We created the 2024 AI Impact Report, our new global research into consumer perceptions and behaviours. With over 7000 respondents across 5 countries, this report will provide valuable insights into the evolving landscape of Generative AI and voice-activated technology.
Expertise & Experience: What Customers Want From Premium Brands In 2024
Premium brands are having to juggle new factors like a changing audience and their values, how to provide better experiences, how to tell their stories better and how to be more relevant to an increasingly discerning clientele.
Our new report explores what customers want from premium brands in 2024 and the new demands that have reshaped the luxury environment.
Why More High-Street Brands Need to Embrace Midlife Women
Are high-street brands doing enough to embrace midlife women?
As luxury fashion labels such as Burberry and Loewe incorporate older female icons into their advertising, high-street brands are falling behind.
Louise Canham, Associate Creative Director, explained why more brands should be spotlighting the diverse and vibrant reality of midlife women.
The Big AI Debate: Creativity, Ethics and Human Connection
There was no doubt that the role of AI in media and advertising was going to be a hot topic at Cannes this year. But quite the level of chatter we saw coming off the Croissette proves this really is the topic of the year for our industry. Quite simply, how could – and should – AI shape the work that we do?
What are the risks – both business and human? Can AI be an inspiration and propellant for creativity, or is it simply a threat to craft?
Imagine a world in which you never have to press 1, trawl through webpage loops, or watch a bot type out “I’m sorry, I don’t understand” ever again. Booking an optician’s appointment; rescheduling hotel check-in dates; even finding out how to replace your dishwasher filter.
All completed in seamless – dare we say enjoyable? – experiences. This is the world we envision for customer services. And it’s currently in creation, with the help of Large Language Models (LLMs).
The Voice Consumer Index 2023, from Vixen Labs and Delineate, revealed that more than 60% of people use voice assistants (Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri) in the UK and US. This means there are plenty of ways in which brands can and should satisfy customer needs via voice.
Read our document which will give you a few ideas on how to get started with Alexa skills. To make it even simpler, they have been divided by sector.
Introverts Need Exercise, Too. How Can Sports Brands Up Their Game With Us?
Despite a growing love for fitness, many introverts feel sports brands don't resonate with them. They enjoy running, swimming, and cycling but avoid highly social activities like triathlons and "bro energy" environments. While they value premium sports gear, they dislike shopping at stores that feel like nightclubs. Introverts like sports' vulnerability and creativity but seek brands that acknowledge their less social fitness journey.
To make sustainability the norm amid a cost-of-living crisis, marketers must reduce the sustainability premium. Key strategies include building brand demand, reinvesting extra sales into customer value creation, and aligning customer and environmental benefits to enhance brand credibility.
Football should leverage its fashion potential, as Lionel Messi’s pink Inter Miami shirt made Vogue's top ten list. Despite being the world's biggest sport, football lags in fashion influence compared to basketball and tennis. Paris Saint-Germain excels by collaborating with top fashion brands. Other clubs should follow PSG's lead, treating kit launches as major branding opportunities and not just sports merchandise.
The Super Bowl: How Sporting Events Supercharge Brand Campaigns
As Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas features the Chiefs vs. 49ers, the spotlight is on the commercials. Major sports events like the Super Bowl are golden opportunities for brands to capture undivided attention in a hyper-personalized world. Live sports resist on-demand streaming, making real-time viewing and ad breaks culturally significant. Brands must creatively integrate to maximize impact, as seen with Apple, Budweiser, and Coca-Cola.
AI in marketing isn't just about enhancing current processes but uncovering new opportunities for effectiveness. It can generate meaningful data assets, use synthetic personas for real-time feedback, and provide insights by combining public and proprietary data. This helps marketers understand audience behavior and predict outcomes. Additionally, AI supports data talent by enhancing their tools and capabilities, empowering them to deliver better insights and value to the business.
The AI Consumer Index is your compass to understanding what consumers expect from AI-enabled brand experiences and voice applications, so you can stay ahead.
The report offers invaluable strategic insights that will empower your brand to deliver exceptional experiences in the era of AI-driven interactions.
THE HOUSE 337 DEMAND INDEX - DRIVING GROWTH IN FASHION THROUGH DESIRABILITY
Welcome to the House 337 Demand Index, a series of sector-specific guides on the factors that drive consumer demand for brands and products. For our first issue, ‘Driving Growth In Fashion Through Desirability’, we take an in-depth look at the UK’s high street fashion retailers and how brand, experience and product combine to create desirability, that intangible quality that quickens the pulse and inspires devotion.
So what does it really take to be an excellent agency leader now?
It happens every decade or so that there’s a generational shift in agency leadership, a significant changing of the guard. New people rise to the top and fresh ways of doing business replace the old.
It feels like change has never been more necessary, for new and established leaders alike.
So what does it really take to be an excellent agency leader now?
Post-COVID expectations and behaviours: Gen Z and financial services.
But there are ways that banks can help. Gen Z, born between the mid-90s and the early 2010s, became the largest generation back in 2019, and represent around one third of the global population.
From school and university shutdowns to social distancing, debt and unemployment, Gen Z is coming of age in the midst of dramatic socio-economic turmoil. Financial services as an industry must remember that it is in a privileged position, holding significant power and ability to influence positively.
US game developer Roblox Corporation’s acquisition of Guilded, the online platform for online to come together and communicate in meaningful ways, is further proof that the metaverse – a world in which the digital and physical are blurred – is having a bit of a moment .
It should also be a wake-up call for every brand.
Brands Must Wake Up to Their Responsibilities and Stop Lagging Behind on Climate Action
Right now, sustainable investing is seen as the growth opportunity of the decade with ESG stocks set to soar. PwC recently announced it is planning a $12bn investment for 100,000 new jobs to boost ESG expertise for clients. But the ESG boom can only come to fruition if the opportunity for innovation is embraced fully and authentically, and this can’t happen when businesses continue to operate in an unchanged value chain.
Martech can’t transform user experience in isolation: five tips for getting it right
These are tough times for many businesses, and that was before the global pandemic. Businesses are divided between those who are disrupting and those being disrupted, and their battleground is customer experience.
Written by Kathryn Loosley, Junior Social and Influencer Strategist, ENGINE Creative. If 2020 hadn’t been eventful enough already, the first half of the year saw Instagram release some brand new tools, whilst TikTok launched their first B2B offering. Click to read more about this.
The latest trends on UK productivity make for stark reading, but are just a continuation of an overall trend that stretches back many decades when compared to the major economies of the world. Read our thought leadership piece to find out more about productivity.
AS THE BRAND BOYCOTT GROWS, WHAT'S NEXT FOR ADVERTISING ON FACEBOOK?
Facebook heads into July with a growing number of brands pausing advertising spend on the platform. Over this weekend, Unilever and Starbucks added their name to the growing list of large brands who say they are going to pull advertising spend from the platform. A campaign that started in the US is now reaching global ad budgets.
HOW MARKETING PROCUREMENT CAN DEVELOP SUSTAINABLE RELATIONSHIPS IN THE ‘NEW NORMAL’
The impact of Covid-19 has accelerated many developments already underway in client/agency relationships. ENGINE Creative's CEO Ete Davies speaks to ISBA about these emerging trends & procurement’s role in helping build true & equitable partnerships. Do read the whole series head to https://www.isba.org.uk/knowledge/the-new-normal-series/
SOFA SESSIONS #2 – HOW BRANDS CAN HARNESS THE POWER OF INFLUENCERS
On 7th May we hosted the Sofa Sessions #2 - this time Gemma Glover, Influencer Strategist at ENGINE, chaired a conversation around how brands are adapting to the new normal and how influencer partnerships can have a positive impact during lockdown. Our expert panel was Eleanor Wilcox, Social Media manager for Next, Beth Atkins, Communications Manager for Clinique & Estee Lauder & Emily Bell, Social Media & Influencer Manager for George at Asda. Watch the webinar here: https://vimeo.com/418138296
On Thursday 16th April, we hosted the first of our Sofa Sessions with ENGINE's influencer strategist, Gemma Glover, to discuss how influencers are quickly adapting to the new normal and how brands can optimise influencer partnerships during the current climate. Our expert panel was made up of Deborah James - Author, columnist for The Sun, Vickie Neave - Lifestyle influencer and Mel Kentish - Head of Influencer at Sky. Watch the webinar here: https://vimeo.com/410114631
In a constantly changing world where rapidly organisations and employees are facing shifting demands, it’s tougher than ever to plan, prioritise and deliver work that has an impact. It’s often even harder to know where to start!
t’s been so well established that a “strong connection between design and ethnographic research is important for successful service design projects” that it’s almost clichéd.
IN CONVERSATION WITH DANNY BARRASSO: WHAT DOES THE FUTURE OF RETAIL LOOK LIKE?
For the past year, we’ve been working with Danny Barrasso, CEO at Esprit (Europe & Americas), on an ambitious project to transform the European fashion house. We invited Danny to join us and a number of retail leaders at our latest executive round table dinner, to share his experiences and talk about what the future looks like for retail. Here’s a summary of their key conversation points.
In this series, we look beyond the trends to see how today’s issues are being addressed and the challenges they pose for the future. Our first look: Inclusive design.
COLLABORATION IN THE FACE OF UNPRECEDENTED CHALLENGE
If you are reading this, chances are you are in a job that is office based and you are facing an indeterminable future of remote working. Many of us will have clocked that people have practiced flexible and remote working for a long time, it has been the saviour for those of us needing to juggle life and work, of freelancers, or those who work in global organisations.
Brands and businesses need to step up and deliver real support and empathy for both employees and customers to navigate the global coronavirus pandemic.
INSTAGRAM INFLUENCERS ARE CREATING THEIR OWN TV-STYLE AD BREAKS
What’s old is new again.
Instagram influencers are starting to put their own placeholders before and after their sponsored posts, similar to an ad break on TV.
Why it’s time for car manufacturers to put women in the driving seat
Women are the perfect, and to date hugely overlooked, audience for electric vehicles. But, as Erminia Blackden, Strategy Director at ENGINE asks, will manufacturers realise this in time?
The ‘faster horses’ quote attributed to the Ford Motor Company’s founder is so often cited it requires no further introduction.[1] Like many oft-cited quotes, it’s doubtful whether it was actually said by the attributed person.
THE ‘STICKY CEILING’ AND WHAT EMPLOYERS CAN DO TO FIGHT IT
Over the last few years, it has become increasingly popular for employers to ask questions about an individual’s socioeconomic background during recruitment. These can range from what type of school you attended to whether you received free school meals (FSM). It may also include asking about your parents’ highest level of education.
WHY EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE CAN’T BE BOUGHT OFF THE SHELF
People are all individual and employee engagement is not a ‘one size fits all’ solution; so it’s no surprise that global companies are struggling to engage workers worldwide. Diverse and inclusive engagement programmes need to be delivered to support all employees, regardless of geographic location.
LISA PARFITT OF ENGINE SPORT: A TAMPON STRING IS NOT A SHOCK TACTIC TO DEBUNK TABOOS. ‘THIS GIRL CAN’ IS ALL ABOUT REAL LIFE.
Since the first campaign launched in 2015, “This Girl Can” has been ahead of the zeitgeist and driven the biggest change ever seen in sports marketing for women. Five years on, the third campaign has cemented “This Girl Can” as more than marketing: it’s a movement.
We have reached the start of a new decade, and with that, a chance to define the new era that lies ahead of us. It’s an exciting time to be an ‘image maker’, with a feeling in the air that anything can happen, perhaps something quite extraordinary.
The new legislation and ‘new approach’ to power-sharing are all vital to making Stormont work, but the most pressing matters are in getting to work on issues that affect all people in Northern Ireland – such as health.
‘CHOOSE EMOTION OVER FUNCTION’ – HOW TO CREATE A GREAT FINANCIAL SERVICES CAMPAIGN
There is a widespread perception that the sector is blighted by two of the biggest barriers to creativity: red tape & fear of risk. However, while this might once have been true, we are now seeing much greater creativity in the sector as challengers fight for attention and traditional players dig deeper to show they’re still relevant. There’s never been a more exciting time to get a financial services brief in. Every brief is, of course, different, but there are a few tips that are universally:
IF YOU'RE NOT ENTERTAINING, YOU'RE NOT GOING TO GET CLOSE
Article first published in Little Black Book.
eurobest Entertainment Jury President Dave Roberts, Chief Content Officer here at ENGINE, on what he hopes to discover at this year’s eurobest Festival and the rise of branded entertainment.
2019 has been a record-breaking year in women’s sport.
A few of the notable highlights include: the Lionesses’ stunning performance at the FIFA Women’s World Cup; Jamie Chadwick lifting the first W Series trophy (and thereby cementing her place in driving history) and Katarina Johnson-Thompson’s heptathlon win in Doha, eclipsing Jess Ennis-Hill’s previously held British points record.
WHY SEGMENTATION ANALYTICS IS A POWERFUL ENGAGEMENT TOOL
Picture this: it’s a high school, where the hierarchy is shown by the grade of your class. This doesn’t necessarily showcase peoples shared interests but merely illustrates the organisational structure. Let’s take a walk into the canteen, where we see segmentation in action; we see a cross-population sitting together with others who share the same interests. It is here in which we can find out how to approach specific topics or communicate differently depending upon which group is being targeted
BLACK FRIDAY: AN AMERICAN HANGOVER OR VITAL SHOT TO OUR ECONOMY?
Of all the things to inherit from our American cousins, a day dedicated to cutthroat sales should be the least surprising. While Thanksgiving itself has become a novel holiday that ex-pats and Americophiles (a disappointingly less elegant term than expected) increasingly make the most of this side of the Atlantic, it’s Black Friday that the British have truly welcomed with open arms.
Marketing practitioners are facing a big problem. Change is happening at an increasingly rapid rate — and it’s not getting any easier to keep up.
It’s become apparent that marketing departments aren’t addressing this need to adapt and, as a result, they’re quickly becoming unfit for the future. Part of this issue stems from the fact that they’re not placed in a particularly strong position or empowered to enact meaningful change in their surrounding environments.
The future of work: what does it look like to you? Thankfully, the current reality isn’t like the rather depressing scenes in this infamous Accenture video from the early 2000s (or at least, it isn’t for the majority of us — sorry Amazon). But while we’ve (mostly) moved on from the trope of offices being home to foosball tables and holographic conferences, the last decade has been full of ‘innovations’ that have come and gone.
Events
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