It’s a scary time for brands.
Regardless of their sector, scale and history, brands need to learn how to engage the human beings (I hate the term target audience) that interact with their services and products on a one-on-one basis.
When I see a new product or an ad I often ask myself: ‘how is this relevant to me and my lifestyle?’ and I love it when a brand has already thought of the answer.
An answer that makes me engage with the brand or the product and try it for myself. I then share my experience, be it positive or negative, with my network.
This is not a huge departure from consumer behavior POV through the ages, as most of us are happy to share our insights and experiences around the water cooler at the office, or at a dinner party with friends.
The difference now of course, is it’s possible to immediately share our brand experience with a multitude of people around the social ‘water cooler’ often with proof point pics and vids.
This is the scary part for brands: real-time conversations about their products and services over which they have zero control. The only way to influence such conversations is to have a watertight engagement strategy (one that is considered, targeted and most importantly, relevant), and carefully designing the experience at every touch point, upfront.
Times have changed. In a curious twist we have become more connected, yet more independent through the use of technology. We are more informed due to incredible research tools available today, yet we can rely on the advice of those who we trust most if need be – our connected networks of trusted influencers.
As consumers, we expect brands to come up with new ways of servicing us as individuals and to innovate as quickly as we adapt to new technology or new ways to do things. And we don’t care about the fact that this is almost impossible for multi-billion dollar, multi-national, multi-cultural and multi-faceted corporations. Nor should we. It’s time for brands to change from a ‘spray and pray’ approach to become ‘snipers’ – for the lack of a better word – when it comes to hitting their targets. No brand is doing it right, and the one that figures it out will own the future of marketing.
I believe there are two ways brands can take control of this situation.
The first is to rethink media strategies and budget allocations. Brands should stop buying media in bulk to get a better deal and more exposure for their budgets, before they have a solid engagement strategy. This potentially leads to one of the biggest challenges for creative agencies: retro-fitting a strategic approach and creative ideas to media plans.
They need to slow down, identify the real business problem first and solve it, set the engagement strategy and utilise the right media channels (owned, earned or bought) to engage. This requires an end-to-end, holistic approach whereby creative, strategy, production and media are aligned with the client on the brief from day one. One of the most brilliant examples is Audi’s ‘Art of the Heist’ to launch the A3 model What made this ‘interactive spy movie’ even more amazing is that it was done in 2005! Audi could have gone down the safe path and booked a load of traditional media and done what every other brand was, and is still doing to launch their product: make an ad!
The second is communications versus utilities. How do brands make my life easier, or enable and empower me to live my life to its full potential? Sometimes the answer to that question is giving people a platform or a utility that can be customised to their individual needs, rather than a product that is mass-produced for all.
Case in point, the personal fitness category. Nike Fuel Band, or the Fitbit Flex are great products, but without their backend platforms (the apps, exercise plans, food and nutrition guides…) that enable users to set goals and capture real-time data in order to customise their fitness routines to for their individual needs, they are nothing but a couple of fancy pedometers. This is the perfect example of great products coupled with great services to provide the ideal platform for users to remain engaged with the brands in the most relevant way: Their way!
None of this will be easy, but the rewards are potentially enormous.
Amir Mireskandari
M&C Saatchi
Group Operations Director
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