Marketing in the News

 The article that I chose for this assignment is “The Top 5 Marketing Challenges Expected Globally in 2024, and How To Overcome Them” and “How TikTok Changed PR” because I wanted to learn more about what current challenges the marketing industry faces. Over the past year, there has been enormous growth with AI that resulted in massive shifts across the marketing industry. Along with this, there has been a large shift in how content ranks on search engines due to Google’s new EEAT search ranking factors. Consumer buying behavior has changed drastically as well, with most consumers turning to social media to do their research on a product/service before purchasing and shopping on social media platforms such as TikTok shop. Research shows that Gen Z, millennials, and Gen X prefer to find their products on social media over any other channels. TikTok’s value proposition is that they are a social media app that functions as a multi-sided platform consisting of content creators, viewers, and brands. Unlike most social media platforms, Tiktok users have two social feeds, one for recommended content from the algorithm to you also known as the “for you page”, and a second one for shared content from profiles followed by the user. The platform utilizing this combination provides users with a larger variety of content. The marketing relevance in this article discusses how the platform TikTok has had an impact on PR and is forcing brands to change their strategies. Creators on TikTok who commentate and offer insight on the public relations strategies of major brands and public figures are growing in popularity,  therefore leading to consumers being more knowledgeable and skeptical of the standard “PR” spin. Brands nowadays should focus on transparency rather than employing denial strategies that are no longer effective with today’s consumers. Challenges that many companies/brands are facing right now is how to respond properly to controversies/scandals. Take Target for example, which found themselves at the center of controversy after right-wing commentators responded negatively to their Pride Month apparel collection online. Target ended up backtracking, removing some of their merchandise from that collection to appease to that audience, which then resulted those upset on the left. Target’s mistake in this situation was trying to spin the situation to appease one audience, which ended up in them losing both since this pivot felt disingenuous to consumers. If I were working PR for Target, I wouldn’t have tried to spin the situation to appease to one side of consumers, and I would have opted to aim for authenticity and transparency by figuring out how to craft an honest message/statement to address concerns/controversies of the collection with trying to appease to one side of the argument. From the articles that I have read, I have learned that nowadays consumers care more about transparency and accountability from brands/companies than ever before. Rather than trying to quiet the chatter, brands should understand its evitable and work with consumers to guide the conversation, rather than attempting to take control of the narrative. The top challenge that marketers have faced over the past year and will continue to face is facilitating strong sales and market alignment. 

https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/marketing-pr/how-tiktok-changed-pr/

https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33820/5-major-challenges-marketers-face-and-how-to-solve-them.aspx

https://bmtoolbox.net/stories/tiktok/#:~:text=Value%20Proposition%20%26%20Customer%3A&text=Unlike%20most%20social%20media%20platforms,a%20larger%20variety%20of%20content.