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Dear Friends: Ideally, we would have had a rallying cry ‘ make it a November to remember “. But, in the current context, that would be inappropriate. What would be appropriate definitely though is offering our valued subscribers a bucket load of quality content. Which is what we have endeavoured to do in this edition of BrandKnew. We offer some high value frontier CMO strategies that can help brands and organisations to get back on the path to economic recovery. In an increasingly infidel world when it comes to brand loyalty, we debate the need for creating true Brand Love and why that is more of a compulsion now than ever. Human Experience is different from Customer Experience. Understand the difference in this issue. We also pick up a conversation on how best to develop the right Brand Tone and Brand Voice. As it takes two to tango. The path to purchase is far from linear. We make a case in this issue therefore about why brands need to think about the customer journey orchestration. We do make a case for starting with ‘ why ‘ , a revolution to humanize B2B brands. We go back in time to revisit the Al Ries classic “ 22 Immutable Laws of Branding “ and why there are still relevant 22 years on. The next sonic branding wave will revolve around ‘ user generated audio branding ‘. Understand what you need to know to ride the coming wave. Advertising and logic- the twain needn’t meet and Bob Hoffman makes a solid case in his customary all guns blazing style. Celebrity brand endorsements: more pain and baggage than benefits and the promised land. Know more about what conundrum brands are facing. There is a slow evolution of the virtual influencer and she cannot be kept in the dark anymore. Read more about it between the lines in this edition. As always, there is ample more to soak in and understand from. 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
A Revolution to Humanize B2B Brands The 5 ‘Frontier CMO’ strategies to lead brands to economic recovery Why brands need to think about journey orchestration Why the 22 laws of branding are immutable 22 years on It’s Time for Chief Marketing Officers to Play Offense Five steps to get a brand back on the front foot How to build brand love and why it matters now Brands, Leagues and the Future of the Spectator Experience in Sports CX is changing as ‘Creative Experience’ is on the rise Gmail’s new logo is just a taste of Google’s plan to rethink productivity The human element of data-led advertising Customer Experience vs. Human Experience ADVERTISING AND LOGIC Developing the right brand voice and brand tone User-Generated Audio Branding: What You Need To Know To Ride The Next Sonic Wave Are brands staying away from celebrities courting controversy? Better Communication Through Neuroscience Experience is more than just the next theme of your ad campaign Tips for creating better briefs How to Get Voters Off the Fence? With a Soft Touch How TikTok won the mobile video wars by breaking all the rules The evolution of the virtual influencer: no longer just a trend How Real Is The Marketing Skills Gap? Why advertisers are leaning into digital publishing strategies Book, Line & Sinker
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A Revolution to Humanize B2B Brands By Jake Welsh
A fundamental shift is occurring in business that’s having profound implications for B2B brands. Despite the focus on digitalisation and the Industry 4.0 movement, we’re operating in a human era, where personalised experiences are expected. Customers are demanding companies to be more transparent, empathetic, open and authentic; to be less corporate and more, well, human. We’ve seen how this mentality has impacted the biggest B2C players, from Apple to Unilever, British Airways to Visa, and how they’ve reshaped their brand proposition to appeal to today’s consumers. For B2B companies, especially those operating in sectors such as engineering, manufacturing and logistics, the concept of ‘brand building’ is often lower down on the marketing priority list. Even those who can see its potential to drive commercial value often face a series of obstacles, often stemming from a lack of stakeholder buy-in. But, with the pace of disruption in the consumer landscape starting to catch-on with large B2B organisations, those who don’t start focusing on brand may
lose out on loyalty. People are accustomed to personalised experiences in the B2C space and are expecting a similar ‘human-to-human’ connection in their professional business relationships. Whereas B2B sales were grounded in one-toone, in-person connections, the pandemic has seen a seismic shift into digital commerce. And digital can be a bloody battleground for market share. Crafting a Brand Narrative It’s no surprise that brand building in the B2B sector can push comfort zones. It takes time, and goes against the natural inclination to focus on tangible, shorter term results. Often, it’s the path of most resistance. Digital-first businesses may be birthed into the market with a brand, but legacy operators have a much richer story to share. It just needs to be told effectively. And those that do so, will undoubtedly come out on top. Start with a brand narrative; this should signify to the external
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11 world what your company is all about. Every organisation runs on three levels: what we do, how we do, and why we do it. The first two relate to the ins and outs of daily workings; the products or services we sell and the way in which we make them. B2B brand messages tend to be led with this point of view, tapping into the part of the brain responsible for rational and analytical thought. The part that helps us understand facts and figures, features and benefits. But, speed and cost are no longer the primary reasons buyers choose a business partner. The decision-making process has gone far deeper. taking into account sustainability and carbon initiatives, ethical practices and business culture. B2B buyers don’t forgo their personal values when they come to work and buy products and services. “Buyers need to feel inspired and connected to the brand they’re working with. We tend to think that B2B communications are aimed at businesses. But, ultimately, they’re targeted to the people behind the businesses,” said Jake Welsh, Executive Creative Director at Dept. “The way people interact with B2B brands is increasingly similar to how they engage with consumer-facing companies, meaning creative storytelling and brand advertising will go a long way in influencing buyer choices. Product messages on their own aren’t enough; humans are drawn to narratives and hardwired to make emotive decisions.” Lead with the ‘Why’ To inject passion into your business story, lead with ‘why’. Develop a narrative around the purpose of your company. Uncover shared beliefs and what motivates employees. This message needs to be authentic, so dig into the past and resurface those pivotal moments that enabled you to succeed. Here are five questions to stimulate your thinking: What inspired your business idea? What’s interesting about your founding story? Where do you add the greatest value? Why are you in this line of business? How has the business evolved? Don’t be afraid to get answers from various departments and long-term customers who may view your business through a different looking glass. By focusing on the ‘why’, the business is positioned to inspire, instil trust and earn long-term loyalty. Whether we like to admit it or not, humans are not entirely rational beings. If we were, we would never take risks due to the chance of failure. But we do, every day. The part of the brain responsible for this behaviour is the limbic system. It controls those strong ‘gut feelings’ that can’t be fully explained. Clearly articulating a business purpose taps into this psyche. The narrative gives your employees and partners a way to connect with you on a personal level and view your business as a living, breathing entity. Let’s take a look at how some of the global giants have framed their messages. Notice the focus on people and wider
society: 3M: 3M is the innovation company that never stops inventing, because we’re passionate about making progress happen. We keep our customers competitive by tapping into our collaborative culture to provide a never-ending evolution of ideas and technologies to solve the world’s most critical problems. PayPal: Fueled by a fundamental belief that having access to financial services creates opportunity, PayPal is committed to democratizing financial services and empowering people and businesses to join and thrive in the global economy. Unilever: Unilever’s mission is to add vitality to life. We meet everyday needs for nutrition, hygiene and personal care with brands that help people feel good, look good and get more out of life. Cultivate long-term relationships When you align with your customers on an emotional level a ‘feeling’ of a true alliance is sparked. This bond is much stronger and meaningful than any affiliation based on product features, production process or time to market. At the end of the day, B2B buyers are looking to forge a partnership that they’re proud of. This is achieved by moving away from a product-first sales approach and humanising your message. When you understand the challenges the industry is facing, you’re able to put forward the best solution and develop a genuine connection with your customers. The days of formal sales pitches and service calls have been replaced with daily interactions in the context of strategic, collaborative, longterm relationships. The time and cost implications of switching service providers can be high, therefore a purchase choice in B2B is rarely a one-off or entered into lightly. Listen to how your customers are progressing and become part of their journey, whether that’s evolving software systems for order replenishment, or introducing a sustainable product or packaging alternative. Find ways to support the core principals in your brand message. Commit to it Defining the brand narrative is the beginning of your branding refresh. It should shape the rest of your positioning. Everything that your company is involved in needs to relate to this principle to communicate a clear, purposeful public image. Ensure it is included in all of your social media profiles, press releases, marketing collateral and so on. Remember that any supplementary messages must associate with this and not stray back to the ‘what’ and ‘how,’ as those details can be discussed further down the relationship, once the customer has developed an emotional connection with your brand. By committing to focusing on your brand, your business will benefit in ways beyond the top line. From winning and retaining new customers to securing the best talent in your industry, by developing and communicating a vision that people can identify with and believe in can only be a force of good for your organisation.
The 5 ‘Frontier CMO’ strategies to lead brands to economic recovery By Warc Staff
With brands around the world disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, and marketing budgets being squeezed, a major new study has identified a new group of Chief Marketing Officers who are pioneering the fight for recovery. The study from Dentsu International, which incorporates data from 1,361 CMOs across 12 markets, concludes that the number one challenge for brands is to understand and respond to the ways the pandemic will have long-term effects on consumers’ behaviour. This challenge is compounded by the fact that two-thirds, or 62%, of those surveyed say their budgets will be cut or flat over the next year; that figure increases to 82% for smaller brands. And despite the unparalleled challenges brands face, half of CMOs say they plan to employ recovery strategies taken in previous recessions, with only one in ten saying they expect to adopt entirely new strategies. Six out of ten CMOs surveyed say their businesses have been significantly affected by the pandemic, with 7% – nearly all CMOs of smaller businesses – saying the effects of the crisis represent an existential threat to their companies. But, more hopefully, a quarter of brands report the pandemic has had minimal disruption to their businesses, and 10% say the pandemic has actually been helpful – this figure rises to 24% in India. The study, “Into the Unknown” identifies an emerging group
of what it dubs “Frontier CMOs” who are “reclaiming the strategic agenda through product development in particular”. This group is well placed to manage the recovery, say the authors, because they are focused on a small number of vital strategies, which set them apart from the rest. They are developing superior consumer intelligence; rapidly developing new messaging, products and services; integrating all elements of the marketing mix; building resilience across brands through M&A, and ensuring that purpose permeates all aspects of the business. Frontier CMOs are also significantly more likely to be accountable for digital transformation than other CMOs, says the report, “proving their value and impact to company boards as they navigate the future of their business and industry”. Wendy Clark, CEO, Dentsu International, said: “Our survey reveals there is a risk that CMOs are still using existing approaches to manage a challenge that is without precedent. “However, we also see a new cadre of Frontier CMOs emerging who are leading their organizations into the unknown with confidence. These CMOs are putting consumer intelligence at the heart of their brands, matched by deep integration across all elements of the marketing mix and radical collaboration as a default across their business,” she added.
Why brands need to think about journey orchestration By Wharton Staff
Brands need to start thinking differently about customer journeys if they are to deliver a better customer experience and increase their prospects for recovery, according to a Forrester executive. Joana de Quintanilha, VP and principal analyst at the market research firm, addressed this topic at a recent Adobe event where she explained why “orchestration – the use of data in real-time and understanding individual needs – has become an increasing expectation that is crossing all industries as customers interact with brands like Facebook, Apple and Amazon”. These tech giants are setting the standards which all businesses now have to strive to match. “Journeys are not a business process. They are not a marketing funnel,” she said. “Each one is unique, and they belong to the customer. It must be viewed from their perspective.” What’s more, customers may be on multiple journeys for different purposes – and this is where thinking in terms of journey orchestration can be advantageous: “Journey orchestration helps deliver great customer experience,” said de Quintanilha. “It drives differentiation.” Journey orchestration uses real-time data at an individual customer level to analyse current behaviour, predict future behaviour, and tweak the journey to grow customer lifetime value, as well as drive operational efficiency and business
results.
We are talking about real-time experience design “It can help your firm to understand new customer behaviours as they happen, focus on retaining existing customers and direct customers to happier paths,” she said. Experiences, she added, are typically designed in advance, which makes this a significant shift as it involves designing experiences as they happen: “We are talking about real-time experience design.” Companies therefore need to first define the customer experience, then integrate data at an individual level, to adjust the journey in the moment. This approach is proving to be particularly relevant during the pandemic, she added. “Forrester’s research shows that journey orchestration, which enables real-time decisioning across channels, is critical for crisis preparedness and recovery.” “Smart firms are bending so they don’t break,” she said. “We all know some companies that have earned our loyalty (during COVID-19) because they have pivoted their businesses to protect, support, and continue to offer products and services that we rely on.”
Why the 22 laws of branding are immutable 22 years on By Jack Miles
Al and Laura Ries wrote The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding 22 years ago. Immutable – “unchangeable over time” – is a big word to use in a book title. But it’s accurate in this case, even though today’s marketing tactics and tools are unrecognizable compared to 1998 – the year Google was born. However, it’s a marketing book you must read. And here’s why. An evergreen introduction The 22 Laws of Branding starts by saying: “Marketing has become more complicated, too confusing and too full of jargon.” Marketing is certainly more complicated, more confusing and has more jargon than ever 22 years on. This is partly why the Ries’s work is immutable. Focus is forever fundamental The Rieses emphasize strategic focus’s importance via the laws of: • Expansion – people want brands that are distinguishable by one word • Contraction – your brand will be stronger with a narrower focus • Singularity – single mindedness’s importance
Currently, every new trend is labelled a growth opportunity and COVID-19 is forcing many of us to diversify our offer. As a result, there’s a great temptation to breach these laws and chase every opportunity. But you must resist. Losing your focus risks your diluting your brand’s identity and harming its credibility (not to mention the financial consequences – Bic underwear, the Nike Fuel Band and Virgin water purifier are evidence of this). Language now lives longer Social media and online reviews mean people read and publicly write more words about brands than we ever could have imagined. And a global audience can read these words – forever. For better or worse. The words used to describe brands often determine if they’re bought or not. Language’s longevity means owning a single, differentiated word. This was advised in 1998 and is still imperative. Globalisation has accentuated this on a tactical level too. After all, who wants to be the next HSBC ‘Assume Nothing/Do Nothing’? Your brand’s name is now even more important than the word(s) it owns. In 1998 the Rieses said “a brand is just a name to most people”. Marketers in 1998 only had to consider how a brand’s name sounded, its wider meaning and its uniqueness. Now we must consider a brand name’s
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usability in online conversation, tweetability and international relevance as well as these fundamentals. Modern, minimal memory needs vivid visuals Jenni Romaniuk – the distinctive brand assets powerhouse – was finishing her studies in 1998. Al and Laura Ries meanwhile were telling marketers that brands should use horizontal logos with a distinctive typeface and a colour that’s distinctive compared to your competitors. More brands exist now vs. 1998 while our transient attention span (how long something can grab our attention for) has fallen by 33% in the same period. Distinctive brand assets are now so important, they’re practically a sub-discipline of marketing itself. This means the laws that relate to distinctiveness have moved from being immutable to immortal. Today’s treacherous tactical temptations The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding has two laws near its end that you should now prioritize more than ever: The law of consistency – a brand isn’t built overnight. Success is measured in decades, not years. The law of change – brands can be changed, but only infrequently and carefully.
But why are these important? As we battle COVID-19’s economic impact, short-termism is ever present. Instant cuts. Demands for results NOW. Everything is urgent. The list goes on. However, marketing needs time to succeed. You can automate media buying and have agile research, but you can’t automate consumer behaviour or profits. Our love for anything new is equally treacherous. Especially when technology is involved. Tik Tok ‘strategy’, centennial ‘strategy’ and so on. The Rieses stated that “consumers are suspicious”. In 2020, consumer suspicion has been amplified beyond belief. And society is transparent now compared to 1998. This means if change your brand, the change you make will be noticed. And changes that are too adventurous will confuse your customers and reduce your brand’s credibility. Lots has changed since 1998. But a brand is still what turns your product from a commodity into something with meaning and value. Obey The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding and protect your brand in these testing times. Brands – as per the law of mortality – won’t last forever. However, at 22 years young, the laws that govern them look like they will.
It’s Time for Chief Marketing Officers to Play Offense By Latane Conant
The role of the CMO has been under attack in recent years. Two out of three CEOs say they don’t believe that their chief marketing officers possess the business acumen or leadership skill their role requires, according to research by Accenture. Maybe that’s why some prominent companies, such as Johnson & Johnson, Hyatt, and Uber, are eliminating the position altogether. If companies don’t understand the value that CMOs can bring to the business, our work can feel like endlessly pushing a boulder up a hill. That puts CMOs into a defensive position— always fighting for the space to contribute to the company’s wellbeing. It’s time for CMOs play offense instead. Rethink the “ing” in marketing CMOs are hampered by their company’s lack of understanding of the power they wield, research from Korn Ferry found. We’re often put into a no-man’s-land between Sales and Marketing, which muddies the waters of the CMO role and makes it more difficult to demonstrate its value.
I’ve been on both sides of the marketing and sales fence and I’ve found that merging the two functions under Sales doesn’t work. Demands between the two teams are different, and when marketing team members get caught up in reactionary month-to-month tactics, they lose the time they need to mull over the market’s long-term prospects to build long-term value. Much of the challenges that CMOs face is tied to the term “marketing” itself. It’s a verb that encompasses creating blog posts, press releases, events, and speaking engagements—all to-dos and no strategy. Such expectations leave many CMOs stuck, unable to step back. But stepping back is necessary to understanding the market’s needs and aligning the company strategy to meet them. No wonder we’re wearing ourselves ragged! Fortunately, forward-thinking CEOs are beginning to empower their CMOs to go beyond tactics—to focus on their markets, instead. In fact, 83% of global CEOs say they believe that Marketing can be a major growth driver. But we CMOs can go a step further. I see a shift to becoming chief market officers, which is why I changed my title. I’ve been studying what great chief market officers do, and in the
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process I’ve learned a lot about myself, my team, and my company. A lot of work goes into making that shift, and here’s what I’ve learned about the key areas chief market officers need to focus on. Develop strategy Your strategic plan is a living document that details what your goals are and how you will reach those goals. Far-reaching, multiyear, strategic plans filled with objectives and key results (OKRs) are understandably popular, but a plan with a shorter timeline is a better place to start: • Stay focused on the quarter and year. What are your goals for the upcoming quarter? • Develop measurements that will inspire your team. How will you measure success and communicate it to them? • Ask how you can improve your business every day. What else can you bring to the table to beef up your strategy? Instead of OKR, I use V2MOM (vision, values, methods, obstacles, and measures), and I’ve seen it used well at other companies. It’s helped me to develop clear and prioritized strategic plans as chief market officer. Glean customer insights A CMO’s main duty is to understand the market. To do that, we need customer insights: in-depth knowledge of what our customers really want from us. Today’s B2B buyers, however, don’t openly share that information. Instead of raising their hands by filling out forms or downloading gated content, buyers do their research in what my team refers to as the Dark Funnel—anonymizing their data and forcing marketers to do guesswork. To unpack the Dark Funnel and get real insights, I suggest that you... Master your total addressable market (TAM) and ideal customer profile (ICP). Once you understand who could be in your market and what they look like, you have a place to start. Use historical pattern analysis on your customer data. You’ve got tech tools at your disposal, including artificial intelligence and Big Data, that can help you find historical patterns and identify which accounts resemble your most successful past accounts.
in that space through category design. If you don’t do that, whatever you’re marketing may not be what the market needs—or, worse, you may find yourself in a crowded market without the differentiation needed to compete. Much goes into category design; I recommend focusing on these key points to start: • Define your brand positioning. You need to know your company and make sure its values and identity are reflected in everything you create. That knowledge establishes guideposts to help you build your brand deliberately. • Develop a strong category POV. Ask yourself: How are you going to break out of your space and move into the place where real change happens? • Map your message. With your narrative in hand, you can build your message map to keep everyone—from CEO to BDR—aligned on your company’s message. • Build your “marketecture.” Bring in your product team to help build your awesome stack slide. But don’t get lost in the weeds; keep it simple and digestible so that it logically apportions the capabilities you provide into the things your customers need. • Create a category blueprint. The blueprint should be a view of not only what you do today but also where you and the market will be in the future—including key partnerships, M&A, and product road map items that give yourself and the industry a compelling destination. Master company culture A great company culture creates a community of employees, partners, and customers driven by a single purpose. It’s powerful. And, as company-culture champions, CMOs get to wield that power. If you haven’t thought about company culture before, where should you begin? Here’s what’s worked well for me: • Build your First Team. These are your leadership peers. Build up, support, and align with them first as you become the culture champion. • Excite your sales team. Celebrate them and their wins. For example, my team does Field Kickoff—a big family reunion-style party where the First Team shows Sales how much they care.
Pin down your in-market ideal customer profile (IICP). The above information gives you insight about the accounts that are ready to move along in the buying journey; those are the ones that constitute your IICP.
• Communicate transparently. No happy talk or sugarcoating news: be honest when things aren’t working, and cheer when they are. (V2MOM helps you set public goals you want to be held accountable to.)
Backing up your plans with data not only motivates change but also shines a light on much of the buying process that is hidden from view. You can see every stage of a customer’s journey, and plan accordingly.
• Live your values. You are the culture champion, so you need to show how important the company values are to you, personally!
Design your category Chief market officers not only represent the market in their organizations but also establish their companies’ positioning
Sales, accounting, and consulting are not your typical CMO background, but I’m not your typical CMO. I thrive on variety, challenges, and working with wicked smart people.
Most brands went into defensive mode during Q2 and Q3 as the world went into lockdown but as we emerge into a new normal, especially one that is likely to be recessionary, here’s how a brand can get back on the front foot. First, set the phasers to volume share Evidence from multiple downturns strongly points to the need for brands to focus on volume share right now. Protecting volume share today is the key to value share growth tomorrow. That doesn’t mean lurching for the price promo lever. It means marketing tried and tested products and services. This is not a time to focus on new product launches. NPD is hit and miss at the best of times but right now it would be foolhardy to focus efforts behind launching new lines unless they bring guaranteed incremental turnover (and even then the ROI versus established lines needs to be considered). Second, invest in advertising Lots of evidence shows that treating ad spend not as an expense but as an investment in the future pays dividends. And because many firms will give in to their first instincts and cut back on their advertising as we enter recession, a firm that maintains spend can benefit from an increase in share of voice. During tough times people go back to brands they know
and love. Supporting these brands with emotionally relevant messaging will hit the mark, both attracting lapsed customers and cementing the loyalty of current customers. Just make sure that what you’re spending your money on is differentiated and meaningful. Spare us corporate platitudes and focus instead on some good old-fashioned advertising that explains why your product/service is better than your competition’s. The likes of Unilever will be emerging from lockdown with the intention to not only increase ad spend but to focus it on supporting their power brands. No doubt they will be seeking to make savings in areas like agency compensation and production costs but that’s another story! Third, learn to adapt faster Even organizations as unwieldy as the likes of Unilever will be learning to adapt more quickly than they’re used to. Unilever is not a business built on e-commerce, but it has seen online sales jump significantly during lockdown and it’s busily pivoting to ensure it takes advantage of the change.
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Five steps to get a brand back on the front foot
By Mike Teasdale
For example, its ice cream business was hit hard by a sharp drop in out-of-home consumption but they pivoted brands like Ben & Jerry’s towards a new home-delivery model powered by e-commerce to take advantage of increased inhome consumption. And in response to sky-rocketing demand for health and hygiene products, Unilever has rolled out its Lifebuoy handwash product in more than 65 new markets. Without the pandemic this sort of move would have taken Unilever years to achieve but they’ve done it in just a few months. Those are macro decisions taken at the corporate level but companies like Unilever will also be developing their agility skills in a multitude of micro ways. They will be constantly adjusting marketing spend in channels, geographies, and categories to meet local conditions and ensure they minimise waste and maximise growth opportunities. They will also be using more agile asset-creation techniques, and re-using existing advertising assets, edited to fit the new normal. Fourth, get real with brand purpose I have been critical of many brand purpose initiatives in the past, particularly ones that are divorced from the function of the brand. I really don’t want to know how a brand intends to save the world, only where it sits in the world and what it contributes to it. But when it’s done correctly, brand purpose can be highly motivating to both consumer and employee alike.
And the power of brand purpose done correctly has never been more relevant. For brands to demonstrate their positive contribution to society and address the issues that consumers care about in an authentic way is a powerful use of marketing investment right now, and one that will repay itself many times over. Fifth, protect brand culture With people on furlough or working from home or leaving the business, a brand’s culture could easily be disrupted. Brand mojo is a powerful force for good but it’s also delicate so think about what initiatives you can do to foster team spirit and a sense of brand belonging. This is not about virtual away-day tree hugs; it’s about investing in what could be a tangible competitive advantage for a brand. So, set the phasers for volume share, invest in advertising your tried and tested lines, learn to adapt at warp speed, get real when it comes to any brand purpose initiatives, and protect brand culture. This, combined with a pinch of salt and a following wind, will help you get your brand back on the front foot. Good luck! Mike Teasdale is a strategic problem solver. He is Director at Left-Handed Planning Ltd and provides consulting, writing, mentoring, and facilitating services. His background is in ad land, with 28 years of experience as a strategist in agencies like BBH, BBDO and Lowe.
How to build brand love and why it matters now
By Talkwalker
A crisis can bring out the best in people. And it can for companies too. The year 2020 continues to rapidly reshape consumer behavior trends. Now more than ever, we could all use some inspiration for businesses to find ways to adapt to the current times. How do you make a shift in your business strategy to match the evolving consumer demand? Studies show that when we’re faced with making a decision, emotions from previous or related experiences can alter people’s preferences. The reality is, people don’t buy products for purely logical reasons. Instead, they do so because of emotional reasons. Oftentimes, this rather intangible emotional connection between your brand and the customer has a big influence on customer retention and sales success. In the Brand Love Story 2020 report, Talkwalker has analyzed almost 800 brands globally, using the power of social listening and analytics to identify the world’s most loved brand. The report also tackles why brand love is one of the most important strategies businesses can use today. Once built, this emotional connection – ‘brand love’ serves as the foundation of a long-term customer-to-brand relationship, which can often lead to business growth over time. For instance, 39.5% of consumers define brand loyalty as having love for a brand. Loyal customers often become a brand’s biggest advocates, who will organically share about your company to their friends and network. They also have the tendency to be less sensitive to paying premium prices because they already understand the value that comes with your brand offerings. The Talkwalker report also reveals 11 secrets for driving brand love that you can replicate for your business. Here are some examples: Customer experience Having amazing customer experience is a key driver of
consumer trust and love for your brand. This is particularly important, as we see increasingly overlapping customer touch points across offline and online channels. Trend engagement By listening to the conversations that are happening around you – from consumers to the industry at large, you will have a better understanding of how your audience is reacting to emerging trends. Engage in trends that allow you to maintain brand relevance and stay top of mind. Nostalgia marketing A great way to build the connection with your audience is by associating your brand messaging to fond memories. By rekindling ‘a past love’ through nostalgia marketing, you’ll also drive love towards your brand. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) Consumers want to know what brands they’re supporting are doing to address the issues or causes that matter to them. Strengthen this connection you have with your customers by leading a purpose that’s aligned with what they care about. Employee advocacy Creating a positive working environment and ultimately, a company that people love to work for, will encourage employees to actively promote your brand. This naturally boosts your overall brand perception. These are just some examples of proven methods successful companies like Singapore Airlines, Benefit Cosmetics, and Lego use to drive brand love. Download the report to find out how you can build brand love into your strategy and position your brand as a product or service that consumers don’t just want, but one that they emotionally connect with and love.
Brands, Leagues and the Future of the Spectator Experience in Sports By Nora Henriksson
So far in 2020, brands and sports leagues have aimed high in recreating the fan experience. Despite countless attempts, I find that brands are too focused on looking backwards rather than ahead. Digital provides so much untapped potential when it comes to enriching spectatorship, yet experiments in digital have mostly aimed to recreate the fan experience rather than truly innovate. As a former athlete and sports journalist, I’ve witnessed how sports spectatorship has evolved. Now, sports are at a crossroads—games are coming back, but fans mostly aren’t yet allowed inside. And while digital has been essential to breaking barriers between at-home fans and athletes, a new generation of sports experiences can go further in giving fans a voice through interactions and unexpected moments that delight. The future of digital sports lies in the convergence of spectatorship at home and the sense of presence and excitement you feel courtside. Brands have a clear opportunity to enhance the fan experience this way, whether through innovative use of technology or tapping into a team’s community with increasing emotional resonance. Tap into fandom. Fan engagement was a hot topic at our Women in Sports Marketing Summit with Brand Innovators. Ashley Booker, who leads NBA partnership, music and cultural engagement strategies for Mtn Dew at PepsiCo, discussed how the brand activated fans in a culturally relevant way: It helped them up their GIF game while watching basketball through a collection of reaction GIFs, helping fans connect online as they reacted together to major moments in the game. “Who is really glued to their screen watching commercials?” she said. “There’s this idea that we’re not only going to do a commercial but we’re going to add to the fan experience, we’re going to enhance or add value for the fans.” She likens innovation to the “cool shit test,” a benchmark for whether a creative idea is worth pursuing based on how much real value it provides fans. A great example of this is how the NBA, Yahoo Sports and RYOT have come together to virtualize the audience experience by bringing the game to VR. With fans at home and unable to attend in-person, the experience reaches them where they are. This shows the potential of hosting games beyond just a single broadcast for TV or digital; instead, brands can enable more resonant experiences through a
multi-platform approach that caters to specific contexts. That’s an important distinction. I feel sports can go so much further—there’s so much untapped potential when you stop to consider the prevalence of digital communication and emerging content formats. Soul & Science, a program short in volumetric video by Intel Studios and delivered in augmented reality (AR) by MediaMonks, is another of my favorite examples of how digital formats can redefine spectatorship. The AR app immerses viewers by letting them view elite sports moves at any angle within their immediate surroundings, no matter where they are. Act on consumer insights with agility. To understand what resonates with your audience, tapping into community insights and having the agility to quickly shift gears is essential—especially when there’s still so much uncertainty about what sports will look like months or even a year from now. Like many other brands, Toyota had to quickly evolve the messaging it had prepared for the Olympics after the event was postponed until 2021. The brand was able to rapidly switch gears and retain relevance by keeping a pulse on its audience. “We’re also using our social channels to understand consumer sentiment in general, and that’s one thing we’ve really homed in on: taking time to listen and to learn,” says Dedra DeLilli, group manager of Olympic/Paralympic marketing at Toyota. “And it’s nimbler than it’s ever been, it’s sensitive and everchanging.” In that respect, what really matters to the future of sports spectatorship is letting fans feel they have real impact over what they’re watching. Any sports fan will tell you there’s a gripping sense of drama in sports spectatorship—watching the rise of the underdog or the intense rivalry between teams play out in front of you. Sports innovation should work to let fans truly feel a sense of meaning and belonging as they not only watch but engage in these experiences. A confluence between witnessing a game at home and feeling the energy of a game play out right in front of you is the next frontier for sports—and I hope to see it well beyond the recovery from the pandemic. Nora Henriksson is managing director of Nordics at MediaMonks.Before joining the agency world, and later on the MediaMonks Monastery, I spent over ten years in sports journalism, where I covered numerous leagues and tournaments including the Premier League, Serie A, World Cups and EURO’s.
CX is changing as ‘Creative Experience’ is on the rise By Warc Staff
COVID-19 is changing how CMOs view the customer experience, with their focus now moving beyond the simple elimination of pain points to build differentiation and delight. Experience agency Isobar terms this ‘creative experience’. The first wave of ‘Customer Experience’ or ‘CX’ focused heavily on removing friction and eliminating pain points, it says in a new report, but in a one-click (or no click) world, such brands risk becoming increasingly indistinct – and increasingly invisible. This conclusion is contained in its Isobar Creative Experience Survey 2020, for which it surveyed over 1,350 global CMOs to assess the evolution of customer experience design in the age of Covid-19. The study found that 64% of CMOs have “completely or moderately” changed their CX strategy in response to the Covid-19 crisis, with one in five having “completely” changed their approach. Among those CMOs who have changed their strategy, investment in innovative new products and services is the most popular strategy among businesses of every size and scale, adopted by 45% of all CMOs, and 49% of CMOs of
larger organisations. CMOs are also placing bets on innovative use of technology (58%) and the importance of a galvanising organisational idea (50%) as key ingredients for building differentiated customer experiences. Commerce has emerged as a clear priority with 39% of CMOs having made commerce a greater focus and 36% having implemented Direct-to-Consumer approaches. Alongside creative ideation / thinking (36%), innovation capabilities (35%) and the ability to create new products (33%) were listed among the top three requirements of an agency partner in order to deliver superior CX strategies. The report found that CMOs in the technology sector have proved most responsive to the impact of COVID-19, with one in three having completely changed their CX strategy as a result, followed by those in the Energy (29%) and Finance Sectors (26%). Those in Leisure, Media and Entertainment are least likely to have changed their approach. CMOs in the Automotive and Telecoms industry are most likely to have invested in innovative new products and services, at 65% and 64% respectively.
Gmail’s new logo is just a taste of Google’s plan to rethink productivity
By Jr Raphael
Let’s get one thing out of the way right off the bat: Google’s habit of repositioning products has become a bit of a punchline. From the seemingly endless cycle of shifting messaging service strategies to the recent branding 360 with the Google TV–Android TV–Google TV again saga, the company has a slight reputation for failing to commit to any particular concept for long. Sometimes, though, a new beginning makes sense. Sometimes, a product’s evolution seems appropriate. And sometimes, despite the well-warranted inclination to sigh at the notion of Yet Another Google Name Change, the reason for a rebranding actually resonates—and feels like a step in the right direction. That’s certainly the case with Google Workspace, a new identity Google is rolling out for the entity formerly known as G Suite (which itself was formerly known as both Google Apps and Google Apps for Your Domain) this week. Workspace is, on the surface, an updated name and brand for Google’s
collection of productivity apps—Gmail, Docs, Calendar, Drive, and so on. The rebrand is more than just a new name: It also includes some significant changes both in function and in appearance. That means that all these apps’ logos are getting a big makeover—so get ready to say so long to the iconic Gmail envelope. “This is the moment in which we break free from defining the structure and the role of our offerings in terms that were invented by somebody else in a very different era,” says Javier Soltero, Google’s vice president and general manager of G Suite and now Workspace. So if it isn’t just a new name, what is it? Well, it’s complicated. Workspace isn’t exactly a new service, in and of itself. It’s more of a new mindset—a connective tissue that reimagines how Google’s productivity apps exist and reshapes them as more than just vaguely related individual pieces. “The space in between those apps becomes really important,”
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Soltero says. “That’s where improvement happens, [and] that’s where innovation happens—the blending between an editing or content creation tool and a communication tool.”
interface or way of working, take a deep breath: Workspace isn’t going to involve the end of any existing Google services— or even that many changes to the individual apps’ interfaces.
We got a taste of that blending in July, when Google announced an update to Gmail that brought elements of Meet, Chat, and even Docs into the inbox environment. That, as it turns out, was just an appetizer for what was to come—the way Google intends to bring all of its productivity services together and make them feel like a single, connected experience, with a more consistent visual identity and overlapping elements that extend from one app to the next. That’s what Google Workspace is ultimately all about, and its effects will reach practically every Google productivity app, both for paying business subscribers and eventually for regular consumer users, too.
Instead, it’ll little by little make all of those apps work together in more logical and efficient ways. In Docs, Sheets, and Slides, for instance, you’ll be able to pull up picture-inpicture Google Meet boxes in order to communicate face to face with colleagues while working on a project. In Google Chat, you’ll be able to paste in a document, spreadsheet, or presentation and then work on it in real time, collaboratively, right in that window—without having to open up the full associated app.
A NEW KIND OF CONNECTION If you’re feeling anxious about having to adjust to a whole new
But the standalone apps will all continue to exist as well. Google sees Workspace as more of a unifying umbrella and an option for getting things done in different ways as opposed to any sort of replacement for the tried-and-true tools we already know.
“The individual apps serve as expressions of Workspace capabilities . . . but they also need to be individually awesome,” Soltero says. “They all serve as doors into the same house. Those doors need to still work.” In a sense, it feels slightly reminiscent of what Google sought to do, at least conceptually, with Google+ nearly a decade ago. Google+ also attempted to create a connective layer across numerous Google products and make those individual pieces feel like part of a cohesive whole. The key difference is that the Google+ core was an entirely new service and something plenty of people weren’t interested in using. With Workspace, Google is bringing together existing services and simply making them play together more effectively. And that, suffice it to say, presented the company with quite the design challenge—figuring out how to take all these services that have long been treated as their own individual entities and make them feel like part of the same puzzle, all without losing their own unique and often beloved identities. THE WORKSPACE DESIGN STORY Margaret Cyphers knows the difficulty of juggling endless tasks while bouncing between browser tabs. Cyphers is a creative director at Google, and like many office workers, she’s spent most of this year interacting with her colleagues from afar, with everyone at home and relying exclusively on web services for communication and collaboration. Unlike most folks in that situation, though, Cyphers’s job has been reinvigorating the designs of the very services she’s using. “Life has changed, but also the way that people work has changed,” Cyphers says. “Everybody’s feeling that.” To reflect that transition and the evolving role these services now play, Cyphers and her colleagues created an entire new set of icons and images—not only for Workspace itself but also for the individual apps that are a part of it. That meant, perhaps most dauntingly, finding a way to breathe new life into an iconic logo that’s remained mostly untouched since its arrival. Yes, we’re talking about Gmail. “It’s a hard balance, for sure,” Cyphers says of the need to maintain the identity people know while also making the logo feel new and current. “When you have strong brand equity, that’s something you have to be very respectful of and cautious [about].” Cyphers’s team relied on regular user testing and feedback to guide their decisions. They toyed with losing the trademark Gmail “M” at one point and even thought about moving away from the traditional Gmail red but found people reacted negatively to both of those changes. To their surprise, though, they discovered the logo’s long-standing envelope element wasn’t as critical to the design as they had anticipated. Armed with that assurance, the result they landed on was something that’s still immediately recognizable as being Gmail but also much more contemporary and in line with current Google design standards. It brings in the full array of Google colors while continuing to lean heavily on that telltale red, and it’s meant to evoke a sense of movement and connected pieces—just like what Workspace itself is designed to do. “We’re not trying to move away from being Gmail. That’s critical,” Cyphers says. “Where we landed, yeah, it feels different and fresh and more modern, but I can still tell it’s Gmail.”
Those same concepts of movement and connectivity carry through to the other new Workspace logos—for Drive, Calendar, and other such services. The logos all have threedimensional, moving versions where the idea of interlocked pieces becomes even more apparent. All in all, it represents quite the visual transformation—even if the apps’ actual interfaces are mostly unchanged. And it doesn’t end with icons, either. Google also created a whole new set of imagery for experiences within the Workspace apps, sometimes relying on a technique called photo-illustration in which actual three-dimensional props were used to bring a lightness and quirkiness into the products’ visuals—an effect you can see in icons such as this one, which represents a new chat room within Google Chat and looks like something you could reach out and grab: That same technique was applied for a series of new avatars— Roomatars, as they’ll be called—that’ll soon appear within Chat as well as in Gmail and other Workspace services. “Each one of these takes days and days and if you add in all the production time, you’re looking at a situation that we hope shows that high touch, high craft, and how you can insert little bits of delight throughout all of the products,” Cyphers says. LOOKING TO THE FUTURE All of this is debuting at a painfully unusual time—a time when “going into the office” often means walking into the other room of your house or apartment. But while this current reality of ours emphasized the need for better communication and collaboration tools, Google is confident what it’s creating with Workspace will feel every bit as relevant for the long haul. “Work is no longer defined as a physical place, necessarily,” Soltero says. “What we’ve been able to prove over the last six months around the world is that you can run banks, governments, healthcare institutions, all kinds of businesses in a distributed fashion, and I think that leaves with it a lasting change.” Soltero himself can relate. His entire Workspace leadership team—the three VP-level execs responsible for coordinating everything being announced this week—started at Google during the pandemic. He’s never met physically with any of them; they’ve worked together only virtually, and just like so many of us, they were forced to adapt to the circumstances around them. “It was no longer something you could consider theoretically,” he says. “It quickly created almost a perfect storm, if you will, for the notion of transformation to actually take place.” That notion of transformation—the feeling that Workspace isn’t just Yet Another Google Name Change and is instead a sensible expansion and evolution—may be why this pivot seems different from the typical Google branding flip-flop. Workspace is being positioned as a new beginning for a new era of working. And if there were ever a time for such an introduction to make sense, 2020 is most certainly it. Jr Raphael Is Obsessed With Productivity And Finding Clever Ways To Make The Most Of Modern Technology. Join Him On Twitter Or Sign Up For His Weekly Newsletter To Get Fresh Tips In Your Inbox Every Friday.
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The human element of data-led advertising By Marketingmag Staff
Tasneem Ali considers how marketers can bring the human element back to their advertising strategy through market research and listening to their customers. Data-driven advertising, at its core, is about finding the right sources of information and insights to determine who exactly your audience is. What do they care about? How do they spend their time? and – most importantly – what do they like to spend their money on? Today, such sources of information vary widely, not just in terms of what can be uncovered, but also in terms of the quality of insights that can be delivered. Take web behaviours for example. ‘Cookie-based’ targeting is one of the oldest methods of harvesting data online, but with Google phasing out third-party cookies by 2022 – and many cookies in breach of new privacy laws – they’re on the way out. In terms of social segments, sites such as Facebook offer
sophisticated targeting and the ability to drill down to very granular audiences, but this targeting can only be used on one platform alone. Data marketplaces and aggregate services offer large audiences, but data sources are often undisclosed and the quality of information can be poor. There are also growing compliance issues such as different jurisdictions introducing data legislation around such information. Firstparty CRM data is the company’s own data and is often the best avenue, but it tends to come in much smaller volumes. The role of market research While each source of information has its own benefits, there can be a danger in over-reliance on ‘faceless’ data, and numbers and statistics alone don’t tell the whole story.
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While behaviour-based targeting allows marketers to present their message to people who are actively buying from a specific category, it’s impossible to know if they’re still really in the market to purchase from you. They could have been purchasing a gift for a relative as a once-off, or they may have since bought the product from another retailer, meaning that media budgets are being wasted by talking to the wrong people. This is where research comes in. Market research can tell you what your audience values, and why. It does this simply by asking people what they think – the human element that’s missing from other advertising avenues.
and large retail purchases (cars, white goods) were on hold, but there was an increase in spending on household staples such as rice, pasta and toilet paper as well as streaming entertainment services. Through carrying out this human, panel-based research, marketers can anticipate trends and take a more proactive approach in campaigns. By asking people what their intentions are and what their concerns are, we can predict what they may buy more or less of, rather than waiting for the sales figures to come in.
We know that the pandemic has led to big shifts in people’s priorities and consumer behaviour. With hundreds of thousands of people losing part or all of their income, being confined to their homes, and no longer able to travel or carry out holiday plans, it can’t be expected that consumer interests and spending patterns are going to be the same.
So, how can marketers bring the human element back to their advertising strategy? Firstly, by connecting research to media by taking declared insights and executing marketing campaigns that achieve business goals. Secondly, by building deep audience profiles from first-party data, and finally, by using technology such an ad profiler. This allows marketers to ask questions and reveal answers that lead to a greater understanding of target audiences, and honour what’s important to these groups.
This has led to a knowledge gap for marketers because old behaviours – and the data that recorded them – is now outof-date. New research is needed to find out what consumers want in the ‘new normal’. When we polled Pureprofile members earlier this year, we discovered that more than half were moderately or extremely concerned about their financial situation, and 59 percent reduced their spending. Big plans
Ultimately, consumers value being listened to and treated as individuals. According to one iconic statistic, 68 percent of customers walk away from a product or service because of “perceived indifference” – not necessarily because they are a dissatisfied customer. Engaging with customers to get their feedback and find out what they really want is a critical interaction that benefits both marketers and consumers.
Tracking shifting priorities
Customer Experience vs. Human Experience By Tom Kaneshige
Marketers love to talk about the customer experience, but maybe this sort of thinking needs to change—or at least, expanded. They should be delivering a human experience. Today’s customer wants to be treated as a person, not just a customer. They’re willing to open their wallets to brands that understand what they’re going through in these tough times. They want brands to empathize with their plight, not push products. Brands can’t afford to sound tone deaf today. In a politically divided country, people also want to know where brands stand on many issues. Silence speaks volumes. People don’t want their dollars to indirectly fund issues they’re against. If a CEO personally supports a politician that many customers oppose, for instance, you can bet corporate sales will be impacted. All of this is a way of saying brand messaging needs to evolve from the customer experience to the human experience. It’s time to treat people as more than just buyers of products and services. It’s about looking at a customer as a whole person, not just an ATM machine. We’ve already seen brands get this wrong—and the backlash that followed. With people hunkering in their homes, consumption and sharing of digital content has exploded. Consider a brand’s comms team pushing out a press release supporting Black Lives Matter, which gets picked up by the press and shared multiple times in the form of earned media. But the marketing team doesn’t get the memo and thus owned media doesn’t reflect or even mention this stance, rather continues to push products. People don’t know the difference between paid, owned and earned media, so all they see is a brand giving lip service to
an issue they care about. This leads to customer confusion at best and angry people shouting on social media at worst. When done right, though, brand messaging can lead to substantial revenue growth. Digital content has the greatest impact on buying decisions and how people feel about brands. You can see this in the rise of e-commerce, both B2B and B2C. People are still making purchases, just doing so online and being more selective. How can brands ensure consistent, empathetic brand messaging? One way is to have marketing and comms teams report to the same person, such as the CMO. This ensures greater alignment in messaging. While such a reporting structure is difficult in bigger organizations, brands can at least nurture regular collaboration among the teams and leaders. For instance, marketers could collaborate on a press release and line up their media assets to reflect and amplify it, rather than receive a draft only hours before it hits the wire. This will eventually lead to a blending of roles and skills. Maybe it’s time brands re-think how marketing and comms operate in order to become more agile. At least one company is looking to stand up a team of marketers, comms pros and others to work on a project or campaign, like you’d see in a “mission impossible” movie. While the stakes are not as high as in a movie thriller (no one is saving the world here), consistent and empathetic brand messaging can save a company during these difficult times. It can lead to e-commerce revenue growth while avoiding consumer backlash. And that’s important enough to make dramatic changes.
ADVERTISING AND LOGIC By Bob Hoffman’s
My semi-brilliant advertising career taught me a little something about successful business people. Many are very uncomfortable with advertising. Many are terrible at evaluating advertising. I think there is an understandable reason for this. Throughout our education and business training, and all during our careers, the most important skill in our tool kit has been the ability to think logically. The ability to solve a problem is at the core of business success. Logic helped us be good students and good business people. It is critical if we’re in finance or operations or distribution or management. The only function in business in which logic is not essential is the creative component of advertising. This is distressing to a great many very smart people who cannot accept that they can’t think their way to advertising success. It goes against everything they’ve learned. When it comes to evaluating advertising we put on our analyzing caps and try to apply our well-honed logic skills to figure out what’s a good ad and what ain’t. Sadly, an ad is not a court case. The best argument doesn’t win. Logic is, to a frightening degree, irrelevant. I don’t know what makes an ad great, but I do know this -it’s not logic. Most of the really good ad people I worked with in my career had a difficult time explaining why they knew an ad was good. They had to invent rational reasons in order to sell good ads to clients, but they were bullshitting and faking it. Mostly they just knew, and didn’t know how they knew.
Advertising is at the intersection of art and commerce. The commercial aspects of advertising -- budgeting, media decisions, strategy, etc.-- require orderly thinking. But the creative (executional) aspect of advertising - the “art” side - is frustratingly immune to the benefits of reason. If creating advertising were simply a matter of developing a cogent argument (as many business people seem to believe) advertising would be easy. One consequence of the bias toward logic is the trendy and mistaken belief that more data will lead us to greater creativity. This has proven to be an illusion. The marketing industry has never had anything approaching the amount of data we currently have. Yet it is a nearly unanimous belief among marketing execs that advertising is substantially less effective and less creative than it has traditionally been. It may very well turn out that advertising success is way stranger and more complicated than logic would have us believe. That’s part of what makes it fun.
Curve Balls: Nothing about advertising is easy... - There are times when logical arguments are effective in ads. One of the things that makes advertising fascinating is that there are no hard truths - just likelihoods and probabilities. - Logical arguments tend to be more effective in direct response (offer-based) advertising than in brand advertising. - Those brilliant creative people who just know when something is good? They can also be wrong. Get used to it.
Developing the right brand voice and brand tone By Devon Delfino
Tone of voice is the way that you communicate your message
the audience feel anything from dismissed to empowered,
— it dictates the way that an audience interprets the words.
befriended to neutral. If the tone isn’t right, the audience may
And it’s a key part of your brand voice.
leave feeling insulted or angry. Or if the tone strikes the right
Put another way, tone of voice is the way you say something
chords, it can make the audience stay and listen.
out loud, whereas “tone” usually refers to the written word
What’s the difference between brand voice and
(though many sites will conflate the two, particularly when
brand tone?
referring to branding.) Either way, however, tone dictates how the audience will feel about the message. It can reveal intent as well as character. If you’re going to build a strong brand, tone matters. Here’s what else you need to know about tone, and crafting the best one for your brand’s marketing strategy. Why tone of voice matters for brands Tone of voice, in the strictest sense, refers to the way you say
Tone does play into brand voice, but the two are not synonymous. Brand voice is the written expression of a brand. It’s what the brand — if it could speak — would sound like. Tone of voice, on the other hand, is the way a given piece of communication is delivered. Tone is what creates the emotional impact and that can shape both how the recipient feels about themselves, and about the brand.
something. For brands, tone of voice is often referred to in
Voice is the writing style or unique flair that an author gives
place of “tone” itself, which applies to the written word. But
their writing. Tone is the way a message is presented.
whether you’re speaking at a conference, or you’re writing up a blog post for the company, tone definitely has an impact on
How to develop tone of voice for your brand
your audience. And when it comes to written communication,
1. Gather your company’s goals and values and audit
many factors work together to create the tone.
previous content
Four key components of your brand tone of voice:
To develop the right tone for your brand, you’ll need to know
• Word choice • Punctuation • Message placement • Sentence structure Each of these four components can change the way the reader feels about your message and how they respond to it. A single message can be written using any manner of tones; the key is deciding which tone is most effective. Depending on the factors mentioned above, those can make
a few key details: • What the company is trying to accomplish — both overall and through a given piece of communication • The tone that the brand has used previously • The company’s core values Reviewing previously published communications, like blog and social media posts, can be a helpful way to understand previous tones. And asking for impressions from your audience can also help you gauge where you stand. Combined, this information will give you a good idea about the kind of goals
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you want to accomplish, which will help shape the tone.
Examples of effective brand voice and tone
2. Understand your target audience
Barkbox’s tone of voice is casual and upbeat. If you look at
Tone can easily be mistreated if you don’t have a firm grasp of who your audience is and where they’re coming from. To combat this problem head on, it’s worth conducting research into your company’s ideal audience, and what appeals to them. You should know key demographics, such as age range, where they live, common interests and how they like to communicate and learn. Keep in mind that things may change depending on the platform you’re using to communicate, whether it’s social media, a blog, an e-newsletter, etc.
their FAQ question, “Where is the rest of my order?” you’ll get a great example of tone. The use of the phrase, “not to worry though!” communicates a laid-back and upbeat tone, which in turn makes the reader feel comforted and calm. This tone contributes to the brand’s overall voice, which is conversational and warmhearted. (Just like the dog-obsessed community they cater to.) On the Nielsen model, it leans casual, funny, respectful and enthusiastic. Old Spice’s tone of voice is often goofy and enthusiastic. You need only go to the homepage of the brand’s website for
3. Think about the four dimensions of tone of voice
a taste of brand voice, as well as tone. Take the following
According to Nielson’s principles for tone of voice, there are four sliding scales to consider:
Old Spice exclusiveness than ever before.”
1. Funny vs. serious 2. Formal vs. casual 3. Respectful vs. irreverent
example: “Get more awesomeness, good smellingness, and
The tone here is goofy, it makes the reader smile by the strategic use of the non-word “smellingness.” This contributes to the brand’s voice, which is direct and has absurdist tendencies, which appeals to its younger demographic. According to the Nielsen model, the tone tends toward funny,
4. Enthusiastic vs. matter-of-fact
casual, irreverent and enthusiastic.
These are useful tools for understanding where your brand’s current tone falls, as well as for getting a visual representation of what tone you want to use going forward.
Slack’s tone of voice is respectfully matter-of-fact. The tone
You can use these umbrella tones to gather lists of words that fit beneath each of those categories, with consideration for your desired position along the spectrum. By using those words in your brand messaging, you can more easily craft your ideal tone.
By speaking directly to their productivity-interested audience
4. Create tone-of-voice guidelines Once you take the above information into account and have a solid idea of what tone the company should use sounds like, it’s time to put that idea into practice, typically as part of a brand style guide. The “tone” section should include basic guidance like what a good tone sounds like versus what the company is trying to avoid, and providing examples for the reader in several contexts, like content marketing posts or social media. The more information you can provide, the easier it will be for people to stick to the desired tone. 5. Keep your tone of voice up to date As with brand voice, tone is something that may not be static throughout the life of a business. That’s why it’s vital to make sure that as the company changes, so too does the tone. That way, everyone who may have a hand in creating communications from the company is on the same page about what the brand voice and tone should sound like without deviating or slipping back into an outdated or otherwise undesirable place.
employed on the company’s “tips” page is almost neutral, but conveys a subtle positive slant to the messaging.
in this manner, they give the impression that they, too, value getting things done well, but also quickly. The brand voice — which focuses on clarity and conciseness — aligns with this tone. Nielsen’s scales would tip serious, casual, respectful and matter-of-fact for this example. What are common tone-of-voice mistakes? There are many opportunities to get “tone” wrong, especially if you don’t take a balanced approach: Mistake 1: Being inconsistent Tonal inconsistencies can create questions and even mistrust within your audience. That’s why it’s vital to create a tone guide for your brand. Mistake 2: Offending the intended audience Companies that go for the irreverent and funny sides of Nielsen’s scales, for example, can take things too far if they don’t define how far is too far. Mistake 3: Creating a forgettable tone Just like you can go too far at the opposite ends of Nielsen’s sliding scales, choosing “neutral” positions could also backfire. Tone is meant to provoke an emotional response in the reader, and failing to do so means being forgettable and irrelevant.
User-Generated Audio Branding: What You Need To Know To Ride The Next Sonic Wave By Cathy Applefeld Olson
Among the shortcomings of short-form video service Quibi was a decision at launch by the Jeffrey Katzenberg-led company to wall off its content assets. The move rendered it impossible for viewers to cut and paste clips, create memes, share snippets. The misstep was quickly corrected. Why? Because if fans can’t interact with content, if they can’t own and share a piece of the experience—you’ve just hamstrung your best brand ambassadors. Audio branding, on the verge of a colossal evolution, is wisely beginning to tap into the power of the creator-driven economy. Audio can be the key to recognition and recall, but for the most part brands have been simply repeating, often shouting, the same musical elements at consumers with limited success. Now, a parcel of companies, including startups Vurbl and Blerp, want to help brands embrace user-generated content—a cornerstone of our increasingly platform-based ecosystem. “I think we need to stop being so precious about it,” Sean Thornton, co-founder and creative director of Audio UX, advises. “The public and your users have an appetite to interact with your brand on a deeper level than you think. It’s insulting to slap them with an inflexible repeated mantra over and over again. This is the opposite end of the spectrum.” Thornton knows a thing or two about the power of unlocking a brand’s sonic assets and empowering consumers to authentically engage with them. His company created the revolutionary open-sourced soundtrack to elevate Pantone’s 2020 color of the year, Classic Blue, and is collaborating with
Pantone in a similar capacity for 2021. For the Classic Blue multisensory campaign, Audio UX created and then released all audio elements—some 145 micro-musical sounds in all—free to the public in conjunction with cloud-based music platform Landr. To date, there have been nearly 2 million sample downloads from the color of the year sample pack, and it is the topperforming collection on the Landr platform. “Seeing people who were completely not immersed in the brand interact with these elements and use them in their own music—it was just a fascinating process for us,” Thornton says. “Ordinarily no one outside the inner circle of a brand is going to get access to these elements. But people really rallied around it. They loved taking these core micro elements and remixing them and interacting with them and putting their own spin on what they thought the color of the year sounded like.” The success validated one of Audio UX’s core missions: “How do we develop the same kind of affinity for a brand you may have for your favorite music artist? This is where I believe audio and music can go for brands,” he says. Among other company clients are Simplehuman, Ecobee and a major bank for which it’s developing a top-down sonic branding initiative featuring earcons, an audio logo and branded music. “YouTube of Audio” Aspirations With a library of millions of primarily user-generated audio assets and a just-completed $1.3 million pre-seed financing round, Vurbl launches this quarter with the lofty aspiration of becoming the YouTube of audio.
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Assets include entertainment, news, spoken-word, meditation, comedy and religious sound snippets, and while they’re rooted in the consumer realm, the LA-based company has a much loftier goal—revolutionizing the world of digital audio advertising and serving up a scalable, real-time programmatic audio ad platform. “We are creating a centralized place for free audio of all types,” says founder and CEO Audra Gold. “Given our breadth and depth of audio content, we’ll be building a very large audience across all demographics and locations. Our platform streams the audio in real time, providing programmatic ad inventory before, during and after someone consumes audio, similar to what YouTube provides for the programmatic video space.” User-generated content enables businesses and consumers to create small to massive highly engaged fan bases, Gold says, creating an army of brand influencers. “Influencer content is an incredibly valuable type of content for advertisers to buy into because the consumers of that content tend to be very engaged and loyal—resulting in great brand recall on those ads. Brands will benefit from being able to hyper-target around our vast content verticals and personalities to the ears of the most relevant and timely audiences,” adds Gold, who previously founded product consultancy Product N and led product teams at Rubicon Project RUBI -1% and Pluto TV, among others. An Audio Emoji Repository User-generated content also is the primary driver behind startup platform Blerp. The company has a cache of more than 500,000 unique sound bites, which it describes as audio emojis, and thousands of user-created soundboards. It
recently closed a funding round with Amazon’s AMZN +3% Alexa Fund, Kickstart Seed Fund and others that back the platform’s ability to insert audio expression to any moment via live-streams, messaging apps and voice chats. Launched in 2018, Blerp had a fortuitous integration with Twitch at the beginning of this year that has raised the company’s profile considerably. It now registers millions of fan engagements per month, more than 10 times that of Giphy. Like Vurbl, its end game is partnering with brands to help extend their sonic footprint via an army of audio ambassadors. “We’re using all of this momentum in videogames and livestreaming to grow our platform and create that flywheel where people are converting to the idea of sharing sound,” says co-founder Aaron Hsu. “Where brands and creators can really get excited is, as we continue to upgrade those searches and those shares of sounds, there’ll be a huge opportunity to monetize their unique voice on Blerp. When we get to 10 million, 50 million, 100 million searches a month, that’s were brands are able to come—very similar to Gif and Tenor—and advertise in those searches.” Co-founder Derek Omori concurs: “The brand-driven economy we are building is where a company can find value in our platform because our distribution brings new ways to monetize. We can really be their digital voice on the Internet. That’s a powerful way to showcase your brand.” I’m an independent journalist with 30 years’ experience covering music, television, digital, brand and culture for business and consumer audiences. I’m also a co-founder of Enterprise Sound Strategy, which advises companies on how to harness sound experiences to advance their competitive advantage.
Are brands staying away from celebrities courting controversy? By Misbaah Mansuri
With actor Deepika Padukone and her colleagues Sara Ali Khan, Shraddha Kapoor and Rakul Preet Singh being named in the recent drug probe as a part of the Sushant Singh Rajput death investigation, and more and more names from the industry surfacing, advertisers are now having discussions on the need to recalibrate and steer away from releasing ads with brand ambassadors whose names have appeared in the probe. How could it impact the brand value and endorsement earnings of those named? Industry watchers weigh in. Of backlash and brand endorsement drops Creative heads point out that there is definitely a level of caution among advertisers when working with Bollywood stars embroiled in the drug controversy. Nishi Kant, President, mcgarrybowen India, reveals that deals which were in pipeline with those named in the probe are being reviewed. “Drug abuse is a big negative for the celebrities’
image and brand endorsements. In the recent IIHB (Indian Institute of Human Brands) survey, an overwhelming 88% of the respondents said that brands using such celebrities would lose their credibility, and they might stop trusting such brands anymore. In the short to mid-term, drug allegations may lead to a dip in brand endorsement value of those named and will accelerate the shift of brands towards niche stars who are perceived to be clean. Brands may want to put ad campaigns with those named in the probe on hold for some time,� he observes. Kant adds that with the festive season round the corner, this is definitely not good news for the brand endorsement landscape. A leading advertising agency CEO also tells us that brands associating with the celebrities in question are re-thinking the associations and figuring how to navigate this new minefield and offset the risks. Another industry insider adds that a beverage major has decided to pull the plug on brand campaigns featuring its brand ambassador who happens to be named in the probe.
Prathap Suthan, Managing Partner and Chief Creative Officer (CCO) of Bang In The Middle opines that brands want to stay away from those who have been coloured by this new scandal. He adds, “There’s really nothing that can insulate a brand from a fallout that comes in sideways. A brand perhaps can do due diligence and protect themselves from possible issues that might crop up. But you quite cannot predict where the next landmine explodes. Celebs and such run-ins are commonplace across India and the world. And I think consumers have got accustomed to the idea of brand ambassadors getting embroiled in scandals, and are pretty liberal in their minds to the fact that brands and their products quite don’t get tainted. People are very much human, mistakes happen to the most haloed celebs, but life goes on.” Meanwhile Raj Kamble, Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Famous Innovations notes that so far there hasn’t been anyone dropping a brand ambassador because of this. “People have shared instances of ads of celebrities who have been called for questioning running on the same news channels where the stories are running. News media in India seems to have become a true circus, thanks to a few TRPhungry journalists. People are enjoying the sensationalism for entertainment sake, but deep down inside I don’t think marketers or their consumers care,” Kamble maintains. Celebrity brand landscape
value
and
the
endorsement
On the lines of the recent drug probe, the Indian Institute of Human Brands (IIHB) recently conducted a telephonic research over the September 12-13, 2020 weekend reaching 487 respondents (M 251, F 236) across India to study reactions to the continued use of such celebrities for brand endorsement. The results were clear: near zero tolerance for the drug tainted. Dr Sandeep Goyal, Brand Expert and Chief Mentor, IIHB, acknowledged that the celebrity endorsements business is under a lot of stress as clients are jittery after the latest controversy that has surfaced. “The overhang of drugs is not a nice situation to be in as the ambassadors tend to be tainted by the allegations. Unfortunately, it is a business where the celebrity is guilty till proved innocent! And not the other way around. Social media is actually a double-edged sword. The same millions of followers that make the celebrity famous, are the ones who cause embarrassment when the news is negative,” he remarks. Dr Goyal contends that brands would do well to adopt a wait-and-watch approach for a while until the dust settles on the case. Moreover, it is quite evident that the celebrity endorsement space, like other areas, is also going through a state of churn post COVID. Alchemist’s Auntourage report cites a substantial 70% decline in the celebrity appearance market in FY20 versus FY19, given the COVID-led restrictions on brand events, shoots and fan engagements. Manish Porwal, MD, Alchemist Marketing & Talent Solutions says that while the celeb endorsement space for brands, was already experiencing tough times due to the pandemic, the drug allegations may lead to a short term 30% dip in brand endorsement value overall. Alchemist runs an entertainment
and celeb division, Auntourage which keeps track of rising and falling popularity of celebrities and their relationship with brands. Porwal continues, “These are tough times for big Bollywood stars. Top brands now, who take stars for lending popularity and credibility to them, will become cautious and re-consider associations with them. Deals which were in the pipeline will go through a stand-off. In the short to mid-term, it will have an impact on the overall endorsement space and will accelerate the shift of brands towards niche, OTT and social media influencers and sports persons,” he states. For those accused, Porwal points out that there will be a long hiatus before new brands come back to them. The controversy has triggered hashtags like ‘Boycott Bollywood.’ This has exacerbated problems for the industry which has been witnessing zero theatrical revenues for the past six months, box office losses of nearly ₹3,000 crore, multiple projects stuck in various stages of production and millions of job cuts amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Brand expert Samit Sinha observes that adding to that the overall gloom in the economy due to the pandemic, chances are that the controversy could doubly impact many stars’ endorsements-related earnings, at least in the short to medium term. “There is undoubtedly an epidemic of scandals afflicting the Mumbai film industry at present with allegations and counter allegations flying around. Almost no one seems to be above suspicion. This cannot be doing any favours to the prospects of lucrative brand endorsements of many Bollywood celebrities since, under the circumstances, it is quite natural for advertisers to approach film-stars with a degree of circumspection. Being under the scanner is a reality for celebrities, especially with the social media landscape, it should be seen as an occupational hazard and the price of fame,” he explains. Legal conundrum The brand positioning of the actors appears to be seriously threatened by the ongoing scandal. Actress Rakul Preet Singh named in the probe moved the Delhi High Court this week to try and halt the ‘media trials’ and stop ‘unsubstantiated’ news reports from being widely circulated. Her plea also states that sponsors were withdrawing due to the allegations against her, which she maintains are unfair and untrue. Industry watchers reveal that many brands now insist on a ‘moral clause’ which entitles the brands to terminate endorsement agreement, if, in the opinion of the brand, the celebrity has committed any act or does anything which might tend to bring him or her into public disrepute, scandal or ridicule, or which might tend to reflect unfavourably on the brand. These clauses are broad and discretionary and industry insiders reveal that contracts are already being made more “social controversy-proof”. Such has been the impact of the drug scandal that according to recent developments, producers’ bodies and producers are now mulling over the idea of including clauses that prohibit usage of drug or alcohol in future contracts. Tough calls for brands A CMO of a leading FMCG brand who didn’t wish to be
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named reveals that even large, global brands are scrambling to renegotiate contracts with actors that have been named in the investigation. “A slew of developments on brands dropping those whose names have cropped up are expected. In the age of social media, brands would rather be safe than sorry as consumer furore could prompt major losses for them too,” the source remarks. Vedantu’s Co-founder & CEO Vamsi Krishna says that controversies and scandals are never really predictable. Krishna reveals that the brand took close to five months to decide on their new brand ambassador, actor Aamir Khan and did so only after careful consideration about what Vedantu stands for. “We put in a lot of time and effort in identifying that. What we loved about Aamir is the personification of roles he has played over the years which has a teacher and motivational element in it. Be it Taare Zameen Par or Dangal, and although he was a student in 3 Idiots, he taught a lot of life lessons. When we look at Vedantu, and I am a teacher myself, we always wanted to associate with someone who can stand for those values. Through him, we can talk about values of holistic education, and no one other than Aamir represents those values,” Krishna elaborates. Another trend to keep in mind is that that brands these days have now started working with big celebrities only on a project basis for Instagram or Facebook activation campaigns. Another marketer of a leading handset brand frames the new challenge in the celebrity endorsements game succinctly when he says, “There are several other Bollywood A-listers whose names might come out in the days to follow. What the recent controversy has done is made marketers question the need of celebrities in the game.” Celebrities: No strangers to controversy While leveraging celebrities in ads used to be one of the
biggest bets, today’s reality is more challenging than ever with the way social media has taken over lives, thereby giving brands and celebrities lesser control over their reputation. Several Bollywood A-listers have been embroiled in various controversies that led to them losing brands in their kitty. Several similar instances in the past have reopened discussions on the need to recalibrate the codes of celebrity engagement. One such incident featured Bollywood actor, Aamir Khan, a popular choice for brands across categories. His public comments about the ‘rising intolerance’ in the country caused a stir, which led one of the brands he endorsed at the time (Snapdeal) to not renew their contract with Khan. “Snapdeal is neither connected nor plays a role in comments made by Aamir Khan in his personal capacity,” the company stated in its official communication at that time in 2016. Around the same time, he was also reportedly dropped as the ambassador of the country’s flagship tourism programme, ‘Incredible India campaign’. Another more recent instance was when Deepika Padukone attended a protest at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi, where she stood in solidarity with the students after which there were reports about her endorsements deals being “re-evaluated” and some brands delaying ads featuring her till after the controversy died down. Yet another actor Kangana Ranaut too went on record to the media to reveal that she lost 19 brands after the controversy cause by her relationship fallout with Hrithik Roshan. Actor Salman Khan too has been no stranger to controversy over the years, and has had his fair share of troubles with the brands he has endorsed in the past. Yet Khan continues to enjoy massive popularity among his fans, and therefore has continued to feature in several brand campaigns.
Better Communication Through Neuroscience By Wharton Staff
Nano Tools for Leaders® — a collaboration between Wharton Executive Education and Wharton’s Center for Leadership and Change Management — are fast, effective leadership tools that you can learn and start using in less than 15 minutes, with the potential to significantly impact your success as a leader and the engagement and productivity of the people you lead. Contributor: Michael Platt, Wharton marketing professor and director of the Wharton Neuroscience Initiative; professor of Neuroscience, Perelman School of Medicine; author of the new book, The Leader’s Brain (Wharton School Press). The Goal: Make sure your message gets across by fine-tuning your communications. Nano Tool: Real-world, face-to-face communication — complete with eye contact, body language, and other important sources of information — is a rarity in business today, and the potential for failing to convey an intended message or giving the wrong impression has grown. Neuroscience research has uncovered specific ways that you can fine-tune your message — whether it’s giving performance feedback, persuading your team to embrace a change initiative, or selling a product or service — to make sure others listen, attend to the message, and act on it.
Action Steps: Two of the most effective methods for connecting with your audience, whether an individual or a group, are making eye contact and mirroring (subtly mimicking the gestures of the other person). Both of these methods lead to synchronized brain waves, which are linked to engagement, learning, and good rapport. Both methods are much harder to do when you’re not meeting in person, but that doesn’t mean you can’t engage. Try one or more of the following ideas to improve your chances of being heard. 1. Tell a story, but don’t jump right in. Hearing the same story, word for word, won’t necessarily create collective engagement and synchronized brains because everyone comes with their own experiences, biases, and distractions that can get in the way of a common understanding. To synchronize, the group needs to make sense of what they’re hearing in a similar way. How? In Neuroscience for Learning and Development: How to Apply Neuroscience and Psychology for Improved Learning and Training,1 author Stella Collins shows that priming listeners’ brains with the frame of reference you want them to use when they hear your message will get the group to synchronize. Before you tell the story, then, explain what it means or why you’re telling it to get everyone on the same page. 2. Change minds or behaviors by encouraging people to first focus on something bigger than themselves. Research
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co-authored by Emily Falk, a professor of communication, psychology, and marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication2, shows that difficult messages are met with a natural self-defensive impulse that can block understanding. To combat that, Falk and fellow researchers asked people to think about things that mattered most to them (like family, friends, or spirituality) or to repeatedly wish for the well-being of other people (both close contacts and strangers). Engaging in these self-transcendent practices opened their minds to information they didn’t want to hear and motivated greater activity over the next three months in response. The insight is as important for business leaders as it is for sports managers and even politicians. 3. Keep it simple. When you’re trying to maximize engagement with your verbal communication, keep in mind that brain synchrony is hindered by complexity.3 In other words, keep it simple! Research on movie trailers by Moran Cerf at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management found that the most effective ones, in terms of creating brain synchrony and driving ticket sales, had the fewest spoken words and the fewest faces and other stimuli on the screen. The simpler the message, the easier it is to understand, and ultimately the more likely it is to be remembered. In the book Made to Stick,4 researchers Chip and Dan Heath come to a similar conclusion. They offer six principles for making your ideas understood and remembered, and the first is simplicity. But, they argue, it’s not just “short and sweet.” The Heaths say it’s about communicating an essential core, something that’s both simple and profound. 4. Raise the volume (slightly). Wharton’s Jonah Berger and Alex Van Zant of Rutgers Business School found that speaking slightly louder than normal and varying your overall volume increases the perception of your confidence, which in turn makes you more persuasive. “There’s work that shows people seem more human when we hear their voice. We give them more sense of mind, we think of them more as real people when they use their voice. Our research also suggests it can make people more persuasive,” writes Berger.5 Of course, that works best when you’re physically present, which ties in with another finding: You’re more persuasive in person than in an email. 5. Make feedback a two-way street. A study led by Tessa West and Katherine Thorson of New York University used heartrate monitors on subjects while they were engaged in giving or receiving unprompted feedback. Although the participants were uncomfortable asking for feedback, doing so helped equip them to hear and process it. Their innate “threat response” was lower. Before you deliver some potentially hard-to-hear feedback, schedule a meeting and ask the employee to evaluate you and how well you are supporting him or her in their development and current role. It’s vital that you listen uncritically, take your time responding, and even use mirroring by repeating the feedback in your own words (“Let me make sure I understand what you said”). Then hold a second meeting in which you go back to what you heard in the first meeting. If that was an area of perceived weakness, ask for specific ways you might improve. Then deliver your feedback and ask how you can help support the growth or change you are seeking.
How Companies Use It: Donna Carpenter, chair of the board of directors and owner of Burlington, Vt.-based Burton Snowboards, responded to the Black Lives Matter movement recently as a leader of a “predominantly white company in a predominantly white sport, headquartered in one of the whitest states in the country” by telling a simple story that focused on her company’s values. She began by reminding her audience that inclusion has always been a core value of the company, citing some of their efforts toward the goal of greater diversity, including founding, supporting, and participating in a number of ongoing initiatives. Then she pivoted, noting that none of these efforts has been enough. She described the difficulty of the work ahead, and the fact that there are no quick fixes. Quoting researcher and author Brené Brown, she said, “Avoiding difficult conversations is the definition of privilege. I look forward to having difficult conversations and facing some harsh realities about ourselves and our industry. I also look forward to making real change.” Siegel+Gale’s Global Brand Simplicity Index has been ranking more than 500 companies since 2010 on how simple or complex their service, products, or touch points are perceived by 15,000 global consumers. They find that the world’s “simplest” organizations have more loyal customers, can charge more, and have higher revenue than their more complex competitors. In the latest report, Netflix, grocery chain ALDI, and Google came out on top. In addition to having managers provide feedback to their direct reports, U.K. hardware company Screwfix has employees give feedback to their managers on a bi-weekly basis. Honest opinions are encouraged, including those on business improvements that have resulted in employeedriven initiatives that improve the customer experience and create higher levels of engagement. Additional Resources: Michael Platt directs Wharton Executive Education’s Leveraging Neuroscience for Business Impact and teaches in Global CEO Program: A Transformational Journey. Access all Wharton Executive Education Nano Tools. Download this Nano Tool as a PDF. References: Stella Collins, Neuroscience for Learning and Development: How to Apply Neuroscience and Psychology for Improved Learning and Training, 2nd ed. (London: Kogan Page, 2019). Yoona Kang et al., “Effects of Self-Transcendence on Neural Responses to Persuasive Messages and Health Behavior Change,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Sept. 17, 2018. Collins, Neuroscience for Learning and Development. Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (New York: Random House, 2007). Tim Herrera, “How to — Literally — Sound More Confident and Persuasive,” Smarter Living, New York Times, Nov. 10, 2019.
Experience is more than just the next theme of your ad campaign By Grace Francis
Karmarama’s Grace Francis outlines three ways in which brands can authentically close the gap between communications and experience. Advertising continues to be an emotive and evocative tool for brands today. As many creative agencies lean toward an integrated offering, it is essential that brand communications— and specifically the brand promise—is considered alongside the holistic brand experience. If this doesn’t happen, we are faced with creating a greater dissonance between the promise and experience of a brand. With this in mind, here are three things brands can do to authentically close the gap between communications and experience and live up to customer expectations as a result. Turn brand purpose into action Brand purpose has never been more important. The majority of consumers (51%) buy from brands that have strong ethical values and authenticity; as such, they will be quick to disengage with brands that aren’t meeting these standards. Brand experience should therefore always stem from overall brand purpose. Successfully integrated brands work to drive their marketing activity into tangible actions, not just ads, while ensuring they’re engaging authentically with culture. COVID-19 was a litmus test for brands to live up to their purpose. In moments of global crisis, the public look to institutions, such as governments, organised bodies and corporations, for seismic change. Corporations became leaders on the world stage and their brand purpose was tested as the new frontiers of customer service were redefined. Consumers witnessed how brands were engaging with the effects of the ongoing crisis, with sites such as Did They Help serving as a lasting reminder of brands’ actions at this time. The imprint of how brands have behaved during this time, positively or negatively, will be seen in the coming years. Built around experience Executives are increasingly recognising experience as a business priority, with 74% of organisations expecting increases in their customer experience budgets in 2020. However, many companies still take a one-size-fits-all approach to customer engagement. It is imperative today that organisations design through experience, thereby ensuring that marketing and advertising
aren’t a bolt-on sales tool that’s siloed from the rest of the business. The organisations that are serious about experiencedriven practices not only understand this challenge but are actively working to dismantle the legacy infrastructure and business practices that are holding them back. Businesses are also investing in chief experience officers (CXOs) that are challenging the company to connect the dots between experience and brand purpose. This involves championing the customer to employees, as well as bringing the perspectives of both customers and employees to the boardroom table. The CXO can also help their business and its clients to reassess their current communications strategies by looking at the role of traditional advertising platforms, such as TV, and ensuring they work effectively as part of the broader communications ecosystem. They need to have their fingers on the pulse of changing consumer needs, too. In the current landscape, brands will need to focus on blending the digital and physical worlds and monitor campaigns in real-time to drive meaningful engagement. A CXO can unite and lead the charge towards experience centricity, but it’s a tenet that each and every department and employee needs to embrace and fulfil eventually. As we look forward, CXOs can support marketers to build experiences that creatively engage with customers, or to ensure the business is synced up and to leverage actionable data and insights for their campaigns. Experience is not just customer experience As scaled businesses engage with both customers and society as a whole, organisations that are designed through experience are holding employee experience as a new benchmark of success. This is about both the day-to-day of engaging with our job roles, but also about fundamental attitudes to inclusivity, diversity, and authenticity in the workplace. I believe the next measure of successful companies will be employee experience. Organisations like Glassdoor and benchmarks like The Sunday Times’ ‘100 Best Companies To Work For’ represent the beginning of this shift. However, as technology demands we spend more time thinking about work and engaging with our colleagues, how employees feel about the brands they build will be the emergent lens of success.
Tips for creating better briefs By Warc Staff
HOLLYWOOD, FL: Marketers hoping for stronger creative work must look beyond a reliance on templates when crafting briefs, and instead make this process a truly collaborative exercise with their agencies. Debra Giampoli, co-founder/partner at Stone Soup Consultants LLC, discussed this subject at the Association of National Advertisers’ (ANA) 2018 Advertising Financial Management Conference. “Start with a template, but don’t end with the template,” she recommended when outlining how to develop a powerful brief. (For more, read WARC’s in-depth report: Memo to marketers: How to write a great creative brief.) Building on this theme, she argued that marketers “have an intuitive sense” about the brands they lead, which is vital as a starting point. “Find the right direction and then sit in a room with your planners and bounce ideas around,” Giampoli said. Planners, she continued, have the capacity to “look at data and look at words on a page and make magic happen from those words and numbers” in a way that strengthens ideas and brings them to life. “Once that collaboration happens, then you’re ready to brief
the creative teams,” Giampoli said. “Plan the party – the briefing experience for the agency creatives.” Rather than a full-on session with creatives, it can be preferable to begin this phase informally. “Send them the white paper and then take them out for coffee to talk about it. Learn from them and teach them at the same time,” said Giampoli. “Make it an experience, not just filling out a template or writing an assignment and sending it to the agency. Deliver the brief to the creative team in the form of a ‘briefing experience’.” Giampoli relayed a telling illustration from Gatorade, the sports drink, which called upon creative teams to hit the basketball court so they could feel the dehydration that follows from such athletic exertion. “The more you can do that – the more you can help your creative team walk a mile in the shoes of the consumer – the more effective the work will be,” she said. “A great brief is a roadmap and a catalyst for creativity. Creativity is deeply personal. [A brand] has to do more than just inform a creative team; it has to be a catalyst for great work.”
How to Get Voters Off the Fence? With a Soft Touch By Wharton Staff
If you want to move a chair, just push it in the direction
“When you push people, they don’t just go along, they push
you want it to go. If you try that approach with people —
back,” Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger said.
particularly voters — it probably won’t work so well.
“They think about all of the reasons why they don’t want to
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do what you’re suggesting, and sometimes they do the exact opposite.”
them to be. Breaking down the divide into smaller steps makes it easier for people to navigate.
That’s why the most successful change agents — whether marketers, politicians or moms — know that they cannot accomplish their goals through brute force. Instead, they must be catalysts who pull down barriers, smooth out friction and find more subtle ways of bringing people on the fringes closer to the middle — exactly where they want them to be.
Berger likens it to a “football field of beliefs,” with Democrats in one end zone and Republicans in the other. Research shows there’s a range of information that people are willing to consider. Ask them to move 50 yards in the opposite direction, and they will reject it out of hand. The “zone of acceptance” is a scant five to 10 yards.
Berger reveals the techniques of powerful persuasion in his book, The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind, which was published earlier this year. It’s based on interviews with business leaders, salespeople, health care professionals, hostage negotiators and others whose jobs often require a softer touch to get their targets to engage in — or disengage from — certain kinds of behaviors and actions. Berger calls them catalysts, a term he borrowed from the field of chemistry, because they have the substance to facilitate change.
“We need to take big change and break it down into smaller chunks … and find a moveable middle,” Berger said. “Asking people to do something completely different from where they are at the moment isn’t going to work. We’ve got to move them in the right direction, by five yards at a time, eventually getting to 50, rather than chucking a Hail Mary pass and hoping that it works.”
“We’ve all had experiences trying to change someone’s mind. Whether it’s our boss’ mind at the office or our colleague’s mind. Whether it’s a customer or client’s mind. Whether it’s our spouse or our child’s mind. And we all know it often doesn’t work,” Berger said during an interview with the Wharton Business Daily radio show on SiriusXM. (Listen to the podcast at the top of this page.) “Part of the reason it doesn’t work is we tend to default to the same approach, which is some version of pushing. We think if we just provide more facts, more reasons, more information, people will come around,” he said.
“When you push people, they don’t just go along, they push back.” The topic is especially relevant during this tension-filled political season. With mere weeks until the presidential election, polls show the pool of undecided voters is so small that a Washington Post columnist described those fence-sitters as “imaginary.” Yet President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden are still working hard to get them off the fence. Bridging the Distance Berger noted that a colleague of his had done a study that asked Democrats and Republicans to follow members of the opposite parties on Twitter for a period of time. The hypothesis was that being exposed to opposing arguments and information may persuade people to think differently. The result, however, was that they became even more entrenched in their views. The problem, Berger said, is a barrier called “distance,” which he explores in his book. Essentially, when you ask people to agree with something that is too far removed from what they believe, they will ignore you. One way to sway undecided voters, Berger said, is to close the gap between where they are and where candidates want
Smart marketers implement this principle when they want consumers to accept changes or replacements to a beloved item. Rather than overhaul the design all at once, they fiddle and tweak and revise until consumers are all in.
“Asking people to do something completely different from where they are at the moment isn’t going to work.” “What great designers do is they chuck in little [stepping] stones along the way,” Berger said. “Now you can hop to one version of the product, and hop to the next version, and hop to the next version, and eventually get to the product they wanted to move you to. It takes a little bit more time, but it makes big change much more likely. Because if we ask for too much, people completely disregard the message.” Making Use of Data Politicians and other catalysts today have a distinct advantage over change agents of the past: access to digital data. Information that was unimaginable 10 or 15 years ago is collected in a keystroke and available to those who want to leverage it. That’s been done with demonstrable results by political campaigns from Brexit to Barack Obama. “Now, we have amazing troves of digital data that give us a good sense about how a wide range of people feel,” Berger said. “Not only do we know who they are and what they’re interested in and how they feel, but we can send them different messages depending on where they are currently.” But he cautioned that the information harvested from big data must be applied correctly in the pursuit of change. Extract the insight, really listen to the audience and sharply target the message, he said. “We can’t change everyone’s mind, but we can certainly move a lot of people in the right direction and get some people that might be right around that 50-yard line to switch to our side,” he said.
How TikTok won the mobile video wars by breaking all the rules By Christopher Zara
In just two years, TikTok went from being a niche app where teenagers post videos of themselves lip-synching and dancing to one of the most dominant cultural forces in the country. In the first nine months of this year, the mobile app was downloaded by more than 64 million first-time U.S. users, according to Sensor Tower, double the number from the same period last year. You don’t get to that level of saturation without breaking a few rules, and TikTok succeeded in part because it took an existing space—mobile video—and brought something entirely new to it, says Katie Puris, TikTok’s managing director and global head of business marketing. “Simply put, it’s full-screen, sound-on video,” Puris said at the Fast Company Innovation Festival on Friday. “That hasn’t existed before for mobile, where people experience an app in sound-on and where the experience that people get—from a user piece of content to a brand piece of content—looks and feels exactly the same.” In a virtual panel discussion as part of the festival’s closing day, Puris was joined by Chris Denson, host of the Innovation Crush podcast and the author of Crushing the Box: 10 Essential Rules for Breaking Essential Rules. Not surprisingly, Denson also had thoughts about how TikTok is breaking rules. “For one thing, there’s no central content theme,” Denson told Fast Company deputy editor David Lidsky. “I think most platforms will say, you know, ‘We are for X.’ . . . With TikTok it’s, ‘We just want to give you a break.’ There’s something about giving people a break.” He added that TikTok was able to improve upon the user experience offered by short-form video platforms that came before it—Vine is the most obvious comparison—but he said that one big element of TikTok’s success is probably just good timing. “Not that that’s a ‘rule’ of sorts, but I think there’s a time and a place when the cultural appetite steps up and is
ready for an invention or product or service.” WHAT HAPPENS NOW? Ironically, the discussion about TikTok’s rule-breaking comes as “rules” (so to speak) are threatening its very existence. The video-sharing app, whose popularity soared to new heights during the pandemic as people in lockdown sought ways to keep themselves entertained, has been on a roller-coaster ride of uncertainty over its future ownership structure. Privacy advocates have long expressed concern about TikTok’s user data falling into the hands of its China-based owner, ByteDance, and earlier this year, the Trump administration threatened to ban TikTok from U.S. app stores if it didn’t sell parts of its business to an American company. Oracle and Walmart agreed to take a stake, but the deal has been tangled up in red tape. Needless to say, there’s a lot riding on how this drama plays out—not just for users, but for marketers and brands as well, which are increasingly eager to embrace the nascent video platform as a way of reaching its vaunted base of Gen Z users. (TikTok introduced its U.S. marketing platform, TikTok for Business, less than four months ago.) During the panel discussion, Puris had lots of advice for brands experimenting with ways to succeed on TikTok. As one recent success story, she cited Ocean Spray, which capitalized on a recent viral video featuring an Idaho man lip-synching to Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” while enjoying one of its products. Ocean Spray responded by giving the video’s creator a truck full of his favorite flavored juice—and earning the kind of positive headlines no amount of advertising can buy. It’s the kind of organic interaction that Puris says TikTok was made for. “We say to brands, ‘Don’t make ads, make TikToks,’” she added. “What we mean by that is to show up in a way that the community shows up, to come and be yourself, to take some chances and potentially take some risks.”
The evolution of the virtual influencer: no longer just a trend
By Madeleine Mak
As CGI technologies cheapen and influencer marketing budgets increase, Madeleine Mak, a client development executive for APAC at GroupM’s Inca, says the industry can expect the available categories and sizes of virtual influencers to diversify. It-girl Lil Miquela, or Miquela Sousa, has changed the game. Entering the scene in 2016, Miquela has since amassed over 2.5 million Instagram followers and released 15 Spotify singles. The face of Prada and Samsung campaigns, Miquela has also starred alongside supermodel Bella Hadid for Calvin Klein. You may be wondering, what makes Miquela so special? Multi-talented, edgy, and outspoken, more intriguingly, Miquela is not real. In fact, she is just one of many virtual influencers that continue to make waves on social media. Defined as AI-generated digital personas, virtual influencers have been shown to be three times more engaging than human influencers. A product of innovative AI companies and bold independent artists, much discussion around virtual influencers question what makes them so fascinating to us digital audiences. Whether they serve as forms of cultural commentary or uniquely challenge our perceptions of fantasy and reality, it is clear that brands are catching on, and they are catching on fast. Fashion brands were the first to embrace this virtual influencer trend. For its fall 2018 collection, French luxury fashion house Balmain featured three virtual models as part of its ’Balmain Army’. Earlier this year, Puma partnered with virtual influencer Maya as its South East Asia brand ambassador. Brands across a broader range of verticals are now following suit. In 2019 for example, popular fast-food chain KFC created a virtual Colonel Sanders who engaged with other famous virtual influencers across its social channels. The World Health Organization (WHO) also partnered with health and wellness virtual influencer Knox Frost to promote social distancing practices amid the global Covid-19 pandemic. Apart from the novelty, what else allures brands to the virtual influencer? Unlike real influencers, every aspect of a virtual influencer’s creative and copy is controlled and intentionally produced by its creators. This guarantees a heightened level of brand safety in an industry at-risk of influencer PR scandals and unprofessionalism. Similarly, using virtual influencers may be cost-effective. This is especially pertinent to brands in tourism and hospitality who usually incur additional costs to execute influencer campaigns. As CGI technologies cheapen and influencer marketing budgets increase, we expect the available categories and
sizes of virtual influencers to diversify. Compared to the industry average engagement rate benchmark of 0.7%, Lil Miquela has an impressive 2.7%. The potential for niche virtual nano- and micro-influencers is exciting. We can also expect movement towards more dynamic, real-time virtual influencers. Currently, a majority are CGI, restricting audience engagement to static social posts or video. As AI technology such as robotics develop, virtual influencers will be able to break the third wall and engage in live Q&As and events. This will elevate and refreshen the possibilities for brands to engage with target audiences. At the forefront of these innovations is Inca, GroupM’s brand-safe influencer marketing solution, who announced its partnership with Sophia, the world’s most advanced humanlike robot on 26 August 2020. Created by Hanson Robotics, an AI and robotics company dedicated to creating socially intelligent machines and enriching lives, Sophia is a celebrity and disruptor capable of generating facial expressions, mirroring people’s postures, and discerning emotions from tone of voice. While she has worked with multinational brands in the past, Sophia’s first-ever ambassadorship with an agency is groundbreaking for marketers, brands, and the AI industry alike. Inca’s partnership with Sophia showcases how the use of technology can bridge human connections with brands. With Inca’s AI solution for data-powered influencer selection and content creation, the partnership will intuitively match Sophia with brands to create unique and engaging bite-sized content to connect with brand audiences across various social media platforms. “While we see changes in how consumers are influenced by multiple sources, we are confident that this is the right time to introduce a new influencer into our network that exemplifies humanity as well as the technological achievements of our time. As we collaborate with Sophia, we are in awe of how technology can showcase the marvels of artificial intelligence (AI) in a humanoid form,” Atique Kazi, Inca APAC Lead said. Virtual influencers are an evolving and greatly untapped opportunity for both brands and marketers to innovatively engage and stir up conversation within digital audiences. Clearly, virtual influencers are not just a trend.
EVERY LIT TLE THING EVERY LIT TLE THING IS EVERY THING. EVERY LIT TLE THING IS EVERY THING. IS EVERY THING.
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The new XPS 13. Call a Dell Technologies Advisor at 855-341-5261 or learn more at The new XPS 13. Dell.com/SB/XPS Call Dell XPS Technologies Advisor at 855-341-5261 or learn more at Theanew 13. Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Copyright © 2019 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. Dell.com/SB/XPS Call Dell Dell Technologies Advisor attrademarks 855-341-5261 more at All Rightsa Reserved. Technologies, Dell, EMC, Dell EMC and other are trademarks of Dellor Inc. learn or its subsidiaries. 347260 Dell.com/SB/XPS Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Copyright © 2019 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. Dell Technologies, Dell, EMC, Dell EMC and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. 347260 Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Copyright © 2019 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. Dell Technologies, Dell, EMC, Dell EMC and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. 347260
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How Real Is The Marketing Skills Gap? By Nanette Kirsch
The ANA Educational Foundation (AEF) recently published a report on marketing talent, suggesting that the profession suffers from a skills gap when it comes to data and analytics. As Marketing Dive reported, “Students pursuing careers in marketing lack a sturdy mathematical background that could help them better analyze and interpret the troves of consumer data companies are now putting a premium on.” At Keen, we see it a bit differently. As a company that offers predictive marketing analytics solutions, it’s our experience that the gap is less about technical skills and more about critical-thinking skills. The core responsibility of marketers is to attract and retain customers. This demands a forward focus that benefits from the visionary, creative and innovative mindsets that are hallmarks of marketers. The increasing access to data creates opportunities for marketers to generate and validate their future-focused
strategy through data-driven insights. But this doesn’t require a data science degree or even a strong mathematical orientation; it requires a pragmatic approach and strong critical-thinking skills in order to adroitly identify the boldest and most compelling strategies to drive business growth. Without the right data, however, those bold decisions can mean too much risk for the business and become careerlimiting for the marketer. The growth in digital media over the last decade has compounded the volume of marketing data available. And in 2019, businesses increased their spending by 9.2% for research and intelligence, according to the CMO Survey. So how can marketers most efficiently and effectively put that data to work? If you give your data scientists a large data set, they’ll happily dive in and pull out a wide array of fascinating findings. But too often, they lack the context to ensure their insights are relevant to the business decisions at hand, or
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relatable to other findings that, together, can provide useful guidance. In this paradigm, marketers are tasked with finding value in the insights made available to them. I don’t believe this problem is solved by asking marketers to become data scientists. Rather, I believe it’s time to invert the paradigm and put the proverbial horse, in this case, the business decision, before that cart chock-full of marketing data. In this framework, marketers’ highest value comes from challenging the strategies available to achieve their growth goals and then deploying data experts and analytics technologies to deliver insights in service of those goals. And then, seek to continuously refine and optimize their strategy as new data becomes available. The emergence of analytics technologies can accelerate the utility and accessibility of data for this type of decision support.
extract to your framework. If it doesn’t inform that framework, it is not useful to your decision-making. 3. Test and refine. In today’s market, it is easier to make short-term decisions. When possible, especially if the data has sent you in a new direction, conduct a short-term test. Gather live data that, again, supports your frame; reassess and either refine or redirect as a result. 4. Be bold. As a marketer, your responsibility is to drive value for your business. Real value doesn’t come from weak-kneed decisions. It comes from well-informed and well-reasoned decisions that take calculated risks to break from the pack and make a big impact. With a stronger, data-driven framework behind you, you’ll have the insights and confidence to make those moves.
Here are the steps a data-driven marketer should take to make the best decision:
In the ANA Educational Foundation report’s executive summary, Ed Timke, an instructor at Duke University, frames it like this: “When working with data, it’s important to ask really good questions. It might start off with one question and then evolve. One shouldn’t take the initial question at face value, though. Instead, one should interrogate it and push to understand the dimensions of that particular problem.”
1. Frame the decision. Your framework should articulate the choice, as well as the determining factor(s). Is your primary goal to drive more revenue or greater household penetration?
The report also states, “Data can play a crucial role to make key business decisions. The data itself doesn’t make that decision. People ultimately make those decisions.”
2. Pursue data that supports your decision. If you have analytics resources on your team, share your framework and ask them to provide data you can use to help guide your decision. If you have to do the legwork on your own, be cautious not to get lost in the data, and tether the data you
Nanette is vice president of marketing with Keen Decision Systems, a software-as-a-service company that helps marketers measure and forecast the financial return on their marketing investments. Keen serves such leading brands as Post, Nathan’s Famous, Arm & Hammer, among others.
Every day, marketers are making decisions: How much do I invest in marketing and where? Should I launch this new product? Which campaign should I produce?
Why advertisers are leaning into digital publishing strategies By Wharton Staff
The world of digital advertising is undergoing a paradigm shift. Even before Google pulls the final plug on third-party cookies in 2022, brands will be challenged to rethink their targeting and ad strategies. The demise of third-party cookies promises to accelerate the decline of third-party data, and brands will require more direct data solutions to ensure return on investment and maximize the impact of their advertising spend. Enter first-party and zero-party data — fully consented data types that users provide directly to brands, often through their on-site actions. First-party and zero-party data have always been part of most brands’ advertising efforts, but they’re about to play a starring role as the foundation of their entire strategy. While change is always difficult, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. First- and zero-party are more reliable than third-party data. And, since the data is provided by people who really want to interact with the brand, it’s a more reliable way to interact with individuals who are receptive to advertising and likely to become customers. Moreover, since both first- and zero-party data are provided voluntarily, they’re built on a foundation of privacy and consent that users and lawmakers increasingly demand. But to be successful, most brands will need to expand their stores of each data type. The state of direct brand engagement In July and August, 2020, Digiday surveyed 111 advertisers,
representing 71 different brands and 40 agencies, to understand what brands were doing to prepare for a cookieless world. This research offers a snapshot of an advertising industry that is dramatically increasing its reliance on first- and zero-party data as a direct result of cookie deprecation. The study revealed that 50 percent of marketers expect to be more reliant on first-party data in the coming year, and 49 percent will use more zero-party data. And they plan to draw on a familiar set direct engagement tactics to do so — those that have been honed by successful digital publishers. The question is, are they making this transition quickly enough to be ready for 2022? Direct brand engagement is emerging as a key strategy Publishers have long understood that direct engagement is the key to increasing user investment. The more engaged in a brand’s site a user proves, the more often they’ll visit. And it’s these highly engaged users who are most likely to convert into paying subscribers, sign up for newsletters or share data on a registration page. But first, they need to see value in those exchanges, whether through access to premium content, expanded site features or some other tangible benefit. Creating value exchanges to inspire users to become more invested in the site has enabled publishers to collect both first and zero-party data. In turn, they’ve been able to further personalize their user experiences, directly engage with their
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audience and provide critical data points to their advertisers to help them better target ads. The survey results show that most brands are now embracing many of the tactics that digital publishers use to collect this crucial data. Email, already a powerful tool for brands, has become their medium of choice for new approaches. The study found that 55 percent are using surveys and questionnaires to gather customer data, and 50 percent are employing newsletter sign-ups. However, they’re also exploring subscription offers (used by 29 percent of respondents), registrations (28 percent) and gated access to site features (20 percent). When asked what they’ll be using a year from now, subscription offerings increase by 30 percent and registrations by 17 percent. How they’re using all this data is equally notable. While direct ad targeting and broader segmentation continue to top the list of widely used data-driven tactics, 37 percent of those surveyed also plan to engage in direct one-to-one interactions with their customers. Waiting for change will leave some brands behind the curve The results show that brands are seeking out new tactics in the face of change. However, they also suggest that brands are moving slowly when it comes to making the big shift away from third-party data. They’re comfortable taking a wait-and-see approach, convinced they’ll have plenty of time to adapt away from their third-party data strategies when the time comes.
Among the survey respondents, 44 percent plan to start their post-third-party cookie planning in two years or less, putting them on the cusp of Google’s 2022 timeline. Meanwhile, 44 percent expect the transition to take up to three years — meaning they’re at risk of missing the deadline completely. And 78 percent don’t see any reason to hurry, assuming that they’ll be able to adapt to other data types quickly and easily at a later date. In truth, late adopters are behind the curve from a strategic perspective. Experts, including multiple members of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3), have noted that advertisers, ad tech companies, browsers and publishers are simply taking too long to prepare for the end of third-party cookies. Much like the sluggish response to GDPR, this leisurely approach risks putting many businesses in the hot seat at a moment when they’re ill-equipped to swiftly adapt. There’s no reason to wait. By virtue of being more clearly sourced, first- and zero-party data is actually a better alternative than third-party data, opening up the ability to target users more precisely. Still, there is a learning curve to building a strategy that revolves around direct engagement. Of those surveyed, 52 percent reported that the difficulty of creating content that appeals to their audience was a roadblock to improving direct engagement. Getting a head start now will give brands the time to test what works for their audiences, and what doesn’t. Digital publishers have spent decades perfecting the tactics they use to build direct engagement. Brands have less than two years to do the same.
Book,
&
Line Power vs. Force
By David R. Hawkins M.D. Ph.D The universe holds its breath as we choose, instant by instant, which pathway to follow; for the universe, the very essence of life itself, is highly conscious. Every act, thought, and choice adds to a permanent mosaic; our decisions ripple through the universe of consciousness to affect the lives of all.— from Power vs. Force
Instagram Power, Second Edition: Build Your Brand and Reach More Customers with Visual Influence By Jason Miles While other social sites are declining in popularity, Instagram is hotter than ever―and shows no signs of cooling off any time soon. With more features and marketing capabilities than ever, Instagram is a channel that smart marketers can’t afford to avoid.
Sinker The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customers, Make More Money, And Stand out From The Crowd By Allan Dib
To build a successful business, you need to stop doing random acts of marketing and start following a reliable plan for rapid business growth. Traditionally, creating a marketing plan has been a difficult and time-consuming process, which is why it often doesn’t get done.
Influencer: Building Your Personal Brand in the Age of Social Media by Brittany Hennessy Every one of your favorite influencers started with zero followers and had to make a lot of mistakes to get where they are today—earning more money each year than their parents made in the last decade. But to become a top creator, you need to understand the strategies behind the Insta-ready lifestyle . . .
Build Your Brand Mania: How to Transform Yourself Into an Authoritative Brand That Will Attract Your Ideal Customers
Influencer Fast Track: From Zero to Influencer in the next 6 Months!:
By David Meerman Scott
YOU = INFLUENCER!! - Have a passion project you want to share with world? - Something amazing you always wanted to do, but don’t know how to reach an audience?
In this book, Matt Bertram reveals tactics and strategies to quickly build authority and create “trusted advisor status” in your market to dramatically gain mindshare with your prospects as well as increase your web presence...
Book of Branding: a guide to creating brand identity for startups and beyond Paperback – Illustrated, 11 November 2019 By Radim Malinic Book of Branding is a creative guide for new businesses, start-ups and individuals, which puts visual identity at the heart of brand strategy. The conversational, jargon free, tone of the book helps the reader to understand essential elements of the brand identity process.
By Gundi Gabrielle, SassyZenGirl
Design is Storytelling Paperback – 16 November 2017 By Ellen Lupton A playbook for creative thinking, created for contemporary students and practitioners working across the fields of graphic design, product design, service design and user experience. Design is Storytelling is a guide to thinking and making created for contemporary students and practitioners working across the fields of graphic design, product design, service design, and user experience.
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Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior By David Meerman Scott Without our realizing it, other people’s behavior has a huge influence on everything we do at every moment of our lives, from the mundane to the momentous. Even strangers have an impact on our judgments and decisions: our attitudes toward a welfare policy shift if we’re told it is supported by Democrats versus Republicans (even though the policy is the same).
The 1% Rule: How to Fall in Love with the Process and Achieve Your Wildest Dreams By Tommy Baker
Enter The 1% Rule — a daily system designed to help you close the gap without the crushing pressure that leads most people less inspired, and more stuck.
Conscious Capitalism, With a New Preface by the Authors: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business By John Mackey Whole Foods Market cofounder John Mackey and professor and Conscious Capitalism, Inc. cofounder Raj Sisodia argue that both business and capitalism are inherently good, and they use some of today’s best-known and most successful companies to illustrate their point.
Three Magic Words: The Key to Power, Peace and Plenty By U. S. Andersen Three Magic Words is a ground-breaking book about the greatest idea in the world-a secret revealed in just three words-an idea so simple, so startling, so wonderful that it can start you on an adventure that will forever change the way you see yourself, others, and life. Knowing the secret opens up a whole new world of contentment, fulfillment, joy and abundance.
Hello, My Name Is Awesome: How to Create Brand Names That Stick Paperback – September 15, 2014
Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands 1st Edition
by Alexandra Watkins Every year, 6 million companies and more than 100,000 products are launched. They all need an awesome name, but many (such as Xobni, Svbtle, and Doostang) look like the results of a drunken Scrabble game.
“When everybody zigs, zag,” says Marty Neumeier in this fresh view of brand strategy. ZAG follows the ultra-clear “whiteboard overview” style of the author’s first book, THE BRAND GAP, but drills deeper into the question of how brands can harness the power of differentiation.
Creative Strategy and the Business of Design Paperback – June 14, 2016
Logo Modernism (English, French and German Edition) (German) Hardcover – September 3, 2019
By Douglas Davis
By Jens Müller, R. Roger Remington
Remaining relevant as a creative professional takes more than creativity--you need to understand the language of business. The problem is that design school doesn’t teach the strategic language that is now essential to getting your job done.
Modernist aesthetics in architecture, art, and product design are familiar to many. we recognize a time of vast technological advance which affirmed the power of human beings to reshape their environment and to break, radically, from the conventions or constraints of the past. Less wellknown, but no less fascinating, is the distillation of modernism in graphic design.
By Marty Neumeier