Stuart Galvin, business director, smp

From January Sales to Shrove Tuesday to Singles Day to Christmas, more than ever marketers are run ragged by a brimming calendar of seasonal shopping events and trends.

Some brands are avoiding the big events completely, some are creating their own, while others are getting in there earlier and earlier just to achieve cut-through. Christmas displays in August sound familiar?

Tools are being created, such as Google’s Marketer’s Almanac, to help marketers navigate this ever-changing landscape. The digital yearbook leverages data, insights and consumer trends around key dates to help marketers get ahead with their planning.

However, while these tools are useful, they are not the be-all and end-all. Marketers need to take stock – and take charge – of their seasonal strategies.

First and foremost, timing is everything. This might seem very basic, but it’s something marketers often forget as they rush to pip their competitors to the post. With each and every shopping event, marketers need to know their target audience, understand what will motivate them, and target them with the right message at exactly the right time. Does a shopper really want to be prompted to stock up on Easter goodies when they haven’t even made it into Lent?

As such, rather than jumping on the band wagon of every event and risking ostracising audiences, brands are becoming savvier with their seasonal strategies. Bigger brands like Amazon, for example, often perform well during hyped-up shopping phenomenon like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. In 2015, the e-tail giant experienced its best Black Friday sales to date; so, in 2016, it cleverly extended the sales period from a day to “Black Friday Week”, scooping up even more shopping activity.

But brands also need to think about context. Amazon and big, bold online shopping days make sense; but sometimes events just won’t work for certain brands. Asda, Ikea, Next and Homebase have all abstained from Black Friday. An Asda spokesperson said this was because its particular customers “wanted low prices throughout the festive season and not just for one day”. Its customers crave stability and strategy to help with their Christmas planning.

If the likes of Asda recognise some events simply aren’t right, no matter how economically prominent, smaller brands should take heed. Do they have the resources to take on certain events? Are sales and promotions competitively priced? Above all, what’s the point? Brands needs to ask what each shopping event would mean to its customers and their relationship with the brand. Consider the explicit Valentine’s Day cards pulled from the shelves of Paperchase this year. It was a step too far for the stationary stalwart.

That isn’t to say brands can’t have fun with seasonal shopping events. In fact, creativity should be encouraged, perhaps by exploring alternatives that fit better with the brand. In 2015, the Scottish Butcher held its biggest promotions in the run-up to Burns Night, while operating in-store tastings in Scottish branches of Tesco and Morrisons. The engagement was incredible, upping in-store sales by 40 per cent. Could this experiential approach be carried across borders, either by Scottish brands or non-natives, to surprise customers and generate buzz in other parts of the British Isles?

One of the biggest challenges in retail today is the explosion of channels through which people can shop, and through which brands can communicate with their customers. Physical retailers are often in the firing line, as ecommerce continues to grow at pace. However, seasonal shopping events are about capturing the spirit of the occasion, no matter the platform. Whether it’s Valentine’s rosy hues or the strawberries-and-cream Britishness of Wimbledon, the experience needs to be consistent and done with conviction.

The new shopping calendar can seem daunting to marketers, especially as retail becomes more global. Who knows where the next disruptive event might come from? No one knew, for example, that a Chinese celebration of singledom would, thanks to Alibaba, grow into the world’s biggest online shop-a-thon.

Rather than rolling out the same, timeworn strategies or getting blindsided by newcomers, now is the time to take stock. By assessing the landscape, cherry-picking events based on their value to both shoppers and for brand building, and planning accordingly, brands will ensure they play a more meaningful role for their customers, year in, year out.

The next generation of global fashion leaders are set to draft a resolution to the United Nations on fashion, making it the first negotiation of its kind.

Gathering for the Youth Fashion Summit prior to the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, young talent from around the world are set to discuss how the industry needs to tackle rising concerns of fashion manufacture and consumption.

Challenging social issues, the summit hopes to inspire corporate action through the UN, the first ever resolution concerning fashion.

The resolution will be negotiated with industry leaders such as H&M and Swarovski, and NGOs such as Greenpeace on 10 May 2017 before being presented on stage at Copenhagen Fashion Summit on 11 May. Later this year, the resolution will be presented to the UN in New York.

Also fighting for a sustainable fashion industry are renowned fashion industry names like Susie Lau (also known as Susie Bubble), who is the Youth Fashion Summit ambassador, and Simon Collins, the former dean of the School of Fashion at Parsons School of Design, who will give inspirational talks at the Youth Fashion Summit.

“This year we are truly proud to support the Youth Fashion Summit,” said Nadja Swarovski, Member of the Swarovski Executive Board. “To empower the voice of future generations, who will continue to lead this fight for a sustainable fashion industry in the years to come.”

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) markets are expected to surge over the next five years, reaching a worth of over £45 billion worldwide.

As the ability to develop 3D immersive worlds becomes more popular and easy to create, Allied Market Research has released a report forecasting where the industry will go in the future.

Increased gaming opportunities as well as business adaptation has been key to public understanding of VR and the lesser known AR, which allows for contextual interaction integrated into the real world.

AR is particularly relevant due to its fast adoption by the mobile market, with a notable example being the massively popular Pokemon Go app, which reached huge numbers over the summer of 2016.

Because of the increased development speeds, mobile markets are being touted as the space to watch, as it is expected to grow far beyond other markets.

Aside from video games, practical uses for customer experiences and training exercises are becoming more common, and Allied Market Research predicts it will pave the way for many more applications in the next decade.

“Augmented and virtual reality offers a cost-effective and efficient solution in training and skill development as it replicates the real scenarios by using augmented and virtual reality enabled solutions,” said Sumeet Pal, research analyst at Allied Market Research. “augmented and virtual reality solutions create a virtual environment similar to the real world, where a trainee can understand and tackle challenges with strategic mapping.

“In healthcare, training students or nurses or other medical professionals on live humans is unethical and could be harmful; thus, augmented and virtual reality-based solutions provide valid tools to train medical professionals without compromising and harming one’s life.”

Any marketer worth their weight will obsess about a lot of things. I’d bet you a beer that metrics and content are on their worry list. I run a voice over market place called bodalgo and I’m here to talk content, not the need for it but the cost of it and in particular voice content.

At this point you are think – voice content as in tone of voice right? Wrong. By voice content I am talking about voice overs, explainer videos, ebooks, presentations. With content creation there is always a challenge to produce what is relevant and engaging to your target audience, and there is always a cost associated with it. In terms of time and money spent. There is of course a link between both of these costs and that’s quality.

Rush to create content and your target market will now it and will respond accordingly, skimp on producing it and they will too! So how can you be smart? Let’s make a couple of assumptions; your business needs a 90 second explainer video to support the launch of a new service. You can use the video on your site, embed it in your newsletters, use it at trade shows, share is across Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and ensure it has a call to action at the end of it so you can track the responses to it. That’s the distribution plans dealt with let’s look at the production costs.

Apart from the time to create a story board and script you have production and filming and if you are planning to produce multiple language versions (never assume your target market all speak English) you are going to need a voice to read the words you have crafted in several languages.

If you are small business your budgets are unlikely to be large so you are keeping a keen eye out for costs, but there is an old adage you might well be aware of ‘pay peanuts and you get monkeys’ and with shoddy content  you get shoddy results unless you are after the unprofessional look.

So if you look at the steps outlined above you have a choice spend smartly or risk creating cheap content. Ideas are priceless and writing the right words can be done if you are wordsmith and know where to go, when it comes to video production you also have the advantage of seeing what people have produced and choosing what you want.

As for voices well that’s where things can get really interesting. There are of course a plethora of low cost sites out there offering voices on the cheap but yup you guessed it, you get what you pay for. If you use a voice casting agency there are some hidden extras you have to know about. Firstly what are you getting for your money? A voice over? A fully produced sound file to match the video? A bill for a recording studio? I raise all of this for the simple reason that quality costs but so does ignorance. Knowledge is power and asking the right questions gives you the right answers and the ability to make the right choices.

A site like bodalgo screens voice over talent so only quality talent can pitch for your work and nowadays  a lot of voice over artists have their own sound booths so paying for the cost of a recording studio is not something you should be worrying about or having to pay for. Technology like webRTC also means you can speak to the voice artist while recordings are being made so you get the voice, intonation and accent you want immediately; as after all time is money.

Taking all of the above into account the next time voice features in you content marketing requirements you should now have all you need to ask the right questions, get the right voices at the right price and of course create something that sounds great to you and your customers. No worries.