[Marketing Week] Bob Koigi: Marketers envision career opportunities fit for post-pandemic future

As COVID-19 continues to disrupt economies, alter the way we work and change lifestyles, employers, companies and staff are adjusting their workstyle as the pandemic redefines the future of work.

For marketers, their expectations have  changed to those of seeking roles and career opportunities that reflect fundamental shifts brought about by the pandemic.  Six in 10 marketers plan to change jobs within the year.  Even those not looking for new jobs are looking for workplace changes according to a report conducted at the end of last year by recruitment firm Hays alongside the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

2020 saw job satisfaction for marketers significantly impacted as a result of the pandemic. The research showed:

A third (33%) of respondents rated their current job satisfaction as dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. Marketers identified a lack of career progression (50%), a lack of career development opportunities (45%) and a lack of job security (44%) as the top reasons for their dissatisfaction.

And as the challenges of the pandemic and the effects of social division and injustice around the world impact on people’s mental wellbeing, WPP has designed a new initiative to support its employees.

The Mental Health Allies programme will be available to all 10,000 UK staff and aims to reduce the stigma around mental health by encouraging open conversations.

More than 250 Allies volunteered from across WPP’s agencies and received training from Mental Health at Work.

 They will act as a mental health resource to their colleagues, listening, signposting and helping to keep people feeling supported and healthy. A pilot will also run in the US, before being expanded across further markets.

In a historic development in the film industry, Amazon and MGM have announced that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement under which Amazon will acquire MGM for a purchase price of $8.45 billion.

 MGM has nearly a century of filmmaking history and complements the work of Amazon Studios, which has primarily focused on producing TV show programming.

Amazon will help preserve MGM’s heritage and catalog of films, and provide customers with greater access to these existing works. Through this acquisition, Amazon would empower MGM to continue to do what they do best: great storytelling.

In the partnership front, Dept has collaborated with Terra Neutra, an organization that enables businesses and consumers to manage their carbon footprint, to create an e-commerce carbon positivity app called ClearSky.

ClearSky is designed to be used in Shopify stores as a way of offsetting a purchased product’s carbon footprint, in addition to the carbon footprint of its delivery which Shopify already enables shoppers to offset. Premium recycled fashion label, BEEN London, is the first brand to integrate the app into its Shopify store.

This, as Mastercard and Conservation International announced the introduction of the Wildlife Impact Card program, which enables consumers to help protect wildlife habitats, including those that are home to many Critically Endangered species.

The program will help promote awareness of the urgent need to preserve the habitats of these and more than 2,000 other Critically Endangered Wildlife species, with card expiration dates that aim to highlight the short timeframe to help protect many of these animals.

And in a bid to tame cyberbullying, Social media platform TikTok has launched a new way for creators to more easily manage interactions with their content.

According to the social media platform, people put their hearts and souls into creating and entertaining on TikTok, and it recognizes how discouraging it can feel to receive unkind comments on videos.

The tools allow creators to delete multiple comments at once or report them for potentially violating our Community Guidelines.

Accounts that post bullying or other negative comments can now be blocked in bulk, too.

Dentsu Group Inc. has announced the company and its group companies has joined nearly 200 forward-thinking companies as the newest member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

In addition, dentsu has launched dentsu Sustainable Business Solutions (dSBS), a commercial strategy at the core of the Group’s business strategy, as laid out in the Dentsu Group Medium-Term Management Plan announced in February 2021.

Elsewhere, a report released by Havas Group dubbed Havas Meaningful Brands report 2021 which measures brand ‘meaning’ in functional, personal and collective terms, shows that 75% of brands could disappear overnight and most people wouldn’t care, or would easily find a replacement.

The report that surveyed over 395,000 people around the world also shows a growing lack of trust in brands –– with 71% of people having little faith that they will deliver on their promises. What’s worse, only 34% of consumers think companies are transparent about their commitments and promises.

And the UN Food Systems Summit competition to identify the best small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from across the world who are transforming food systems for a better tomorrow is nearing its deadline set for June 4. The competition will provide an opportunity for the Summit to showcase the best small businesses at the Pre-Summit to be held in Rome in July 2021.

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