It’s been quite a year. Do we say that every year?
Since 2020, marketing and the world at large have been in flux. We’ve turned everything we thought we knew on its head, and forged forward. We didn’t always know what we were forging towards, but on we went anyway.
Now as we wrap 2022, “flux” still seems to be the word of the year. We’re still determining how to best “hybrid” everything (workforce, digital spaces), how much further purposeful CSR practices need to go, and how to budget in the face of seemingly unending, but evolving, uncertainty.
This flux is exemplified based on what you, the reader, clicked on most this year. Our most popular stories were those that had inside information from leaders who were dealing with the same issues you were, and trends that started coming out of the woodwork as the world began to sort itself out.
Looking back on the year, the same issues that were relevant then are still present now. But they’ve evolved. It would be unrealistic to imagine that one day we’ll wake up and everything will be solved – no matter how much we may have wished for that outcome over the last few years.
So heading into 2023, let’s take what we’ve learned from the previous year and instead of resolving to have concrete solutions by the next time we round up C-Suite’s most-read stories, let’s embrace the evolution on the road to better progress. Let’s forge on.
Below are our top five most-read stories of 2022.
What marketers want the industry to start, stop and change in the new year
We rounded up half a dozen marketers and coaxed them into revealing what they saw in their crystal balls for the upcoming year.
From opportunities and challenges on the horizon to their biggest pet peeves, were they spot on or did they completely miss the mark on their 2022 predictions?
Brand Doctors: Lessons from Air Canada
This year in disasters: Canadian airports.
Whether it was giving up on lost luggage or travel plans altogether based on delays and schedule changes, staffing shortages and other unfortunate missteps brought on by pandemic complications meant big trouble for Air Canada. Luckily, we were there to lend the airline a complimentary marketing game plan to avoid losing business forever.
Indigo’s dramatic profit pivot is marked with digital best practices
Earlier this year, Indigo announced a return to profitability for the first time since 2019.
Spurred on by drastic changes to the brand’s digital channels in response to the pandemic, Indigo streamlined its online presence, teamed up with partners that could get orders into consumers’ hands faster, and reached a new audience by way of TikTok. The strategies worked, proving that books still have a place in our digital-first world.
The ultra-fast grocery economy comes to Canada
We’ve got a need for a speed and a love of not leaving the house – two insights that grocery-delivery disrupter brands Tiggy and Ninja capitalized on this year.
In this story, we deduced the differentiators that helped these companies stand out from delivery behemoths such as Instacart and UberEats.
The Great Resignation: How are marketers managing?
To say today’s workforce is experiencing something akin to a mid-life crisis wouldn’t be far off the mark. Employees have decided they’d rather eschew societal “norms” like nine-to-five hours and slogging it out until burnout rears its ugly head, and instead, embrace what’s most important: flexibility, engagement and investing in quality over quantity at work.
While things are still shaking themselves out when it comes to how we work, we turned to marketers and brand leaders to get their advice on how to retain talent when it was clear we were in the middle of a power shift.
