see its titles’ circulations grow year on year in 2021/22, proving specialist magazines’ popularity continued.
Future (home to the likes of Wallpaper*, Livingetc and marie claire) is certainly a publisher to watch, acquiring TI Media in 2020 and recently Dennis Publishing in a £200m deal. CEO, Zillah Byng-Thorne came on seven years ago to a stricken magazine company facing the prospect of going bust and has revigorated it to a £4.7 billion stock market wonder. For context, this is more than double the parent company of the Daily Mail, The Independent and Metro’s value. Kerching!
The UK becoming an international hub
For a small island, the UK is dominating the world’s media more and more, becoming a hub for international publishing. In 2017, four out of 10 of the most trusted news sources among US readers were UK-based, including The Economist, BBC and The Guardian.
One of 2021’s most noteworthy stories in the PR world was Conde Nast’s new global restructure. Not only did Anna Wintour become global editor director of Vogue, but editorial teams from the likes of GQ were merged to produce global content.
How are media types blurring?
The worlds of PR, social media and digital comms have become even more inextricably linked. It’s no longer enough to have functionality in these spaces but these must holistically work together to deliver clear, consistent, and bespoke messages for each consumer group.
Titles are widening their content offering through new channels such as social media, podcasts, and newsletters, meaning our outreach has also diversified. Everything from The Guardian to Runner’s World now host podcasts, while newsletters have soared – The Telegraph, for example, now offers eight newsletters aimed at different audiences. The launch of Substack, a platform headed by ex-Elle editor Farrah Storr in the UK, allows you to launch paid-for newsletters and has propelled this trend, providing a wealth of new opportunities for brands.
Publishers are also now focusing on subscriptions and e-commerce to reduce their reliance on advertising, with 76% of publishers confirming digital subscriptions were a key revenue focus. E-commerce, affiliate schemes, subscriptions and events are now all essential as titles switch from being simply magazines to lifestyle brands. For example, Country Walking now offers a membership which gives you a magazine subscription, 250 route cards, a neck tube, special Walk1000miles gold enamelled badge and half price to OS Maps. Digital readership has since soared by 42%!
No longer can publishing houses talk to readers via one medium and a 360 approach is a must to cut the mustard.
What happened on social media?
In short, a lot!
93.33% of Internet users are on social media and that increased by 4.4% alone in the UK last year. Surely social is the way forward to reach audiences, then? Steady on. The MailOnline, for example, reaches 4.1m visitors per day on average and to reach 2.2m to 6.4m on a Facebook ad, you’d need a £5k daily budget.
The rise in social commerce
2021 has laid a path to social media shopping, ready to be walked in 2022. Back in March, Facebook Shop reached the UK, followed by Pinterest launching “Premiere Ads”, allowing advertisers to purchase video placement on the feeds of specific demographics. Over on Instagram, the link sticker became available to all levels of following, providing the tools for it to become an increasingly shoppable platform. With lockdowns forcing retail therapy to go virtual, the number of social commerce buys in the US has reached 80m and is expected to hit 100m at the end of this year.
Short form video’s long rein
In Q1 2020, TikTok was downloaded 315 million times (a record for quarterly downloads for any app, ever). While we were busy making Dalgona coffee and dancing to The Weeknd, Instagram fought back with Reels, joining its IG Video and Stories video content. According to one study, 82% of content will consist of videos by 2022.
As studies suggest the average attention span is now eight seconds, social users are spending less time engaging with posts, meaning bite-sized content is a must. Enter short form videos and ephemeral (or disappearing) content (stories to you and I).
Virtual social media
Despite negative press recently, Facebook (also known, or not known, as Meta) remains the most used social media platform, followed by YouTube. With around 1.8 billion daily users who spend 58 minutes a day on the site on average, it looks to continue dominating the market.
Searches for “social media AR” have increased by 81% over the last five years, encouraging Zuckerberg’s Meta “rebrand”. In late-October, he unveiled plans for a ‘Metaverse’ – an online world where people can game, communicate and work in a virtual environment. Although still in its infancy, AR is projected to gain momentum in the coming years, expected to be a $70-$75 billion market by 2023.
How have consumers changed?
So, what does this all mean for future consumers? They are much more than a target audience or market segment and are now nuanced by going beyond simply ‘a purchase decision’.
WGSN’s ‘Future Consumer 2022’ report highlights the consumer profiles that will drive sales and engagement in 2022, outlining these as the following:
The Stabilisers – Those who prioritise stability across their lives in reaction to feelings of uncertainty. They want simplified retail experiences, calm commerce and to be able to trust brands.
The Settlers – Those desperate to redefine the ‘hustle hard’ work cycle. They want to plant roots in their community but not settle in their careers and are ushering in a new era of localism.
The New Optimists – A group weighed down by the rising levels of fear and anxiety who have an appetite to embrace joy.
What does it all mean?
While these facts and figures may feel like an information overload, they in fact create the framework for our marketing strategies. Whether it’s how many people are reading Good Housekeeping monthly or how long followers are watching video for, decisions should be informed by how a brand’s audience behaves, rather than going off a whim or feeling.
Measuring press and social media in silos can be helpful to determine which activations perform best, but as marketing tools interlink and broaden, it’s more important than ever to listen, understand and then act in 2022
