After the coronavirus pandemic forced issuers to adapt rewards, enhance forbearance, and build out digital tools to cope with a volume hit in 2020, they’re looking to reimagine their offerings in the future to add new customers and regain primary card status.

A possible World Series win right before the holidays kick off means the Boston Red Sox’s marketing team must be nimble and ready to pivot that enthusiasm into its holiday messaging. Watch Industry Voices: Holiday Preparedness with Red Sox CMO Adam Grossman to hear how the team plans out its marketing and engages fans throughout the year whether it's online or at Fenway Park.

During its 16 months in port, Norwegian Cruise Line took a bold approach to its messaging by acknowledging consumers' need to “break free.” Watch Industry Voices: Holiday Preparedness with Norwegian’s Isis Ruiz, senior vice president and CMO, to hear how the cruise line maintained marketing momentum last holiday season and what it has prepared for this year.

As normalcy returns, Alaska Airlines pivoted its marketing strategy from heartfelt imagery to messaging with a fresher tone. By embracing humor and levity, the airline is reassuring consumers that it’s OK to start thinking about travel again. Watch Industry Voices Spotlight on Travel with Alaska Airlines managing director of marketing and advertising Natalie Bowman.

Tangled policy messaging bred mistrust among users

Our new forecast for global mobile messaging app users shows that the pandemic has accelerated adoption of OTT messaging services, though not in every country nor to the same degree for every app.

As Dickies nears its 100th birthday, Kathy Hines, vice president of global marketing, speaks about the importance of taking a deep introspective look at your brand. She discusses how Dickies went to market with its “United by Inspiration, United by Dickies" campaign and honest, authentic global messaging with a localized approach. As a business leader, Kathy also offers advice to women as we continue celebrating Women’s History Month with Industry Voices.

The introduction of new functionalities, from interactive features and video calling to commerce and payments, continue to entice people to messaging platforms. In 2021, the number of monthly messaging app users worldwide will rise by 6.1% to 3.09 billion. That’s a deceleration in growth from 2020, when the number of users rose by nearly 14%.

For context, this figure was only 20 minutes in 2015, so messaging users are spending much more time in these apps. Analyst Take. The pandemic gains for mobile messaging have been slightly less sticky than for other activities.

We surveyed employees and customers and did an audit of all our competitors and their top-level messaging. We used a word cloud and frequency counter of the terms used most in the market to understand the white space we could fill and what words were most competitive in brand messaging. We did it all internally.

Consumers in Europe increasingly see brands in a much broader context. The public is becoming more alert to the ways companies and brands go beyond advertising and marketing to make other positive contributions—or not. The converse also applies: Brands that don’t step up to the plate, or are linked with counterproductive actions, can easily lose consumer approval.

Direct Messaging on Social Networks Could Reduce the Need for Standalone Apps. There has been a growing momentum for private messaging among social networks. Instagram: In June, Instagram announced that messaging would be one of its four focus areas for 2021.

Like voice shopping, shopping via SMS and other forms of messaging is conversational—customers don’t feel like they’re interacting with a machine.

Social networking and messaging, by contrast, were embraced by all demographics. In H1 2021, 89.0% of internet users said they’d used at least one of 37 named social platforms in the prior month, and 94.1% had used a messaging service. Perhaps predictably, those ages 16 to 24 were the star performers, posting the highest usage of both social networks and messaging.

Taken together, social networking and messaging engage more internet users in Indonesia than any other media activity. Some 99.2% of internet users polled in H1 2021 had visited at least one of 37 named social platforms in the prior month, and 99.0% had used at least one of 20 named messaging services. The average time spent with social media and messaging was 3:22 per day.

Social media and messaging far surpassed any other activity in terms of reach and time spent in H1. A notable 97.7% of internet users had checked in to at least one of 37 named social platforms in the prior month, and 97.2% had used a messaging service. Social media and messaging occupied 2:28 on a typical day.

In H1 2021, 92.2% of internet users polled had checked in to at least one of 37 named social networks in the prior month, and 91.2% had used a messaging service. GWI rephrased their survey questions about social media this year, to obtain more precise data on how respondents engaged with social and messaging platforms.

Both social networks and messaging are hugely popular in Denmark, though social platforms posted significantly higher usage than messaging in most demographics. In total, 95.3% of internet users polled had used at least one of 37 named social networks in the prior month, and 88.6% had used messaging services. Daily engagement with these activities added up to 1:42.