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Generative AI is everywhere now. You see it in content, campaigns, customer experiences, and even internal workflows. It promises speed, scale, and efficiency, but there’s a harder question sitting underneath all that progress; Do your audiences actually trust it?

Trust in the Age of AI: What Consumers Really Think About AI Generated Content

Today, PR teams aren’t just tracking media coverage and share of voice. They’re also measuring how their brand shows up in AI-generated answers, search summaries, and large language models (LLMs). This new LLM visibility layer is quickly becoming a critical part of PR performance.

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage LinkedIN to grow your professional network and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming how brands show up in AI-powered search. Explore insights, strategies, and best practices to help your content rank and resonate across conversational engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Explore insights and strategies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help your brand stay visible and discoverable in AI-powered search.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.
Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

On our social listening category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around social listening and social media monitoring. Read more.

Social Listening Blogs | Category

Business Reputation Management: What does it take to add reputation management to your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you keep your reputation sparkly and shiny? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

On our reputation management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around business reputation management. Read more.

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

From your brand's logo to your website, your social media presence to your customer support—these elements combined are what constitutes a brand in the minds of customers. But, there are thousands of other businesses that have a logo, website, social media presence, and website. So, how can you position your business on the market and make it stand out from the competition?
The key to success is branding & brand management!

On our brand management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around brand management. Build your strategy and reach your goals!

Brand Management Blogs | Category

Competitive intelligence and the act of collecting competitive data can be seen as growth drivers for a company. Our guide will help you understand the concept of competitive intelligence (CI) by answering questions such as: What is the definition of competitive intelligence? How is competitive intelligence useful to organizations? What is the goal of competitive intelligence? And more.

On our competitive intelligence category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around competitive intelligence. Learn how to stay ahead.

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

Let’s dive into the customer journey framework and how to optimize the process by creating a customer journey map and using metrics that matter when analyzing the customer journey.

On our customer journey category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

What Is Data Analytics? [Beginner’s Guide 2023]
How can I grow my business? 
How do customers interact with my newly launched product?
How do I increase the productivity of my employees?
How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?
We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

On our data analytics category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around AI and data analytics. Technical and still easy to understand.

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.
So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

On our public relations (PR) category page, you find all our blogs covering public relations and communications topics. Step up your PR game.

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.
But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!
But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

On our internal communications category page, you find all our blogs about internal comms topics. Learn about the intranet, internal newsletters, and more.

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

As the internet has taken root in more areas of our lives — everything from entertainment to shopping to paying bills and more — traditional marketing is becoming less impactful. As any marketer knows, you need to focus on where your audience is if you want to reach them. Since the average person spends about seven hours a day online, it’s no surprise that content has maintained its hold on marketers.

Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

On our content marketing category page, you find blogs about content marketing topics. Learn about strategies, KPIs, tips, and more. Make your content king!

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.
We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

On our influencer marketing category page, you find blogs about influencer marketing topics. Build your strategy, find influencers, and measure results.

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.

Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

On our marketing category page, you find blogs about marketing topics. Learn about all the different angles and types of marketing and improve your results.

Marketing Blogs | Category

In this guide, we want to give you a peek into the definition of social media management, the daily schedule of a social media manager, social media platforms to promote your business, and the do’s & don’ts of social media management.
Are you ready to begin the journey of becoming a social media superstar?

On our social media management category page, you find blogs about social media management topics. Build and manage your online community.

Social Media Management Blogs | Category

Building a following and using social media platforms to reach a wider audience requires a well-planned social media marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll be looking at why social media marketing is so essential and how you can make it work for your business.

On our social media marketing category page, you find blogs about social media marketing topics. Learn how to get the highest paid social ROI!

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

In the fast-evolving realm of digital marketing and public relations, utilizing the right tools is crucial for success. Our interdisciplinary category showcases all the pertinent tools for digital marketing & PR. These tools help in enhancing your online presence and effectively reaching target groups, whether through reputation management, influencer marketing, or social media management.

On our digital marketing and PR tools category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

Software as a service (SaaS) company Meltwater has just revealed its role as a launch provider for Amazon Web Services (AWS) Data Exchange, a cloud service launching today designed to provide customers with third-party data.

The new Packaged Data Sets will bring Meltwater’s expertise in news and social data gathering to the largest data marketplace in the world.

The Amazon Web Services platform currently offers over 165 fully-featured services, ranging from machine learning applications to virtual reality, mobile, security and many others.

With such a variety of applications and millions of customers, the AWS Data Exchange market is set to propel Meltwater’s reach even further.

“We’re excited to be a launch provider with AWS and look forward to working within AWS Data Exchange to help our shared customers gain business insight from these new packaged data products which combine the best of our content and AI capabilities,” said Tim Barker, Head of Product for Fairhair.ai at Meltwater. "AWS Data Exchange complements the range of products and services we already deliver to over 32,000 customers and provides us with an exciting new path to rapidly develop and deploy further packaged data products in response to market and individual customer requirements.”

Meltwater specialises in providing packages containing data processes aimed at supporting different business processes.

“[The company] believes in the value of businesses using online data to make better-informed decisions and become more competitive in their markets,” commented Leor Distenfeld, Executive Director of Outside Insight at Meltwater.

“Historically, we have provided PR and Communications departments with the insights they need to stay ahead, but with the launch of our derived data sets available on AWS Data Exchange, we bring this expertise to departments such as business intelligence, competitive intelligence, marketing and legal, who can leverage this data and create insights to their advantage,” Distenfeld explained.

Some of Meltwater’s data packages focus on providing investors with potential trading opportunities by tracking daily changes in media coverage and sentiment for companies, and rebalance portfolios based on shifting sentiment and business event patterns across different industry verticals.

Others focus on informing Media and Entertainment production teams by tracking changes in daily media coverage and sentiment for TV streaming platforms and flagship shows, while making more informed sponsorship and advertising decisions by tracking coverage for different celebrities.

Finally, Healthcare and Life Sciences organizations can use the company’s data to track media coverage around key drug classes and medical conditions and market accordingly.

Meltwater joining the AWS Data Exchange will enable businesses across multiple industries to support their data-driven strategies through access to a new range of packaged data products.

With over 500 million new documents being added daily, and best-in-class NLP enrichments layered on top, these datasets will provide AWS Data Exchange customers with an unprecedented amount of data to help drive their business strategy.

“We’re delighted to have Meltwater as a data provider as part of our launch,” said Stephen Orban, General Manager at AWS Data Exchange. “They have years of experience aggregating data from numerous channels on a global scale. 

“With the market calling for more external data to complement internal datasets, we believe with that Meltwater can provide our customers with enhanced visibility into the world around them, so that they can make better-informed decisions”, Orban concluded.

The AWS Data Exchange website is already live.

Meltwater Launches Data Sets on New Amazon AWS Data Exchange

Influencer marketing is a powerful tool for aesthetically focused lifestyle, retail and travel brands in particular – as well as marketers who want to reach engaged audiences through the power of visual media.

Driven by connected consumers and a growing trust in technology, 58% of Millennials say they prefer ads from their favorite online personality over generic, branded content – so, whether or not influencer marketing appeals to you, there’s certainly merit to exploring the idea for many businesses. 

The idea of harnessing influence as a currency isn’t new, but in the same breath, a lot of marketers don’t intricately understand how it all works. In fact, both influencers and brand-owners alike take a myopic view to decide what influence actually looks like. Until now, it’s been determined by a handful of key metrics that show perceived interest and engagement: followers, likes, comments, shares, increased online traffic, etc. help build credibility for online celebrities and demonstrate value for brand custodians that need budget approval.

Because of this, many were left surprised at the May F8 conference when Facebook announced their plans to test a ‘like-less’ Instagram, where users and brands alike would no longer be able to get their dopamine hit off the sometimes hundreds and thousands, sometimes millions of clear-to-see interactions. And, of course, mild panic ensued.

How are we supposed to know who’s popular now? How do we work out our return on investment? What do we put in the reports?! – a sentiment that echoed through the social and PR industry through to the influencers themselves, understandably. After all, a like-less Instagram could very well affect their revenue.

If the trials were successful, Instagram users would only see how many likes their own posts received but couldn’t see the same for other users. Seems like a minor change, right? It is a minor change, a minor change that will cause a major change in the way influencers and brands use Instagram. This update opens the doors for an Instagram focused on community, personalisation and sharing. Concealing the number of likes, creates a less competitive environment between followers – an issue known to negatively impact users.

But the future is not necessarily as daunting as it may seem post the Facebook announcement.

Brands should now turn to more meaningful metrics

Brands will now turn to influencer marketing tools to monitor more meaningful metrics and understand the specific reach of creatives. For example, the Meltwater Influencer tool offers brands audience reporting features that allow users to view an influencer's community demographic. This tool allows brands to have a clear vision of who is being influenced, ultimately finding brands the perfect fit for their campaign.

What influenced the like-less Instagram update?

Social media well-being – The decision to trial posts without the number of likes was driven by the desire to provide a “less pressurised environment” for users. Chief Executive, Adam Mosseri, has stated since the conference that the like-less instagram is a step towards providing users with a platform they can “feel comfortable expressing themselves [on]”. This was incentivised by the current online issue of ‘‘catfishing‘. Whereby influencers and regular users will buy additional followers/likes to appear more ‘popular’ online. By concealing the amount of likes a user receives, the Instagram team are aiming to create a space for creativity and not competition.

Instagram stories – In January 2019, the Instagram story feature had 500 million daily users – over twice as many as Snapchat (203 million). The rising popularity of theInstagram ‘story’ feature then became a catalyst for the like-less instagram idea, aiming to encourage users to post ‘stories’ rather than a static feed of posts. The shift in popularity of the story feature is reflected by the rising popularity of video marketing. Projected to show an annual growth rate of +10.6%, the use of video will reach an ad spend of over £40 million by 2023 – altering the way brands communicate with their consumers, as well as how influencers will do this on a brand’s behalf. 

Some influencers have expressed their concern, with many worried it may impact their engagement rates, when, in fact, it’s a thought that this will give this widely adopted marketing technique a stronger level of authenticity.

Transparency obsessed demographic, Generation Z, have fuelled the need for influencers to state if a post is an ad and how they received the product, for example were they paid to promote it or was it ‘gifted’? In doing so, the sense of familiarity that we associate with influencers has changed as we know instantly if they are posting to promote.

Removing the like count will aim to bring back this familiarity to influencers, not setting them apart by the amount of likes. Instead, they will be encouraged to create highly engaging content that fuels creativity rather than that which focus purely on sales. A like-less Instagram means that Influencer talent will be based on the referral traffic they drive, minimising the worth of bought engagement. In turn, influencers will be producing high-quality content that attracts long-term consumers.

Should this first run of a like-less Instagram prove successful, brands would become less dependent on likes to identify the best influencer for their campaign. Instead, creatives would be rated on their click-through rates and the performance of their content in terms of how it drives sales. 

The types of changes we can expect in influencer campaigns

Better quality content: Now, content needs to do more than receive likes. In order to keep consumers engaged, feeds must need to be more creative, dynamic and consistent. Brands will lean towards collaborations on a smaller scale using micro influencers with 10K-15K followers. These creatives have higher engagement rates, with a more niche style, therefore providing a worthwhile ROI for brands through highly focused targeting.

More engaged consumers: There could be an increase in consumers actively following businesses. Followers will find hitting ‘like’ a lot more personal, taking this action based on their own opinions and rather than what is trending. Due to this, those with a genuine interest in your brand can engage with your content, helping you create quality consumer relationships. 

More dynamic brand image: Instagram ‘story’ views will become a key metric to monitor. Rising marketing trends such as voice activated searches and the use of vertical video, will increase and branding will become heavily dependent on innovative campaigns. 

Currently, the testing phase is still underway and the update is now active in 6 countries; Ireland, Italy, Japan, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand. Instagram’s two major markets are the UK and the US, so after analysing the response from the trials, Instagram will decide whether it progresses into these major markets. The future of influencers will be exciting not endangered. The like-less Instagram will introduce a new style of influencer marketing, one that is closer to the original intention – giving honest reviews and building communities. 

A new kind of Instagram strategy to match these changes

What can we expect to see and how should we adapt our strategies to fit future iterations of how users can interact with Instagram?

More interactive content appearing on Instagram stories/IGTV 

Using ecommerce/tagging to sell products in their static image posts

Filtering followers to remove inactive and disengaged accounts 

Using targets to reach click-through rate goals

Increase in sophisticated and quality content

A change as small as hiding the number of likes on Instagram presents several opportunities for the platform. Improved online well-being and increased focus in story-based content are but a few. Instagram is making innovative movements set to change the advertising landscape and still set to surpass Snapchat in daily engagement rates, creating yet more opportunities for influencer marketing to grow.

For brands, choosing the best influencers for campaigns will have an increasing focus on  personality, energy and engaged authentic audiences. Influencer marketing in 2019 and beyond will not be to simply find customers, but to build a community. Are you ready to build yours?

What Does a Like-Less Instagram Mean For Influencer Marketing?

The ease and widespread use of e-commerce and digital credit have made life in China so much different than it was before. The traditional physical space is losing out as e-commerce replaces the current system. However, there is still hope for retailers if they are able to bring the digital world into their physical retail spaces.

Conventionally, retailers have split the two arenas of shopping to online to offline segments or commonly known as the O2O model. Retailers who predominantly reached customers through their physical stores begin setting up e-commerce websites and engaging in digital marketing. Yet, barriers to purchase still exist in the new arena of making purchases. Many consumers still have the tactile desire to feel and try on their goods.  This need is first fostered when the consumer searches for the items he or she wants to buy online, makes a list, and manifests that desire by going to the physical retail store to make a purchase.

Tip: Check out our retail customer experience guide and take a look at the best eCommerce podcasts and at the best retail podcasts that could be helpful to you.

The Life of New Retail in China – Online Merge Offline

E-commerce companies in China such as Alibaba have noticed this nook of an opportunity and are looking to bridge that demand. Alibaba is leading the way and have pushed boundaries to develop a New Retail model called Online Merge Offline (OMO) commerce. With this new concept, every aspect of the shopping experience is enhanced – for both the consumer and the retailers of every scale.

Despite the internet providing the platform to satisfy the constant search for products and the consumer base becoming increasingly knowledgeable, consumers seek the comforts of physicality when purchasing products. This is when consumers visit a physical shopping space to touch and feel products. Once they are satisfied perusing the product and ready to purchase, they can just whip out their latest Huaweis and scan the product’s QR code to have the item delivered directly to their doorsteps.

This complete digitalisation of retail services becomes the new customer experience. This move by Alibaba eliminates all the barriers that are present on both sides of the consumer experience and in fact enhances to its optimal point. Consumers get the best of both worlds and there is no need to test out products at the physical store and frantically source for the best deals online. No queues and confirmed inventories are a boon for consumers too.

Tip: If you're interested in staying on top of all things retail, listen to the best retail podcasts!

One of Alibaba’s OMO creations, Hema (Chinese word for Hippo), was launched with much fanfare in 2015 and this integration has enabled cashless checkouts. A collaboration with the Bailian Group has further expanded retail options by including supermarket fresh goods and household items. Consumer data gathered from these offline choices can be used to enhance their online experience and vice versa. Chris Tung, Chief Marketing Officer of Alibaba Group said, “We want to bring Alibaba experience to support retail brands, to run the operation with our data capability. It’s about digitizing the footprint of the digital store and optimizing the shopping experience.”

China is leading the way with its OMO model and businesses will be wise to feature similar methodologies. Tung adds, “Online experience is [constantly evolving] because we personalize the web page for customers. Offline has always been the same, and we believe offline should be more exciting. You have to integrate the data to enhance the in-store experience.”

A quick look into social media for this year, there were more than 3,300 social mentions about Alibaba’s Hema and there were predominantly on forums. Comments from forums made up more than 77% of the total number of social mentions. To harness a greater understanding of what the consumer wants, social insights companies such as Meltwater are supplying retail organisations with rich knowledge about their consumers. This knowledge can further boost the quantitative insights drawn from the OMO model.

Commenters on Chinese forums came out in full force on the topic of Hema and interesting insights on consumer perception towards the revolutionary retail concept. Many netizens discussed when and where a Hema outlet would open in their vicinity and they were generally delighted if one really did. They also discussed the user experience of the technology in Hema, primarily QR codes to enter the premises, auto payment when you end your OMO journey in the physical retail store, and the rapid delivery of the purchases.

All in all, I believe this relatively holistic business strategy needs to be quickly embraced and implemented by retailers as knowledgeable consumers establish positions to new trends. Retailers must be ready to step out of one or the other platforms and endorse a more streamlined and unified platform.

The old dichotomy of separating offline and online commerce is unsustainable to reach out to the larger consumer base. The many pain points that consumers experience with current retail models serve as exciting opportunities for retailers to innovate on. Understanding this importance will bring about great benefits and create an entirely new digitised shopping experience for consumers.

New Retail: The Best of Both (Physical and Digital) Worlds

Meltwater is a global company with 55 offices around the world. We are interested in supporting and partnering with our clients on a local level. From sourcing hyper-local editorial and broadcast publications for our global content database to support our clients in one of a dozen languages, building a partnership with our clients is always top of mind.

As Meltwater grows, we want to ensure we can connect with our clients and continue to partner with you. Many of you have already taken advantage of our in-app chat in your local language. Across the globe, work is increasingly done at different times, on mobile and online. We recognize our clients’ work isn’t limited to the normal 9-5 work day. Our clients need answers on their own terms — and that means 24 hour support, 7 days a week. So, we’re proud to announce three chat channels our clients can use to connect with Meltwater, 24/7:

Additionally, we now surface relevant articles and in-app tutorials while you are in the Meltwater Media Intelligence application. These articles and in-app tutorials allow you to learn when it works for you.

At Meltwater, we pride ourselves on being an ongoing partner to our 30,000 clients. Whether jumping on a call to assist in creating an internal newsletter or report for your boss or setting up new employees on the Meltwater platform, we want our clients to have personal and open communication with Meltwater.  With these new chat channels, our clients can communicate with Meltwater 24/7. 

Introducing a New Way to Partner with Our Clients

Great marketing campaigns are those that still resonate with us no matter how many years ago they ran. Not only will their catchy slogans or iconic logos be preserved for years to come, but their impact on our collective identity as a nation continues to be profound (think Yebo Gogo).

Great marketing campaigns make customers feel like they’re part of a family, not just another sale. Although big budget campaigns stemming from the USA and Britain have traditionally been more popular worldwide (think Nike’s Just Do It and Coca-Cola’s Open Happiness), social media has evened the playing field and there are now a growing number of South African campaigns reaching international audiences.

Here – in no particular order – are some of SA’s best marketing campaigns (and what you can learn from them).

Lay’s is about making life’s ordinary moments magical and memorable. Other than selling “irresistible and light” crisps, the brand is about optimism, spontaneity and fun, and reflects these values in their Facebook fan page and Twitter account. It’s no surprise that South African’s fastest selling potato chip brand has also had some memorable marketing campaigns.

During the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup hosted in Australia and New Zealand, Lay’s presented the “You Gotta Love Cricket” Campaign. SA cricket captain AB De Villiers was the face of the campaign and appeared on the limited edition Prego Sauce flavoured Lay’s. The campaign also included television commercials featuring AB, competitions for cricket fans to win VIP tickets to the World Cup Final, and the “Lay’s Cricket in the Nets” activation. The activation involved setting up cricket nets in select venues across South Africa that encouraged participants to bowl each other out. It allowed the brand to really engage with consumers and fans, and align themselves with one of the country’s most loved sports.

In addition to AB De Villiers, Lay’s has featured the faces of other famous sporting favourites on their chip packets. These personalities include Olympic gold medalist Ryk Neethling and 1995 Springbok rugby captain, Francois Pienaar – creating a connection between the brand and national pride.

If you were to follow directly in Lay’s footsteps you would need Wayne Van Niekerk or Chad le Clos as the face of your next campaign. Big name brand ambassadors are a long shot for most of us, but you can still drive brand awareness through authentic promotion with micro-influencer marketing. Stick to what your brand represents (which in the case of Lay’s is youthful optimism) develop relationships with micro-influencers or brand ambassadors, and let the world see just how delicious your product or service is.

Tip: Take a look at the best South African fashion influencers and the top South African Instagram influencers if you're considering looking for influencers to elevate your brand.

“Steve” from “Beep Bank” became one of the most popular characters of South African radio circa 2011 when the campaign was first released. For the three years that it ran, one couldn’t listen to a radio station in South Africa for more than half an hour without hearing Steve from Beep Bank again attempting unsuccessfully to convert FNB customers. Whether you loved him or loved to hate him, consumers all over the country knew his name and what he represented.

Once “Steve” was a household name, FNB rolled out billboards in major cities to remind South Africans why they need to join FNB.

Within the first year of the campaign, FNB’s sales increased by an astounding 40% and continued to rise throughout its duration, earning it the status of one of the country’s best marketing campaigns.

It’s becoming increasingly apparent that digital is the future, but the success of the “Steve” campaign shows that radio marketing can still be influential and powerful, especially in case where your product or service has a more generalised audience.  It also teaches us that characterisation and persistence can pay off, as these are often what makes a message most memorable.

Nando’s advert released the day after SONA 2017

The iconic South African fast food restaurant specialising in peri-peri- chicken has come to be known for its witty (and often risqué) satire of current events. Nando’s advertisements tap into local humour as a vehicle for marketing their food – and it’s worked incredibly well.

Their ongoing social media competitions and engagement with followers across all platforms has also been advantageous for the brand, which has grown exponentially over the last decade. There are now over 1 000 Nando’s stores in 30 different countries across the globe, and it’s widely considered to be South Africa’s most successful food franchise.

While much of Nando’s marketing is reactive in nature, they are known to engage in their tongue-in-cheek micro-campaigns. One such example was entitled, “After eating a Nando’s Roll”, and encouraged audiences to upload selfies or memes to Twitter showcasing that signature post-Portuguese roll look (see example below).

Sometimes a great one-liner for an advertisement is simply inspired by a newspaper headline, so when in need of a muse, look to current affairs. In addition to being hilarious, relevant and sometimes controversial, Nando’s advertisements are unique both in style and content (note their signature font and it’s instant recognisability).

Lastly, don’t forget the power of authenticity and humour. If your brand can get away with it, have fun with your marketing campaigns, and remember as far as content goes, local is always lekker.

In the run-up to the release of the new Jeep Renegade, the brand wanted to create a campaign that exemplified the nature of the vehicle itself: unconventional, unexpected and adventurous. Jeep decided to run a four-week teaser campaign leading up to the release of the new vehicle, which saw massive return for their marketing investment.

Jeep thought “out the box” for their #UnleashRenegade Campaign

The Jeep #UnleashRenegade Campaign partnered with radio station Cliff Central hosted by Gareth Cliff – well-known for being unconventional and edgy. Gareth and three other local influencers had to complete challenges created by the online community in order to prove themselves “tough” enough to drive the Jeep Renegade. The challenges were filmed and then uploaded online, driving audience engagement, social sharing and additional traffic to a dedicated micro-site (which featured hidden clues around the competition).

“Unconventional” advertisements were also deployed in local airports that involved just a vehicle-sized box with Jeep branding, increasing the hype around the car’s launch. A collaboration with the music identification app Shazam also encouraged audiences to “unleash” (download) the locally-made soundtrack heard on the television commercials.

In terms of ROI, Jeep achieved a 50% increase in sales, 770 new leads, 102 000 downloads of the Cliff Central podcast, 100 000 active engagements and a total of 26 million impressions on social media.

What you can learn: Jeep’s creativity in bringing the Renegade’s character to life underpins the campaign’s success. Consider looking at associated themes (e.g. adventure) when marketing your product or service, and then think about how you might go about turning those into live engagement opportunities.

From a hands on perspective, the campaign also shows us the growing power of online video as a medium for connecting with audiences. So, if you’ve got the budget to film it, then film it.

With 79% market share in the glass packaging industry, Consol is the leading glass packaging manufacturer in Southern Africa.  You may be familiar with a few of their latest innovations, namely the Grip and Go Glass, a glass water bottle with colourful grips. Or perhaps the Solar Jar, a light housed inside a consol glass bottle that’s fueled by solar energy. For their 70th birthday, Consol launched the #BringBackPure marketing campaign.

Consol Glass - Bring Back Pure

The ads focused on how much more fresh, cold and tasty milk tastes in glass compared to plastic bottles. Consol spoke to South Africans who nostalgically remembered the excitement of having milk delivered every morning. To emphasise the concept that “the best things come in glass,” the brand produced an ambitious campaign to bring back fresh farm milk in glass bottles and deliver to homes across Johannesburg and Cape Town.

In addition, people who had milk delivered to their house could nominate a friend to receive milk too. Instagram exploded with selfies with the milk bottles and the hashtag #BringBackPure.

Tip: Check out the most trending hashtags in South Africa.

What you can learn: What Consol did right was touch on nostalgia. What’s more memorable than your best childhood memory? Those who were interviewed remembered everything from the sound of the glasses clinking, to the taste of the cream on top and the smell of the fresh farm milk. Bringing up these memories, with the added social media involvement, made this Consol campaign one of their most successful. Don’t underestimate the power of marketing to people’s emotions.

If you’re looking to make changes to your marketing strategy, then ensure you’re equipped with the social media monitoring tools necessary to measure whether you’ve hit the mark, or need to go back to the drawing board. For more information on how to better measure your return on marketing investment, get in touch with the Meltwater team.

Tips from the Top: South Africa’s Best Marketing Campaigns

Personality-based Marketing: Communicating with Customers as Individuals Through AI

You’ve no doubt seen ads and received emails for certain products and thought, “That’s useful, I actually really want that…”, or been similarly amazed when you’re genuinely interested in your suggested content on social media.  Far from feeling pushy or annoying, we’re usually happy when it seems like someone has taken the time to understand us and our needs.

But how often does this personality-based marketing actually happen?

Whilst marketers can get a rough idea of the content and products that will be most useful and engaging to individuals, this outline is built on basic demographics which are only surface deep.  Things like purchase history, digital footprint, age and gender might give us correlation, but not causation. They show us how the individual has arrived at their destination but give us absolutely no insight into how or why they actually got there.

This is a problem because it treats individual users like mere statistics, which are then analysed in a spreadsheet, giving no real thought to the individuality and personality behind the outcomes of their unique decisions.

So, is there a way to better understand what actually drives their decisions?

And if we did, could we improve their online experience further so that they receive communications personalised for them?

This is exactly what personality-based marketing does. Put simply, it delivers communications to a customer based on their personality. This results in content that the customer wants to see, rather than content they have to see. 

Most marketing messages – even if targeted based on certain demographics – are delivered in exactly the same way to various different people.  We would never do this in real life when speaking to people we know, so given the option… why would we continue to do this with our customers?

Our personalities underpin how we think, feel and, most importantly, act. By tailoring communications through personality-based marketing, we can increase engagement and therefore reduce the need to send multiple emails i.e. less spam. By using personalised images, words and colours that really resonate with the individual, and focusing on features they will care about, we can build a more engaging user experience for every unique customer.  Over the long-term, we can also build far better relationships by connecting with them on a more genuine level, meaning we continue to understand them more deeply and can provide them with better and more useful products.

However, to do this we need to know the personality of the user and how they prefer to be communicated with. Historically, this hasn’t been easy to do for even a handful of customers, let alone thousands or even millions. Fortunately, advances in AI have now made this possible at scale by utilising algorithms that can effectively model underlying personalities that drive a host of different decisions.

But before looking at the results this technology can give us, how exactly do we define a customer’s personality and more importantly, how can it help organisations?

Personality models are a scientific method used to segment customers in a way that enables us to effectively predict their behaviour. Through this method, we can leverage decades of impartial psychological research to build up a better picture of why people behave as they do.

Rather than simply dividing your client base into groups with similar demographics and behaviour – age, gender, buying history and so on – personality models can help you actually understand deeper motivations.

For example, figuring out what motivates urban-dwelling professional women in their 30s to purchase your products and services requires careful research. Whilst this might work well in certain cases, it doesn’t scale well (or fast) as you add new groups or new products.

This differs from a traditional approach in that different personalities respond to stimuli in unique ways. By studying these responses, we have been able to build up an understanding of how appealing different elements – words, images, colours, fonts, layouts – will be to each personality. This allows us to segment customers much more effectively, before tailoring content and marketing messages to their unique personality profile.

However, the effectiveness of this method depends on the model of personality you use. At DataSine, we rely on the widely accepted Big Five, which has been statistically validated using a technique called factor analysis, rather than being based on the opinions of a handful of people and placed into a theoretical model.

The first step towards rolling out a personality-based marketing strategy is looking at data that demonstrates decision-making, such as:

Engagement with marketing campaigns, on social media, etc.

These decisions can then be used to inform an algorithm which associates them with personality traits. To give a very simple example, through our extensive research we know that people who spend more money on restaurants and bars are more likely to be extroverts, while people that spend more money in bookshops are more likely to be introverts.

We have also built an accurate understanding of content appeal into this algorithm – for instance, that extroverts are more likely to prefer bright images containing lots of people. This is done by asking different individuals to rate the appeal of a variety of content (words, images, colours etc.) and linking this appeal to their personality.

Using this algorithm, we can analyse transactional and behavioural data, score each customer against the Big Five dimensions and predict in advance exactly how appealing content will be to them. It is this ability to predict that gives personality-based marketing an advantage over tools such as A/B and multivariate testing. While these are great for optimisation, they can’t predict the future behaviour of users.

Personality-based Marketing in Practice: DataBank case study

With retail banking clients, the information used to build personality profiles is typically about where customers choose to spend their money. In this example with DataBank (name changed for privacy purposes), we used one years’ worth of debit card and credit card spending data for 500k customers.

Once the personality profiles of every customer had been determined, the customer base was segmented according to their strongest traits. In the case of DataBank, we focused on six personality segments:

You may have noticed six traits above when we mentioned that we used the Big Five earlier. This is because the Big Five traits each exist along a continuum, so on the “extraverted” trait, we also have “introverts”; “competitive” is on the same continuum as “agreeable” and the same with “open-minded” and “traditional”.

Using this deeper understanding of DataBank’s customers, we tailored content to deliver a personalised user experience to each of them. Many types and elements of content can be customised according to customer personality, including:

In this instance, we were focused on personalising images and copy in marketing emails.

Create variations based on target personality segments

As we were using six different personality segments in this campaign, we needed to create six new variations of this the desired email campaign.

The header image of the original email is analysed and tagged. In this case, with things like ‘travel’, ‘airplane’, and ‘airport’. Similar images that would offer greater appeal to a particular chosen personality segment are offered.

Text can be personalised at the level of the individual words (e.g. changing ‘wonderful’ to ‘enticing’) and sentences (e.g. focusing on the scarcity of the product rather than the quality), again according to what appeals most to each identified personality segment.

In the case of DataBank the main KPIs were click rates and conversion rates (i.e. the percentage of customers that completed the credit card sign up form after clicking through to the landing page).

Using personalised messaging tailored to the personality segments, we were able to increase click-through rates by 59% and conversion rates by 22%. And, because our algorithms use AI, these numbers are likely to increase with time as the algorithms become more and more adept at understanding the drivers of individual personalities.

These results are not so surprising when you consider that currently, the typical marketing email conveys the same message to very different people.

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