What Works in Marketing in 2023

With the few months of 2023 behind us, it’s time to understand what’s working and what’s on the horizon in marketing. Are Gen Z and millennials still the darlings of marketing? How are brands and organizations reaching them, and what can the peanut industry learn? How do exports play into marketing trends? We’ll find these answers in this episode with perspectives from Caroline Coyle from Golin, Radhika Murari from OmMade peanut butter, Shelly Nutt from the Texas Peanut Producers Board and food trend expert Skye Estroff.

Skye Estroff is an Atlanta food expert who has worked for companies like Atlanta Eats and Taste of Atlanta. She currently owns her own company and has a TV Show showcasing local cuisines. When thinking about marketing and finding trends, it can be hard to know where to start and it can be expensive depending on where you’re getting your data, but according to Skye, one of the best places to find what’s popular is on your social media feed.

“I think really the trends are predominantly coming from Tik Tok and Instagram these days," said Skye. "And I just like to go on there [and see] what is popping off right now? What is everybody gravitating towards? What are a lot of people talking about? What is visually interesting, what has a story behind it? Those are the things that really stand out to me. And if I have more questions about a certain food item, because I am somebody who's schooled in food, I have a degree in dietetics, I have a lot of food background. If there's something that really sounds unique that I haven't heard of and I want to dig a little further, then I feel like other people are interested in that too. And that could be the forefront of a trend. And sometimes I'm not right, but I feel like I get I've got more of a formula down of what is eye catching to me that ends up being right. Like when I've shared segments on birria tacos, or orange wine or oat milk, or yesterday, I did a segment on crazy croissant trends, because we're seeing so many different variations of the pastry. Those are things where I'm like, I feel like people are getting a little hook on it.”

Caroline Coyle is a senior manager at Golin. Caroline focuses on all things social and digital media for a variety of clients, including National Peanut Board. Her experience is in social media strategy, strategy, paid social advertisements, content creation and reporting. NPB is still targeting Gen Z and millennials with consumer marketing. Caroline shares how we implement social media to target these generations.

“The biggest thing that has been an overarching strategy for the past couple of years for most of our consumer activations [is that] we're making them social first," said Caroline. "And this means that when we're planning, we're thinking about how a consumer campaign or an activation could come to life on a digital platform first, and then building the rest of the tactics around that. This isn't to say that we don't have a robust earned media strategy. We absolutely do. And a lot of our recent activations have had really strong earned media elements. But the inception of those ideas started with digital. And we're doing this because Gen Z is the first digital native generation. Their age means that you know, the internet has always been a thing, cell phones have almost always been smartphones. And most folks in Gen Z have accounts on multiple social media platforms. So, when it comes to the best way to reach millennials, and Gen Z, social or digital is the way to go.”

For a brand perspective, we spoke with Radhika Murari. Radhika is the owner of OmMade peanut butter, a line of 11 flavors of vegan and gluten free peanut butter made from Virginia-type peanuts. A trend that OmMade is focusing on is connecting with their consumers based on their shared values.

“So, our customers really follow the values that we just talked about," said Rahika. "I am noticing more and more that people of my generation Gen X, this is not boastful, but I think we lead the charge on understanding where our food is coming from, really rolling back from the product to the source of the ingredients, and the running of different companies. And if they follow the values that we follow in our lives. I think that the millennials are really taking this to a new level. And if a company is not doing the right thing by the world or by their community, then millennials will absolutely not support them, and I personally and as a business owner and as a member of the Virginia community really support people looking into how companies are run and who they're supporting and where their money is going.”

Sharing a perspective from the grower community, Shelly Nutt is the Executive Director of the Texas Peanut Producers Board. Shelly celebrated her 20-year anniversary with the board in March, and she’s been involved in agriculture for almost 40 years in her career. To Shelly, TPPB has to get creative when it comes to their marketing since they have a smaller budget. This means it’s even more vital for them to tap into the most promising trends—and to say no to others—to get the most bang for their buck. Here’s Shelly with how they find these trends.

“[The NPB] annual marketing summit to see what y'all are doing is so good because then it gives me ideas on how to come back and relate what we're doing in a way that consumers are going to relate to and will be relevant," said Shelly. "There [are] these trends in awareness that I don't know that consumers have had, prior to maybe the last 10 years, where consumers are stopping and reading labels. They want to know what's in their food, they want to know where it's produced. And they really even want to know who the grower is that produced it," said Shelly. "And I think that that is so cool. Just that natural curiosity…And now there's some things that are more important to consumers than even what's your best buy for the dollar? It's how are these purchases going to make an impact on our society? How are these purchases going to make an impact on our climate, our environment, social causes?”