GM, and welcome back to Marketing Qualified. Let’s dive right into today’s topics:
Trendjacking & trendfusing. What they are and why you should be using them.
Study finds creative B2B ads perform better. Creative ads drive more views, engagement, and purchases for B2B companies.
📈 Trendjacking & trendfusing.
Have you heard of trendjacking? It’s when a brand’s campaigns capitalize on current trends or cultural events to increase visibility and engagement.
Trendjacking has become extremely popular in the last decade. And the rise of TikTok has only accelerated it.
Start scrolling, and within a few minutes, chances are you’ll see a video from a brand account playing on a joke, song, meme, or dance currently trending on the platform.
But video isn’t the only form that trendjacking can take.
Here’s a recent email example we saw in our inbox.
This subject line from Morning Brew references the “very demure” trend currently going viral online.
It’s subtle but might just be enough to catch the attention of someone familiar with the “demure” trend.
Taking this up a notch.
If you want to advance to an even higher level than trendjacking, you can try trendfusing.
Trendfusing is when you merge two or more trends into a campaign to increase visibility and engagement for your brand.
Take this example from Deutsche Bank:
This post combines:
The viral “Brat” branding from Charli XCX.
The “looking for a man in finance” trend. (The original video got 58M views, sparking hundreds of thousands of remixed response videos.)
Duetschebank’s post merges them onto “we’re looking for a brat in finance” to promote their careers page.
Why does this work?
1) It’s relevant
The trends tie directly into Deutsche Bank’s recruitment needs in a way that makes sense. They are looking for employees working in finance who are of an age that’s likely to be familiar with Charli XCX’s music.
2) It’s easily recognized
Anyone familiar with these trends is going to clock this post right away.
3) Surprise factor
Paring these trends together and adding in a bank is an unexpected combination.
4) More coverage
With trendjacking, someone needs to be familiar with the trend you pick for the campaign to make sense to them.
With trendfusing, you increase your surface area by using more than one trend. So, theoretically, the campaign is still attention-grabbing, even if someone is only familiar with one of the trends you’re leveraging.
In other words, you increase your chance of getting noticed.
It’s much more common to see trendjacking and trendfusing in the B2C space. But as usual, there is no reason B2B brands shouldn’t try it, too. You might need to adjust which trends you select for campaigns to feel relevant and make sense.
However, being clever and creative with your B2B marketing pays off, just like in B2C marketing. Want cold hard proof of this? Keep reading on to the next main topic in today’s issue. 👇
📰 In the news this week.
❌ Google is killing one of Chrome’s biggest ad blockers.
🤔 Advertisers say their Google ads are showing up on X. Why?
🏆 Which brands won gold, silver, and bronze for Olympic advertisements?
🤖 ChatGPT study finds training data doesn’t match real-world use.
🖼 How to transform your blog posts into infographics.
👨🎨 Study finds creative B2B ads perform better.
Since time immemorial, B2B marketing has been focused on features and functionality.
In today’s world, that’s not enough. More and more marketers are finally recognizing the critical role of creativity and establishing emotional connections with buyers.
And more and more data is emerging to back this up.
Most recently, LinkedIn partnered with MAGNA Media Trials on a study. Their goal was to uncover how creativity can help support both brand and bottom line growth.
The findings were fascinating (but not exactly surprising).
Decision makers are underwhelmed by the B2B ads they see.
The study showed that B2B ads lack characters viewers can connect with, humor, and emotional appeals. Unique perspectives were also missing.
Creative ads get more views and engagement.
When shown to B2B decision makers, creative ads received more likes (+21) and above-average view times (+24 seconds).
Creative ads drive interest and action.
The research showed that if B2B brands used more creative ads, it would encourage next steps among people making buying decisions.
Creative ads drive purchases.
Creative ads also have a better impact on sales. B2B decision makers are 40% more likely to consider purchasing the brand if their ad is seen as “creative.”
So, in summary, if more views, engagement, interest, and purchases sound good to you, we recommend focusing more on creativity in your B2B advertising!
😂 Marketing meme of the week.
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