How to Score Big on Your Soccer Tournament and Holiday Campaigns by Marketing with Purpose

Authenticity, inclusivity, accessibility, and sustainability are more than just buzzwords circulating the advertising world. Each word is linked to a core set of values that empower audiences worldwide to feel seen, heard, and inspired to connect with your brand.

With 85% of consumers saying they’ll only consider a brand if they trust it and will stop buying from a brand that does not align with their values, building a business that truly stands for something is a requirement in this new age of advertising.

This is where Marketing with Purpose comes in: Marketing with Purpose is about building a brand that’s welcomed into people’s lives by earning their trust through shared values and inclusive customer touchpoints. People are looking for brands to be authentic and to act with purpose, especially in the face of change and uncertainty. For example, the upcoming world soccer tournament together with the festive holiday season will bring people together in shared human experiences, with an expected global audience of 5 billion and up to 70% of them will be reachable on the Microsoft Advertising Network. This presents a unique opportunity to reaffirm shared values with your customers and build trust while building your business.

Here's our 4-step formula (with tips) to help you market with purpose and score big on your soccer tournament and holiday campaigns!

Step 1: Build Trust with Authenticity

Authenticity was found to be the number one trust driver for brands.?

There are 2 main strategies that can help you create a more authentic and genuine brand experience:

• Start with knowing your brand values and ensuring what you do in advertising and marketing is also true internally. Ensure your brand mission is woven throughout how you do business, including advertising—because how you do business in today's world is your marketing. ?
• Explore consumer value trends, then find the common values and there you'll discover genuine ways for your brand to connect with people with shared values.

?Get started with authentic advertising:

• Tip #1: Examine your company mission statement and manifesto, and bring those themes upfront through your ad copy, your visual imagery, tone, and language. Practice deliberate curiosity to find the shared values and find shared meaning with your audiences. What does your audience data show? Beyond demographics, what are their sentiments toward today's events, and what do you share that you deem important???
• ?Tip #2: Explore employee advocacy—could there be an opportunity to showcase your culture, beliefs, and what you do not advocate for in your campaigns and marketing?

Step 2: Make Your Ads More Inclusive

Inclusive marketing deepens trust and goes hand in hand with authenticity.

• ?64% of people said they are more trusting of brands that represent diversity in ads.[1]
• 78% of Ethnic minorities said they are more likely to support brands that are authentic in their advertising.[2]
• Leverage these tactics to deliver more inclusive campaigns

?Get started with inclusive marketing:

• ?Tip #1: Employ an Inclusive Keyword Strategy to target potential customers based on their unique needs, and use the Microsoft Advertising Intelligence tool to produce inclusive keywords that resonate and reach more people.
• ?Tip #2: Authentic representation in advertising is important. It drives trust and brand support, so the images you choose matter. Use genuine imagery, which is best conveyed using real people being themselves, not actors hired to play a part. Seek out unique and realistic diversity, not stereotypes, and have diverse people review your creative to uncover blind spots, such as non-obvious negative connotations, stereotypes, cultural inaccuracies, or associations.

Review the Inclusive Marketer’s Checklist to help you achieve more with inclusive marketing.

Step 3: Ensure Your Ads Are Accessible to All

Accessible marketing is responsible marketing.

With over 1 billion people living with disabilities around the world, accessibility and bringing equity to all is imperative.

?Organizations with inclusive practices have a 28% higher revenue than those that don’t.[3]

Reaching more customers will first require you to create accessible landing pages and websites, use alt text wherever and whenever possible, and understand the accessible consumer’s decision journey.

?Get started with accessible marketing:

• Tip #1: Download the Accessibility Insights plug-in for your browser and learn how to make your campaign landing pages accessible. This free tool by Microsoft will highlight what accessibility issues are present and how to fix them.
• ?Tip #2: Use the Accessibility Checker in Microsoft 365 to make any media or content more accessible.

?Learn the ten accessibility principles to building accessibility into your marketing from the start https://aks.ms/accessiblemarketingebook.?

Step 4: Address Sustainability and Other Values

Shine a light on global issues your company and customers care about.

Global warming and the climate change emergency has increased the importance of environmental issues and sustainability in everyone’s lives. 88% of consumers want brands to step up on sustainable lifestyles and help them improve their environmental and social footprint in daily life.[4]

A global study by Dentsu International and Microsoft found that 79% of the 24,000 respondents in the US (77% UK, 91% Brazil, 84% France, 66% Germany, 80% Australia)[5] would stop using the products and services they use if they learned they were damaging the environment.

?Concerns about climate change may stem from values many of your customers may share and may serve as an opportunity to build deeper trust with your audience.

Get started with sustainable marketing:

Tip #1: Use the Shared Values-Based Marketing Checklist in your campaigns to help you connect authentically with your customers

Tip #2: Access search solutions which help you build that customer trust and achieve more purpose-driven marketing through Microsoft Advertising trusted supply partners:

• ?Ecosia – a search platform that uses 100% of the profits from searches to plant trees where they are most needed.
• DuckDuckGo – a search engine that emphasises protecting searchers privacy.
• Qwant – a search engine that gives complete confidentiality. Zero tracking of your searches, no advertising tracking or sale of your personal data.
• Lilo – the French search engine that allows users to support worthwhile projects just through their searches.

?As people’s demands of brands are clearer and bolder, Marketing with Purpose is the difference between gaining a customer for a day and gaining fans for life. Visit the Marketing with Purpose homepage to get data and insights from consumer research studies on trust and inclusion, take our course, download the accompanying playbook and get connected with a Microsoft Advertising representative.

[1] Marketing with Purpose Playbook page 68 | [2] Marketing with Purpose Playbook page 68 and 86 | [3] Marketing with Purpose Playbook page 19 | [4] Marketing with Purpose Playbook page 59 | [5] The Rise of Sustainable Media page 10.