Magnet #46

Welcome to Magnet! And to those of you who celebrate - happy Easter!

Enjoy.

Campaigns:

ASDA's newest Easter campaign, Flavour Hunt, features a magical egg hunt which reveals the 'Easterlicious' foods and indulgent flavours on offer.

The 40-second TV creative from Havas London sees two children transported to a fairy tale Easter Bunny's cottage, where they discover ASDA's extraordinary range of Easter goods, from bunny-shaped crumpets to Tickled Pink hot cross buns and Extra Special chocolate eggs.

The ad opens with the two children sporting bunny ears while lounging on the sofa as their mum walks in carrying two bulging ASDA shopping bags.

As they explore the rooms on the hunt for chocolate eggs, they discover an array of ASDA treats in the enchanted setting. With the familiar tap of the back pocket, the children return to their kitchen where they sit down for a traditional roast dinner with their family. 

Statistics:

As we know, Bridgerton Season one was a breakout hit, becoming the most-viewed English-language series on Netflix. Season two landed recently, and on Tuesday, Netflix revealed that Bridgerton Season 2 was viewed for 251.7 million hours in its first full week, shattering the streaming service’s previous English-language series record from the near-196 million hours “Inventing Anna” tallied in February. Korean-language series “Squid Game” still holds the overall record of 571.8 million hours viewed in one week in early fall, but it seems our craving for Regency romance hasn’t yet been quelled.

A new wave of Influencer Marketing:

On the back of our  visit to INFLUENCERs event, which you can read about here, we wanted to highlight an emerging offshoot of influencer- the virtual human.

We’ve had virtual influencers before, but now virtual humans are taking the reins of influencer culture.

According to the research and consulting firm Emergen Research, the global digital human avatar market was at $10.03 billion in 2020 and is forecast to reach $527.58 billion by 2030.

Lee Eun-hee, a professor of consumer science at Inha University, Korea, said:

"When (companies) develop virtual humans, they study and analyse faces and features, like outfits that consumers will find likable. So the consumers respond positively. Also, unlike real celebrities, they don't carry any risks of getting involved in issues and scandals. And virtual humans can film in spots or motions that actual humans can't, which will offer unique scenes to consumers."

And now, companies like Digital marketing startup Offbeat Media Group are taking the next step to build virtual humans for brands to use in their marketing. They’ve created VirtualHumans.org as a hub to design, promote, and strategise virtual influencers for brands and companies.

For virtual humans, the combination of AI with voice and visual technology means they can say or do essentially anything their creators want.

By anticipating the rise of virtual humans, it will be easier than ever before for brands to take a revolutionary step in their influencer marketing efforts.