International Marketing News: Digital Marketing For Luxury Brands Evolving Beyond Social

Head of International Marketing Alison Booth takes us through the latest in this week's marketing news across the world, ranging from luxury brands evolving to trade deals between the UK and Australia. Find out more. 

International Marketing News: digital marketing for Luxury Brands Evolving Beyond Social

In this week's International Marketing News round-up, there's information about key trends emanating from COVID impacts on e-commerce in 2020, the imminent tie-up of a UK and Australia trade deal, insights into online shopping behaviour among Chinese women in 2021, updates to luxury product marketing mixes and an overview of how Google execs have navigated the pandemic globally.

The Future Of Digital Marketing For Luxury Brands Is Evolving Beyond Social

Luxury brands are evaluating their Marketing Mix to ensure it aligns with the changing needs of younger consumers.

Straightforward influencer or celebrity led social media approaches are losing their appeal and are driving digitally savvy brands to focus their attention on content commerce strategies.

The increase in time consumers have spent at home over the past year has changed how people shop. Content that genuinely interests and entertains the consumer is at a premium. This has led to innovative strategies from Gucci like the digital GucciFest in November, which leveraged collaborations with The North Face and Pokémon Go to stand out from the noise of excessive promotional activity over lockdown.

COVID-19 Impacts on 2020 Global Online E-Commerce

Online sales sky rocketed in 2020, as consumers flocked to make their purchases online, often out of necessity. Some key stand outs included:

• US e-commerce penetration advanced by 10 years in Q1 2020.
• Uplift in UK online retail sales of 74% in January 2021 YoY.
• The UK has been the third most popular market for International purchases online in the past year.
• Cross border sales had a healthy uplift of 82% in 2020.
• International luxury goods sales exploded with a 170% uplift YoY in August and September 2020.

The Race Is On To Complete The UK-Australia Trade Deal Negotiations By June

The majority of the components of the free trade agreement have been agreed, which will support employment and could strengthen the economic position of both markets post pandemic.

The adjustments to the trade deal could increase UK GDP by £500m in the long term.

This also strengthens the UK's position in joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) alongside Mexico, Japan, Canada and eight further nations.

The Evolution Of Women's Shopping Behaviour Online In China In 2021

Chinese leader Mao Zedong famously said that "women hold up half the sky" and more than 50 years on, this is playing out online in China.

Nearly 49.4% of the population using digital devices was female in 2020. Internet penetration rate across the female members of the population was 69.1%, but only 67.1% among males.

WeChat is the most optimal place to reach female social network users spanning 85.9% of women accessing the internet via mobile devices.

The beauty category drove the highest volume of online purchases at $110 billion with skincare being the dominant contributor.

Key Learnings To Navigate The Pandemic From Google Execs Around The World

Over the past 12 months Marketers have embraced the constantly changing global market trends and have navigated a new reality without knowing what the "new normal" will look like.

Mastering Working From Home

Over investing in communication helped to fulfil the need for a "sense of belonging" to ensure people were up to date with changes in the business.

Acceleration Of Shifts Already Underway

Digital transformation is fundamental to accelerate economic recovery helping customers to navigate the increasingly complex online customer journey, using data to act on market changes swiftly and greater accountability for the implementation of different strategies need to be conquered to achieve this.

Becoming More Agile

Overcoming the challenges of working in different locations and in some cases different time zones with limited information to make key decisions has been a big learning curve for a vast number of companies. Those that have embraced these challenges and finding creative ways to work around these challenges have reaped the benefits.

And that is your International Marketing News round-up this week. If you have any questions or would like to discuss any of the stories featured above, please get in touch.