Here is our round up of the news stories and industry articles that caught our eye during February 2022.
McDonald’s new loyalty scheme has ‘exceeded expectations’ as digital sales jump
According to McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempcziski, the fast food chain’s global loyalty scheme has been the “single biggest driver of digital adoption” and is on its way to becoming the world’s largest loyalty programme.
Investment in marketing and the growth of the delivery sector have seen continued UK growth for McDonald’s, which plans to further boost sales in 2022 with the expansion of “the world’s largest loyalty programme”.
Read the article in Marketing Week.
These electric motorbikes are designed to fight poaching in Africa
Swedish electric bike company Cake has found an unexpected niche for its quieter, renewable energy-powered rides.
Rangers had been using combustion engine motorbikes to patrol parks and track down poachers. The main challenges was the reliance on gasoline, which needed to be flown in by helicopter, and the noise of combustion engines. “They’re so loud that the poachers hear them 45 minutes away,” Ytterborn says. “They just pack up their stuff and leave.”
Read the article in Design Week.
Volvo eyes DTC promise as electric sales grow
Volvo saw direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales rise by 9% in 2021, as consumers responded to the “convenience” of online car buying.
Ecommerce sales in markets where the service is available ramped up in the fourth quarter driven by growing customer demand, explained outgoing chief executive Håkan Samuelsson at the brand’s full year results today (11 February).
Read the article in Marketing Week
Live, love but don’t laugh: making the case for inspirational quotes
A simple yet oddly touching phrase was circulating on Twitter a few months ago. It was three simple words: lemurs, toilets, exit, a delightful contrast to the platform’s normal menu of bad news.
‘Lemurs, toilets, exit,’ captioned with ‘New Live Laugh Love just dropped,’ checked a lot of boxes when it came to image-based observational humour. It’s goofy and bizarre, yet it has a profound, existential air to it—thanks to the word order, maybe. It also subverts the easily criticised, syrupy cliches of the internet, reminding us that “today is a terrific day to be amazing.”
Read the article in Creative Review.
Airbnb CFO: We were right to shift spend from performance to brand-building
Airbnb will continue to invest the majority of its marketing budget in brand-building in 2022, citing PR as its “most critical channel” as it seeks to recruit new hosts and encourage innovation.
Airbnb’s fourth-quarter earnings were the “strongest ever,” thanks to more revenue and improved marketing efficiency.
In the three months to December 31, net profit was $55m (£40.6m), compared to a net loss of $3.9 bn (£2.9 bn) in the same time in 2020. The quarter’s total revenue was $1.5 bn (£1.1 billion), up 38% from the previous year.
Read the article in Marketing Week.
Birmingham Royal Ballet rebrands with “emphatic wordmark”
In order to “turn up the volume on their talent,” NB Studio has produced a new visual identity for the organisation.
The branding comes after Carlos Acosta’s appointment as director in 2020, and it represents his desire to gain new followers, stage new work, and have a social effect.
For the 75-year-old ballet, NB Studio has devised a new typographic approach, replacing the serif wordmark with a more Brutalist-style sans serif. As the studio defines it, this “distinctive type architecture” is utilised to bookend images as well as business cards.
Read the article in Creative Review.
Royal Mail honours legendary stamp designer David Gentleman in new collection
The Royal Mail has released a set of stamps honouring David Gentleman, a designer who “transformed British stamp design” in the second part of the twentieth century, according to the company.
Six stamps are included in the set, each with a different design from Gentleman’s 103-stamp back catalogue.
This is the first time Royal Mail has devoted a whole issue to one of its own commemorative stamp designers.
Read the article in Design Week.
Jonathon Bright
Jonathon is the DWH marketing guru and handles all marketing, copywriting and social media duties. With over 25 years experience working with clients and agencies across the globe, his role is to provide all things marketing from lead generation strategies right through to writing blogs and press articles. With two Marketing degrees and a successful track record of working with sole traders, SME’s & FTSE 100 companies his full mix experience can deliver results whatever the budget.