We all know people use brands as a shortcut to decision-making. That doesn’t mean everyone makes decisions in the same way though.
Knowing why people say, think and feel what they do about your brand matters. It unmasks how people make their decision.
Knowing the why lets brands talk to people in a meaningful way. In a world where we have so many choices, that can be the difference between marketing success and failure.
When talking to a client earlier this week, she was explaining that part of her preparation for a company three-day training course (yes, it does sound more like military manoeuvres!) is to come armed with the story of who her two most inspirational figures are and why.
One of her heroes is punk pioneer, poet and creative powerhouse, Patti Smith. And it is easy to see why, Patti once observed memorably: “Make your interactions with people transformational, not just transactional.” Guess we have to add customer engagement expert to her boundless talent.
Why are so many brands attaching themselves to the latest worthy cause or issue in the hope that we think better of them by association, rather than selling themselves on any worthwhile brand benefits?
This became very apparent when judging the Direct category at the recent eurobest awards.
Read the full article, ‘Has social responsible marketing gone too far?’ by Soul’s Creative Director, Shaun Moran, in The Drum.
Big data is beguiling, it shows us wonderful patterns of behaviour. We can see any number of correlations but we mustn’t let ourselves be seduced by these patterns and led down the wrong path. Correlation is not causation.
For those who wish to use communications to influence people’s decision making, the question to ask is why do those big data patterns exist. Knowing why people behave in a certain way is the essence of an effective communication strategy.
Integrated campaigns blend three ingredients: brand, advertising and targeted communications.
Brands help people choose. They are the shorthand for what a company offers that take people from their muddled present to a resolved future. Advertising’s job is to make that resolved future a unifying and desirable one. Targeted communications help people out of their muddled present. They do this by understanding why people think, feel and say as they do and then reframing the brand to help people through their decision making.
An integrated campaign then is one that leverages a brand to take people to the same resolved future by addressing people’s different muddled present.
Oscar Wilde once said an idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all. When everyone was riding a horse the railway seemed radical and dangerous. And like all good ideas, in retrospect, the railway is such an obvious and good idea it’s strange to think it was ever feared. The power of ideas is that they challenge the norm. And it is only through challenging convention that we move things on.
George Bernard Shaw once observed that Britain and America are divided by a common language. And every year so is the creative community. It’s awards season and with it comes the perennial debate of ‘is that advertising or is it direct?’
In the past, media channel made the distinction a ready one. In today’s blurred communication world it’s better to answer the question by thinking about purpose over channel. Brands have two purposes; to create desire and to create action. Advertising awards should be given to that which build desire, whilst direct awards are reserved for that which deliver action.
With so much talk about AI, machine learning, bots et al, it’s easy to forget what the essence of marketing communication is. Erwin Schrödinger, the Nobel Prize winning physicist, put it wonderfully. “The task is…not so much to see what no one has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees.”
It will be a long time before machines have such an ability to reframe like humans.
Guess it wouldn’t be New Year without a resolution. Here’s one then for all communications’ people.
Let’s resolve to take assumption out of customer understanding. Let’s not think we know what our audience think of us. Let’s find out. Let’s walk in their shoes and see how they see us. Let’s use that understanding to drive-out assumption. Let this be a year for improving our creativity and communication effectiveness by knowing our audience better.
