The Sauce – 16/04/2024

Welcome to ‘The Sauce’ – your weekly dollop of marketing news.

By Ashleigh Morris, our Content and Comms Lead.

Welcome to ‘The Sauce’ – your dollop of marketing news from the past week.

This week we’re talking about Specsavers’ new campaign to reach Gen Alpha, the return of Peperami’s ‘Animal’ after a decade, and why marketing strategy continues to be undervalued.

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Specsavers’ Gamble With Gaming

Specsavers has launched its latest campaign, taking a leap into the unknown with gaming.

The branded obstacle course game ‘Specsavers Obby’ has been launched on Roblox, online gaming and game creation platform, as the company aims to reach and educate younger generations. The game has been supported with content on the brand’s TikTok channel.

We’ve seen Specsavers successfully continue to run with their ‘Should’ve Gone to Specsavers” campaign for over 20 years. This new campaign goes in a different direction and aims to reach Gen Alpha (those born from 2010).

We talk a lot about target audience, and Specsavers are ticking all the boxes here, using an established brand platform to stay at the forefront in the minds of existing consumers, while simultaneously engaging with a new audience using a different strategy on other channels.

We love seeing how established brands are adapting their marketing strategies to reach a younger audience and we’re looking forward to seeing how other brands embrace gamification and other strategies to reach Gen Alpha.

Specsavers are ticking all the boxes, using an established brand platform to stay at the forefront in the minds of existing consumers, while simultaneously engaging with a new audience using a different strategy.

Peperami Power

Do you remember Animal? Peperami’s iconic brand mascot is making a return after 10 years – but did anyone realise he had gone?!

Animal will be returning as part of a campaign on TV and across digital platforms, which sees the character livening up a tedious virtual meeting.

There’s something to be said for a bit of nostalgia, and this certainly had us reminiscing in the Awesomesauce office. We’ve seen a lot of brands return to previous ad campaigns and slogans recently (Tango, Morrisons, Jaffa Cakes), and some continue decades-long successful campaigns (Coca-Cola every Christmas, Specsavers in the story above)…

Arguably ads had more longevity in the past, before digital marketing sped things up. Peperami’s latest move is backed up by research too – they found that 81% of UK adults surveyed still remember Animal.

With the right targeting, this could definitely be a win for Peperami – bringing back lapsed customers with nostalgia, and introducing the character to a new Gen Z and Gen Alpha audience with the right activation online. 

Watch this space to see which nineties or noughties favourite is the next to be revived!

There’s something to be said for a bit of nostalgia… We’ve seen a lot of brands return to previous ad campaigns and slogans recently.

Marketing Strategy Continues to be Undervalued

Marketing strategy continues to be the most undervalued skill in marketing, Marketing Week’s latest Career & Salary Survey has found. Over half of respondents (53.7%) identified strategy as an undervalued marketing skill, followed by brand management at 46.1%.

These stats triggered an intense debate amongst the Awesomesauce team! I asked our strategy director James for his thoughts. He said, “Marketing tends to be one of the first departments to have their spend cut when a business is struggling – at the time when it’s needed most! Strategy is one of those areas that when it goes badly, blame is thrown, but when it goes well, no one notices!

“That’s why it’s so important to shout about what you’re doing when it’s going well… and analyse what can be done better when things aren’t going so well.”

On the flip side, social media marketing was identified as the most overrated skill, a stat which our team disagreed with!

James said, “If social media is being identified as an overrated skill, it indicates perhaps the marketing team isn’t fully aligned. Social media is a crucial area to support marketing in B2B and B2C companies, as part of the overall marketing strategy. If you work in social media, think about what you can do to demonstrate the value your work is adding to the business.”

Looking for support with your marketing strategy or social media? Drop us a message to find out how we can help.

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Contact us on hello@awesomesaucemarketing.co.uk to find out how we can support your business with a client-centred marketing approach – building trust and loyalty.

You can check out previous editions of ‘The Sauce’ here. 

Brought to you by Awesomesauce Marketing – a full-service marketing agency serving UK and international clients.