Each week our team comes together to debrief and share key stories and insights from the news cycle. Take a gander below and find out what’s caught our attention this week.
A positive reaction to Waitrose’ new ‘bring your own container scheme’.
Waitrose had previously trialled the ‘bring your own container’ scheme, in one of their stores in Oxford, in an attempt to reduce single-use plastic for a number of their products, and after the positive response, this is now being rolled out in Cheltenham, Abingdon and Wallingford! Over 200 products have been removed from their packaging and put onto the shelves for customers to fill up their own boxes!
Following this overwhelmingly positive response, Waitrose are inspired to develop more ideas and learn about more products that they’re able to set free from their packaging.
We’re truly hoping that in months to come, carrying your container will be as second-nature as carrying your re-useable shopping bag!
Find out more via the BBC.
First look at Aldi’s Christmas range
Who’s ready to talk Christmas? Yeah us neither but, the first look at Aldi’s new selection of Christmas items shows how the supermarket giant is looking to position itself moving forward. Looking at the 136 brand new lines and 200 re-worked products, they’re certainly giving off a much more premium vibe than usual. From experimental (emphasis on the mental) cheeses, a wide variety of vegan products and products like the ‘Specially Selected Exquisite Chocolate Bauble’, Aldi are angling for high-end shoppers and non-traditional Christmas eaters this year.
Find out some of the top picks at The Grocer.
eCommerce spending continues to rise
Marketers can still get good bang for their buck on both social media and paid search. The ever-changing digital media landscape is releasing new features and ad formats for advertisers to take advantage of. Roughly 45% of Instagram ad spend is now placed on the popular format of stories, and Google shopping takes the lions’ share and represents a huge 37% of search spend share. More and more brands are flooding these cost-effective marketing mediums for their eCommerce efforts.
Read more on The Drum.
Remembering Instagram Before the Influencers
Speaking to some of the original “influencers”, Vice has shared some interesting insights on the evolution of Instagram and the rapid growth of users – going from 90 million users in 2016, to 1 billion today!
The platform has changed from a DIY, creative space, to an incredibly lucrative and influential marketplace, with an active and diverse audience. This is great for brands, agencies and influencers, with a space where we can reach consumers directly. But it also means there is a lot of competition and with an increasingly savvy, millennial/gen z audience, we need to create excellent content that also feels authentic – and more than just a sales message.
Alexandra Marzella (@artwerk6666) commented, if Instagram used to be the “sketchbook”, it’s now supposed to be the “finalised product” – and that requires a whole new set of skills and energy.
And it really does. If you scroll back on a lot of brands’ Instagram pages you can see the evolution from what you might now consider to be fairly amateur content, to professionally curated and designed grids, with a strong brand message. We’ve learnt a lot in a fairly short space of time and as the platform and audiences alike continue to evolve – so must we.
Read more about the changing face of Instagram, via Vice.