Putting the emphasis on customer and employee experience has not only been Mecca’s most powerful marketing lever to date, it’s led the brand to open its biggest physical store yet in Sydney.

Customer migration driven by the COVID-19 crisis might be here to stay for many businesses across Australia and New Zealand, according to the latest Salesforce State of the Connected Customer report.

Online beauty retailer, Adore Beauty, has a catalogue of over 15,000 products across over 200 cosmetics brands, serving more than a million transactions a year. Its unique market proposition is providing beauty consultation services through its digital channels, aimed at allowing customer to skip the intimidating traditional cosmetics floor. This ethos has been built into its communications, but Adore Beauty wanted to extend this into its lifecycle marketing by analysing real-time customer behaviour.

Australians have boosted their spending on TV and music streaming, esports and podcasts this year to see them through the COVID-19 experience, according to the PwC Australian Entertainment & Media Outlook 2020-2024.

Mobile engagement platform, Plexure, which was recently named in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for mobile marketing platforms, is eyeing an Australian ASX listing and a move into the competitive supermarket space.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been an unprecedented global event, causing huge uncertainty, economic hardship and shutdowns across the world. In a time of crisis, organisations have little option but to respond. Innovation suddenly becomes a means of survival rather than an optional extra. Four marketing chiefs explain what it’s been like to innovate during a crisis.

​Curtin University has recently launched its first major brand campaign in more than five years, ‘Change is Here’, an integrated campaign created by AnalogFolk Sydney. The campaign taps into young people’s desire to see real change in a world now defined by unprecedented uncertainty, and will run across TV, radio, outdoor, digital and social.

TPG has launched felix, Australia’s first telco brand to be powered by 100 per cent renewable energy. felix, which is also certified carbon neutral and digital-only, will go live over coming weeks. TPG Telecom CEO, Iñaki Berroeta, said the model is the way of the future.

Australia has ranked as the 12th most valuable nation brand, valued US$1.3 trillion, according to the Brand Finance Nation Brands 2020 index. However, in recession for the first time in 28 years, Australia is seeing higher unemployment and significant government debt, although economic partnerships with East Asian nations should help in supporting growth.

Celebrating its centenary, Qantas has marked 100 years since it was founded as the Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services in the Australian outback. It comes in a year when the iconic airline has been grounded because of the global coronavirus pandemic.

Fiverr is doubling down on its marketing spend in Australia with the rollout of its first ever national TV and BVOD campaign in Australia. The local launch is an extension of Fiverr’s global ‘It Starts Here’ brand campaign announced in September, which provided a glimpse of the challenges and triumphs of small businesses, while showcasing the impact Fiverr has created in local communities.

Insurance business, DUAL, tapped video to promote mental health awareness, celebrate events, brief staff and stakeholders and keep its unique internal culture alive during the coronavirus lockdown.

Consumer shopping habits formed in lockdown are here to stay, according to Opinium Research, which was commissioned by payments platform Adyen. While COVID-19 has been a huge catalyst for change, it’s also solidified our preference for certain activities, including shopping in-store.

The humble local library, once the domain for school kids and older people checking out a few books, has been transformed into a digital destination, where a customer focus has given rise to improved services and a raft of new digital tools. At least that’s the experience with Casey Cardinia Library, one of Victoria’s largest public library networks.

The average time spent on social media has grown by 30 per cent during the COVID-19 crisis, according to an L&A Social census.This increase in social media usage, coupled with the shift towards ecommerce, has created a commercial imperative for brands and businesses to understand consumer behaviour across social platforms, according to the agency.​

The delays to the AFL and NRL finals in September, driven by Coronavirus lockdowns, have resulted in an abnormal decline in Australian media Agency ad spend in the month, according to the latest Standard Media Index (SMI) numbers. It has also boosted early October advertising demand with bookings already the strongest since COVID began.

Of the many trends in marketing content that have emerged through 2020, one of the most common has been displays of empathy. But how well those messages landed probably had more to do with how people felt about the brands to begin with rather than the quality of the communications themselves.

​Brightcove is one of the hidden platforms that power online services – sometimes little known to consumers, yet integral to the workings of many digital services. In this case, Brightcove has rolled out its online video platform widely across the web, and its roster of customers includes Nine Digital, Seven Network, TVNZ, Stuff Limited, Bunnings, Deloitte, Department of Education NSW, NAB, SEEK, and Xero.

Thermomix was working towards more digital ways of interacting with customers and doing business. And then then COVID hit. The original process would have taken years, but the pandemic has seen it accelerated to take place over a matter of weeks. Knowing it wouldn’t get it perfect from day one, teams were encouraged to work together and be open to testing new ideas and technologies.

​It’s a process Maria Robinson has applied to every new role she’s held as a marketer since cutting her teeth in the dotcom era: The no-fly zone. And it’s one that’s particularly useful when you’re the first CMO appointed to a company like Nitro, looking to ride the rapid growth opportunity presented by COVID-19.

This festive season is set to be a Covid Christmas, marked by less spending, less socialising and less traveling internationally, although there’ll be an increased focus on exploring local attractions, according to new Pureprofile research.