Internet enables strategic shift to networks of influence

Forever and a day, brand and retail marketing centered on identifying key user targets, parsing user cohorts and unearthing insights to define their respective habits, preferences, passions, interests and behaviors. The goal – to refine brand relevance; make media decisions based on their demographics and psychographics; and craft creative messaging to reach these individuals.

But the world has changed (again) and now the path to consumer engagement must be calculated in the context of how and where people participate in communities that help them filter, read, decide and buy.

More than at any other time in modern marketing, products are more susceptible to trends than individual preferences. What do we now know? People are social creatures. The digital world we all live in enables and caters to their collective passions whether that be health and wellness, cooking creativity, love of wine and spirits, fashionable-ness or nurturing a pet-oriented lifestyle.

Communities form and prosper around shared interests.

The wisdom of a curated community

Neuroscience now helps us understand that behaviors are impacted by trends and popularity in user communities. People see community recognition and acceptance as validation that a product or a TV show must be good because ‘everybody’ is using or watching it. Call it fear of missing out or confidence in community consensus.

• Old way of thinking: to scale your business go wide, cast a broad net and employ mass media as much as possible.

• New way of thinking: look for networks of influence and go narrow to micro-communities that cater to niche tastes and shared values.

The Internet has operated as an endless digital enabler of nichemanship. Yet many brands remain wed to strategies focused on individuals and amassing eyeballs more so than immersion into the smaller communities where people participate and ‘belong.’

Questions you should be asking

In which communities do your users belong and participate?

Who are the sources of influence and prominent voices in that network?

What trends and interests are actively supported in the community?

How can you best enable users to contribute to the community?

It’s important to take note of shared tastes and values in these settings and to employ that insight in your messaging and outreach strategies.

What are your customers’ embedded interests? What issues, activities, hobbies do they care about and invest their time? If users have a specific interest area that lights their fire, chances are they belong to a community that focuses on it. People participate in influence networks that inform and feed their passions.

Look for the ‘religion’

Some might agree love of whiskey is a religion. There are beliefs and values associated with distilling traditions, still design, ingredients, casks and aging. There’s unique nomenclature and perceptions of what constitutes a good, better or best product. There are lifestyle associations, groups, communities, events and narrowcast media. There are also expert voices and sources of influence on what matters and new developments in product innovation.

For a brand there is more to be gained by studying the networks of influence than blind devotion to detailed persona descriptions of individual whiskey heavy users. Trends can drive leaps in market share, so it’s important to operate as a disciple in the community, embrace the religion of shared beliefs and identify the influence networks within them.

This concept of category religion can be applied in any number of high-engagement businesses where a fan base of ambassadors and evangelists reside.

The role of experts in outreach

Building credibility and trust are paramount these days. Deployment of subject matter experts, be they credentialed or citizen, matters greatly in verifying trends and authenticating community beliefs. When the brand sees its role as enabler, coach and guide to its users rather than product seller, deploying expert engagement in social channels can feed participation, conversation and sharing.

The foundation: your brand Higher Purpose

It is easier to anchor marketing in communities of shared values and beliefs when the brand ‘soul’ is well developed around a purpose that transcends commerce and self-promotion. If you want people to join your community as believers, then you have to give them something in which to believe.

Sadly more often than not, the brand’s ability to position itself in influence networks and community is diluted by operating in the ’three miles wide and a half inch deep‘ mode of transactional behavior. Purpose imbues your brand with a more meaningful voice and greater resonance because the community sees you are wearing your values like a well-tailored suit. 

Hard work ahead

Identifying and understanding networks of influence requires more study and asking different questions during insight research.  Conversation within these communities based on trends and values will help build brand relevance and value among those who care the most. Those are your best customers who over time will deliver greater volume and profit than the less loyal, less engaged users who come and go on deal.

If you think fresh thinking and guidance on influence strategies would benefit your marketing plans, use this link to start an informal conversation

Looking for more food for thought? Subscribe to the Emerging Trends Report.

Why are brands getting it wrong more often than right?

Brand Higher Purpose is a vital strategic concept that will inform the success of modern relevant and growing businesses. Surprisingly, we discover it is frequently misappropriated or left unattended. Why? Brands can be held captive by strategies handcuffed to transactional thinking that intentionally or not, views consumers as merely walking wallets. This, however, occurs at a time when brand trust is at an all-time low. Facts are, the dynamic of how consumers relate to brands has moved on to a more enlightened relationship-based approach founded on reciprocity and mutual self-interest. Yet many brands are still operating on CPG marketing principles that are 30 years old.

What is Higher Purpose exactly and how do you deploy it to build your brand and business? We unpack the DNA of Higher Purpose best practices here.

The Foundation of Higher Purpose

Cultural changes are among the most important bellwether conditions brands must constantly study to remain vital and resonant to users. It’s why the Emerging Trends Report exists. Yet this important cultural sea change impacting food, beverage, lifestyle and related retail categories has languished in a backwater of misinterpretation. While Higher Purpose is a priority marketing asset, it is an all-too frequently underleveraged strategy.

The current era of purpose-built branding was presaged in a 2017 landmark study on food and beverage purchase behaviors authored by Deloitte Consulting and the Food Marketing Institute (rebranded now as Food Industry Association). Their report quantified and qualified what Emergent was already reporting: a seismic shift in consumer preferences and behaviors on the path to purchase. For decades, taste, price and convenience were the dominant consumer purchase motivators for food and beverage brands. This condition helped perpetuate the magnetic hold of large cap legacy brands that were inherently terrific at consistency and mass media awareness-building over time.

As issues and values began to hold sway over consumer preferences, we saw these new attributes surpass the historic patterns of buying motivation. The Deloitte/FMI study revealed that transparency, health and wellness, food safety, sustainability and visibility to the supply chain were eclipsing the traditional taste/price/convenience model on the path to purchase.

When issues, values and beliefs are as important, if not more so, than the product performance itself, what does that tell you? A cultural change has taken root and with it the advancement of purpose-built branding now supported with actionable consumer insight data. Yet still this strategic construct remains frustratingly anemic – rather than executed with skill and authenticity.

When brand purpose is defined as an unselfish, human-relevant purpose, great things can happen!

Higher Purpose is different than the transactional model that has dominated CPG and retail marketing plans for decades. It presents us with a more human-like path to brand building founded on reciprocity and contributing to the growth, welfare and quality of life of the people brands exist to serve.

To gain context, let’s first describe what Brand Higher Purpose is NOT:

• Philanthropy or “cause” marketing
• Another word for ESG commitments
• A mission statement
• A brand positioning
• A campaign tagline or theme
• Code for better PR strategies
• Issues management

Brand Higher Purpose is founded in deep consumer insights about the lifestyle needs, aspirations and concerns that govern the lives of a brand’s best users. It is in this understanding that brand Purpose can be authentically defined and brought to life.

Two key issues to examine:

• Your users want more from you than your good product. Are you prepared to give them the ‘more’ they seek and add deeper meaning to what your business stands for, does and works to accomplish for your users’ greater good?

• If your brand value proposition is linked to your best users’ beliefs and values, and in the spirit of reciprocity – how would that impact your business operations and behaviors?

The three primary components of Higher Purpose creation:

• Why your company exists, in the context of insight to your core users’ beliefs, values and aspirations.

• How your company delivers on its why (purpose) through tools and strategies designed to bring your purpose to life.

• What business are you really in based on your purpose, and how does that impact your operations, policies, standards, in-market behaviors and marketing?

Imagine the food retailer that determines it is in business to fully support the health, wellbeing and culinary creativity of its core shoppers. What tools and strategies would it deploy to bring this to life in education, product assortment and in-store communication and experiences?

Knowing this, what business is the retailer really in – knowing that the customer relationship is deeper than merely selling at velocity bags, cans and boxes off shelves?

Think of the impact this has on brand voice and meaning. What happens when the brand’s values and beliefs fully align with what consumers care about and aspire to become? What happens when a pet food brand determines it is in the pet lifestyle enablement business rather than selling high quality kibble and canned meals? It opens an entirely new conversation with consumers based on brand as partner, coach and guide on their pet parenting journey.

This is where relevance and resonance lives!

If you want to have a deeper relationship with your consumers, then imbue your brand with deeper meaning. To do this successfully the consumer must be at the center of strategic planning. Your goal is to define how the brand facilitates your consumers’ lifestyle needs and concerns.

Dove brands’ higher purpose revolves around supporting the self-esteem goals of its user base. Notice how this issue sits adjacent to but distinctly apart from the product attributes and benefits.

It’s always going to be a real, authentic, human-relevant purpose that sits above commerce!

Brand Sustainability Analysis

Emergent created a proprietary planning tool for helping clients determine the right higher purpose strategy based on brand history, strengths, consumer base, business operations and current marketing strategies.

We use this tool to define Higher Purpose for a brand and then how it will influence literally every aspect of how a company operates, creates products, innovates, treats it employees and goes to market.

If you want to learn more about the path to Higher Purpose, download a complimentary copy of our Brand Higher Purpose overview that summarizes the insights and strategies for a stronger, better and more effective brand marketing platform.

Looking for more food for thought? Subscribe to the Emerging Trends Report.

Crafting stories that inspire action, change, movement

“Tell the truth but make the truth fascinating. You know you can’t bore people into buying your product, you can only interest them into buying it.” — David Ogilvy

Want to benefit from the persuasive impact of more meaningful marketing, then imbue your outreach with deeper meaning. At Emergent’s home page, your first encounter is a statement that reads: Crafting emotional, meaningful, powerful brand stories…

This phrase captures a core essence of what we do. Yes, we focus our communications work in the tactical areas of earned (publicity), owned (content) and social media. However, the real power and exceptionalism we bring to the table is in building stories well-told, where a brand’s customer is always the hero and thus finds themselves in it and benefits from the guidance and useful help a client’s brand provides.

Here we chart the path to better, more effective brand storytelling.

In the end great stories are respectful of the language used to tell them.

“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” – Mark Twain

Anyone who reads the Emerging Trends Report knows we publish early and often here on a wide range of topics from sustainability to brand strategy and media best practices. What these stories really ladder up to, beyond their inherent message, is an audition of our storytelling chops. Said another way, through our articles we’re demonstrating the importance of words and their meaning.

For the most part our published works are about guidance and coaching, thought leadership on topics of value to CEOs and CMOs and heads of Communications and PR. This in fact is a leading-edge strategy for more effective marketing. When you lean in to help, inform and inspire your audience to improve, you are casting the brand in its proper role of offering help over hype.

This is different than self-promotion that speaks endlessly to brand features, technology and formulation facts. While these elements of brand benefit remain integral to the storyline, they shouldn’t lead it for the very reason to do so embeds the communication with an intractable disconnect.

Every single day your customer wakes up believing they are the hero of their own life’s journey. When the brand is preoccupied with itself, it competes with the consumer for the hero role, and so the outreach is ignored while the consumer moves on to find a brand that can help and support them in fulfilling their dreams and aspirations.

The power of relevance, words and context

Very early in my agency career I discovered that language and inspirational storytelling can have an immediate and profound effect, even in unlikely settings. I wrote a pitch to a business editor about a regional packaged foods client that found itself sandwiched between giant national brands with endless resources and store brands nipping underneath with lower priced versions of their products. I cast this as a power struggle for hearts and minds that could only be won with unique, strategically-elegant moves to separate and differentiate their brand from the adjacent competition. I invoked emotion by making it appear to be a very human conflict, a mini movie of sorts where the intrepid, nimble regional brand ultimately prevails.

The editor loved it. The outcome was a series of interviews that produced a front-page story with a gigantic illustration of a David-like figure toppling a gigantic national brand Goliath. The story wound up in retail account presentations as a key piece of evidence about why the brand deserved stronger placement, more facings and retailer support.

The pitch was unorthodox and unconventional to be sure, but then that’s where the magic came from. The right words can have profound impact on outcomes. All business, ultimately, is storytelling. Stories that are imbued with deeper meaning are far more likely to change hearts and minds than the clinical expressions of facts and figures.

Brands are famously in love with their technologies and mousetrap, believing that once the world is made aware of their formulation prowess, people will beat a path to their door in droves. But here is where we separate perception from reality. People are not analytical decision-making machines. They are in indeed feeling creatures who think and not the other way around. It is always going to be heart-over-head.

• If you know that the humanization of your brand storytelling has got to be job one. It may sound counterintuitive, but when you ruthlessly let go of reflexive tendencies to self-promote and focus instead on how you can improve the lives and wellbeing of your key users, suddenly an entirely new world of powerful brand storytelling unfolds.

“Tell a story and put your audience at the center. Give them a role to play. Solve their anxiety and help them believe in what you’re selling. It’s the nervous kid at basketball tryouts who gets injected with a splash of confidence the second his feet slip into a pair of Nike’s. This is the sheer power — and magic of a well-written advertisement.”  Jonah Malin

In the brilliant, animated movie Ratatouille, Remy the culinary genius chef rat tries to inspire his more ordinary rat-ish sibling to embrace the love of flavor experiences by combining a bite of cheese (flavor bomb) with piece of fruit (flavor enhancer). Alas his less appreciative rodent brother couldn’t make the gustatory leap out of the garbage can. The love of flavor and taste experience lesson though is ultimately about the result of food enjoyment. Cheese romance isn’t in the cheese-making, it’s in the taste experience and social bond of sharing these moments with people we care about. Remy has it right!

Setting up a successful story

Two important moves can help ensure the path to better storytelling prevails.

First is hyper focus on building personas of the various marketplace consumer cohorts you wish to reach. Go deep on their behaviors, interests, concerns and passions. If our client permits insight research ahead of the persona work, all the better as we get underneath the pieces and parts of how users think and operate.

This work serves as inspiration on the story topics and narrative paths we pursue. If a story isn’t relevant to the lifestyle of its intended recipient, it will not be resonant either. How can you truly cast them as hero of the story if you don’t know them? When consumers see themselves in the story like holding up a mirror, you’ll have their attention – which is the whole point. The biggest hill to climb in modern marketing is securing the time and attention of those you want to engage.

If the story offers no intrinsic value or relevance to the audience, it’s unlikely to be seen or heard.

From personas we move to message mapping based on that study. It’s here where the client’s product bona fides are woven together with the emotionally-inspiring stories that bring the ‘deeper meaning’ requirement to life.

The message map also serves as a terrific interactive tool for internal discussion on how brand stories will be created and what will be conveyed.

There are two specific goals in better brand storytelling practices

• Remove risk. Nearly 100% of the time consumers operate with one singular goal in mind: to avoid making a bad decision. If for any reason they think a product experience will be unsatisfactory, they will avoid it. Removing risk through verification and validation from respected, credible sources that affirms outcomes will be key to success.

• Build trust. Here, the character of the storytelling and the voices deployed become essential to gaining attention and trial. Quite often we bring in third-party subject matter experts to help inject trust by validating the fundamentals of what we want consumers to believe. Social media plays a key role here as a tool for proof: people believe the stories told by their peers before they’ll believe what a company claims.

Language matters. Trust building words like endorsed, proven, tested, quality and results can be invoked to help cement confidence. That said, the most powerful and important narrative device at your disposal is emotion. If people feel something through your story it can have a profound impact on behavior and attitude.

Relate-able stories of personal transformation, struggle and achievement will have bearing on engagement and takeaway. This is where deeper meaning lives. People want to be part of something greater than themselves. Help make that a reality. Use your brand’s Higher Purpose to create the foundation of deeper meaning and belief. If there’s a clear and compelling mission, it will become a rallying point for people who “join” the brand as advocates not just users.

• Relevant, emotional, human, credible stories are the grist of business growth and enviable brand equity. Now you’ve got something relevant to talk about!

If you think a little fresh thinking would be helpful to refine your brand story, use this link to start an informal conversation with us.

Looking for more food for thought? Subscribe to the Emerging Trends Report.

Keys to successful customer journey mapping

What is the biggest marketing challenge facing food, beverage and lifestyle brands? Creating improvements to brand strategy that will deliver more impact and measurable outcomes from limited resources. Here we’ll talk about an important tool that can help remove risk and uncertainty from your marketing plan and spending decisions while optimizing effectiveness.

What do you ultimately need to deliver sustainable business growth? Consumers who love and appreciate your brand. Trustworthiness is harder to achieve than meets the eye. Relevance and higher value can only be secured when the consumer sees your brand as “mattering” to them on a deeper level than product functionality.

Embedding strategic insight and drawing the brand as close to your customer base as possible requires a disciplined approach. The plan strategy must assure that at every key point on their journey to purchase and later hopefully to evangelism, there’s connection with the right experience, the right message that mirrors their pain point, needs and aspirations.

This outcome is made possible by placing consumers at the center of your strategic planning process. To do this effectively and with clarity, Customer Journey Mapping is the best tool to hold the consumer priority feet to the relevance fire. We’re going to walk you through best practices in journey mapping, an incredibly exciting and important exercise that will bring greater resonance to every aspect of your brand strategy.

Ultimately it will inform more impactful and compelling brand communication and lead consumers to a trusted and closer relationship, for the very reason your interaction with them will resonate at each stage on their path to purchase.

The customer journey map process helps you address the following:

• Engage your customers in your brand message
• Believe your brand claims
• Appreciate your brand purpose
• Trust your brand
• Buy your brand with confidence
• Advocate for your brand

Successfully joining your customer on their journey requires you to think like they do. It will entail empathy, understanding and appreciation of their needs and concerns. The map brings this insight to life. Without it you’re really flying blind.

Your first objective always is to add value to their lives

Simply stated, to:

• Help them
• Educate and coach them
• Demonstrate you are showing up for them
• Empathize with their needs
• Fulfill your promises

Here’s the Emergent three-step recipe for an optimal Customer Journey Map

Step One – Persona understanding and Insight

As we’ve conveyed previously, consumer purchase behaviors are 100 percent driven by trying to avoid making a bad decision. Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman at Ogilvy & Mather, so accurately describes it, “a one percent chance of nightmare dwarfs a 99 percent chance of a five percent gain.” Accurately understanding and characterizing the consumer’s needs, pain points and “risk” related concerns begins with Persona creation.

Here we identify the key segments of your customer base from early adopters to heavy and occasional users to those motivated more by values or social issues such as sustainability. Within each cohort we take a deep dive on lifestyle, interests, needs, passions.

When fully built out the personas should address these six key questions:

1. What are the triggers (need/want) that kick off the purchase journey?
2. What are the pain points and practical needs they wish to solve?
3. What cultural and societal influences are at play?
4. Given purchases are largely symbolic signaling now, what symbols of relevance do they look for?
5. What are the emotional levers that impact their perceptions and actions?
6. What media do they consume and where?

To do this at an optimal level we operate like anthropologists who observe, investigate and study to know their interests and behaviors.

Step Two – Moments of truth on the path to purchase

The map segments their journey from discovery to purchase, digesting each step along the way so you can articulate what they think, feel and do. Armed with this understanding you’re able to design communications that meet the appropriate moment, thus assuring your brand remains relevant, engaging and helpful.

Here are the seven journey map components

• Discovery

Steps taken to identify the brand/product choices available for consideration based on consumers’ needs and alignment symbolically with how they see themselves and their values.

• Exploration

Within a shortlist of candidate brands the consumer is acquiring more information on features, benefits and lifestyle associations. Most of this occurs online in social channels, web sites and media platforms.

• Comparison

The shortlist alternatives are compared for plus and minus assessments of risk and ability to successfully answer the pain point or desire.

• Trust check to verify

Consumers look for recommendations and reviews from peers and credible experts or influencers. Their goal is to reduce risk by validating the claims made by a brand on results, ease of use and effectiveness. Social channel proof (testimonial) is a key component in achieving this trust.

• Purchase

The ease, convenience and absence of friction in the purchase process will influence perceptions of satisfaction and fulfillment of your promise.

• Experience

Everything that can be done to assure an optimal user experience is delivered to assure the outcome matches the perceived value proposition.

• Evangelize

Assuming all the previous steps have matched with their needs, the “discovery” aspects of a well-done brand experience will help initiate advocacy, word-of-mouth and sharing of experiences via word-of-mouth and the users’ social channels.

At each step the map is populated with an assessment of what consumers in the moment think, feel and do. This information is used to inform communications and messaging. The right words, at the right time, in the right place.

Step Three – translation to messaging and media plan

Armed now with a full understanding of your customers’ thinking, emotional needs and behaviors at each moment on their purchase journey, you’re in a position to serve up communication and content relevant to their needs as it evolves from need triggers all the way to potential ambassadorship.

Given the mapping focus comes back to what the consumer is thinking, feeling and doing at each step, you’re able to tailor messaging for whichever moment of truth they are in. By virtue of this added relevance, your brand can operate as a guide and empathetic coach at each phase, providing useful information while resolving issues that contribute to perceptions of risk or making a bad decision.

Media selection can be optimized to deliver the right kind of content; from social proof to purchase support and reassurance on issues they care about most. The tool should match the need. This creates greater marketer confidence –understanding what’s going on along the path and knowing which message to deliver. Important to outcomes because the plan now is free from hunches and assumptions about what to convey, when and where.

Mapping the Moments = Momentum

The customer journey map brings added rigor and discipline to the planning process, infuses consumer relevance throughout their journey and acts as guide to message and media based on audience behaviors and preferences.

The consumer recognizes your understanding of them amplified by the usefulness and value of what you’re able to tell them. In the year ahead, brand strategy improvements will be needed to step past the significant behavioral changes and attitude shifts authored on by the pandemic. The Journey Map is the way to get there.

If you think the Journey Map process might be right for you, and you’re interested in help and support, use this link to ask questions about what’s best for you.

Looking for more food for thought? Subscribe to the Emerging Trends Report.