Weekend Musings 16
Thoughts on React for Real ICRC campaign, Animalz Content Marketing 2021, and Consumer Trends of 2022
Movies play a big role in my life. My first movie was Disco Dancer. My eyes dazzled when I saw Mithun Da dancing on the 70 mm screen. I was a happy kid along with my parents. My brother was growing in my mother’s womb.
My father was a big movie buff. Every weekend he would travel to Calcutta from Haldia to catch a new movie with his friend. Once he managed to grab first-day first show tickets in black for Bruce Lee’s Enter The Dragon.
Back in those days, it was a cult movie and so was Bruce Lee. He still is but his quotes are more popular on social media. My father would often say that your generation has become slaves to the Internet and Mobile phones.
“You guys are slowly forgetting the real world, real people and real relationships.”
I adopted the love of movies from my father. We are at a very interesting phase of Cinema both in terms of content and accessibility. Today it is not just Bollywood but a different catalogue of cinema is available - from world cinema to regional movies.
OTT platforms have solved the accessibility problem and hence we are seeing content on topics that generally producers would think twice to release in a multiplex. In the last two years, Amazon Prime has become the hub of Indian regional movies that are creating new benchmarks. Not just small and medium budget movies are finding space on OTT platforms, big-budget Bollywood has been forced to release on OTT platforms. And there is a plethora of content that is being churned on Netflix. The likes of Hotstar, Sony LIV, ZEE, etc. can’t be ignored.
Definitely, it is a delight for movie lovers like me. I still love the theatre but at the same time, the comfort of my bed is quite tempting. For Sooryavanshi and No Time To Die, I walked into my nearest multiplex and for Hum Do Hamare Do it was Hotstar from the comfort of my home.
In the world of multiple screens, divided attention and audiences preferring content; stardom has taken a back seat. In the times when we have adjusted with the virus and its multiple kids; stars somehow can’t drive the movie anymore. Content cannot be ignored anymore.
Bhai fans might not agree.
That’s why there were no stars but actors in Film Companion’s - Best performance of 2021. The hour-long conversation hosted by Anupama Chopra is a delightful watch if you love movies and what goes behind the minds of the talented actors who have given some of the breathtaking and mind-blowing performances of 2021.
I was happy to see Vicky Kaushal(Sardar Udham), Samantha Ruth Prabhu(Family Man 2) and Adarsh Gourav(The White Tiger). Sardar Udham also happens to be my favourite movie of 2021 and Vicky gives one of his best performances.
2022 will be another delightful year for movie and content lovers. But before that, the year will witness The Matrix Resurrections and it needs an IMAX experience :)
Moving on to my weekend musings for this week:
React for real
Social media collective concern is good but when lives matter one needs to donate and not just share or comment. Inspired by the phrase, ‘If I had a dollar for every time...,’ the 60-second ad from The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) tells how 1,989,770 crying face emoji posts on #Afghancrisis could have fitted 4,974 prosthetics, and the 2,112,700 #Afghan with a heart emoji post could have healed 216,280 wounds.
Created by Wunderman Thompson, the ‘React for Real’ campaign gathered data from people’s social media reactions to the Afghan withdrawal and replaced them with the amount that aid relief could have brought if it was a dollar.
The film has been released to encourage people to support the ICRC’s work in Afghanistan as winter sets in.
What makes Facebook groups uniquely powerful for nonprofit fundraising
Every time Facebook/Meta goes down the debate of having niche platforms starts. Facebook has made marketers slaves who have no choice but to depend on Facebook. While there is debate in the US on Facebook seeing decline but in India, it is still the primary social media platform. And so is the entire Facebook family of apps.
“It’s VERY hard to change people’s behaviour. You want to avoid that at all costs. It should a last resort,” says Nick Burne. His latest post on What makes Facebook groups uniquely powerful for nonprofit fundraising is a deep dive into comparing group functionality across all platforms and why Facebook Groups are so perfect for fundraisers.
The Animalz Content Marketing Benchmark Report 2021
“Over the past year, 82.9% of all the blog traffic we analyzed came from organic search. This is even higher than in our 2020 benchmark report (59.2%). Organic search really is the engine of content growth, now more than ever,” says The Animalz Content Marketing Benchmark Report 2021.
This research is based on 155,748,541 pageviews of data from over 60,000 pieces of content on almost 100 different blogs.
Organic traffic growth has slowed down a bit but still is the strongest channel. All other main traffic sources—referral, social, and email—shrunk over the course of the year. This is in stark contrast to 2020 when only social traffic declined.
The report also suggests that blogs with a high percentage of traffic from organic sources are more likely to have more traffic overall.
Finally, the research also tends to indicate that longer content really does perform better than shorter.
“Longer content is often perceived to be more valuable, and that often leads to social sharing and backlinking, creating the possibility for more traffic.”
Connecting the dots - Consumer Trends of 2022
Male interest in beauty has exploded in APAC markets such as China, Australia, and Indonesia, but the impressive growth in North America and Europe shows this is truly a global trend. GWI calls it the Groom Boom in its Consumer Trends Report 2022.
Additionally, self-care has become a necessity and not an indulgence. Consumers are developing a self-care toolkit of sorts so that they’re armed for whatever life throws their ways. Moving more, eating healthier, and getting more adequate sleep are the top actions taken to manage physical health.
Moderation and boundary-setting have also emerged as key ways to manage mental wellbeing, especially for younger generations. Close to 30% of Gen Z and millennials say they’re taking more breaks from work. Many are also spending less time on social media, saying “no” to social activities to focus on themselves, or spending less time reading news in a bid to manage their mental wellness.
Two weeks from now it will be 2022 and the internet will be flooded by all kinds of trend reports. Some will make you think. Everything is being collected on Google Drive so that you don’t have to do the groundwork. Thanks to these good fellows.
That’s all for now I will see you soon. Good week ahead :)
Keep Running,
PN