ClickThrough's Head of International, Alison Humphries, brings us the latest international marketing news from this week - including Canadians flocking to live streaming video during lockdown and how brands can be more flexible post-pandemic.

International Marketing News: How US Businesses Have Operated for Post-Pandemic Success and an Opportunity for Baidu Advertisers

What's new, important and interesting in the world of international marketing? This week we look at the top stats from the China Internet Report, the collaboration of Baidu and MSN ads platforms, the flexibility of US businesses in operating to drive post-pandemic success, and an overview of digital video versus TV consumption in Canada.

TOP SEVEN STATISTICS FROM THE CHINA INTERNET REPORT

Econsultancy summarise the key statistics from the China Internet Report, published by the South China Morning Post, which analyses the main digital trends in China.

1. Over 900 million internet users live in China; 99% of whom use mobiles

2. Over 50% of China’s internet users use mobile payments

3. China is forecasted to have over 40% of global 5G subscribers by 2025

4. Average daily internet use hit 7.2 hours during lockdown – this was up from 5.6 hours

5. China’s monthly mobile users aged over 40 increased by 14% YoY in March 2020

6. Work productivity apps saw the highest download rate followed by short video apps over lock down

7. Live streamers in China are forecasted to hit 613 million by the end of 2020

Key takeaways from the report include: China’s internet users are mobile, not mobile first, and 5G will have a huge impact on China’s internet usage over the next 5 years. Lockdown highlighted key trends that were not previously in existence and the demographic of mobile internet users broadened as a result of COVID-19.

BAIDU ESTABLISHES A COOPERATION WITH MICROSOFT MSN AD INVENTORY ON BAIDU MEDIAGO

China Internet Watch report on Baidu’s recent update to provide advertisers with direct access to the Microsoft MSN native desktop inventory via the Baidu MediaGo platform.

The agreement negates the issue for advertisers to purchase bulk inventory and moves towards securing placements that fit their goals and budgets on MSN’s desktop site.

Baidu is working to bridge the gap between the Eastern and Western markets, as the agreement will open up premium MSN placements to its advertisers and provide mutual growth opportunities.

Baidu MediaGo advertisers will now have access to high visibility, native placements on the MSN homepage and other sister pages throughout MSN.

Baidu MediaGo was launched last year and has already collaborated with Snapchat, Reddit and Pinterest to provide China’s SMEs with the opportunity to promote their products to international markets.

HOW BRANDS CAN FIND NEW CREATIVE WAYS TO BECOME MORE FLEXIBLE POST PANDEMIC

Google investigate how brands can identify new tactics and best practices to ease their recovery post pandemic.

The pandemic has emphasised the importance of being aware of impacts of digital channels on businesses and the urgency to embrace digital transformation. This goes hand in hand with implementing agile and measurable Marketing strategies.

Utilising data available combined with creative and measurement tools will aid smarter decision making

Digital channels exemplify how quickly advertising campaigns can be implemented, tested and optimised to pave the way to increasing your customer base through testing new ad formats, scaling these across multiple audiences and measuring the results. Google worked closely with three US brands to put this into practice:

Maintaining relevancy in the moment

Soft Surroundings were ready to launch their Spring campaign with creative featuring travel scenes, which were unsuitable given the timing. Google’s query date indicated a growing demand for loungewear, which correlated with a growth in revenue of Soft Surroundings’ loungewear putting Google in a position to switch the campaigns to being home appropriated.

Relationships prevail over sales

Luxury luggage retailer Briggs and Riley extended returns from 30 to 60 days to accommodate changes in travel schedules, launched a road trip style campaign indicating promoting adventures on the horizon and offered a 30% reduction to first responders and medical staff.

Be comfortable with the changes

Polywood, an outdoor furniture retailer, saw a surge in unplanned for demand, as more people spent time at home. However, rather than scaling back, Polywood invested in new machinery, increased their workforce by 200 people and expanded their production facilities while maintaining complete transparency with their customers regarding delays in fulfilment to build harmonious relationships.

None of these brands had contingency plans in place, but proactively assessed how they operated, and reorganised and reinvented themselves to strive for success post pandemic.

CANADIANS FLOCK TO STREAMING VIDEO DURING LOCK DOWN

eMarketer review TV versus digital video consumption in Canada, and while TV saw a spike over lockdown, users sought entertainment from a blend of TV and digital video.

Canadians aged over 18 watched TV and digital video for an average of 5 hours this year with TV representing 65% of this time. Consumption of both collectively will increase by a daily average of 23 minutes in 2020 due to lockdown. Pre-pandemic, digital video was growing its share in daily media view time. Consequently, eMarketer has revised their daily digital video view time from 1:36 to 1:46.

Over-the-top (OTT) streaming services represent a large proportion of video consumption. Over 20 million people in Canada subscribe to OTT streaming services like Netflix, Disney+ etc. In fact, the US and Canada represented 2.31 million of the 15.8 million new Netflix subscriptions in Q1. Meanwhile Canadian TV providers lost 278,000 subscribers in 2019, which indicates the ever growing movement away from traditional TV to digital video.

If you’d like to discuss any of the latest international marketing news included in this update, book in a conversation with our experts today.