Summer’s Here. Time to Lighten Up Your Marketing.

Summer – a time to strip down, lighten up and have some fun. With the longer days and rising temperatures comes a sense of renewed energy and a tendency towards the whimsical. Heavy soups and stews are replaced by summer salads and outside BBQs, weekends spent binging on TV shows are replaced with trips to the beach; hemlines are on the rise and the possibility of a summer romance is around every corner.

A lesser-known summer side effect is that when the sun is out, people spend more. Research suggests that the sun makes us feel better and, in turn, according to these findings, shop more.

For marketers looking to capitalize on this sunshine-induced positive consumer attitude, lightening up their campaigns to match the season is a must. Here are three ways to do it.

  1. Make it fun

Summer is all about having fun, and that should translate into summer-focused marketing campaigns. From using elements of gamification to spark competitiveness, to boosting engagement with loyalty programs, to viral marketing, making campaigns fun means making them engaging. That’s why Snapchat has overtaken Twitter in daily users. The fun factor is significantly higher with its array of filters and, like a summer romance, is non-committal by the nature of its time-limited posts.

  1. A picture’s worth a thousand words

As Apple introduces its new emojification feature, where users will be offered up emoji’s as alternate suggestions to typed words, and Twitter announces the ability to target ads based on emoji’s, the power of the written word is diminishing. That means marketers need to be more visual than ever with their messages and campaigns. And if a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth 10-times as much. According to a report published by Forrester, including video in an email leads to a whopping 200-300 percent increase in click-through rate. And 45.4 percent of users viewed at least one video online over the course of a month according to ComScore.

  1. Get mobile

This is the time of year marketers should be directing even more of their attention to mobile. As consumers head outside and away from home, marketers must reach them in the mobile-moment wherever they are – and mobile is the best channel to do that. But the key to mobile marketing is relevance – getting the right content to the right customer at the right time will drive action. The easiest way to be relevant is through location. Understanding where a customer is in relation to your product is the best way to understand where and when to target consumers. Remember, all that sunshine makes them want to spend more – so it’s just a matter of ensuring your brand is top of mind when they make that in-the-moment purchase.

This summer, make sure your marketing matches your customers’ season. Make it fun, make it visual and make it mobile. Just remember, summer may only be one season, but the memories last a lifetime. Make sure your marketing is memorable to match.

Brand Cleveland Rising

So, this space was supposed to be reserved for an exultation of the Golden State Warriors’ second consecutive NBA title and an exploration of their innovative fan outreach. The Warriors, for the past 24 months, have been the NBA’s flagship brand, led family values, kid-friendly Stephen Curry, a player who is every marketers dream. They have no less than six bona fide stars on their team, and consistently lead the league in jersey sales.

However, that storyline went out the window Sunday night when Kyrie Irving hit a late three-pointer and LeBron James sealed the win with a free throw, earning the Cleveland Cavaliers the franchise’s first NBA championship and Cleveland’s first championship in more than 50 years.

There might be no bigger brand turnaround story than the Cleveland Cavaliers. Owner Dan Gilbert’s franchise has pulled a 360 during the past decade. In 2007, a much younger James led Cleveland to the NBA finals, where the San Antonio Spurs summarily crushed them. In 2010, James—the hometown hero who made the Cavs relevant nearly single-handedly—signed with the Miami Heat as a free agent, leading that team to four finals trips and two titles. Meanwhile, the talent bereft Cavaliers began a putrid four-year stretch as the worst team in the league.

Then The King came back. When James announced he would return to Cleveland in 2014, it portended better times, and they were immediately improved as they played their way to the championship round despite a hobbled supporting cast. However, the Cavs lost to the Warriors in 2015. Still, James’ return immediately made the team twice as valuable, rocketing up the list of NBA valuations.

And that was before Sunday’s win. After a historic comeback against grim odds, the Cavs have completed their comeback as a brand refreshed. Some 31 million viewers watched the final game, making it the most-watched NBA Finals game since Michael Jordan’s heyday. Returns are early, but bandwaggoneers are already clearing shelves and online inventory of team apparel. Kids across the country are wearing Cleveland’s number 23. Season ticket sales for NBA champs are invariably higher than the previous seasons, assuming no loss of star power. On that topic, James, who reasserted his claim as the best player alive, is expected to re-sign with the Cavaliers during his impending free agency. Six years ago under similar circumstances, Cleveland fans were left disappointed when LeBron took his “talents to South Beach.” Such a move is highly unlikely this year.

Everything is coming up Cleveland. It’s a great story about an underdog made good. James and Cavaliers have proven that the NBA is a rare brand ecosystem where one talented person, properly focused and channeled, can literally reverse a brand’s destiny.

Drop Us A Line