Messaging Apps: The New Frontier of Brand Engagement

Welcome to Razorfish Radar, a newsletter about life on the internet brought to you from the pioneers of digital innovation for marketing change makers. Radar delivers the latest news on cultural trends, technology, and platforms—along with the expert insights to help you make sense of it all. Headline: The rise—and promise—of messaging apps ?

Direct messages between Facebook and Instagram accounts?will soon be a deprecated feature?within Meta’s portfolio of apps. There’s been?plenty of speculation?that the move is directly?related to the EU’s regulatory review of Messenger. But because Meta has decided to remove interoperable messaging “without much fanfare,” it’s likely that there hasn’t been a significant uptick in user adoption since it was first rolled out in 2020.

And while this may seem like a nuanced or relatively esoteric change to core platform features,?conversational commerce within messaging apps?is becoming an increasingly vital part of brands’ engagement strategies, with the potential for in-messaging-app commerce?to grow to a $6.9B market by 2030. (Mark Zuckerberg?recently highlighted the important role?that yet another messaging app, WhatsApp, plays in Meta’s commercial strategy.) From initial consideration and through purchase to customer service and advocacy,?messaging apps offer?brands opportunities to engage with their priority audiences with “white glove” personalized services.?

Related: The ability to engage in private conversations on any app is increasingly important,?as evidenced by?messaging feature integrations into?even exercise tracking apps?like Strava (just released late last week).

Why it matters: Marketers need to consider how and where people want to engage across digital channels in order to encourage them to engage with branded content. Within these ecosystems, messaging apps are offering increasingly sophisticated multiformat experiences that can serve as next-generation concierge experiences for brands.

Other news and trends

Spotify wrapped gone wrong??Just days after the release of?Spotify Wrapped 2023, Spotify CEO?Daniel Ek announced?that the company would be?laying off 17% of its staff?(~1500 people). This marks the third large-scale layoffs at Spotify this year alone, following a?6% reduction in January?and?200 employees cut from its podcast division?in June. On X,?former employees?and?third-party spectators?are?commenting on the timing?of the cuts and?sharing messages of empathy. Meanwhile, even?award-winning podcasts?are getting the ax,?prompting some to wonder?just how viable the streaming giant’s future forecast is.

• ?Related: TikTok x Ticketmaster.?Meanwhile, TikTok’s outsized impact on the music and entertainment industry continues to grow through a partnership expansion?with Ticketmaster originally forged in August.?Now, the agreement extends beyond the US?across 20 countries. (Snapchat?and?YouTube?have developed similar partnerships in the past.) Still, the global expansion could bode well for Tiktok’s own streaming platform,?TikTok Music (which is currently being tested in Australia, Mexico, and Singapore).

CVS price changes.?CVS Pharmacy is working?to create a more transparent price structure?around prescription drugs through a plan called CostVantage, which the company hopes?will “evolve the traditional pharmacy reimbursement model” and build “a world of health around every consumer.” CostVantage will take some time to roll out and should?be reflected across insurance payors by 2025; for now,?there’s no telling?what kind of savings any given person could expect to receive for their medications.

The week ahead: The 2023 Game Awards?will stream live from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles this Thursday, and publishers are already sharing?predictions for winners?and upcoming releases that will be announced during the show, as well as?highlighting?their own?best-of lists.

• Related: PlayStation users?have been reporting?that they’ve been?subject to bans?for allegedly?violating the Terms of Service and User Agreement. PlayStation has?not yet acknowledged this?as a widespread issue, though?redditors are hopeful?it will be treated as a bug. As many console gamers only purchase titles or downloadable content digitally, their game library and play activity would be completely removed by such a ban.

Contributors: Head of Social Content and Engagement Strategy Cristina Lawrence, Senior Vice President Jerry Lawrence, Group Vice President Andrew McKernan, and Senior Vice President Tammy Pepito.

At Razorfish, we help brands define their higher purpose—the emotional reason why they belong in people’s lives. Ready to find your purpose? Learn more here.

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