The One Thing Your Brand Must Do In A Cookie-Less World Typically, a New Year’s resolution includes cutting down on sweets, but in the case of advertising, cutting cookies has thrown the industry for a loop. 2021 is the year when cookies are going away, and with them an important chunk of the advertising ecosystem. In January 2020, Google published a blog announcing that Chrome, the industry-leading browser, would be phasing out support for third-party cookies. Their initiative, known as Privacy Sandbox, is set to make the web more private and secure for users while also supporting advertisers to track and measure their audience. What does it mean for your brand? While many questions remain on how digital advertising campaigns will be affected, the most important thing marketers can do today is to improve their access to valuable first-party data. First-party data is information collected directly from your audience or customers and includes: • Completed surveys • Customer feedback • Data from behaviors, actions, or interests demonstrated across your website or app • Data in your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) • Social data • Subscription/DTC data (arguably the most valuable data) The move away from third-party cookies has several pros and cons. While on one hand it limits advertising options for even "good" advertisers, it does allow better transparency with consumers, ensuring they remain the core focus. Having an otherwise consumer-centric brand will not be enough to grow it through digital media any longer. Now is the time to begin collecting and utilizing first-party data to fight the loss of cookies. If you'd like more information on how Exverus Media is doing this for clients, hit reply and send us a note. -Team Exverus

Three Trends for the New Year Last week we shared three things marketers need to do to get ready for 2021. This week we share three trends of urgent importance to marketers: 1. Virtual events will reach the next level in sophistication. As we patiently await the return of trade shows and in-person experiences, 2021 will fix the somewhat awkward transition we made to virtual events in 2020. B2B brands will need to go beyond standard videos and demos at virtual trade shows while production quality and high-caliber talent will become an arms race in reaching consumers. 2. Social media has evolved once again. User-created social entertainment is in, basic content is out. Brands and influencers have evolved social entertainment into the expected way to drive engagement and 2021 will only see this trend grow. 3. 2021 will be the Year of Retail Media. Hot on Amazon's heels, dozens of retailers both online and offline are building out their media, ROAS and first party data capabilities. Expect Walmart, CVS, Walgreen's and Instacart to lead here, especially for CPG brands sold primarily offline. It's time to discuss the implications of these trends and the (many) more we are seeing upend marketing in 2021. -Team Exverus

The 3 Lessons for Marketers in 2021 If there is one thing we can all agree on it is that 2020 has been...challenging. But look beneath the scars of this year and three critical lessons for marketers emerged: 1. Marketing plans now require more flexibility. Media and marketing plans must have flexibility in 2021. Gone is media planning, in is scenario planning. Gone are fully committed media plans, in are media plans that can be adjusted on the fly (preferably using first-party sales and engagement data). 2. It is time to digitize ALL of your media. Actually it was time back in Q3, as even linear TV and terrestrial radio are now purchased programmatically rather than laborious negotiations with individual stations. Digital media will keep growing while non-digital media, bought intelligently, will be more effective in 2021. 3. Don't completely abandon the 2019 playbook. Experiential will be back in 2021, and so will the continued effectiveness of traditional media channels. As prices and demand for traditional media drop in favor of streaming media, effectiveness will rise for brands who remain. Just make sure you are balancing the traditional with the new (i.e. digital) to maximize effectiveness. The rise in nimble, efficient, centralized media and marketing relationships will likely make 2021, not 2020, the biggest time of change our industry has seen in years. Get excited! -Team Exverus

Planning For 'The Next Normal' The three things smart brands are doing right now: Instead of "the new normal", smart brands are leveraging the rapid change brought by COVID-19 and creating an accelerated version of the 2020 and 2021 they projected eight months ago. How are they doing this? By combining new innovation enabled by the rise of e-commerce with the trends in place before COVID-19 hit our vocabulary. They are developing e-commerce specific products and bundles. Consumers making less trips to physical stores are looking for more complete solutions from brands - nobody wants to find out the chocolate bars and marshmallows made it home but the graham crackers were out of stock, and tonight's s'mores are cancelled. Give consumers total solutions by bundling complementary products together. This has the added benefit of maximizing your average order value and mitigating shipping costs. They are leaning into trends that were already here before COVID. Health and sustainability were important before March and remain top of mind for consumers now. The next normal will make these "trends" long-term areas of importance, and brands that lead early will be best positioned to win. They are testing faster using e-commerce. Brands do not have the luxury of testing unproven product concepts on shelf at retailers. Instead, e-commerce has become a more dynamic test and learn environment, where the penalties for low velocity are minimal compared to losing shelf space at physical retailers. Link: https://www.warc.com/newsandopinion/opinion/the-dominos-effect/3866 -Bill & Team Exverus

What You Need To Learn From Domino's Pizza You are (probably) not a pizza brand, but you need to learn from Domino's. We have all seen the lessons from COVID-19 floating around the internet. E-commerce has accelerated more in three months than the next three years. Marketing has become more digital overnight. But knowing and acting on these insights are just table stakes now. Who we all need to be learning from is a brand that knew all of this back in 2010 and has acted on it ever since: Domino's. As Faris Yakob points out in a recent opinion piece on WARC (link below for members - non-members can access by e-mailing me), Domino's is not a pizza company. Domino's is a technology company. By controlling its messaging, technology and distribution, Domino's is able to control the most important element for brands in 2021: its user experience. Want to know precisely where your pizza is in being made and delivered? Domino's Tracker is light years ahead of anything offered by other meal delivery services, and far more accurate. Want a Chicken Habanero sub (what??)? Domino's data-driven approach to menu building already knows. Want a pizza delivered to a gas station parking lot? Domino's has tech integrated to choose from thousands of non-traditional delivery spots. Domino's recognizes that the "job to be done" is not just filling people's stomachs. The job to done is providing satiety quickly, with as much current information as a consumer wants, to precisely where they want it. It is about reducing friction in the buying process so people can focus on other things. Utilizing innovation, e-commerce and digital transformation for their own sake is for brands playing a me-too game. Utilizing innovation and digital transformation to solve the jobs to be done and reducing friction in the user experience creates competitive advantage and market leadership. Link: https://www.warc.com/newsandopinion/opinion/the-dominos-effect/3866 -Bill & Team Exverus

Exverus Media's campaign for MasterClass, "Anna Wintour: How to Be a Boss", is awarded an Adweek 2020 Media Plan of the Year! See all the winners below. This news appeared in our weekly Paid Media Insights newsletter. For more tips, research, & analysis, subscribe for free here.

Livestreaming + Social Commerce + You = ? Are you ready for the shoppable, always-live future? With the announcement this week that Instagram is adding shoppability to IGTV, the future is here and it is time for brands to get on board. Shoppable social media, or "Mid Funnel Media" is now a critical element of the media mix - living somewhere between awareness-driving and direct purchase tactics. It is also a massive opportunity for brands partnered with influencers and artists who want to directly sell products in a trackable way. What's the next step? Adding this shoppability and scale to livestreamed brand media. While the U.S. lags behind China in livestreaming, brands and artists are discovering it has the ability to take the place of in-person events. Just ask gamers - a population that takes livestreaming for granted, consuming hour upon hour each day. Gamers are leading the way for Gen Z to move from pre-recorded brand content to livestreaming. Adding shoppability and brand experience to that? It's the next path in digital media's evolution and it's starting to become reality. The time is now for brands to begin creating full funnel awareness/passion-point/purchase-enabled content that drives digital audiences...and sales...at scale. -Bill & Team Exverus

Exverus Media is named the 2020 Silver Small Agency of the Year: Media by Ad Age! Read our full-length editorial celebrating the win. This news appeared in our weekly Paid Media Insights newsletter. For more tips, research, & analysis, subscribe for free here.