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Dear Friends
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For millions of Indians, this is a great story worth getting high on- the story of iconic, seminal brand Old Monk- sip in the saga in this issue. Understand the science and psychology behind why certain songs become cult classics in this editionit’s all about ‘ you ‘. There is a new reality that brands will face when it comes to establishing a post-Covid relationship with consumers. Know more. Brand guru Mark Schaefer delves deep into the power of Cumulative Advantage to build momentum for brands. Building trust will be the all important ‘ go to ‘ for brands in the new normal- get a perspective on that in this issue. Rampant culture, fake news and negativity is rampant- the feature on it will help understand the tricks and techniques to handle that cancel culture and come out better, stronger. Marketing disruptions are and will be a given in the now and near future. We help you to deal with it and leverage it. Virtual does not mean emotionless. Here’s a primer on how to write digital products with emotions and personality that connect. AR has got an accelerant in this pandemic. Augmented Reality will be the ‘ come to ‘ for brands looking to encourage product try ons and enhance sales. Digital Transformation is the all new rage in this age. We converse about how to indulge in the transformation with a marketing mindset. There is ample more in this edition to soak in.
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Till the next , my very best.
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Managing Editor: Suresh Dinakaran Creative Head/Director Operations: Pravin Ahir Magazine Concept & Design/ New Media Specialist: Mufaddal Joher Chief Strategy Director: Rishi Mohan Brand Engagement and Outreach Specialist: Anuva Madan Chief Country Man, India: Rohit Unni Brand Trends and Research Architect: Meeta Pendse Revenue Growth Architect: Ritu Dey Country Head, Australia: Norbert D’Souza Country Head, UK: Sagar Patil Performance Marketing Architect: Ryan Govindan Video Content Specialist: Vinayak Sivaprasad
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CONTENTS Digging Deeper Into Marketing’s Purpose Pivot Why More Brands Are Looking To Augmented Reality Product Try Ons To Drive Sales How ‘Everywhere Commerce’ Is Influencing Social Connections How To Write Digital Products With Personality Great Minds Don’t Think Alike: How To Tap The Neurodivergent Talent Pool The Story Of Old Monk You Need A Rapid-Response Team For The New Era Of Fast Advertising Shutterstock Makes A $75 Million Bet That The Future Of Photography Won’t Always Involve Cameras How To Market To The Ethical Consumer: 6 Effective Marketing Strategies1 How Brands Deal With Online Haters, Trolls And Cancel Culture 3 Rules For Dealing With Marketing Disruptions Building Post-Covid Brand Relationships With Consumers Developing A Trust Strategy For Your Brand, And How To Measure It The Future Of Influencers: Expect More Virtual What Makes Songs Popular? It’s All About ‘You’ How You Can Use Cumulative Advantage To Build Unstoppable Momentum How To Market Effectively In 2021: Integrate Performance And Brand Marketing Approaching Digital Transformation With A Marketing Mindset Brands Can Leverage Memes Effectively. Here’s How. How Privacy And User Experience Improve At The Same Time Book, Line & Sinker
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Digging Deeper Into Marketing’s Purpose Pivot By Coro Strandberg
Once your purpose is in everything you do, it becomes an indelible part of the customer experience. By attracting customers who believe society is better off if they do business with your company, you can create a social movement around your brand. n a purpose-driven business, the role of marketing changes. It
and Peter ter Weeme, Chief Social Purpose Officer and VP of
shifts from advertising products or services to building a social
Player Experience at BCLC.
purpose brand ecosystem. From one-way communication to engaging customers in purpose-inspired actions. From paid
According to Anne, Chris and Peter:
media to earned media. From speaking to passive customers
• In purpose-led brands, marketers become storytellers;
to developing active customers who co-create new purpose
and focus on mobilizing customers, employees and
products and amplify your message – and help you fulfill
stakeholders on the purpose — and on telling their stories
your purpose aspirations.
• They build their purpose into everything they do; and
As this social purpose continuum reveals, once companies
thus, their purpose is communicated to their customers
adopt an authentic social purpose as the reason they exist,
by the very act of conducting business
they are positioned to create meaning for their customers: Customers believe that if they do business with that company, society is better off. Once social purpose-driven companies
• Customers want to know the people and values behind the brand; this becomes part of the value proposition
implement their purpose across their operations, values
• Stakeholders help purpose-driven companies achieve
chains and relationships, everything they do (not just their
their purpose and build their brand — and hold them
advertising) tells their story.
accountable for it • Leaning into purpose attracts customers — and customers that hold back can be cultivated as purpose ambassadors in the future With retail consumers seeking stronger connections to brands, business customers looking at the people behind the brand, and shorter attention spans, companies that have and market a purpose can differentiate themselves from the clutter.
This shift to purpose and purpose marketing is propelled by changing customer expectations that business play a stronger role in society. More and more consumers identify as beliefdriven buyers — nearly two-thirds, according to Edelman’s 2020 Trust Barometer — which means they choose/switch/ avoid/boycott a brand based on its stand on societal issues. Buying on belief is the new normal. Yet, attracting and retaining these consumers has been a mystery — until now. Last fall, I moderated a dialogue on the topic for the Social Purpose Institute, a program of the United Way, with three
The biggest part of the pivot: Once your purpose is in everything you do, it becomes an indelible part of your customer experience. By attracting customers who believe society is better off if they do business with your company, you can create a social movement around your brand. By growing your business this way, your business becomes a bigger engine for social good. Your purpose provides the “why” and purpose marketing provides the “heart.” Purpose-driven companies are unstoppable. Just watch them — or become one!
social purpose marketing visionaries: Anne Donohoe,
Interested in a deeper dive? Here is a link to the webinar
Marketing Advisor and global marketing executive; Chris
discussion and the Purpose Marketing Insight Paper that
Peacock, Chief Marketing Officer at Traction on Demand;
summarizes the discussion.
Why more brands are looking to augmented reality product try ons to drive sales By Erika Wheless
Pinterest has joined the growing list of brands and platforms offering virtual reality makeup “try ons.”
forecasts that there will be 47 million U.S. social network AR users in 2021, up from 38 million in 2019.
On Friday, Jan. 22, the company introduced its latest augmented reality feature to let customers digitally try on eyeshadow shades from partners like Lancome, YSL and NYX Cosmetics. Pinterest already has this feature for lipstick. The addition of more try on pins means more customer interaction, and possibly the new makeup-shopping norm.
The pandemic sped up David’s Bridal’s investment in AR listings. Late last year, the company launched 50 SKUs with Vertebrae, which provides 3D and AR commerce solutions. Lizzy Ellingson, chief digital experience officer at David’s Bridal, said they had good feedback from customers on the tool, and saw 100% lift in conversions to make in-store appointments and a 30% lift in revenue.
“I think this technology will be permanent post-pandemic,” said Jeremy King, svp of engineering at Pinterest. “I don’t see a world where we go to the store to try on makeup anymore. It can all be done on your phone.” Retailers including Wayfair and Ikea rolled out 3D and augmented reality visualizations several years ago, and Warby Parker’s app has let customers virtually try-on frames since early 2019. But with many brick and mortar stores still closed, brands have turned to AR try ons and features to attract customers. These try ons have boomed especially in the beauty space, allowing buyers to swipe through eyeshadows and lipsticks, but several different categories have amassed data showing that AR features help drive sales too. “AR used to just be to drive engagement with a brand, and now it’s moving more to the e-commerce side,” said Mike Cadoux, gm at QReal, a firm that does 3D lenses for Snapchat and works with other brands to develop 3D ad products. Still, there are challenges. Faces and feet are pretty easy to map, making AR an easier choice for products like glasses, hats and shoes. But larger items can take hours to render. While King may not see folks going back to a store for makeup, some retailers still want AR offerings to help increase foot-traffic. AR’s user base is growing healthily, thanks in large part to its integration into social platforms such as Snapchat; eMarketer
That was good news after the intense photo process. One wedding dress took 12-16 hours to create from 300 photos. David’s Bridal plans to add another 100 SKUs, including accessories, by May. “We don’t expect this to replace the in-store experience,” said Ellingson. “But we think this can help brides be more confident that that’s the dress they want to at least try on.” Giving consumers more confidence is also what helped drive Perfect Corp.’s successful app YouCam Makeup, which allows customers to digitally try on makeup. Alice Chang, founder and CEO of Perfect Corp., points out that virtual try ons are more sanitary. “Prior to Covid, the use of community testers resulted in growing hygiene concerns among consumers,” she said via email. “The pandemic has brought a heightened sense of awareness to people about hygiene and physical testers are quickly being replaced by safer, more convenient, hyper-realistic digital try ons.” Despite lipstick being covered up by masks, and many makeup users wearing less while at home, YouCam has seen a 32% increase in virtual try ons since the start of the pandemic. The company also recently raised $50 million in funding. “When augmented reality leaves R&D and moves more to the market side, that’s when it will take off,” says Cadoux. “And it’s always better if more serious budget is allocated.”
How ‘everywhere commerce’ is influencing social connections By Shea Warnes, MediaMonks
Admit it: we’ve all been tempted to buy a novel product that’s shown up on our Instagram feeds—and with the ease to buy within the platform, making an unexpected purchase sometimes feel almost irresistible. Social media has evolved to make content more shoppable, effectively turning the spaces where we connect and socialize into e-commerce platforms in their own right. This evolution sets the stage for a new phase in e-commerce that we Monks call “everywhere commerce”, in which consumers no longer need to visit a store or digital marketplace to make a purchase—now, the opportunity to buy is everywhere as content and commerce intermingle. This does more than give brands another place to make a sale. It also demands that they rethink their approach to asset production and the role that it plays in connecting with consumers, both in social and e-commerce environments. The shopification of social media 783 billion dollarydoos. That’s how much Research & Markets predicts the social commerce global market to grow by 2027—currently worth A$115bn dollars. The phenomenal growth comes down to a simple but compelling proposition: fish where the fish are. Social commerce’s strength is underpinned by the sheer number of hours people spend on social media apps, with Australians spending a third of their online time here. 81% of shoppers use social channels to research products, while 83% of Australian shoppers have found new products via
Instagram according to data from the platform, so we know it’s a powerful environment for priming. Now it’s evolved to be a destination for converting customers, too. As a performance-led marketeer, social commerce reduces funnel friction. Brands already advertise on social media to drive consumers to their website or platforms. Now they will use the same advertising dollars to generate revenues, instead of just traffic making social media more attributable. This, of course, wouldn’t be possible without the supply of innovative commerce functionalities by leading social media platforms. Facebook and Instagram Shops allow businesses to create a single store that’s easily accessed through ads, stories and posts. In June 2020, Snapchat launched inapp shopping with selected influencers and TikTok followed suit shortly after. More recently, Instagram took frictionless shopping to the next level by expanding Checkouts to Reels and IGTV—making Australia the first market outside of the Americas and Europe to be testing. And it’s not just social platforms evolving into marketplaces. Marketplaces themselves are becoming more social. Amazon Live forays into livestream shopping (think QVC), often bringing brands together with well-loved influencers to host. This follows the incredible success livestream commerce has had in China: Alibaba’s Taobao Live, a livestream for merchants, made US$7.5bn in the first 30 minutes of its Singles’ Day event last October. New channels create new opportunities to connect
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As the lines blur between commerce and content, brands have a real opportunity to show up for audiences in new ways by telling stories or fuelling interactions that were never possible before. MediaMonks Chief Creative Officer Jouke Vuurmans has an approach he calls feeding the feeds: “To reach today’s audiences, brands should ‘feed the feeds’ with relevant content that drives impact and conversation—and inspires audiences to act.” He argues for actions over ads, and that’s an important point: as brands seek to make their social posts more shoppable, they must do so in ways that feel natural for the platform and are authentic to the audience. This was our goal in partnering with Twitch to help our friends at Audible launch the Audible Live Club, a twist on the classic book club. The activation invites Twitch streamers to listen to Audible Originals live with their audiences, building off the service’s trend of increasingly popular non-gaming content and discussion. For many brands, influencers have served as a convenient and short-term solution for asset creation—but activations like this one also showcase how important they are in creating social connections on a storytelling level as commerce and content collide. Production must conversation
accelerate
to
the
speed
of
In addition to a need for experiences that feel at home on
social channels and the way people connect, everywhere commerce has a couple of other implications for the way brands build and deliver creative to their audiences. First, it must be dynamic. Do away with putting all your focus on a hero video, and instead break it up into several ideas threaded together and formatted to fit the unique features and characteristics of the channels you want to serve. The context of a “swipe up” on Instagram Stories isn’t the same as a shoppable post on Facebook, so don’t treat it as such. On a related note, brands require more variety in their assets to accommodate different taste and interests—whether that means shooting several different product configurations, representing a more diverse range of audiences and cultures, or partnering with many influencers who speak to different audiences. On this need, our “assets at scale” workstream to create a unified suite of creative assets from a single shoot that fuels all consumer touchpoints for different shaped brands. This level of smart production ultimately allows our clients to deliver more content that’s fit for format and at a lower cost. The brands that will win over the next decade will be the ones that best leverage social commerce as it matures and becomes normal behaviour. This will require a sophisticated new content production OS –built toward fuelling new social experiences that not only inspire purchases but build a lasting sense of connection with consumers everywhere they communicate with the people and the brands they love.
How to write digital products with personality By Nick DiLallo
The right words will shape the entire experience.
User testing = trainwreck. We need a writer.
broken, it was just boring. It didn’t have any personality.
That’s what a former coworker texted me at 11pm one Tuesday night. She was a talented product designer, and she understood the importance of good UX writing. Now, she knew she needed help.
So we made a plan to fix it.
She had recently joined a well-funded startup, and her first few months had been intense. She was tasked with redesigning the company’s most important product. It was going well, she thought. She was able to simplify the most complicated flows and reduce most of the clutter in the interface. She even polished off a beautiful high-fidelity prototype for testing. But her team didn’t include any writers. And when she put the product in front of users, the words weren’t working.
The product wasn’t broken, it was just boring. We spent the next several weeks collaborating. Writing and designing in the same massive Figma file. We created a new tone of voice, defined a writing style, and started using language that would better pay off on the product strategy. We updated every screen in the prototype, refining the UI along the way and changing nearly every word. At the next round of user testing, participants didn’t just know how to use the product. They actually liked using it. The product was still simple. But now it was also unique and modern and smart.
We got on a Zoom call early the next morning. I asked her what she thought was wrong about the writing. “That’s the thing,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong.”
The difference? The writing. It’s possible to add personality in many ways. With colors, typefaces, illustrations, motion, and sound. Here’s how to do it with words.
Every participant had made it through every flow. They all had nice, if predictable, things to say about the product. A lot of them used words like simple and easy. But they didn’t say much more. Asked to describe the product, they blanked. Or repeated themselves. Simple. Easy. Simple. Easy.
Build a voice from the beginning.
There wasn’t anything wrong with the writing. But there wasn’t anything memorable about it either. The product wasn’t
Shape the experience from the very first screen. The first sentence or two will start creating a personality and shaping expectations. Maybe it’s a matter-of-fact value prop. Or an interesting headline. Or a point of view about the world. The important thing is that it sounds like your brand, engages your users, and sets the tone for everything that follows.
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These screens all introduce the same coffee subscription service. But they each do it differently.
There are many ways to write about online guitar lessons. Be thoughtful about vocabulary. A single word or two can completely change the perception of the product. All those little features, categories, and actions? They need to be named and organized in a way that reflects the brand. In other words, be careful what you call things.
Labels add personality, even if the feature is the same.
Calls to action help people understand what they’re getting, doing, and paying for. A fixed monthly pricing model can take many forms.
Identical items and images start to feel different depending on the writing. Create the right content. Good content makes the product match the brand. It helps users understand the experience and recognize what a company stands for. Sure, how you write is important. But so is choosing what to write in the first place. Those two things need to work together. So think about all the articles, FAQs, and extra flows that can shape your product.
A product can highlight its fast, sophisticated technology. Or explain its approach to curation. Or talk about its integrity and transparency.
Without any extra content, an investing interface feels straightforward. Adding content can make it insightful, or even playful.
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Find moments to add brand voice. Some people call this “microcopy.” I never liked that phrase, because it makes the writing seem unimportant. The opposite is true. Loading screens, error messages, footers. Those details all matter. Each is an opportunity. Small pieces of writing should help users understand the interface and get a feel for the brand. Write them with the same attention and thoughtfulness as longer, bigger pieces of writing.
Loading screens can explain what’s happening, set expectations about the next screen, or make users smile.
Footers end the interface. They’re also a place to add a final thought or idea.
Choose clarity every time. Some screens in your product won’t have much personality. That’s okay. Flows that involve things like personal data or payments should be simple. When in doubt, keep things clear. There’s no synonym for “ZIP code.” And there’s no better way to write “pay now.”
Sometimes the colors, typeface, and design style will add the personality while the words do the work.
Great minds don’t think alike: How to tap the neurodivergent talent pool By Brittaney Kiefer
Richard Brim, chief creative officer of Adam & Eve/DDB, is catching up with his friend, who is a psychologist. To his surprise, he becomes the subject of scrutiny. After observing Brim, the woman says: “You show signs of ADHD.” Later, when Brim told his wife and friends, they were like: “No shit, Sherlock.” But for Brim, this unexpected observation brought a moment of clarity. From a young age, Brim recalls being “all over the place at school” and considered “a naughty boy”. As he grew up, he finally found something he was good at, which “helped channel my brain. It was art and problem-solving, but not in a conventional sense.” Brim (pictured, above) went on to study art at Central Saint
Martins and then work in advertising, becoming one of the industry’s most esteemed creative leaders. With a renewed understanding of himself, he now sees his neurodivergent traits as a strength. “There are certain things I’ve learned to curb as an adult, and certain things I’ve learned to harness,” he says. “Difference and different ways of thinking is actually a superpower in this industry.” While some advertising leaders have lately championed the importance of difference and diversity, just how suited is the industry to fostering diverse minds? There are many others like Brim across the creative sector, but barriers still remain to making workplaces more inclusive for all types of brains. Now, organisations such as Commercial Break and Brixton Finishing School are aiming to open up the ad industry to
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neurodivergent talent, with initiatives that would make a creative career more accessible to a greater diversity of minds. They recognise that at this juncture, when the Covid-19 pandemic is accelerating shifts in the workplace that were already under way, embracing neurodiversity could have far-reaching benefits for the entire industry. Neurodiversity refers to variations in cognitive functioning and is used to describe people who have conditions such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia or dyspraxia. Judy Singer, an Australian sociologist who is on the autism spectrum, coined the term in the late 1990s and American journalist Harvey Blume helped popularise it, writing in The Atlantic in 1998: “Neurodiversity may be every bit as crucial for the human race as biodiversity is for life in general. Who can say what form of wiring will be best at any given moment?” The neurodiversity movement highlights the unique strengths and abilities of neurological differences and argues that they should be accepted and respected in the same way that other types of diversity are. Just as with other forms of diversity, any discussion or approach to neurodiversity should be nuanced, because the term encompasses a wide range of traits as well as much variance within each condition. Adelphi University professor Stephen Shore, who has autism and researches the condition, highlighted this truth when he said: “If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.” However, certain stereotypes, such as the common perception that everyone with autism is good at maths or resembles the savant protagonist in the film Rain Man, hold many back from a deeper understanding of neurodiversity and how it can best be harnessed. This lack of understanding is a crucial blind spot for the ad industry. For one, many of the consumers it is trying to reach could be neurodivergent – an estimated one in seven people (nearly 15%) in the UK is neurodivergent in some way, according to Acas. In the industry’s own workforce, that number is higher. The organisation Creative Equals found in its 2020 Equality Standard Accreditation survey that 18% of employees in advertising, marketing and media have one or more neurodiverse traits. Meanwhile, Universal Music’s 2020 report Creative Differences estimates that the proportion of people who are neurodiverse across all creative industries is almost double that of the general public. Because many people may not disclose their conditions to their employers or are undiagnosed, that figure could be even higher. The high proportion of neurodiverse people in the creative sector is striking and chimes with research that highlights a strong correlation between neurodiversity and creativity. Universal Music’s report cites studies showing that, for example, individuals with ADHD outperform others when thinking creatively, and autistic traits may put people at an advantage when generating ideas or can spark greater verbal creativity.
Great artists and innovators throughout history – Steve Jobs, Steven Spielberg, Agatha Christie, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Pablo Picasso and Stanley Kubrick, to name just a few – have, or were reported to have, neurodivergent conditions. Addressing the challenges The ad industry has its own examples of successful creatives who are neurodivergent. Yet while Brim and many neurodiversity advocates cite such traits as “superpowers”, there is also a danger in ending the conversation there, because it doesn’t address the many challenges that neurodivergent people still have to face. “It was an idea I used to cling to – that these things make me superhuman and it’s magical I can see the world from a different way,” Jae Tallawah, creative legacy and inclusion lead at arts and social justice organisation Maia, says. But after a bumpy road earlier in their career, Tallawah, who lives with dyslexia, bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, realised: “When people get pushed into this space of ‘you’re a hero’, there’s no space to be human there. I’m not a superhero, I’m a person like everyone else with complex needs.” Wayne Deakin, executive creative director EMEA at Huge, who is on the autism spectrum, points out: “I think [neurodiversity] is a superpower but it’s a bit like any weapon – it’s got a double edge. I would hate if neurodiversity becomes trendy, because there are challenges as well as strengths, and that needs to be recognised as well.” Among those challenges is that because neurodiverse conditions are often hidden, misunderstood or stigmatised, many businesses are not set up to fully support the neurodivergent people within their organisations or to recruit more of those who are. “There’s just a huge amount of untapped potential,” Red Brick Road executive creative director Matt Davis says. He has a son with high-functioning autism and is a trustee of autism research charity Austica and a patron of Ambitious About Autism. The problem with this untapped potential starts early. Like Brim and Deakin, many people who are neurodivergent recall struggling with the more rigid and traditional aspects of school and university. That was also true for Aidan McClure (pictured, below), founder and chief creative officer of Wonderhood Studios, who has dyslexia, which can sometimes manifest itself with difficulties in phonological awareness, verbal memory and verbal processing speed. McClure says: “The classic way of learning at school and uni was really challenging because it required a lot of shortterm memory, reading, studying textbooks and writing. It was the formal learning that brought me out in a bit of a cold sweat.” These early struggles can have long-term effects on people’s self-esteem and career choices later in life, according to Kate Power and Kathy Iwanczak Forsyth, co-authors of two
books about dyslexia: The Illustrated Guide to Dyslexia and its Amazing People and The Bigger Picture Book of Amazing Dyslexics and the Jobs They Do. Both have worked in the creative industries in art and design and have children with dyslexia, while Iwanczak Forsyth herself is dyslexic. “It’s the confidence that’s the killer,” she says, while Power adds: “You’re always going back to that root of insecurity that you were made to feel at school.” With their colourful and upbeat books, Power says that they want to “change the negative connotation to the word dyslexia” and show the breadth of creative potential and career options available to those with the condition. People with dyslexia “have amazing skillsets that aren’t recognised by the system”, Power adds. Iwanczak Forsyth says she “gravitated towards the creative industries”, whose roles seemed to better suit her abilities and also offered a less conventional career path. McClure found a similar home in advertising. “With advertising, I think it was the first time in my life that I felt like I could do this quite well and I could do it better,” he says. “It’s almost the perfect industry for dyslexic people. Everything has to be quite short and simple and it’s all about ideas. Everything else doesn’t really matter – if the
idea is strong, that’s what matters.” Before getting a job at an ad agency, McClure studied at The Watford Course, which, like other advertising courses (such as that at the School of Communication Arts in London), tends to be less rigid in its education style and recruitment of students. Yet even these courses – from which many agencies recruit new talent – may be putting off potential students before they even apply. Commercial Break, an organisation aimed at increasing diversity within advertising, discovered this while working with a young woman who has dyslexia and ADHD. “She had this slightly dark sensibility, this spark where it was obvious she thinks differently and she’s going places,”
James Hillhouse, co-founder of Commercial Break, says. But after winning a scholarship at SCA, the woman wavered when she saw the required reading list. “She was looking at the reading list and saying, ‘I can’t do it’,” Hillhouse says. “Marc [Lewis, dean of SCA] was very accommodating, but the fact that the anxiety was already there and she thought she would be starting behind was enough of a problem.” Realising that the path into the industry for people with dyslexia was strewn with invisible barriers such as this, Commercial Break and ad professionals Kat Pegler and Alex Fleming created Leo, a fully customisable and free reading platform that combines text, audio and video, to make it easier for people with dyslexia to study advertising coursework. Leo launched in January with Steve Harrison’s How to Do Better Creative Work, a leading textbook for budding creatives. Each chapter is read aloud on the platform by a creative leader such as McClure, Creature London’s Stu Outhwaite-Noel and Futurimpose’s Ollie Olanipekun. The goal is to expand Leo into a library of books about advertising and marketing, making a creative education more accessible to those who are neurodivergent. “It helps level the playing field,” Hillhouse says.
Brixton Finishing School, a free creative course for 18to 25-year-olds from underrepresented groups, is also tackling this problem of access for neurodiverse talent. It plans to launch a course next year specifically tailored for neurodiverse young people. Along with the course, BFS is in talks to set up a neurodiverse office space for students and creative professionals. It would be specially designed so that people with neurodiverse traits could work in environments that best suited their needs, and industry leaders could visit and learn “how they could hack their offices into neurodivergent spaces”, BFS founder Ally Owen explains. More such initiatives are needed in the industry, because
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“our corporate structures still expect you to be neurotypical”, Owen says. “As an industry, we don’t seem to be worshipping or facilitating neurodiversity in the way we should.” Barriers to employment The inflexibility of corporate structures, along with persisting prejudices and stigmas, partly explains why employment rates tend to be lower among neurodiverse groups. For example, just 16% of autistic adults are in full-time employment in the UK, even though 77% of unemployed autistic adults want to work, according to research from the National Autistic Society. Davis learned of these sobering statistics after his son, now aged 13, was diagnosed with autism 10 years ago. His son also has ADHD and dyspraxia. Over the past decade of parenting, Davis has come to realise that “a lot of autistic people see the world completely differently”, which he believes would be hugely beneficial in the workplace because “difference within an organisation can help you think and behave in a more creative way”. This insight inspired Davis to become a vocal campaigner for employing more neurodivergent people in the ad industry. Five years ago, Red Brick Road partnered the charity Ambitious About Autism to recruit an autistic employee, named Chris, and create a tailor-made role that would best use his varied skills. Now, Chris works across the finance and creative departments, as well as helping with internal communications. “He’s quite a social glue for the agency,” Davis says. “There have been a few instances where we’ve had to give him support, but no more than other staff.” Red Brick Road has also developed a work experience programme for autistic sixth-form students. Such initiatives have proved to Davis that “some talented people are sitting at home because they don’t know where to look and employers don’t know where to look either. We need to try to get them into work.” Amy Walker, diversity and inclusion co-ordinator at Group M (pictured, below), agrees with Davis’ assessment that neurodivergent people are an untapped talent pool – it rings true with her own experience. She was diagnosed with autism, dyslexia and dyspraxia at a young age – and after being bullied and struggling at school, she dropped out around the age of 12. Later on, she applied to art college with a photography portfolio and “the admissions tutor gave me a chance despite having no qualifications”, which led to her attending university. From there it took her a long time to settle on a career path, but an autism exchange internship programme at M/SIX introduced her to the world of media agencies and helped her land her current role. Without that programme, and people along the way who took a less conventional approach to recruitment, it may have taken her longer to find her place, she says. Walker also set up Neurodiversity Works, which develops training and job opportunities for neurodivergent people. She says that to attract and retain this talent, the ad industry
needs to make changes such as creating more flexible roles and educating hiring managers about neurodiversity, so that they “don’t overlook someone if they have slightly odd mannerisms or behave differently”. Positives from the pandemic The shifts brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic have in some ways encouraged people to open up about their personal challenges at work and offered opportunities for businesses to better accommodate diverse minds, Walker says. For example, many companies that were previously reluctant to allow flexible working have been forced to embrace it during lockdown, while some aspects of office life that neurodivergent people may have found challenging, such as social events or open-plan offices, have fallen by the wayside, she explains. Before the pandemic, she already worked from home two days a week and has appreciated the additional time to do so, because it allows her to hyperfocus on her tasks without distractions and have more control over her working environment and schedule. Many companies are still ironing out the kinks of remote working and need to do so with neurodiversity in mind, Walker says, such as by offering accessibility training for video calls. And there are still some glaring issues in the ad industry that need to be addressed if it is to become a place where all brains can thrive. In September, Craig Ainsley, a creative director at Mother, wrote a piece on Medium entitled “The Normalisation of Overworking in Advertising”, in which he talked about “the institutionalised epidemic of overworking”. “I realised I know nine people in advertising who have had to seek medical help because of work-induced burnout and exacerbated mental health problems. A few of them were hospitalised. Some had to take a leave of absence,” he wrote. “I know dozens more who feel the strain but are yet to break.” In some cases, this problem may be worsening in an era of remote working, when the lines between work and home life are increasingly blurred and businesses are under greater pressure due to the financial impact of the pandemic. Although Ainsley did not mention neurodiversity in his piece, the “epidemic of overworking” that he describes worries copywriter Charlotte Adorjan as she eyes the industry’s future for people like her eight-year-old son, Woody, who was diagnosed with autism at the age of three. “Woody’s day-to-day life is incredibly stressful and he has a lot of anxiety, so to manage that is a difficult thing,” she says. “If advertising can’t stop burnout with neurotypical people, I worry what would happen to non-neurotypical brains within that, because the support system you have to have in place is big.” When Tallawah entered the creative sector in 2013, they observed a common mindset in which “this idea of working yourself to the bone means you’re a hero”. After working for businesses that did not understand their needs, or where they were afraid to disclose their conditions, Tallawah
concluded: “A lack of care for yourself doesn’t make you the best version of yourself. My neurodiversities are part of me so I can’t not say what they are.”
she says. “It’s just the way my brain is, so I need to find ways to work with it. The career I’d found seemed to work very well for my brain.’’
After landing their current job at Maia, Tallawah (pictured, above) decided to use an accessibility document, which explains their neurodiversity, how it affects them in the workplace and how best they can be supported. Tallawah is now working on ensuring that all Maia employees – both neurodivergent and neurotypical – create a similar document about working styles and the support required.
For a long time after her diagnosis, however, Hobbs (pictured, above) did not disclose her ADHD for fear of appearing difficult to employers and losing out on opportunities. It wasn’t until a Creative Equals event about neurodiversity, where she met others with similar experiences, that she realised neurodiverse talent “is already there [in the industry]. But not enough people are speaking up.”
“When I’m brave enough to put my access needs forward, neurotypical people will realise things within the system that don’t work for them,” Tallawah says. “So many of us go along with things because it’s the way it’s always been done, but we need to reimagine what care looks like in the workplace.”
Hobbs went on to set up The Future is ND, a support network that champions neurodiversity in the creative and tech industries. After years of disillusionment with traditional corporate models, her biggest dream is to start her own neurodiverse agency that would combat many of the challenges she has faced while working in advertising.
Opening up at work
She envisions a company that would employ a network of freelancers who can work flexibly and on short-term projects and have an office space with quiet pods where people can go to concentrate, “completely be themselves, be understood and work at their best”.
Like Tallawah, art director and copywriter Lucy Hobbs had a similar turning point when she realised the importance of opening up about her neurodiversity at work. Throughout her life, “I had my ups and downs, I could never hold a job down and I got bored easily”, she says. Hobbs found her groove as a creative, working at agencies such as HHCL and St Luke’s before going freelance, which allowed her to hyper-focus on short-term projects and come up with a lot of new ideas. As an adult she was diagnosed with ADHD, and only last year found out she has an autism spectrum condition. “It was a revelation because it made me not blame myself,”
Echoing Hobbs’ frustrations, Deakin accuses the ad industry of still being “a bit estate agent” and subscribing to “groupthink” rather than “challenging the status quo”. But “actually the people who don’t fit in make more interesting work”, he says. While Brim says he, too, has sometimes encountered an attitude of judgment or conformity in the ad industry, gaining a deeper understanding of his own mind has reinforced to
him that talent can blossom and great creativity can emerge when differences are recognised and celebrated. “What it’s given me is a tolerance of other people who struggle with different ways of thinking. Our industry is better for having those people,” he says. “The more of a safe place we can make this industry for people who think in different ways, the more exciting and individualistic the thinking will be.” Fostering diverse thinking Charlotte and Sonny Adorjan (pictured, below), a creative director at Engine, have also become advocates for fostering diverse thinking within the industry since their son Woody’s autism diagnosis. Woody has defied their expectations from the beginning. “There’s a perception that people with autism don’t have much empathy, but Woody is almost more empathetic than anyone I’ve ever met,” Charlotte says. Since he learned to speak, Woody has always had a way with words, demonstrating a knack for evoking emotion and describing relationships and situations in new ways. His parents took to calling his phrases “woodisms” and they even inspired Sonny to make art, turning the boy’s most memorable expressions into linocut prints. Their creative collaboration became an online shop called Woodism, which sells posters and cards capturing some of Woody’s phrases, including “I love you for all the minutes” and “I wish we were the only people onboard this planet”. The project won a D&AD pencil in the Side Hustle category last year.
“I’ve been a copywriter for 20 years, but in just a few years of his life Woody has come up with better phrases and ideas than I’ve ever had,” Charlotte says. The success of Woodism is particularly poignant because Woody has faced numerous struggles at school. “He’s reached an age where he knows he’s different, and he gets frustrated or down about it sometimes,” Sonny says. But one day, after Woodism had taken off, the teacher called on Woody to present his creations. “The teacher said, ‘We have an artist among us, and his name is Woody’,” Charlotte recalls. “For him it was a moment of seeing that he’s thriving even though sometimes he feels like he’s failing. It gave him a sense of pride.” Woody is still a long way from deciding what to be when he grows up, but his surprising and singular ideas might one day flourish in a creative environment, the Adorjans say. Indeed, his different way of thinking is an example of what Brim looks for when leading one of the most celebrated creative departments in advertising. “When we’ve been at our best, it’s when different people have been given a voice. Sometimes the best ideas aren’t going to come from the loud person who talks too much. Sometimes it’s going to come from the quiet person in the corner who’s terrified to say something or doesn’t know how to say something,” Brim says. “It’s really important not to leave anyone behind just because their personality or brain function doesn’t fit in. We’ve got to be very careful not to lose some absolute
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geniuses along the way.” Terms and conditions About one in seven people (about 15%) in the UK is neurodivergent, according to Acas, the independent public body that advises on workplace rights, rules and best practice. In the creative sector, the figure may be double that, Universal Music reported in its 2020 survey Creative Differences. Neurodiversity encompasses a wide range of traits and conditions, which include: ADHD (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) It is estimated that about 4% of the UK population have ADHD, which “affects the person’s ability to control attention, impulses and concentration, and can cause inattention, hyperactivity and impulsiveness”, Acas says. But ADHD has also been linked to increased creativity. “In his 2004 book Creativity is Forever, Gary Davis identified 22 reoccurring personality traits of creative people and found a significant overlap between those traits and behavioural descriptions of ADHD,” Universal Music’s report says. “The conclusion, as the book notes, is that ‘people with ADHD characteristics are more likely to reach higher levels of creative thought’.” Autism (including Asperger syndrome) About 1-2% of the UK population are autistic. Autism “impacts how a person perceives the world and interacts with others, making it difficult for them to pick up social cues and interpret them. Social interactions can be difficult as they can have difficulty ‘reading’ other people and expressing their own emotions. They can find change difficult and uncomfortable. People on the autistic spectrum are often very thorough in their work, punctual and rule observant. Many autistic people develop special interests and can hold high levels of expertise in their given topic.” (Acas) Studies have also shown that autism may spark greater verbal creativity and put an individual at an advantage when generating ideas. (Universal Music) Dyslexia An estimated 10% of the UK population are dyslexic. “Dyslexia is a language processing difficulty that can cause problems with aspects of reading, writing and spelling. They may have difficulties with processing information quickly, memory retention, organisation, sequencing, spoken language and motor skills,” Acas says. “People with dyslexia can often be very good at creative thinking and problem-solving, storytelling and verbal communication.” Dyspraxia Up to 5% of the UK population are dyspraxic, which “relates to issues with physical co-ordination and, for
most, organisation of thought. People with dyspraxia may appear clumsy or have speech impediments and might have difficulties with tasks requiring sequencing, structure, organisation and timekeeping. “People with dyspraxia often have good literacy skills and can be very good at creative, holistic and strategic thinking.” (Acas) Prominent neurodivergent creatives Andy Warhol, artist Some researchers believe that Warhol had Asperger syndrome. Qualities such as his affinity for repetition, adherence to routine and monosyllabic speaking patterns suggest he may have been on the spectrum, Dr Judith Gould, a psychologist specialising in autism, told The Guardian. Those traits are visible in his signature artworks, such as the image of a tin of Campbell’s soup repeated across a canvas. Leonardo da Vinci, artist and polymath Scientists have argued that the Renaissance polymath may have had ADHD. Da Vinci was known for his chronic procrastination, irregular sleeping patterns and highintensity periods of working. Yet he created some of the world’s most famous art. “While [it’s] impossible to make a post-mortem diagnosis for someone who lived 500 years ago, I am confident that ADHD is the most convincing and scientifically plausible hypothesis to explain Leonardo’s difficulty in finishing his works,” King’s College London’s Professor Marco Catani told The Week. “ADHD could explain aspects of Leonardo’s temperament and his strange mercurial genius.” Agatha Christie, writer The legendary crime writer reportedly had dysgraphia [a neurological condition affecting people’s ability to write] and dyslexia. She described herself as the “slow one in the family”, who had trouble reading and writing in school. But she went on to pen 66 novels, 14 short story collections and the world’s longest-running play, The Mousetrap. Her books have sold more than two billion copies. Stephen Wiltshire, architectural artist Wiltshire was diagnosed with autism at the age of three and began drawing at five. Known for producing lifelike, accurate representations of cities after having observed them only briefly, his work has been exhibited around the world. He was awarded an MBE for services to the art world in 2006. Florence Welch, singer and songwriter Welch, whose albums have topped the charts and won awards, was diagnosed with dyslexia and dyscalculia [which affects people’s ability to understand maths] while at primary school. Describing them as “learning difficulties” was “not exactly helpful or accurate”, she said. “My thoughts are disordered, not especially logical and not at all linear – but that’s okay, they take me to more interesting places,” she writes in Universal Music’s Creative Differences report.
The story of Old Monk By Siddharth Misra
One of the more fascinating threads that emerged on Twitter
Mohan took over, two years after facing a humiliating defeat
recently was by Siddharth Misra on Old Monk Rum. All thanks
in the Lok Sabha elections from Lucknow.” Misra’s account
to that, we now know, this brand that many Indians revere
has it that the Congress party fielded him and until then,
has a fascinating history.
the city hadn’t witnessed as much money being splurged on
Misra says, Narendra Nath Mohan purchased the company in 1947 from the British who were leaving India. Until then, he used to work there and the entity was called Dyer
any election campaign. But he did get two terms at the Rajya Sabha and was awarded a Padma Shri in 1967 and Padma Bhushan 1971.
Meakin Breweries, “Traceable to Edward Dyer, father of
Old Monk Rum was his creation. “He launched it in 1954
the notorious Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer—the man
after a visit to Europe, where he was very much impressed by
behind the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.” But by the time NN
the Benedictine monks and the liqueurs they produced. The
Mohan bought this company, it was less of Dyer and more of
name Old Monk was his tribute to them, though the jolly face
Meakin. HG Meakin came from a well-known brewing family
of a tubby man that you see on the bottle is believed to be
of Burton-on-Trent, got this company listed on London Stock
that of HG Meakin.”
Exchange and expanded breweries across India.
Anyways, the Mohans did contribute to places where they
“Now, someone will tell you this story that Nehru was in
were based. You have Mohan Shakti Heritage Park (in Solan).
Shimla. And, NN Mohan asked him to have a look at their
Then in the 1960s-70s, they also enhanced the natural beauty
Solan-based brewery. Nehru refused to come.” Because the
of Lucknow, by building parks along the Gomti river banks.
place was named after Dyer. “So, the name got changed as Mohan Meakin Breweries in 1966 (just that this happened after 2 years of his death).” The Mohans changed the name of the company in 1980 to ‘Mohan Meakin’ to look at other businesses as well.
What gives Old Monk Rum the taste drinkers claim it has? “Well, some say since it was manufactured from the spring water of Solan, which was ideally suited for brewing, the liquor manufactured here has gained acclaim for its taste,” Misra writes on his thread. His full thread has more detail
As for the Mohan family, both of NM Mohan’s sons joined
and TheBizdom that he maintains has many such compelling
the Indian Army. “[I]n 1969, his eldest son Col. Ved Rattan
narratives.
You Need a Rapid-Response Team for the New Era of Fast Advertising By Kristin Zhivago
“Fast advertising” was propelled into the marketing spotlight with the debut of Aviation Gin’s clever marketing spot, “The Gift That Doesn’t Give Back” in response to Peloton’s 2019 holiday ad “The Gift That Gives Back.” As a result of its instant success, fast advertising represents an emerging genre of marketing that plugs-into popular, cultural, and social trends and memes—at scale. By augmenting traditional efforts, fast advertising can help accelerate brand modernization and relevance amongst highly-desired connected consumers. Compete at the speed of the internet and trend cycles Fast advertising’s namesake was inspired by the fast fashion industry. Leaders like Zara and H&M are able to create fashion lines that mirror current trends quickly across the supply chain from design to retail. Following, fast advertising presents an opportunity for brands to participate in popular trends as they happen. Digital is also introducing an infinite number of “in the moment” marketing opportunities to engage consumers beyond traditional campaigns. Customer research revealed that 88% of business customers and consumers expect companies to accelerate digital initiatives. Did you know that a Twitter post has an estimated lifespan of only 18 minutes? In both fashion and advertising, social media is accelerating trend cycles, making fast a critical element in competing for consumer attention.
Relevance at scale Traditional advertising is often led by an idea, then creative and followed by a supporting campaign designed to shape perceptions or drive calls to action. Over time, advertising contributes to a lasting impression that eventually forms the brand. These campaigns often follow fine timelines such as seasons, holidays and events. The foundation for fast advertising on the other hand, is always-on, plugging into fashionable and cultural trends, memes, challenges and trending topics as they happen. Fast advertising can accelerate brand awareness and relevance with every campaign and brand experience that meaningfully aligns with trending topics. Doing so, sparks community engagement, fosters personal experiences, creates social ties and ultimately, helps brands become part of important social fabrics. In 2019, Aviation Gin was able to capitalize on Peloton’s negative press, maneuvering from spotting the opportunity, to ideation and creative, to execution and marketing, in just one week. In doing so, Aviation Gin not only broke the internet, it broke the mold for traditional advertising. The brand stole was thrust into the spotlight, reaching and winning the attention spans of coveted consumer demographics. Eight
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months later, Diageo acquired Aviation Gin for $610 million. In 2020 and 2021, political action committee, The Lincoln Project, used fast advertising as a means to distribute spots that highlight the acts of politicians, donors, media and other actors while they were in the news. Like Aviation Gin, short videos are quickly but thoughtfully produced and distributed on social media within days. And, they usually wind-up trending across social networks. While still evolving, fast advertising is proving effective, enhancing traditional marketing to connect with consumers in moments that matter, at speed and scale. To start, consider augmenting campaigns in the following ways: 1. Create a rapid-response team and dedicated resources: Marketing teams need to start allocating budget and resources to explore real-time creative and resources to experiment fast. This means that internal and external resources must optimize trendspotting, creative, decisionmaking, legal approval and measurement to start flexing. 2. Invest in real-time listening, data and engagement platforms: Invest in a customer data platform (CDP), AI and machine learning powered platform to analyze meaningful data and patterns in real-time. Additionally, connect the digital dots to real-time, personalized
engagement mechanisms to engage customers around fast advertising campaigns. 3. Trendcast: Monitor challenges, trends, news cycles, events, memes and other movements that are important to your desirable consumer segments. 4. Reimagine Storytelling: Design for value-added engagement. There’s a fine line between trendy and on trend. The goal isn’t to respond to everything, but instead to be additive, significant, and memorable. Creative now needs to follow a more agile, real-time, and empathetic storytelling playbook to plug into cultural themes, on the right channels, at the right time, in the right context. 5. Test and learn: Integrate safe testing protocol and platforms to sample creative within a safe community that can reflect negative or positive feedback. Then, scale quickly, adapt, and learn. The reality is that in an always-on world with accelerated trend and news cycles, consumers have been trained to expect new content, fast. And, the revolutions of relevance are only going to continue to accelerate. Fast advertising offers a promising approach for modern marketers to create awareness and ultimately preference, in ways that humanize brands and make them more personal, relatable, and fashionable.
Shutterstock makes a $75 million bet that the future of photography won’t always involve cameras By Lilly Smith
Shutterstock acquires the 3D model company TurboSquid, signaling a new direction for the photography industry: One that increasingly doesn’t just sell photos. Take a second look at a stock photo of a coffee cup or soup can, and you may notice something: It’s not actually a photograph. It just might be CGI—a computer generated image of whatever product that particular company’s hawking. Take Swedish retailer Ikea, which has been using CGI photos since as early as 2006: 3D models can trick you into thinking they’re the real deal. And it might soon be the norm. Leading stock photography company Shutterstock announced today that it has acquired TurboSquid, a digital media company that sells 3D assets, for $75 million. The move is both a talent and an IP acquisition, and it will give Shutterstock’s two million customers—which include everyone from professional creatives to so-called pro-sumers who use editing tools to develop website and social media content— access to raw materials for making images from scratch. The move suggests that the future of photography doesn’t have to involve a camera. For CEO Stan Pavlovsky, it’s a sound business strategy: He expects the move to add about 2% to 3% to Shutterstock’s overall revenue. But it also raises questions about the blurring divide between fact and fiction in an era of of deepfakes and “cheap fakes.” Will 3D models proliferate, just making it harder for consumers to tell the difference between what’s real and what’s fake? First, some definitions: 3D stock assets are ready made objects and materials that can be combined with photographs, video footage, or other digital environments to create photorealistic images. They can make a photo editor’s life easier because getting the perfect shot of a coffee cup or soup can no longer involves sourcing the object or getting the in situ light just right. You simply design it using software. The acquisition will make Shutterstock the world’s largest 3D marketplace by revenue, according to Pavlovsky. The transaction is targeted to close in early February. That means new competition for Adobe, which has the 3D imaging
software Adobe Dimension. Getty Images, Shutterstock’s largest competitor, does not offer 3D assets. Why now? Pavlovsky notes that Shutterstock isn’t just a stock photo company—in addition to stock content and image editing tools, the company launched a content creation platform Shutterstock Studios in November of last year. The TurboSquid acquisition indicates a deepening interest in content creation and an effort on the part of Shutterstock to help 3D models go mainstream by making the tool easy for marketers without photo editing expertise to use.”We want to make sure that our marketers and content creators have the latest and greatest capabilities,” says Pavlovsky. “Today 3D is focused on very highly trained professionals as well as more niche categories like industrial categories. There’s obviously some application of 3D within e-commerce—furniture companies like Ikea, et cetera, but for us we’ve always been an innovator of the space of bringing content and workflow to creators.” And since those pro-sumers are Shutterstock’s biggest growth area, the acquisition made sense. “This will definitely become much more mainstream,” Pavlovsky says. “Every large platform is working on this, so we expect that we’ll be at the center of that workflow with creatives by providing both the tools and the content.” But 3D models raise concerns. For instance, consumers may not realize that many car ads—including commercials and print and digital ads—are made using 3D models, not actual cars. Do the consumers deserve to know? Should government step in and insist that constructed images be labeled to distinguish them from photographs? Pavlovsky says he is open to regulation so that 3D media is made responsibly. “There is a lot of responsibility,” Pavlovsky says. “It’s a nascent category and very new in nature and we are monitoring that very closely. But it is something that will require some regulation, because as you can imagine, there are a lot of privacy concerns. There are a lot of things that can go wrong.”
HOW TO MARKET TO THE ETHICAL CONSUMER: 6 EFFECTIVE MARKETING STRATEGIES1 By Kent Lewis
In 1965, Ralph Nader published “Unsafe at Any Speed” and influenced a movement now known as ethical consumerism. Based on the concept of “voting with your wallet,” ethical consumers either purchase ethical products and services or boycott those deemed unethical. The ethical consumer movement has challenged marketers ever since, under the basic assumption that brands are selling for maximum profit, not for the greater good. So how can brands best approach this significant and growing consumer base that has the power to grow (or shrink) revenue?
Background I originally wrote about ethical consumerism in 2014, and while the fundamental marketing strategies haven’t changed significantly, perceptions of ethical consumerism have evolved. The Ethical Consumer Research Association provides resources and insights into the movement from a consumer advocacy perspective, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t reference a recent Atmos article, The Twilight of the Ethical Consumer, which shed light into the complexities of the ethical consumer movement. Regardless of where you personally land on the
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apparel and food. If you are in one of those industries, you need to be more proactive with your marketing and positioning.
1. Understand what matters to your customer and embrace it
4. Consumers love cats
Companies must identify which ethical issues are important to their consumers and ensure they are satisfied with the company’s stance on those matters. According to a recent study, 92% of respondents had a more positive image of a company that supported something they cared about, while 15% stated they would be more likely to pay more for a product or service associated with a cause important to them. Conversely, consumers would still buy products from unethical firms, but only at a lower price. Get feedback from your consumers, as they may have great ideas on how you can more effectively appeal to ethical consumers with your business and marketing practices. Take the input with a grain of salt, considering the disparity between purchase intent and actual behavior can be significant. When possible, take a local angle on your product or service, as that can be a significant influencer in the decision-making process, especially during the pandemic. 2. Align with culture Research does not support an ROI on ethical marketing, as unethical companies are still getting rewarded and ethical companies are seemingly penalized by consumers. Corporations should be philanthropic and altruistic because it is part of their culture. Do not expect an ethical consumer initiative to directly drive sales, especially if your corporate values do not align with the ethical consumer. Brands like Levi Strauss and Johnson & Johnson appeal to the ethical consumer because their culture drives that type of behavior in their business. Consumers are likely to be especially brand loyal if their deeply held values are engaged in their purchasing. Other stakeholders should be considered as well, including employees, media, the local community and government. One effective marketing strategy is to partner with platforms like Trestle, which focuses on aligning consumer and corporate values. 3. Educate your customers Leverage consumer interest in issues that impact them by educating them about your position and supporting initiatives. Tell them how their purchase will make a difference, as consumers generally do not believe they can make a difference. It also is important to educate customers on your industry and your position in the marketplace. Consumers appear to take a macro view of ethics in business. They rarely have specific knowledge regarding individual companies, which implies the need for brands to differentiate themselves, particularly in challenging industries like energy, telecommunications,
Consumers are much more sympathetic to animal rights (exploitation of animals specifically) than those of humans, which may translate into a premium pricing model for some products that are animal exploitation-free. If your product is exploitation-free, make sure consumers are aware. If your organization is actively against animal exploitation, leverage that opportunity in your communications. If your product is not related to animals, then acquiring relevant industry certifications and/or awards can be particularly valuable (e.g., free-trade coffee or conflict-free diamonds). For consumers interested in human rights, address your commitment to livable wages, which have been put fashion and retail brands like Walmart, in the spotlight. 5. It’s all in the packaging Consumers are generally passive ethical shoppers vs. active ethicists. Consumers rely primarily on product labeling, so package design and copy are critical. Consumers will be more likely to purchase ethically if there is no additional cost, loss of quality or necessity to “shop around.” Don’t forget the small print: While most general consumers do not read the fine print, ethical consumers are much more likely to do so. Include essential facts, industry certifications, and initiatives in your packaging and marketing materials to give them the nudge. 6. Utilize PR to tell your story A brand’s ethical or unethical activities do not seem to have a direct impact on purchase decisions, with the rare exception of significant amounts of negative media coverage, so long as its products are valued. This implies that brands need to get ethically oriented information out to the public via third-party public relations efforts, as well as proactively managing any negative information. Online reputation management (ORM) has exploded as a service for high-profile brands because of this trend. Before you go out to the press, however, be sure to clean up your act, as scrutiny from the media can work against you. Revisit vendors, ingredients, processes and logistics to identify areas where you can be more sustainable and socially responsible without creating economic hardship. There is no debate that the ethical consumer market provides a real opportunity for brand marketers. To succeed, however, marketers must create context to engage the ethical consumer. Then you will be able to both make a difference to the greater community and find a sweet spot in the competitive landscape that will empower growth of revenue and profitability. Don’t be the next Corvair; be the next Prius. Kent Lewis is president and founder of Anvil Media, a measurable marketing agency based in Portland, Ore. He’s also co-founder of SEMpdx and was named AMA Marketer of the Year
How Brands Deal With Online Haters, Trolls and Cancel Culture By rook Zimmatore
Some years ago, on a typical underwhelming, cloud-ridden day during my travels to London, I rested against a wall outside a vegan takeaway joint in Soho, eating what seemed to be a guacamole taco. It was my latest attempt to improve my traveler’s diet. As I ate, I scrolled through Facebook on my Blackberry Bold (yes, it was that long ago) to pass the time. Since I always make it a point to follow our clients’ social media accounts so as to better stay in touch, I came across a new post from an insurance company client of ours who had signed up for our executive reputation services only a few months earlier. Their social media manager had posted a
typical stock photo with an inspirational quote about security for family. But what struck me wasn’t the post itself — it was the fact that it had unusually high engagement with over 600 comments. Curious, I opened up the comment thread and saw a spew of negativity. Not about the post, not about the products — but about the company. And they all said pretty much the same thing: “You don’t care about your employees, so why would you care about your customers.” And another, “I hope your company fails and everyone leaves. You deserve it.”
With a deep sigh, as I scrolled through hundreds of similar comments, many from the same profiles as well as some commenters without photos, I quickly realized it was a targeted attack. Images of what must be going on internally at the client’s HQ ran through my head. Social media was still quite young as a concept, and proactive strategies for a crisis of this kind were not commonly implemented. It only took 15 minutes for me to receive the call. Awkwardly brushing off taco crumbs, as if I couldn’t take a phone call without having a clean appearance, I answered cheerfully and seemingly unaware. Of course, it was the aforementioned client. (And, by the way, don’t eat vegan tacos with a suit. They crumble into dust because they have no ingredients to hold the taco together.) The call was from the executive vice president of the company. Apparently, a human resources manager had done a utilization inspection and found four people who were not really productive and were unnecessary hires. These employees didn’t have daily tasks as their departments were in a camouflaged area, and so they were just let go. In a company with 4,000 employees, I could see how this would happen. It turns out that one of the employees had just found out she was pregnant. Distraught and worried about the future, she had returned home and who knows what exactly transpired next. It seems supportive family and friends had turned to social media in what would become a coordinated smear campaign, mixed with trolling and cancel-culture vibes. Unrelenting and without remorse, these supporters had made it their mission to decimate every online asset possible with negativity. The hate campaign was designed to crush a “corporate giant” to get justice for a wrong and lasted about a week. Only after six months did the client find, through subpoenas for IP addresses and e-mail addresses, those involved in the trolling. In this scenario, there was no logic to the hate. The matter could have been resolved with a few carefully worded concerns from the family or an attorney, and we would have likely seen the employee reinstated. But human behavior is an interesting topic (I’ll save that for another article). While our client survived the hate campaign through an arbitration model we put together with Facebook and Google, it was a classic case study of an Internet mob wreaking havoc on a brand and its executives. Once the pitchforks come out for you, it’s almost already too late. It’s also pretty scary just how quickly it can happen — today, a random troll or even a bot can make a single defamatory post and it starts trending on Twitter. Before the PR team can even react, there’s an outcry for boycotts and a significant backlash. There’s still hope, though. There are ways to deal with online haters and trolls, and a company with a good handle on its online reputation is already ahead of the game. There is a strategy to resolve each problem and spoiler alert — arguing in an open social media or digital environment is not effective. Even so, a brand that finds itself at the mercy of a loud group of naysayers will have a significant amount of work to do to get its reputation back. Hire a professional No situation is the same and every brand or company is going to face negativity online at some point. The anonymity that the Internet provides sometimes brings out the worst in
people. A few random comments here and there might not be anything to worry about, but if the issue continues to grow, there has to be a response. The first thing a company should do when it faces online backlash is to hire a professional to manage its response. A misstep can often make the situation go from bad to worse, and a cohesive crisis management plan is critical. It’s worth the price — a company will not only benefit from the expertise of a professional reputation management firm, but they will also avoid costly mistakes. Handling trolls Trolls are people on the Internet who make it their life’s mission to provoke others into embarrassing, angry responses. Their reasons for this are varied, but they’ll often achieve their ends by posting inflammatory or controversial content. There’s often no reasoning with these people, but some companies (Wendy’s, for instance) have been able to build a reputation for having witty comebacks that can shut trolls down. Wendy’s Twitter account is famous for its roasts of online hecklers, and it provides a good lesson for other brands to mirror. Generally, the best option for dealing with trolls is to monitor their posts but avoid engaging with them. Another option is to take the high ground and try to handle their complaints, if legitimate. Remember, there’s a wider audience on social media, and they’ll be watching your company’s response. While the troll might not be swayed, the rest of the people viewing the exchange can learn a lot from how your brand responds. Address legitimate complaints There are sometimes legitimate complaints behind inflammatory posts or content. In these cases the company needs to take a hard look internally and fix the issues that have been identified. Some honest action that accepts responsibility and strives to correct the problem can pay dividends for a brand’s image. Honesty and the act of taking responsibility is the greatest defense. If customer service is lacking, address it. If a company has unethical practices, fire the offenders and fix the problems. Issue a public apology if there’s truly something to be sorry for. Most of the time, a company can get through legitimate complaints and come out better for them on the other side. The key is to be as authentic as it’s possible to be on the Internet and to actually take steps to fix the problem going forward. They’re not going away Unfortunately, there’s no sign that trolls or haters will be going away anytime soon. The Internet gives people a platform to voice their opinions, and there are some people out there who abuse that privilege and try to take down brands. Having a reaction plan for a social media crisis and hiring a professional can be critical, because in the midst of an issue, there’s no time to sort out these details. Brands often find that it’s easier to make things worse than better, but with the right response, they can manage an emergency and keep it from getting out of hand. Brook Zimmatore is CEO of Massive Alliance, a professional-services company providing reputation management, brand enhancement and threat-mitigation services
3 Rules for Dealing with Marketing Disruptions By Entrepreneur Staff
Rule #1: Look for the silver lining
up completely on paid traffic.
Most disruptions cause the average person to panic, or react with a bit of fear.
But then, for one of my niche products, my top affiliate was making about 100 sales a day.
Whereas others who look to make the best of the situation, tend to come out better at the end of it, than before the disruption occurred.
And I asked him what he did, and he said he was buying traffic.
For instance, when lockdowns started happening around the world, some people struggled with dropshipping out of China due to stoppages in production and dramatically increased shipping times. Those who adapted and got things rolling with USA based dropshippers were not only back in business faster… They saw a big upswing in their sales. Or when Facebook started shutting down people’s ad accounts a bit too frequently, those who were diligent about sorting out a process for reducing that risk (and mitigating the problem if it were to occur) are the ones who hit an absolute goldmine… …The fact that some people lost accounts turned out to be a huge benefit, as it also kept competition out (as many people just gave up at the first sign of disruption). Rule #2: Get comfortable with being uncomfortable If you keep telling yourself things like: “The greatest things in life come when I step out of my comfort zone” and “I’m the kind of person who is comfortable with being uncomfortable” and “I embrace all challenges as opportunities for growth” Then you will be setting yourself up for long term success. An example from my own business was back about 17 years ago when I first started buying paid online traffic.
So I decided to go back to it, I spent about $150 before I’d made my first sale. It cost me about $500 before I’d even broken even. But sure enough, by later that year, I was making thousands a day from the paid traffic because I had soldiered on… …I pushed past my comfort zone and learned from the pain of mistakes. And now I had an additional method of driving visitors that was in many ways more predictable than the ‘free’ methods I had been using before that. These days discomfort from disruptions comes in all shapes and sizes, and the key is to embrace the challenge AND get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Rule #3: Never give up For me, I often find that the path towards whatever my goal is, takes 3 times longer than I first thought it would. That doesn’t mean it’s unachievable, but sometimes there are roadblocks along the way. Or the path is a little bit longer than you first thought. The thing is though, if you never stop moving forwards, sooner or later you WILL reach your destination. I remember once a guy with no legs completed the NYC marathon. Some competitors gave up along the way, not everyone finishes, it’s a tough event. But he used his arms and did it in 4 days. Many times in business the same attitude applies.
I was doing well from SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), but that was getting trickier due to increased competition, and more prominence of paid listings in the results pages.
Keep going, don’t worry about how fast other people are moving, just go at your own
So, I decided to take the plunge and buy traffic.
I trust that this will help motivate you to keep fighting towards your goals, whatever they may be.
I remember spending $50 and losing ALL OF IT and giving
pace and sooner or later you’ll get there in your own time.
Building Post-COVID Brand Relationships with Consumers By Siddharth Misra
In today’s fallout from COVID-19, consumers have had
the company. For instance, loyal Disneyland fans may smile
to adapt to a variety of potentially traumatic losses that
at magical memories encompassing a variety of experiences,
have reshaped consumer behavior and will certainly have
from the excitement of entering the park with family or
long-lasting effects. According to a recent PwC survey,50%
friends, to smiling when a child starts running around with
of respondents are trying new brands/products, 28% are
a churro, and to even just sitting on a bench on Main Street
picking up new hobbies, and 51% are spending significantly
with a loved one and taking in the sights and sounds around
more time watching entertainment/media. As consumers are
them. None of these experiences in and of themselves are
changing how they live and work, this in turn impacts what
entirely unique to Disneyland. So, what is the difference that
and how they buy.
keeps families coming back to this specific brand again and
At this juncture in time, consumers are experiencing a
again?
significant loss in their once cherished activities, from
Ultimately, the customer experiences add the authentic
grabbing a cup of coffee with a colleague and having a
narrative of establishing the mythos of their cherished
family dinner at their favorite restaurant, to watching a newly released movie at the local theater. This sense of loss creates a gap in the lives of many individuals who seek to either find what was lost or discover a suitable surrogate.
relationship with the brand. To successfully unravel the story, brands need to understand the consumer’s experience, as did Disneyland. Disney has made emotional imprints on people’s lives and uses the consumer’s emotions and nostalgia as a
Businesses can take the following three steps to ensure their
marketing technique for their brand. Disney’s brand creates
brand both meets the needs of today’s modern customer,
a sense of happiness, for all ages, and makes each movie,
and ensure messaging flexibility that endures long after the
theme park, and product relevant to their customer. Brands
pandemic is over.
should consider proactively listening to their customers and
Understanding the Consumer’s Brand Relationship
when necessary, conducting formal in-depth qualitative research. Connecting with customers provides insight into the
At the heart of brand loyalty are the experiences that are
customer’s cherished experiences integral to an innovative
associated and fuel the customer’s enduring relationship with
iterative process.
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Innovation and Testing Upon
unraveling
the
world, such as “impressions” and “click thru rates,” meant consumer’s
cherished
brand
relationship, the brand is then tasked with innovatively converting the customer’s experiences into something new that will yield a meaningful surrogate for that once cherished by the customer.
An example of a brand that connects
emotionally with consumers is Coca-Cola. In 2015, the globally known brand replaced it’s “share a coke” campaign with a new “Choose Happiness” promotion. Coca-Cola’s “Choose Happiness” campaign is a great case study on how a brand uses emotion to connect with the public, and in turn build up brand loyalty.
nothing only a short time ago, and will likely be replaced by other cutting-edge measures just as quickly as they emerged. Determining the best measures to gain insights into customer behaviors, needs, and desires provides a brand the opportunity to respond in a timely manner to gradual changes. Consumers are also increasingly demanding that brands take stands on social and political issues. As part of any company’s tracking and tweaking, understanding what is going on in the consumer’s world and ensuring the brand’s message doesn’t come off as tone deaf is a critical tweak that companies must stay on top of. Brands must walk the fine line
These innovative ideas, while well-conceived and based on
with understanding their customer bases in real time so they
the customer’s perception, need to be concept tested before
can react quickly and maintain (and grow) loyalty.
implementation to ensure they truly resonate as intended with the target market. Testing will likely uncover some unseen insight that will help refine the concept for maximum success.
Now is an ideal opportunity for brands to generate demand through creating brand relationships that delight and meet the needs of the modern customer. By seeking to understand
Ongoing Tracking and Tweaking
the significant aspects of the customer’s brand relationships
As 2020 made very clear, companies should never assume
businesses can innovate outside of the box, market test
that their concept of “normalcy” will endure forever. Tracking
innovative concepts intended to reinvigorate these brand
the evolution of consumer perceptions and behavior on an
relationships,
ongoing basis is absolutely essential to the success of brand
perception of their brand experience to persistently remain
relevance. Commonplace marketing metrics in today’s
relevant and cherished.
that harken back to the once-cherished brand experience,
and
continually
assess
the
customer’s
Developing a trust strategy for your brand, and how to measure it By
Louise Turner
Looking back at 2020 and into 2021 – change and disruption remains fundamental. Some elements of our marketing landscape are consistent, but many trends have accelerated, some dynamics are completely different and none of us can predict what is round the corner.
understanding of people, and a deep understanding of the dynamics of trust. With these elements, you can plot a path forward. You can gain permission to solve individual needs and societal challenges effectively, and grow the brand in people’s hearts, minds, and wallets.
Brands face heightened demands from consumers to do and say more, solving both individual needs and societal challenges – this is new territory for many. Knowing when, where and how a brand should step in takes careful consideration. Therefore, having a nuanced understanding of the permission space has never been more critical to meeting expectations. And permission starts with Trust.
It’s important to go beyond transactional and static brand management approaches. These often use outdated data points that don’t reflect the reality of today or have enough agility to adapt to tomorrow.
Edelman have long believed in the importance of trust and its role in building reputation and supporting commercial objectives. Today, trust defines brands, and this affects a brands entire relationship with its consumers. Edelman’s research in to Brand Trust shows trusted brands enjoy multiple benefits, including: • More loyalty and engagement. • Accelerating consumers along the marketing funnel. Nearly 1 in 3 loyal customers have a brand relationship built on the strongest trust level. • Trust is second only to price when people are choosing whether to buy a new brand. • It creates stickiness: 75% of those with high brand trust will only buy that brand in the category. • It is the key to building lasting relationships with customers Many brands today know roughly whether they are trusted or distrusted. But without specific and detailed knowledge – why, and which drivers of trust are strong or weak – a brand can’t protect and build trust effectively. As such, a conscious and deliberate effort to build consumer trust is required, as is the need to measure it. Marketers and communicators can’t improve what they don’t measure. A brand needs to have a nuanced and sophisticated understanding of trust and how it plays out in their category in order to define a trust strategy, and a clear roadmap of the actions to build over time. But it’s not easy. Trust is complicated. It is based on a deep
After 20 years of studying Trust, Edelman have developed a trust management system. Working with renowned academics and business leaders, using new stated survey data from 6+ markets, behavioural and transactional data, and sophisticated analytics. Trust Management for Brands (ETM Brand) helps brands understand where they are today, benchmarks competitors and develops a roadmap and tracks across a full range of sectors and industries. This roadmap shows where brands need to go to build strong and lasting relationships that drive business success and earn even more trust. We have identified five trust-driving dimensions. These are the most important drivers that can have the biggest impact. Focus here, to build trust. 1. Ability: Functional trust. Is the brand good at what it does? Is it competent? 2. Dependability: Transactional trust. Does the brand keep its promises? Is it reliable? 3. Integrity: Moral and ethical trust. Is the brand honest? 4. Purpose: Societal and environmental trust. Is the brand having a positive impact on society overall? 5. Self: Personal trust. Is it relevant to people? Does it resonate emotionally? In addition to these fixed dimensions, this new tool can also create custom metrics based on a brand’s specific business, challenges, objectives, and opportunities. These metrics provide sharp and precise diagnostics based on a brand’s unique operating environment, benchmarking to competitors. Stay tuned for a series of deep dives on trust in different categories, published on WARC. These will uncover key learnings for CMOs specific to their category to build trust in the world today.
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The future of influencers: expect more virtual By Jack Morton
With experiences changing drastically in the last year, keeping audiences engaged and enthralled is where brands need to be laser-focused. In this new ’The future of…’ series, we look at what’s next and what considerations you need to make when planning future-forward experiences. 2020 brought us many surprises. Virtual influencers weren’t
Wait, virtual influencers make money? Yes. They do. And we
one of them. These fictional, computer-generated humans
expect to see their prevalence grow in 2021.
continue to infiltrate the market with no signs of slowing
By definition, a virtual influencer is a fictional AI-generated
down – working with high-end brands and signing on to
person with realistic characteristics, features and personalities
agencies that monetize them and create new opportunities
of humans. They behave just like real-life influencers. They
for their growth.
speak to the camera, share selfies, feelings and thoughts.
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The only difference is the content. And, well, the obvious – they’re computer-generated with pre-programmed speech. They also don’t age. They can stay forever 19 if you wish to program them that way. So, who are the current movers and shakers sweeping the fashion and commerce industries? @lilmiquela Miquela Sousa, aka Lil Miquela, is the first AI social media influencer. She’s a multi-hyphenate 19-year-old, halfBrazilian, half-Spanish model, influencer and singer created by creative agency Brud in 2016. Since her debut, she has accumulated 2.9 million followers on Instagram, and in 2018 she was named Time’s ’Most Influential People on the Internet’. Miquela has partnered with brands like Prada, Nike, Calvin Klein, Samsung and Mini. Recently, she signed with Creative Artists Agency as its first virtual client and is projected to earn more than $10m this year. And like most 19-year-olds, Miquela has friends (robots, of course). Also built by Brud, Blawko is a ”self-proclaimed lowlife who identifies as a robot man”, and Bermuda is an LA ”It girl” who wants to inspire young entrepreneurs to pursue businesses at the intersection of tech and beauty. Around the same time Miquela appeared, Riot Games (creator of League of Legends), created a virtual pop group, K/DA – because the virtual world needs musical performances, too. K/DA performed at the opening ceremony for the world championship final in Paris and in 2019 at the League of Legends LPL Regional Finals in Shanghai. And in the fashion world, Balmain introduced its own ’virtual army’ to model its exquisite collection and represent the brand in the virtual world. Is this form of brand storytelling effective? Virtual influencers are essentially an extension of a brand and its story. But how authentic is this tactic? Some people have their reservations, questioning this format of storytelling and use of virtual celebrities. The initial criticism is that virtual influencers are unreal. But in many ways, they are only marginally less real than a living and breathing ’human’ influencer. Now, more than ever, social media is prone to distorting one’s look and story to fit a brand’s needs. With built-in phone cameras that allow for advanced slimming, photo editing apps and filters, influencers can easily blur our perception of reality and create false expectations about the world (and of the brand they’re endorsing). On the flip side with regard to Miquela, some may argue, is that she’s more real than many ’real’ influencers. For starters, she acknowledges that she is a robot. And she speaks the truth. She was brought to life around the same time the world realized how detrimental social media could be. She makes us question what is real and our parameters of reality. Unlike those real-life influencers who are quietly contributing to our reality with their ’picture-perfect’ posts. How can brands benefit? What does the success of virtual influencers mean for brands
and how can we use them in future experiences? Virtual influencers like Miquela are built on a deep understanding of what is trending globally – for example, what millennials and gen Zers are talking about, responding to and sharing. The stories of these virtual influencers are meticulously curated to resemble a version of the global ideal. From being a cool fashion icon collaborating with brands, to an empathetic ’human’ that advocates for women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and recent racial injustice and Black Lives Matter movements. Miquela is a product of technology herself, so she can relate to technology brands on a deeper level – more than most people. This makes her the perfect #teamGalaxy ambassador for the Samsung Galaxy phone, alongside Millie Bobby Brown, Steve Aoki and Ninja. Why should brands look at integrating virtual influencers into their experiences versus real-life brand ambassadors? Here are five reasons: 1. Integrate products more seamlessly. The life cycle of a product can more easily be inserted into each part of a virtual influencer’s story – and in a compelling way. This is sometimes more challenging to do with a real-life influencer. 2. Automate communication. Virtual influencers can have hundreds of conversations at the same time. What real-life person can do that? 3. Create, invent and imagine. In the virtual world, the creative possibilities are endless. There are fewer restrictions with working with a robot v a human. 4. Manage risk. Brands are in control of the content. Brands don’t have to worry about virtual influencer getting caught intoxicated in party with the wrong crow, doing stupid inappropriate things in public or making embarrassing TikTok videos. 5. Here to stay. Virtual influencers are a trend with little to no signs of leaving. We only see growth in their future with its flexibility to be programmed to speak multiple languages, physical features to cater to different regions. Brand experiences are changing. Content, data and technology are redefining expectations and transforming people’s relationships with brands. Growth and relevance are the critical focus of business. Without innovation, even the businesses whose successful experiences, products and services have prospered in the past will start to decline. Brands are embracing new, immersive technologies in ways that can enhance their storytelling. Virtual influencers are just the tip of the iceberg. In the future, other forms of artificial intelligence (think synthetic humans) are emerging. Because the lines between what is real and what is unreal are already blurred and if the consumer is ready to accept it, brands should too. Barbie Lam is a futurist at Jack X. Jack X collaborates with inventors, disruptors and startups to help your brand tackle industry problems, predict and prepare for tomorrow, and create brand experiences that were previously unthinkable.
What Makes Songs Popular? It’s All About ‘You’ By wharton Staff
Songs stick in our heads for all sorts of reasons, but new research finds that listeners love tunes more when one particular word is included in the lyrics. A new study by Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger and Grant Packard, marketing professor at York University’s Schulich School of Business, zeroes in on the humble pronoun “you.” Berger joined Knowledge@Wharton to talk about his paper with Packard, which is titled “Thinking of You: How Secondperson Pronouns Shape Cultural Success.” (Listen to the podcast at the top of this page.) The study is part of a larger look at how precise language affects consumer behavior, with implications for marketing, sales and customer service. An edited transcript of the conversation follows. Knowledge@Wharton: What question motivated you to do this research? Jonah Berger: We’ve been doing a lot of work around what’s called natural language processing, extracting behavioral insights from textual data. Everything we do — from this interview we’re recording, conversations we have with friends and family members, reviews we leave online, customer services calls, songs we listen to, articles we read — contains language. There’s a really exciting opportunity now to mine some of this data for behavioral insight to understand why songs or movies succeed, to understand why some customer
service calls go better than others, and to use language to be more effective. Essentially, [we want] to extract wisdom from words, so we can all understand behavior better and be more effective. In this particular case, we were interested in a question that I think many people have wondered about at one point in their lives. Why do some songs become hits? We all know hit songs. We hear them on the radio — we listen to them for years, if not decades, after they come out. Some songs become hits, others fail. Same thing with books, movies, and so on. Why do some of these things win out in the marketplace of ideas, and others fail? I think we’ve all wondered that as consumers, but as a marketing professor, this is something I’ve tried to study and to quantify. We did a paper a few years ago where we found that atypical songs — songs that are about different things than [usual in] their genre — are more successful. Take country music, for example. Country music tends to talk a lot about things like girlfriends and cars. But looking at thousands of songs across multiple years, we found that songs about different things in their genres are more successful. In that project, we controlled for a variety of other factors: genre, artist, time period, and individual words. We controlled for pronouns. For example, I might use the word “I” or “me,” I might use the
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word “you,” I might talk about “we” or “us.” We controlled for these things to make sure that those weren’t driving our results. We had hundreds of controls in that project, but we noticed one thing was particularly unusual. There was one class of words that we were using as a control variable that stood out for us. We started wondering why that might have worked out the way it did, and that’s really what started this new paper.
“We started with a simple question: Why do some songs become hits?” – Jonah Berger Knowledge@Wharton: In your study, you hypothesized that the success of a lot of popular songs boils down to one simple word: the pronoun “you.” Can you explain to us why? Berger: First, let’s make sure we understand what we mean by “you.” We use that word all the time. “What are you doing today? How are you feeling? You made me happy. You made me sad.” Songs use this word often. Think about Whitney Houston’s famous song, “I Will Always Love You.” Right? Think about Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” You can think about lots of songs that use the word “you” at some point. You might be sitting and thinking, “Well, what do you mean? Of course, songs use the word ‘you.’ But I don’t really pay attention to whether songs use the word or not.” Even in our daily life, we don’t pay attention to the word very much. “You” is an example of what is called a style word. It’s sort of treated like noise. We pay very little attention to the words that go in between the content of what we talk about. Language researchers often talk about the difference between content versus style. If I have an important meeting, for example, I’m thinking about the content I’m sharing, what ideas I’m talking about within my presentation, but I don’t think a lot about the little words in between — articles like “and” or “the,” pronouns like “I” versus “we” or “you” that go between these more content-based words.
singing to someone else, saying, “I will always love you.” We might think she’s singing to us. We might think she’s singing to Bobby Brown, or whatever it might be. Same with Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” “We” is the subject of that sentence. Maybe it’s Queen, maybe it’s our sports team when we think about singing it, singing to the other team, “We will rock you.” You are the object of that sentence. That’s different than sentences in which “you” is the subject, “you” is the driver of the actions. So, “You hurt my feelings.” “You love me.” “You make me feel so happy.” All of those are cases where “you” is the actor or the subject of the sentence.
“Natural language processing is a powerful tool to understand why some songs succeed and others fail, and how artists can impact that.”–Jonah Berger We started this project by thinking maybe it’s the traditional sense of “you.” When Whitney Houston sings, we sit there imagining Whitney singing to us. It makes us feel really good inside, and that’s why it’s successful. It didn’t seem to be that. Maybe we’re imagining Whitney’s singing to Bobby Brown, and so we’re following a really amazing narrative. It didn’t seem to be that. It seemed to be something a little bit more nuanced.
The words don’t have any meaning by themselves. They are just connectives between larger themes. But what we saw in this preliminary analysis was the word “you” seemed to be linked to success. Songs that said “you” more often — songs like Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” or Queen’s “We Will Rock You” — seemed to be more successful. We started wondering, why might that be?
The idea is, when we hear a song like “I Will Always Love You” or “We Will Rock You,” we think about someone in our own life that we feel that way toward. I think this is quite interesting because this gets to the core of why we like cultural products. Why do we like books and songs and movies in the first place? Sometimes, we like to be transported to other places. We watch a sci-fi movie because we want to be transported to something outside our own lives. But other times, we [consume] these things and enjoy them because they make our own lives in some way better. They help us see our own relationships, our own social connections, as deeper and different as they might be otherwise. When Whitney Houston is singing, “I Will Always Love You,” we might be thinking about Whitney, and Whitney singing to Bobby, or Whitney singing to us. But what we actually find in our study is it causes us to think about, “This is really an amazing, romantic song. Who do I love?” It helps us think of a close other in our own lives.
We started doing different analyses to try to figure it out. For example, we started with a data set of around 2,000 songs over three years. We went to the Billboard charts, scraped what songs were popular in different years and controlled for a variety of things like radio airplay, genre, artists and the content. We found that songs with more “you” were more successful. We started to do a little bit more work to understand why and what made songs with “you” more likely to be a hit.
I was in junior high school when Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” came out. I remember singing that song in my head to my girlfriend at the time and thinking about how much I cared about her. It activates that self in our own lives that makes us feel more connected to the song. Now, it’s not just this abstract song. It’s this thing that touches our own life and makes our own life feel a little better. That’s one reason “you” is so powerful; it helps us connect with others and like the cultural product more as a result.
Knowledge@Wharton: You point out in your paper that there is a difference between the subjective and objective use of “you.” Can you explain the difference and why the latter case is the more powerful one?
Knowledge@Wharton: Let’s touch a little bit on your experiments. How do you actually go about studying this kind of thing?
Berger: Take “I Will Always Love You.” The subject is Whitney
Berger: I know some folks are probably going, “Well, that’s cute.” Songs that have more “you’s” in them are more
successful. But how do you know that’s the reason they’re more successful? There are hundreds of reasons why songs are successful. As I mentioned, we tried to control for various things, like a certain artist might be liked more, certain genres might be more or less popular, and more radio airplay is going to help songs be successful. We did that in the field, but then we also did some experiments. What we wanted to do is essentially manipulate the number of times a song had “you” in it and examine the link to success. We started with something really simple. We asked a number of people in an experiment, “Think about a song that you’ve heard recently, and think about how much you like that song.” Then we went ahead and grabbed the lyrics to those songs and counted the number of “you’s” that appeared.
“‘The word ‘You’ can drive action, even outside of music.”–Jonah Berger What’s neat about work like this is, we’re not sitting there manually counting the number of you’s. We’re using natural language processing, automated textual analysis, to count it for us. We use scripts that run through the data and can pick off things like pronouns, counting the number of “you’s.” We find not only that people report liking songs with “you” more, just like what we found in our field data, but we find evidence for a mechanism. When we asked people, “How connected do you feel to others in your own life when listening to songs like this? How much does it enable you to imagine a personal other in your own life?” — when songs happen to have more “you’s” in them, people report imagining a personal other more. And that leads them to like the song more. You could say, “Well, hold on. That’s nice. But you’re still not manipulating the number of you’s.” My co-author, Grant Packard, has a great songwriting talent. He put together some amazing songs where we could manipulate the number of “you’s.” They’re not chart-toppers, let me tell you, but we made up these songs and asked people to listen to different versions of the songs and read the words from different versions of the songs. We created one version of a song where there were lots of “you” pronouns – writing, for example, “I’ve known you for a while now,” where “you” is an object. We also created a nopersonal-pronoun condition, where the song said things like, “I’ve known it for a while now.” All other lyrics are the same, but we’ve shifted that ‘you’ to become an “it.” We even did a third condition where we replaced the “you” pronouns with third-person pronouns. “I’ve known her for a while now,” or “I’ve known him for a while now.” In all these cases, the rest of the lyrics are the same. They’re identically decent, it turns out. But even doing that, people like the song more when it has more “you’s” in it. And they like it more because it encourages them to think about someone in their own life that they feel that way towards. What I think is really nice about this is we can not only say we have good causal evidence for the role of ‘you’ in encouraging people to like things and why, but we can also show it affects real songs in the field. If you’re a music artist, for example, and you’re trying to think about how to get people to like your songs more, this is certainly one way [to do that]. Knowledge@Wharton: Are there lessons here for marketers beyond the music industry? Berger: I think there are a few interesting things that come out of this paper. Specific for the music industry, if I’m a
songwriter, the number of “you’s” may impact whether or not my song is successful. If I’m a music producer or a label thinking about investing in a particular artist, this might be useful to know and understand — mining lyrics as a source of insight. There have been lots of people over time who have argued they can understand why songs succeed. [But there has been] very little data actually looking at that. I think natural language processing is a really neat avenue to understand why some songs succeed and some fail, and how we can impact that. Beyond the music industry, I think this has a lot of interesting implications. There’s other work showing that the word “you” can increase attention. For example, if I’m reading an ad or a piece of mail or an e-mail, and a subject line says, “You need to read this,” or “You won’t believe what happens next” — think about the clickbait world. You often see a lot of second-person pronouns used in very successful online content because it encourages us to pay attention. It draws our attention to something because, “Oh, wait. I want to know the implication of this for me.”
“Companies are sitting on a wealth of textual data, that can provide deep insights into to consumers and markets more generally.” –Jonah Berger I’ve even done some work looking at online written content for a large consumer-facing company, looking at how the language they use impacts customer service reactions, and the likelihood that people read content and find it helpful. Second-person pronouns play a big role there as well. So, “you” can be a nice word to drive action, even outside of music. Grant Packard has done some really nice work on this in customer services itself. It turns out we have to be really careful about using the word “you.” First, they find that “I” is more effective than “we.” Rather than saying, “We’ll take care of that for you,” or “We’ll be happy to solve your problem,” if I’m a customer service agent, using the word “I” and taking responsibility, saying, “I’ll solve that for you, I’m really sorry that happened,” rather than distancing it with “we,” is much better. But “you” also matters. I was having an issue at home a couple of days ago with my Nest thermostat. I called up Google, and they said, “Have you tried this? You should try that. Did you think about doing this?” It turns out when you use the word “you” a lot in that customer service context, it can make people feel like you think they’re responsible. Customers can get really annoyed about that. Second, as we talked about earlier in the conversation, I think this opens up a lot of avenues to study language and cultural items. We’re doing a bunch of other work in movies, looking at how the scripts may make them successful. We’re doing work in customer service calls and online written content. There’s a lot of opportunity to extract insight from the language data that’s out there. Many companies now are doing some version of what we call social listening — listening to the chatter on social media about products and brands and services, and mining that for insight. Social media is a useful channel with a set of useful data. But it’s not the only useful data out there. There’s really lots of opportunity to mine more of this data for more insight.
How you can use Cumulative Advantage to build unstoppable momentum By
My new book has arrived: Cumulative Advantage: How to Build Momentum for your Ideas, Business and Life Against All Odds
Mark W Schaefer
How the “certainty of business uncertainty” can be used to your advantage.
Some early reviews are in:
This book does not deliver just “information.” It provides new insights you have not experienced anywhere else.
“After I read this book, I stayed up all night thinking about it.”
2. What is your source of Cumulative Advantage?
“Cumulative Advantage will be Mark Schaefer’s legacy to the world.”
There has been a lot of sociological research on how people create momentum but it’s never really been applied to normal people and businesses before. As you will learn, Cumulative Advantage is happening with you or without you, so you need to get on board.
“I’m so inspired. This book is coming to me at the perfect time. Oh my goodness.” But today, I want to explain why Cumulative Advantage could be right for you. I respect your time and your faith in me, so before you buy this book, you deserve to know — “What’s in it for me?” I had only one goal with this project — It had to be my best book ever. It had to be bold and beautiful and deliver value on every page. I believe I have achieved that. I think everybody will take something different from the book, but it answers three primary questions: 1. How can you stand out? When you get down to it, business today is about answering one question: “How can we be heard?” How can we rise above the din of infinite options to create sustainable meaning with an audience or group of customers? Let’s be honest. Your content, social media plan, and SEO strategy probably aren’t enough any more. Even “being great” is not enough today. The world is stacked against us in so many ways. We need a new path and this book provides an alternative — momentum. Specifically, you will learn: How the advantage that drives momentum comes from everyday experiences. The insider secrets of creating vast awareness for your projects and ideas. Why momentum is driven by the speed, time, and space of a “seam.” How to nurture powerful connections that lead to breakthrough opportunities.
Through inspiring case studies and life stories, I’ll show you how real people go from zero to hero in a practical, actionable way. What are the dynamics of momentum that you can put to profitable use right now? This is a book of boundless hope — there is nothing in Cumulative Advantage that is not accessible and “doable” for any reader. By the way, if you loved my book KNOWN, you will adore this book! Sort of “KNOWN” part 2 in a way. 3. How can you succeed … on your own terms? I am not a fan of the “hustle” lifestyle. In fact, I’ve seen firsthand how it can destroy lives. An idea woven throughout this book is ikigai — finding the right blend of success and lifestyle. This is the anti-hustle book. Let’s succeed, achieve, and work hard. But let’s use research and science to create a plan to get ahead and have a rewarding life while doing it! Cumulative Advantage will inspire you! If you’re a fan of my writing, you know that there is no fluff or filler in anything I publish. I respect you too much to waste your time. I don’t even have any blurbs or testimonies in the book. I just get right to the point! So you know that you’ll get value out of every single page. You’ll learn, you’ll be inspired, and I think you’ll even laugh out loud a time or two. This is the most personal book I’ve written and the most gut-wrenching as well. At the end of the book, I tear open my heart as you’ve never seen before. Here is my promise to you. If you read Cumulative Advantage, you’ll never see the world the same way again. A bold statement … and a confident one.
How to Market Effectively in 2021: Integrate Performance and Brand Marketing By Rachel Tuffney
There’s never been a better time to understand the value of brand marketing. In 2021, people are hyper-aware of how brands are positioning themselves (as well as noting their silence) after the roller coaster of a year that was 2020. Moreover, the regulatory climate is compelling many marketers to find alternatives to thirdparty data and cookie-driven performance marketing. At the same time, amid financial uncertainty, marketing
CEOs and CFOs look for direct links between marketing
leaders must defend every penny of marketing spend as
spend and specific KPIs or business outcomes.
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55 Yet, although marketers know it’s hard to measure their brand-building efforts, they also know it is that brand building via brand marketing drives loyalty and it can also lead to new consideration and intent that eventually increases demand.
Opting for the Right Context The onset of the pandemic threw the world into anything-butbusiness-as-usual conditions. Companies and advertisers were quick to pull ads to avoid placements next to COVID-
So, how can marketers justify and defend budget for brand-
related content, leaving media publications hurting from ad
building?
revenue loss just as media consumption was at a high point.
One concrete answer is to integrate brand marketing activity
The winners were the brands that didn’t pump the breaks
within a performance-driven campaign. In 2021, winning
on their marketing, but instead pivoted their creative to
strategies will calibrate brand with performance execution. The secret weapon is contextual, or native, advertising.
hit the right contextual note. Some financial companies, for example, offered timely advice on shifting investment
Contextual strategies enable marketers to take brand-
strategies to account for volatility. Other companies, such as
building assets and amplify them using performance-based
location data company Unacast, provided pro-bono data to
strategies. That approach ensures that a brand’s message
reinforce the importance of social distancing as an essential
and content appear in precisely the right context, including
measure in fighting COVID-19.
the right environment, and that they are distributed efficiently at scale. The combination can be an exponentially powerful brand builder.
If we learned anything from the Stop Hate For Profit campaign against Facebook last summer, it’s that brand loyalty is on the line across the industry. In short: identifying the right content is the first major step,
Brand Marketing Within a Contextual Strategy
followed by the context in which it is delivered.
One approach is to deploy high-quality brand assets—
Synergy of Performance and Brand Marketing
whitepapers, infographics, e-books, or explainer videos— as part of a native content campaign. A contextual strategy allows for distribution of in-depth content—for example, service-oriented educational pieces from a financial services brand aimed at a first-time life insurance buyer—to the right audience (let’s say males age 40+) in the right environments (in business publications).
Despite the dynamics of the current climate, marketers are expected to deliver immediate ROI. Now is the time to reassess KPIs, marketing tactics, and creative toolkits, and to consider adding different delivery methods and measurement, such as cost-per-click options, to CPM-based campaigns. Customers are paying close attention to the behavior,
Most important, instead of using a standard cost-per-
posture, position and positioning behind a brand message,
thousand impressions (CPM) KPI, marketers can measure
and marketers need to prioritize methods that grant
branded content via a cost-per-click metric in native. That’s a
customers more control. Contextual or sponsored content
double win: Brand-building creative is delivered via targeted
can be a smart supplement or alternative to automated
and measurable contextual platforms (wherein the brand pays
tactics to ensure brand messages are pulling through in a
only for the delivery that sparks a consumer engagement).
safe, premium environment.
As privacy regulations go into effect and upcoming algorithm
As society struggles with COVID-19 and vaccines that signal
changes from big tech platforms force brands to rethink
light at the end of the tunnel, a strong brand message and
their reliance on legacy cookie-based targeting strategies,
presence are critical for companies to maintain customer
companies would do well to weave native content into
loyalty. Service-oriented and authentic brand marketing
the mix. People are hyper-aware of a company’s voice
can be important air cover that also influences customer
and reputation. They can quickly differentiate between
acquisition and retention.
meaningful and performative social responsibility initiatives, and that’s just as true for business-forward companies as it is
Using the right performance-based tactics to catapult
for consumer-facing brands.
pressing, engaging, and authentic native content in a
Contextual distribution strategies with a cost-per-click goal enable businesses to combine levels of quality control, audience targeting, and context that aren’t possible by relying solely on programmatic. The combination of brand and performance can be an exponentially powerful brand builder—especially as a means to market effectively in an era when we’re still not back to a world of in-person events or business lunches.
premium, contextually relevant environment—and in front of the right audience at precisely their moment of interest— is a powerful way to augment campaign plans and deliver meaningful results. Rachel Tuffney is the EVP of US Operations at native ad platform Dianomi. She was previously at Dow Jones (Wall Street Journal), where she spent nearly 10 years leading teams responsible for key advertisers, including Morgan Stanley, Citi, and State Street Global Advisors.
Approaching Digital Transformation With a Marketing Mindset By Leena Iyar
Digital transformation efforts are often siloed in IT departments, but marketers should play a critical role in their companies’ moves toward digital maturity. Online sales soared in 2020, and as digital channels become more crowded, brands must differentiate themselves while pivoting their customer journeys.
into those insights. The mismatch is especially worrisome now that traditional customer engagement methods have become largely virtual.
Face-to-face relationships are at a halt and in-person events are canceled for the near future, so B2B marketers must find new ways to relate to and engage with their customers. Hyper-personalized B2C engagement tactics are seeping into the B2B realm, as social media and email marketing are no longer enough to deliver compelling user experiences.
Without intervention, the lack of in-person interaction could result in lost loyalty and decreased brand awareness. Capturing the essence of an in-person client experience on a branded, virtual platform allows customers to continue to engage with your company. Seamless, high-quality tools also build awareness by creating a space to display your name, logo, and other components of your brand. As you activate more digital channels and engage with new and potential customers, you spread your reach—and, as a result, awareness.
Buyers now expect highly interactive, human exchanges— whether in-person or digital—across every touchpoint. Methods of engagement may look different across industries. For example, companies that rely on intensive paper trails, such as banks and law firms, should look for platforms that enable document collaboration and secure transfers. But no matter your industry, one thing is clear: The companies that offer the most immersive, creative experiences will build brand consciousness and capture long-term loyalty. The Importance of a Marketing Mindset B2B businesses often lack self-awareness about their brand image, which is why a marketing mindset is critical to digital transformation. Marketers have deep knowledge of their customers’ motivations and behaviors, but too often the wrong tools and processes prevent companies from tapping
A customer-centric approach helps businesses retain their clients and appeal to new ones, and employing a strong digital strategy—with the tools to match it—is necessary for today’s customer-centric experience. In many organizations, however, digital tools are vetted and chosen by the IT department without marketers’ input. When those teams aren’t working in tandem, customers can be left with a fractured digital experience. Brand Consciousness Through Seamless Customer Experiences A unified marketing and IT strategy is critical to achieving
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customer-centric digital transformation. Failing to focus on customer satisfaction as you build more comprehensive digital experiences will affect your bottom line, and clients will turn to more memorable brands. All companies, from banks to manufacturers, can take steps to build loyalty with each customer interaction by enacting holistic change, both internally and externally: Focus on education. Customers are looking to build relationships. As a result, the buyer journey may look different and take longer. Education and thought leadership about your brand and the perks of using your platform provide an inroad for customers to begin engaging with your business. For many users, a smooth digital experience could mark the end of physical trips to retail branches as they begin to prefer the convenience of buying digital from their pocket. When you work to build trust and understanding of your business and processes, prospects are more likely to choose you when they’re ready to convert. Deliver an enhanced digital experience. Housing all your organization’s capabilities in a single platform provides customers with a unified, seamless experience across devices. Clients don’t want to toggle between apps to engage, and you can differentiate your business by creating channels that streamline customer communication. Your digital transformation strategy should establish a virtual branch of your business that provides all the same offerings as a physical branch, but remains accessible anywhere, at any time.
Integrate internal and external communications platforms. Most businesses regularly update and improve websites, and more recently they have created new avenues to engage with customers. But websites often fall short in enabling interactivity between users and associates. Company representatives therefore use third-party systems to communicate with team members and customers, which reduces efficiency and security. Work with your IT team to identify a platform that provides both an end-to-end business experience for clients and a centralized communication hub that gives employees tools to perform their jobs better. *** In an age of rapid digital transformation, your clients and competition are rapidly expanding their digital offerings in tandem with your business. Internal misalignment will leave you several steps behind. Your marketing and IT teams must think like your audience and work collaboratively to implement tools that meet users’ individual needs. Responding to those needs requires a one-stop user experience that brings the benefits of in-person engagement to prospects’ back pockets. Leena is the Head of Marketing at Moxtra, a private, embeddable, secure message center solution for accelerating financial transactions. Being an initial team member at Moxtra, she’s helped the company rapidly develop its business and brand.
BRANDS CAN LEVERAGE MEMES EFFECTIVELY. HERE’S HOW. By Jasmine Enberg
Memes can be an inexpensive and powerful tool for brands to connect and engage with their audiences on social media. They can help build brand equity and awareness through inthe-moment, lighthearted content. “Memes are a fun way to enter of-the-moment conversations and jump on the bandwagon of the cultural zeitgeist. They’re a way to show that a brand ‘gets it,’” said Sarah Aitken, CMO of messaging content provider Holler.
kinds of memes can alienate certain groups or cause them to reject an associated brand and, therefore, should be avoided.” With that in mind, there are three main factors brands should consider when deciding whether to include memes in their social media strategies: audience, authenticity, and appropriateness.
But “getting it” isn’t always easy, and what makes a meme successful—wit, relevance, and relatability—can also be its downfall. Not only do brands risk offending people, given that humor is subjective, but marketers also have to worry about being labeled “cringey” for seemingly trying too hard or hopping on a trend too late in the game.
• Audience: Young generations are bigger meme aficionados than older people are. In a GlobalWebIndex survey from March, for instance, 54% of US and UK internet users ages 16 to 23 said they had looked at a meme on the day of the survey, as had 41% of those ages 24 to 37. Meanwhile, just 21% of those ages 38 to 56, and 9% of those ages 57 to 64, had done the same.
“Many brands have tried to piggyback on an internet trend and fallen flat on their faces,” said Don Caldwell, editor-inchief of internet culture database Know Your Meme. “There’s even a meme mocking brands that do this, called ‘How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?,’ based on a screen grab of Steve Buscemi in ‘30 Rock.’ Brands need to avoid being seen as the ‘How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?’ Steve Buscemi.”
• Authenticity: In short, memes may not be right for every brand identity, even if the target audience is in the right age group. Take direct-to-consumer brand Cuts Clothing, for example. Despite the fact that its main customer base is ages 28 to 40, it has decided to steer clear of using memes in its marketing, said Steven Borrelli, founder and CEO of the brand.
There’s also a brand safety risk: Memes are made to go viral, but when they do, they can often take on a life of their own.
• Appropriateness: Since memes are supposed to be culturally relevant, they often touch on sensitive or controversial topics. Per research by HubSpot and Talkwalker, for example, some of the most common meme topics between July 2019 and August 2020 included COVID-19, the economy, and politics.
“Many viral memes are borderline or explicitly dark humor,” said Denis Litvinov, chief information officer of FunCorp, a mobile entertainment app development company. “Those
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How Privacy and User Experience Improve at the Same Time By CES Staff
The past year has only emphasized how critical technology is in keeping the world connected, informed, healthy and safe. Anne Toth, director of Alexa Trust at Amazon Alexa, spoke at a CES® 2021 session about the fact that many technology products that we had previously viewed as fun or convenient to have became integral and essential in the past year. And subsequently, consumer expectations have changed. As consumers desire and expect more personalization and custom user experiences in their tech products, data and transparency implications must also be considered. For Big Tech companies with a global audience, worldwide regulations pose more challenges still. Rising to the Challenge Even with new privacy and trust considerations, companies don’t want user experience to falter. One example is Twitter, whose mission is to provide a truly global experience. “[If I travel] from Japan to California to Europe, [I want] that experience to travel with me,” said Damien Kieran, chief privacy officer of Twitter. “Twitter is meant to be a place where I can join the global conversation. If my global conversation is limited to the data that’s in the 28 countries of Europe, that’s not a global conversation.”
Once you become that important to a person’s life, it’s just going to make it more essential for us to demonstrate the way we are raising the bar on privacy and transparency and trust for our customers. Anne Toth (Director, Alexa Trust, Amazon Alexa) For products that integrate artificial intelligence and machine
learning — a key focus area for Twitter — or that help users have important interactions or live independently, use cases inspire more discussion about how to provide more control and transparency to the user in terms of their data so they can trust the product. “Once you become that important to a person’s life, in their daily interactions, it’s just going to make it more essential for us to demonstrate, again and again, over and over, the way we are raising the bar on privacy and transparency and trust for our customers,” Toth said. How Europe Changed the Privacy Playbook The introduction of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) two years ago acted as a catalyst for countries all around the world to consider stricter privacy regulations. Consumer awareness about data transparency and privacy increased from the release of the law, in turn urging companies to adapt to these new standards to meet consumer needs. In the short time since the release of GDPR, privacy services and features that consumers used to know very little about have made their way into many, if not most, products. New companies are also able to build operations with the expectation and understanding of data privacy and security regulations instead of retrofit services. These positive developments allow customers to safely trust the products and services they use. As we head into 2021, Keith Enright, chief privacy officer at Google, said that companies in both the public and private sectors must work together to “advance the indisputable shared goal of providing the strongest possible protection for users online while recognizing that there are other values — we want to make sure we’re working with all the relevant communities so that we’re addressing all of those obligations.” For these global tech powerhouses — and for companies everywhere — putting the customer first also means putting privacy and trust first.
Book,
&
Line
Big Enough: Building a Business that Scales with Your Lifestyle By Lee LeFever
Sinker Fanocracy: Turning Fans into Customers and Customers into Fans
In this illuminating book, entrepreneur Lee LeFever gives an inside view of building a scalable, product-focused business, while never compromising on quality of life. Lee and his wife, Sachi, responded to the promise of the internet by building a home-based business, Common Craft, that was profitable yet small enough to pivot and innovate.
By David Meerman Scott In this essential book, leading business growth strategist David Meerman Scott and fandom expert Reiko Scott explore the neuroscience of fandom and interview young entrepreneurs, veteran business owners, startup founders, nonprofits, and companies big and small to pinpoint which practices separate organizations that flourish from those stuck in stagnation.
The Art of Explanation: Making your Ideas, Products, and Services Easier to Understand
Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences
By Lee LeFever You’ve done the hard work. Your product or service works beautifully - but something is missing. People just don’t see the big idea - and it’s keeping you from being successful. Your idea has an explanation problem.
ByNancy Duarte Presentations are meant to inform, inspire, and persuade audiences. So why then do so many audiences leave feeling like they’ve wasted their time? All too often, presentations don’t resonate with the audience and move them to transformative action.
The End of Marketing: Humanizing Your Brand in the Age of Social Media and AI
The Content Fuel Framework: How to Generate Unlimited Story Ideas (For Marketers and Creators)
by Carlos Gil
By Melanie Deziel
Social networks are the new norm and traditional marketing is failing in today’s digital, always-on culture. Businesses across the world are having to face up to how they remain relevant in the choppy waters of the digital ocean. In an era where a YouTube star gets more daily impressions than Nike, Coca-Cola and Walmart combined, traditional marketing as we know it is dead.
In The Content Fuel Framework, trained journalist and award-winning content marketer Melanie Deziel shows you how to maximize your creativity by systematizing it. This simple framework catalyzes the brainstorming process, making idea generation effortless and nearly automatic. No more writer’s block.
Mastering Marketing Agility: Transform Your Marketing Teams and Evolve Your Organization
UnCloned Marketing: How to Challenge the Norms with Profitable Marketing Campaigns
By Andrea Fryrear
By Matt Bertram
As a marketer, are you tired of chasing marketing fads and algorithm rumors that seem to change every couple of months? This guide to building the perfect marketing department will help you achieve the latest and greatest without having to rebuild your operations from scratch every time the wind shifts.
Your company can create the most innovative, jaw-dropping product or service ever seen. But if your offer is buried beneath the mass of marketing messages bombarding consumers every minute of every day, it will never make the money it should. So what’s a business owner to do?
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Building Brand Communities: How Organizations Succeed by Creating Belonging By Carrie Melissa Jones Top tier organizations, whether non-profit, political, faith-based or commercial, know that meaningful connections unlock unprecedented outcomes. But too many brands mistakenly rely on superficial transactional relationships to connect with partners, employees, and customers. In this especially lonely era, people want something deeper.
Invisible Marketing: A Hidden Tool for Connecting with Consumers through Licensing ByJeff Lotman Ask the CMO of any consumer packaged goods company and they’ll tell you: their industry is extremely competitive. When you’re using the same tools to go after the same customers as your competitors, breaking away from the pack is a challenge. Everyone is looking for an edge, and yet there’s one area of marketing that remains largely unexplored.
The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Content Marketing, Podcasting, Social Media, AI, Live Video, and Newsjacking to Reach Buyers Directly By David Meerman Scott An international bestseller with more than 400,000 copies sold in twenty-nine languages, this revolutionary guide gives you a proven, step-by-step plan for leveraging the power of technology to get your message seen and heard by the right people at the right time.
Brand Storytelling: Put Customers at the Heart of Your Brand Story By Miri Rodriguez Written by the award-winning storyteller Miri Rodriguez at Microsoft, this actionable guide goes beyond content strategy and, instead, demonstrates how to leverage brand storytelling in the marketing mix to strengthen brand engagement and achieve long-term growth, with advice from brands.
Binge Worthy Branding: Build Customer Loyalty Using AI and Personalization Like Amazon, Netflix, and Starbucks By Sterling C McKinley The book explains how you can use AI technology to build customer loyalty and outpace the competition, as seen in top brands like Netflix, Starbucks, and Amazon.
No B.S. Guide to Direct Response Social Media Marketing By Dan S. Kennedy Simply broadcasting a message to millions by social media accomplishes little for most businesses. Millionaire-maker Dan S. Kennedy and marketing strategist Kim Walsh Phillips are here to tell it like it is: If you’re not focusing on converting social media traffic into sales, you might as well set your money on fire.
Remarkable Retail: How to Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Digital Disruption By Steve Dennis In the book, Dennis unpacks the trends that are squeezing traditional stores and presents eight essential strategies for visionary retail leaders who are prepared to reimagine the customer experience in the age of digital disruption. A remarkable retailer is digitally enabled, human centered, harmonized, mobile, personal, connected, memorable, and radical.
The Context Marketing Revolution: How to Motivate Buyers in the Age of Infinite Media By Gavin Turner We are in the midst of a massive media revolution. For the first time in history, ordinary people around the world have the ability to create, distribute, and consume content instantly, from anywhere, using connected devices.