Issue 2: I wish for world peace and vaccines for all
Our first guest post from content + comms pro Taya Varnichpun
We’ve got something special for you today, folks! My good friend Taya is your voice of reason today. We became friends at my first “big girl” agency job, where we spent many a late night/early morning making clients happy, depending on free Noah’s Bagels and communal Goldfish crackers for sustenance (we were too broke for lunch because we lived in the Bay Area on agency salaries, lol). Enjoy her wisdom all, and happy holidays - don’t forget to take that company-sponsored volunteer day, take advantage of that corporate charity matching benefit, or just do something nice for someone before the end of 2020.
It’s that time of year we as marketing professionals know well: new year predictions. Coming off a year where all plans went to the dogs (or bats? Too soon?) has taught us you can’t really predict everything.
But you can be prepared.
In comms, we put together playbooks for situations we hope will never occur — but we’re ready should the shit ever hit the fan. So if you’re struggling with putting your end-of-year recaps (do we really need one?) and new year predictions together, perhaps we use this time to revisit our “just-in-case” safety blankets, and make sure they’re still relevant.
On that note, here are what some other companies did (or didn’t do) recently to commemorate the first year to start the decade:
Spotify launched its 2020 wrapped, where users can see what they’ve been listening to on repeat to forget the woes of being stuck indoors. And while I’m probably one of the very few, rare people who use Apple Music, I appreciated seeing friends and influencers alike recap what songs got them through this year. Spotify says the feature is open for non-users like me, but it’s really an aggregate of its user data to get a sense of what the average person listened to most (smart!).
Cheeky as ever, Netflix premiered its trailer for Death to 2020, expressing in typical satirical fashion what we’ve all felt this year. The show is being produced from the creators of Black Mirror — very apropos as we all upped our dystopian screen time in 2020. As a content marketer, I have to say I appreciate it when companies can poke fun at themselves—or just own it. Netflix has done just that to own up to the “so bad they’re good” genre of holiday films in recent years. Don’t tell me you haven’t watched all three A Christmas Prince films.
Finally, in a year where I’ve admittedly consumed so much YouTube to warrant my Premium subscription, the company decided to cancel its Rewind end-of-year recap this year. Because do you really need to replay vlog clips of people wearing pillows as dresses?
Happy holidays, y’all. If you need something to binge watch that’s not holiday-related over the break, might I suggest a Korean drama or two or three? Stay safe, wash your hands, wear a mask, and support your local restaurants & small businesses!
Taya Varnichpun is a content marketer by way of PR, she has worked in the entertainment, consumer, and travel industries before making her foray into technology, first managing release campaigns for Adobe, then as a content strategist for various start-ups.