If industry news and LinkedIn marketing gurus are anything to go by, DTC is dying.

Have you ever tried to be unpopular?

It will be the best thing that ever happened to your brand. 

The concept of influencer marketing is a great one. People buy into people, and influencer marketing is all about authentic storytelling for brands that want their message to not only be heard, but trusted and actioned.

Brilliant brands invest in their people - and Duel has created the UK Brand Advocacy Report 2022 in honour of those brands.

This annual publication celebrates the very best D2C brands who put their community of passionate advocates at the heart of everything they do - whether that be their customers, ambassadors, employees or industry experts. 

Black Friday has been a staple in companies' marketing strategies for several years - until now.  Recently, a lot of brands have been rethinking their involvement in the profit-led holiday, and found ways to re-position their relationship with it. Why do this? The reason's threefold: planet, perceived brand value and profit.  

We are all familiar with influencer culture, its etched into the fabric of our hyper-connected, e-commerce world. Whilst most brand builders know what Influencers are about, what's not always clear to is the difference between the four types of influencers that exist.

Community marketing is a concept that every brand’s heard of, but not every brand implements. If you are struggling to build a business case for integrating community marketing into your strategy, look no further. We’ve weighed up the pros and cons to help show you should have it as part of your strategy, and what you need to consider when putting it into action.

Whilst the pandemic has caused hundreds of household names to shut up shop, a select few companies have managed to thrive in the last 18 months by evolving innovative ways of engaging with their customer base. Their not-so-secret weapon? Leveraging thousands of brand ambassadors using Ambassador Storefronts - an innovative way for brands to work with their fans to sell products on their behalf to their friends, family, and followers.

In 2021, eCommerce has become highly competitive., with an estimated 24 million stores live worldwide. Although this competition makes online growth difficult, some brands are able to expand quickly and easily. How do they do this?  

2020 has pulled the chair out from underneath seasoned marketers that entered the year with swelling budgets and confident growth strategies. Advertising budgets have deflated, retail activity has plummeted and the fight for brand loyalty has only become more competitive. The interesting element of these shifts is that the economics of a COVID-conscious world did not create them, it only accelerated them.