Digital Horizons

Brand News: AI Marketing Success and the Art of Olympic Sponsorship

• James Walker & Brian Hastings

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Unlock the secrets of skyrocketing your sales with AI-driven marketing! This week on Brand News, we're revealing how Dan Murphy's achieved an impressive 29% boost by tailoring personalized promotions using advanced AI techniques. But that's not all – discover how these powerful tools can revolutionize even the smallest online stores, making sophisticated marketing accessible to everyone. We also dive into the high-stakes world of Olympic sponsorships, analyzing the strategies of giants like Nike, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola. Learn how Nike managed to maintain strong brand affinity without being an official sponsor, proving the immense value of consistent brand presence.

In our second segment, we spotlight a brand that has recently stirred up significant buzz, reminding us all of the critical importance of branding and visibility. While the brand name might be elusive, the impact of their strategic efforts is a lesson no marketer should miss. Head over to the link we've shared for an in-depth article if you're eager for more details. Join us as we bring you the latest insights and strategies to stay ahead in the fast-paced world of marketing and branding. See you next week with more cutting-edge updates and intriguing stories!

The Digital Horizons Podcast is hosted by:

James Walker - Managing Director Walker Hill Digital
Brian Hastings - Managing Director Nous

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to Brand News. Welcome All right. So I'm Brian, this is James. We've got some articles for you today, not because I'm lazy, but they're both from bntcom.

Speaker 2:

I feel there's a bit of laziness in that. There were only two articles in the world that you could pick up, and that happened to be right next to each other on a website.

Speaker 1:

I scoured every potential piece of news in the whole world. I hope they're good. Yeah, they were directly above each other. Let's start with the first one. I like this one because it's blending AI-driven tech strategies with real results for a big brand that I definitely use a lot, so let's get into it Again. This is on B&T article by Amy Edwards. It is how targeted AI marketing led Dan Murphy's to a 29% sales boost, so I'm already excited because they mention a growth in sales.

Speaker 2:

There's actually an outcome. So how are they using AI, which led to this All?

Speaker 1:

right. So my short version summary is they are pairing the ideal promotions and discounts to their members. I don't know if you've ever purchased from Dan Murphy's. They ask you what your mobile number is Every time.

Speaker 2:

Yep, I don't go there that often yeah.

Speaker 1:

So when they ask you for your mobile, they're recording everything that you're purchasing. And for those app users Dan Murphy's app users they're providing just the perfect discount on the products you recently or frequently purchase or are very similar products to what they've got an offer on. They're using AI machine learning not to come up with the offers, but to pair the right offer to the right person at the right time.

Speaker 2:

That is so exciting because just imagine the possibilities I mean they're going to be at a very large enterprise level of data and capabilities there. But imagine once this rolls out into Shopify and. Klaviyo is rolling out AI and all these e-commerce platforms and once they've got that, imagine just all your smaller online stores that are going to be able to really shoot up their sales by implementing this kind of strategy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think these sorts of tools start with the big guys like this, and then they filter down, kind of like the top luxury car level tech eventually comes down to Hyundai at some point in time. So just a little bit more on it. Ceo Steve Donoghue revealed that AI and machine learning have become crucial tools in the company's strategy to precisely target promotions, drive sales, sales and expand market share despite broader long-term decline in alcohol consumption. So yeah, that's in a market where alcohol consumption is reducing their existing customer members. They've seen 29% growth. So well done to those guys for a reasonable and logical introduction of AI and machine learning to drive their sort of tech pairing of the right promotion to the right customer.

Speaker 2:

I think on the back of that, I think we'll have an upcoming episode where we will test one of these tools. We'll do a bit of research and find if there is anything out there at the moment that is available to as a Shopify app or WooCommerce add-on that we can potentially give a trial and see is there a solution there that people can be using and implementing right now?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, how can we review and analyze your customer data or your frequent purchases data and deliver some insight, real time to deliver more sales? Yeah, I'm sure there's something we could try and implement Coming soon. So the second article, again by Amy Edwards, on bntcomau. Thank you, amy, for the interesting articles. Mcdonald's, nike and Coca-Cola the winners and losers of the Olympic sponsorships. Do you watch much of the Olympics? Didn't see a single minute. I was watching heaps of it because my six-year-old son has automatically become hooked on all sports of any type, from archery to NRL. He wants to watch everything. So I've been up at 6.30 in the morning watching the Olympics with my son and I did notice a lot of sponsorship presents from Adidas. But what I find interesting about this article is the big winner is Nike, who wasn't an Olympic sponsor.

Speaker 2:

And they were sponsored back in 2012, weren't they? I think they were saying it was the last time that they sponsored the Olympics. That's right.

Speaker 1:

So for them to still be getting an affinity or a connection without having to pay the. So what's the theme of the article? So they interview Michaela Hopkins. Michaela's from Head of Marketing at Tracksuit. It's a brand tracking study, some of our clients use this platform. Yeah, brand tracking tool, I think it's really exciting and a cool tool if you want to continue to take marketing dips and see how you compare in brand interest and brand affinity for you versus your competitors. It costs money, though it's not a free tool.

Speaker 1:

It's not a cheap tool yeah, not a cheap tool, but it is still really interesting. So these guys actually can see what's worked in terms of brand perception. It's all interview based, so who are the big winners? Funnily enough, the ones they mentioned aren't actually sponsors of the Olympics. Mcdonald's overarching sort of theme here is McDonald's has been a longstanding Olympic sponsor. I think they removed their sponsorship from 2017. I think it was going back as far as 1976. What they were pointing out is there was kind of a halo or rollover effect where people just still thought McDonald's was a sponsor of the Olympics and it kind of increased their brand perception and affinity during the Olympic period.

Speaker 2:

I guess if you've been watching the Olympics for a long time and you see McDonald's for, say, 20, 30 years, over that duration, you're probably just going to associate the brand with your brand right, and so it's just showing that the consistency of the brand presence and alignment is really key to that continuation there.

Speaker 1:

Key takeaway from that is don't test a one-year sponsorship of something. If you are going to be present with something, you're probably going to have to own it for the long-term and make a big commitment to it. Otherwise, the boost or the engagement you're going to get from it probably isn't going to be there. The second reference here is Nike. So she states there's a masterclass in ambush marketing. I love the way Mike, nike way Mike.

Speaker 1:

I love the way Nike align themselves with the Olympics without paying anything to the Olympics. They weren't the primary sponsor. I think Adidas were. However, the reason they're being labeled as the masterclass in ambush marketing is they sponsor everything around it. They find large groups of athletes in certain events and sponsor them also. While there might be Adidas on the billboard, on the track, every one of the athletes is wearing a recognizable Nike shoe with a specific color that everyone might notice, and you can't help but think that Nike is sponsoring it because you're seeing their product everywhere. They did launch a campaign during the Olympics which was Find your greatness, which didn't mention anything to do with the Olympics, but people drew that connection that you know participating in the Olympics are reaching your potential find your greatness. So very clever alignment without having to spend the big bucks on that brand sponsorship.

Speaker 2:

But it also speaks to the quality of product and that they don't need to spend the big dollars to be featured anyway, because if all these athletes are there and they're competing and they're wearing their products, there's a reason why they're wearing them. They're not going to be wearing it if it's a product because they're not going to have a chance of winning. So I guess, when it comes to the shoes or whatever, it just shows that quality products are going to then allow them to be featured in these situations without having to pay.

Speaker 1:

There was another brand that I noticed. It was quite prevalent in the Olympics, especially on track and field, and it was just all black. No brands, it was brandless black shoes, black pants and black singlets. What their intention was was to almost be sort of throwing it up at the big brand sponsors who weren't sponsoring the little guys and the athletes, proving to the world that I don't have a big brand sponsorship. This brand gave them unbranded versions of their clothes to say that we can only afford a small sponsorship, but we want to indicate for the rest of the world that you deserve a big sponsorship and you shouldn't just be wearing the Adidas gear that's given to you by the Olympics, because that makes it look like they've had you back the whole way through. That was a way of athletes kind of showing well, no one sponsored me, no one's helped me to get here. This brand was spoken about and talked about a lot. I wish I could remember it.

Speaker 1:

They probably needed their brand on the stuff but we'll mention it here and have a link to an article about that as well. That's cool. That's it for Brand News for this week. We'll be back next week.

Speaker 2:

Looking forward to it, cheers Thank you, thank you.