First it was mailboxes, then inboxes…Now, marketers are blowing up phones.

It feels like just about every brand out there seems interested in customers’ phone numbers: Bloomingdale’s, Anthropologie, Victoria’s Secret, Lee, UGG. Even Outback Steakhouse has a texting program.

Marketers told us that the benefits go both ways—brands can build loyal followings and potentially boost traffic while offering consumers coupons and incentives, which could be why it appears to be on the rise.

U up (to chat with a brand)?

Eitan Reshef, CEO of Blue Wheel, told us that he highly recommends SMS marketing to many of the agency’s e-commerce clients, which have included brands like Grande Cosmetics and Caudalie. “It’s a way to facilitate loyalty, it helps improve your retention and your lifetime value of your customers. It is a fundamentally important channel in terms of the total marketing mix,” he said.

• Sriya Karumanchi, director of marketing and communications at jewelry brand Catbird, told us that its welcome offer, which requires providing an email address and phone number, is more often redeemed by SMS than by email and that the brand’s overall unsubscribe rate on SMS is “fairly low.”
• Last year, Catbird’s revenue growth on purchases made via SMS marketing grew by over 50% YoY.

Megan Trinidad, VP and executive creative director of product and experience at R/GA, told us that the way brands use SMS has evolved in recent years, led by newer, more “tech-led brands.”

“I think that the DTC brands, what they’ve done is sort of take it from a more transactional, functional part of your conversation—‘Your your thing has shipped,’ that sort of conversation—to something that feels a lot more like it’s a two-way dialogue,” she said.

Read the full story here.—KH

Retail Brew’s Katishi Maake recently spoke with Kristen Riggs, The Hershey Company’s newly appointed president of salty snacks, about her tenure with the company and how it has prepared her for her current role. Read some of the piece below, or click here for the full story.

As an industry—and Hershey’s—veteran, Riggs has had the opportunity to work on major brands such as Reese’s, Hershey’s Kisses, and KitKat. In her previous role with the company, as chief growth officer, she was responsible for setting enterprise strategies to drive growth and demand across media, M&A, consumer intelligence, innovation, and R&D.

Although Riggs only started her new role in November 2022, she’s bringing 17 years’ worth of experience, primarily focused on understanding the constantly shifting consumer demands for a brand whose name is synonymous with chocolate.

May 31, 2020, was the saddest day in the history of Twitter, according to Hedonometer. It’s a real-time online measurement tool that judges Twitter’s sadness-happiness ratio. George Floyd had been murdered six days before. Most of us were months into quarantine. Many protested and coped through keyboards, tweeting feelings on those events loudly enough to score a 5.6 happiness score on the Hedonometer. “Arrested,” “murder,” and “violence” were tweeted more than ever before.

I was a strategy director for R/GA at the time, working on Verizon from a shoebox New York apartment, wildly depressed from isolation and 12-hour work-from-home days. Like everyone else in social jobs that year, I was asked the most common crisis question:

When is it okay for brands to post content during a national crisis?

There’s no perfect answer, but considering we’ve had several mass shootings in the last week alone, I’ll walk you through how I’ve advised brands in the past. Click here to read.—JA

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Pin it: Tips to maximize your Pinterest posting strategy this year.

Say goodbye: Google Optimize is going away—here’s what you should know.

Teamwork: This guide walks you through how to “pull off the perfect social media collaboration.”

Ins ’n outs: Inbound marketing can engage, delight, and retain customers with the right content that’ll help brands grow. Learn more about the difference between outbound and inbound marketing in BrandExtract’s illuminating article.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

BeReal is a newer social app that’s gaining popularity. Founded in 2019, it has recently picked up steam. Check out our exclusive report to learn best practices and find out what brands are experimenting with the platform.

Download your free report.

Which headlines are real marketing news, and which one is fake?

1. Martha Stewart makes metaverse debut with Oreo
2. Hormel announces new chili cheese brew in time for Super Bowl
3. Dolly Parton is expanding her line of Duncan Hines baking mixes
4. Billy Ray Cyrus performs “Sticky Icky Fingers” song with Cheetos

Keep scrolling for the answer.

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• How alcohol brands are embracing the rise of Dry January
• Prioritizing accessibility in marketing
• Why is CMO tenure so low?