It is important for Rise at Seven to do a PESTLE analysis to assess the macroenvironment’s impact on the agency.
Economic
Covid-19 caused a global recession, and its recovery is expected to be slow. Businesses also reduced their media budgets by 31% in 2020 due to the pandemic. This threatens Rise at Seven because clients are potentially unlikely to outsource their marketing or go ahead with strategies requiring big budgets. Despite this, the demand for help may be stronger because businesses need to efficiently use their smaller budgets, therefore, Rise at Seven should show potential clients how they can help them recover from the impact of the global recession.
Sociological It is obvious that businesses put themselves where consumers focus their attention and if this changes, it is likely businesses will have to adapt. Figure 1, for example, shows that global social media usage is plateauing. This is potentially explained by it causing anxiety and depression. Furthermore, consumers are spending more time on games, with a 7.5% increase since 2020. This suggests consumer behaviour is shifting from social media to games. Brands like Gucci have responded to this and begun to advertise in virtual worlds, such as, The Sims. Lush came off social media completely and launched a virtual island in Animal Crossing. If this continues, Rise at Seven will have to implement advergaming in order to serve their clients effectively.
Society’s perceptions of a brand may impact whether agencies work with them. Cancel culture, where people are becoming increasingly intolerant and boycotting public figures and brands, is rising. It is also criticised for negatively impacting public perceptions. This implies that society will cancel brands if they do something bad, therefore, Rise at Seven should be cautious about its associations in case they become boycotted because the agency may be cancelled too. For example, PrettyLittleThing are criticised for their treatment of workers and Boohoo has faced backlash from celebrities. There is potential for society to boycott these brands hence why Rise at Seven must be careful about who it associates with.
Technological Technology advancements present new areas for brands to market and advertise their products or services. The metaverse exemplifies this as it is a new virtual world with social environments where users experience their lives. Furthermore, the recent Facebook rebrand to Meta, is focused on driving the future of metaverse. This development of Web 3.0 may make Web 2.0 obsolete, therefore, Rise at Seven must develop new strategies for their clients to market themselves in metaverse to be competitive in the business environment. It is, however, criticised for being dystopian, which could mean that authorities may prevent metaverse from continuing thus no longer requiring agencies to adapt to the change.
Rise at Seven reacts to consumer trends and new technologies provide new ways to collect and types of data. The transhumanist movement modifies humans with technology to improve their performance. Microchip implants, for example, currently can be used for payment and potentially will develop for other things. Furthermore, brain-computer interface technology can be implanted into the brain, allowing humans to control technology with brain signals. This could imply that more data, such as, behaviours, can be tracked by the technology in the body through cookies etc., therefore, enabling agencies to more effectively target their client’s consumers based on the data collected. In the future, Rise at Seven may need to develop new technologies to collect data from these technology advancements. It could, however, be argued that this is unethical, so authorities implement data protection laws. Additionally, this may increase cybercrime where humans could be hacked through the technology implants.
Environmental The technology advancements, discussed above, and agencies themselves require the internet to operate, however, the internet contributes to global warming. It could be argued that, in the future, the environmental impact may outweigh the benefit of digital marketing potentially leading it to become obsolete. Furthermore, consumers are becoming increasingly aware of their digital footprints. This may mean that they might be deterred from using technologies so agencies would have to find other methods to market to them. Agencies, however, have been exploring how to offset this impact, such as by using clean power. This, therefore, implies that if Rise at Seven is able to do this then environmental impact may no longer limit technology development.
In summary, Web 3.0 has the most impact on Rise at Seven because it requires a complete readaptation of digital marketing strategies and coupled with consumer behaviour shifting from social media to gaming it seems increasingly possible. Reducing its environmental impact, however, should be considered.