2020 has come and gone in a flash. It feels like yesterday we were introducing this year’s Super Bowl ads and obsessing over March Madness. Now, we’re talking about the biggest Cyber Week on record and the art of copywriting during the pandemic. The year was filled with highs and lows, advertising campaigns never to be forgotten, and ones you wish you could (looking at you, moldy Whopper). Without further ado, check out a few of advertising’s winners and losers of 2020.
Though quarantine is keeping us at home, Americans aren’t worried about getting all dressed up with no place to go. The sneaker craze continues, so top athletic footwear companies are still putting out new designs. Let’s dive into Pathmatics marketing intelligence and take a closer look at how three of the biggest sneaker companies—Nike, Puma, and New Balance—advertised their new products throughout the month of November.
ECommerce was already on the rise before 2020, but the boom has accelerated given consumer hesitance around shopping in brick and mortar locations during the pandemic. This year, home electronics has been the most popular category for eCommerce spending among Americans, so let’s take a closer look at how electronics giant Apple has been promoting its newest products—the iPhone 12 Mini and Max, iPad, Apple Watch and MacBook Air.
When it comes to retail nobody does it bigger or better than Walmart. Where else you can find the Rush Hour DVD for $5, a boy yodeling on aisle three, and a crocodile in the frozen food section? Walmart — that’s where. With over 11,500 stores under 56 brand names in 27 countries (and eCommerce sites in 10 countries), they don’t call Walmart a “retail giant” for nothing.
Mid-March marked the first week of nationwide quarantines. At that time, The Hollywood Reporter reported that U.S. video game usage during peak hours had increased 75% from the week prior, and that video streaming and overall web traffic had increased by 12% and 20% respectively.
We’re down to the wire! With Election Day less than 24hrs away, Pathmatics has been hard at work researching the most up-to-date insights. But, to offer a more complete picture, we partnered with Embee to share a glimpse into user trends, experiences and behaviors in Instagram.
In past races, paid advertising campaigns on social channels, specifically Facebook, (and, increasingly, Instagram), has been the top choice for candidates looking to reach a wide audience. This year, in the course of just three months (August-October 2020), we saw investments on YouTube from both candidates nearly triple their respective Facebook investment rates.
One of the most consequential elections in modern history, both the Presidential race and several Senate races could determine the course of the country for a generation. Moreover, the battle for votes has become a measurement of digital ad dollars. That makes Facebook, with over 190 million users, and Instagram, with 126 million users, prime territory for political ads.
The two Presidential candidates have little in common, from their stance on foreign policy and healthcare to their advertising strategies and messaging. One thing they do have in common, though? An affinity for mentioning one another in ads--Facebook ads, in particular.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday have been the biggest retail shopping days in recent history. With Prime Day, Amazon made a move to spur another shopping spike in July, which was this year delayed until October 13 and 14 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Not wanting to miss out on the hype, Best Buy announced that it also would offer massive discounts at the same time, calling its version Early Black Friday. So how did these two retail giants compare in terms of their advertising strategies for these first huge retail events of 2020?
The Trump campaign outspent Biden nearly two-fold from July through September. But, throughout September and October, we've seen the two campaigns battle public attention, starting with a series of back-to-back, YouTube takeovers, followed by a reported uptick in television ads from the Biden campaign.
If this year has shown us anything, it’s that politics seems to be about EVERYTHING. From racial inequality to the coronavirus, healthcare, women’s rights, supreme court vacancies, or the economy, the upcoming election is one of the most important in modern history.
We probably don’t have to tell you that social media is a big deal. The average person spends 2 ½ hours per day on social media. 3.8 billion people use social media worldwide. 84% of people with Internet access use social media. So with stats like those, advertising on social media is a no brainer. Let’s pull some insight to see which social media sites are the cream of the ad crop.
The Stop Hate For Profit campaign sent shockwaves through the social media advertising communities in late June. Brand-name companies such as Unilever, Coca-Cola, Patagonia, Adidas, Verizon, and hundreds of others announced they would halt all Facebook advertising for at least the month of July to protest hate speech, misinformation, and derogatory content across the platform.
Any other year, most of us would have spent the Summer with friends and family enjoying the great outdoors. This year, however, the pandemic has kept many of us isolated in our homes, staring at our screens, as the days and seasons roll on--and all seem to just blend together. How have these shifts translated to advertiser behavior on Instagram?
