NeoReach: Where Influencers Drive Marketing

Let's talk about the Cannes Lions 2024 Takeaways!????

Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity

What is Cannes Lions?

At Cannes Lions, the advertising and communications industries meet to celebrate the past year's best work and discuss what industry trends will look like for the year to come.

2024 Festival Takeaways

1. Creators for creative freedom: the sheer amount of content creators, celebrities and athletes that attended the festival at all signaled the power shifting in the industries already. Creators at the festival, however, also discussed that they feel that brands need to relinquish some if not all creative control to work better/well with creators.
2. Anyone and everyone is a creator: the word 'creators,' was a buzzword around the festival this year. When it comes to brands, if you have a platform or some kind of creative output, you are considered a creator.
3. Creators and AI: brands are leaning more towards working with AI to entice customers.
4. DEI: these industries are interested in, now more than ever, DEI both in front of and behind the camera. Consumers want to know that they're supporting brands that are as inclusive as they portray themselves to be in their ads.

Want to read more in depth about our Cannes Lions takeaways? Head to our blog!

TikTok Wants Small Businesses to SOAR

What is the SOAR Together Program?

The SOAR Together Program is an initiative to support small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) on TikTok Shop. SOAR stands for Supporting Our Artisans and Retailers, the entire program title then being, "Supporting Our Artisans and Retailers Together."

The program is designed to give specific support and resources to participating businesses to help rapidly advance their businesses on the TikTok Shop.

The SOAR Together Program is incredibly multi-faceted, TikTok having partnered with multiple non-profits to support those within marginalized communities that are seeking TikTok Shop success:

• TikTok Supporting Women-Owned Businesses with the Association of Women's Business Centers: TikTok is creating a six-week long program designed to support the growth of women-owned small businesses.
• TikTok Shop Partners With StartOut: TikTok Shop's partnership with StartOut is to accelerate the growth of LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs. In this program TikTok Shop is supporting 30 LGBTIA+ owned businesses in the United States with scholarships for StartOut's Founders Program.

Instagram Reels are Winning the Short-Form Content Game

According to a recent survey involving over 2,000 US consumers aged 16 and up in March of this year, 37% of Instagram users now interact with Reels daily, with 78% engaging monthly. Additionally, the survey found that those with increased Reels usage correlated to decreased TikTok activity; notably, 26% of Reels users now report not opening TikTok at all, up from 20% in September 2023.

The survey further suggested that Gen Z's interest in TikTok has come to a stand still, it's daily usage in the US only increasing from 30% last year to 31% this year. Subsequently, there has been a decline of TikTok usage among daily Reels users, dropping from 50% in September last year to 46% this year.

??News Worth Reaching Out For

• TikTok Shop saw a 13% increase in sales from April to May as TikTok appears to be hiring hundreds of employees in the US to support its e-commerce efforts.
• Rhett and Link donated props from Good Mythical Morning to the Smithsonian.

??Reaching New Heights

The creator economy news we're looking forward to the most.

• Instagram is working on Shared Access: invite people you trust to access your Instagram account.
• TikTok creator Hallie Batchelder is joining Alex Cooper's Unwell Network.

??Don't Forget to Reach Out!

We may not have been on the ground at Cannes Lions but we're always on top of all of the latest on influencer marketing and creator economy news??

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