Engaging consumer sub-conscious for action and decisions

Neuroscience helps us understand that consumer actions and decisions (to buy) are controlled by the sub-conscious side of our brain. The conscious, learning area of our intellect will play a role post-purchase, as cognitive bias compels us to seek out more factual type information that confirms the wisdom of our choices.

• This area of the brain isn’t influenced by analytical arguments and fact-based messaging. Yet we find the vast majority of CPG and retail marketing communication presumes that people process rational information on the road to making a purchase. Not true. Doesn’t happen that way.

It is how people FEEL in the presence of your brand that influences their decisions and actions. Heart-over-head every time. So why is this insight not the center of brand strategy? Rather it’s an afterthought or addressed only at the surface level through a compelling image for example that drives food appetite appeal.

All-in on sensory strategy

Profiled in a recent report by AXIOS, one company, Mastercard, has jumped fully into multi-sensory marketing strategies that stretch the very core of how a brand creates a feeling, a relationship, an emotion – knowing this is directly connected to below-conscious cues and actionable behaviors.

Mastercard is indeed pushing hard at the edges of differentiation by pulling their brand into totally unusual places that disrupt expectations of how a credit card payments brand might normally behave. In doing so they are actively mining virtually all of our sensory cues including taste, sight, smell, touch and sound. Authentic strategy is always a ‘swing for the fences’ kind of proposition that causes you to step back, blink and notice, and say “wow, that’s unexpected.”

• Mastercard’s Priceless positioning amplifies the value of experiences over merely buying things. This is activated in ways that allows the brand to fully envelop the consumer in an encounter that closes the loop fully on emotional response.

A brand you hear, taste and smell

Mastercard amps its Priceless experience concept by opening fine dining restaurants, six of them so far, under the Priceless banner. You can snack on red and persimmon colored Ladurée macarons, while sipping signature cocktails that match the logo color scheme. Your Mastercard date-night experience enhanced with the compelling scent of either Priceless Passion or Priceless Optimism fragrances packaged in the same logo-inspired colors.

Leaving no stone unturned, 590 million POS terminals have been programmed to play a Mastercard pneumonic ‘song’ when every transaction is completed. The auditory layer again respectful of how people can experience Mastercard by conveying the scent, sound and flavor of its name and “Priceless” theme.

• In an interview with AXIOS, Mastercard CMO Raja Rajamannar explains:  “The theory is that a normal human being is blessed with five senses. Each sense is a mechanism by which information goes into the individual’s brain, [where they] process it, and then they either think, feel, act or do something with it. Marketing people have only historically relied on the sense of sight and the sense of sound, and they were doing it in a highly intuitive rather than a scientific fashion.”

To drive the concept home Mastercard recently held a media dinner at their Peak with Priceless restaurant, on the 101st floor of 30 Hudson Yards in Manhattan. The exquisite menu and inspiring views designed to mirror and breathe life into the kinds of experiences the “Priceless” branding campaign is founded. Likely AXIOS attended, don’t you think?

What’s going on here?

This brand fully embraces the humanity of people who use their product on a routine basis. Here planning and strategy combine to power-up emotional engagement between a payments company and the people they serve. Not by pushing factual statements or information dense narratives. Instead, knowing how people operate with the sub-conscious always in charge of the actions we take, the brand executes on all five senses.

What’s more, the novel and creative ways this effort manifests shows real thought and creativity at work in doing the unexpected in powerful ways.

Dialing up emotional context and brand interaction

Occasionally brands will look at ‘pop-up’ experiences solely through the lens of how media-genic and disruptive it is as an unexpected showcase location for their brand to show up. If you think this through to its emotional roots, so much more can be accomplished by considering the project holistically on ways to amplify all five senses. Why? Because that’s the key to open the door of sub-conscious influence.

How does this work?

The starting gate is understanding that actions and decisions by your customers are driven from the sub-conscious – and that complex part of our brain is far smarter than we give it credit. 60,000 times smarter than the conscious arena, to be exact.

• Emotion is the path to influence here. Knowing this, how can you elevate experience and activity that interacts with the senses. How do you step completely outside your category norms and rules of behavior to show up in unexpected ways?

Mastercard made Priceless a tangible player in their activation scheme. Further, they fearlessly jumped all the way into the pool on this confident knowing they were playing directly to how humans operate.

Recognize fact-based selling for its true role

Your product or retail “what you do and how you do it” story comes after purchase as justification for the decision that was made. A great place to start on your rode to improved strategy is your brand “why” – your higher purpose, mission and value system that informs virtually every decision you make in the business.

• Your Purpose is a great exploratory place to be when looking for a concept like Priceless and then pushing that idea further out on engaging people through the senses.

The creative work here can be some of the most exciting and gratifying you’ll encounter as a brand steward and builder. It can be liberating to let go of traditional feature/benefit tactics and let radical differentiation move your thinking into new territory.

It can be helpful to have a guide on this journey. That’s what we do. Use the email link below to share your ideas and ambitions for emotional marketing with a team of like-minded experts who can help you formulate the right plan.

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

The updated formula for powerful brand communication

Today we nail, confirm, codify, canonize and draw the proverbial line in the sand, concerning what effective brand communication should focus on in recognition of vast consumer behavior changes. This article offers tangible direction about where to place your bets and how best to secure engagement with consumers that will lead to a lasting, trusted relationship.
 
So, what changed?
 
For 50 years (or more) brand communication was defined as the shiny amplifier in the marketing toolbox, a look-at-me cudgel for products determined to seek out attention. Marketing plans historically, traditionally, extolled the value of top-of-mind awareness-building as the best path downward from the lip of the ”purchase funnel”  — where awareness preceded everything else that could matter on the rocky road to a transaction.
 
The world, however, has shifted dramatically. The purchase funnel as we know it is no longer a relevant business recipe. As we flagged in an earlier post – today consumption is an infinite loop of inspiration, exploration, community participation and advocacy.

• Old brand world: defined by conventional paid media awareness (digital or analog)
• New brand world: defined by content, events, experiences, earned media and fandom

The new and improved role for brand comms

Much has been said about the decline of conventional, non-digital media as the sheer number of viable newspapers, magazines and radio stations has shrunk like conventional taxi service. A great deal of that subtraction due to the shift of media spending away from legacy media platforms. Why? Because consumers have left that building in droves. Digital media brands and platforms now proliferate as the vanguard of trend reporting and product assessment – and all of it online.

What has not declined and only advanced is the insatiable thirst for trusted guidance in a world rife with perceived uncertainty. Consumers universally hate risk (or the perception of it) and seek to avoid that experience. What people want more than ever is assurance of truth and credible corroboration of what brands claim and want them to believe. They also seek reliable coaching on their personal journey and support to determine what’s the best way to fulfill their hopes, wants and dreams.

Somehow this is lost on brands that continue to navigate the awareness pathway, thinking once consumers are aware of the brand’s better mouse trap of benefits, sales growth will inherently follow piggy-back style. However, consumers no longer play ball with that kind of marketing behavior. And they have other options.

Here’s the marketing challenge of the era: brand communication absent genuine, authentic strategy (pursuing differentiation, uniqueness, singularity rather than “better”) is largely a wasted effort (and spend). So too, is any product or service seeking attention ahead of real faith and belief. What’s missing for the consumer in that scenario? Trust. In its place, resides risk and plenty of it.

Our daily behaviors

Whether it’s apps like Instagram, Tik Tok or online news sites such as Fast Company, Thrillist and Axiom, we look to experience review and reportorial forms of content to help us sort the wheat from the chaff, the good from bad, the hot from not, the truth from fiction for what is important to us. We want assurance from a credible source to decide A vs. B. Is this an exercise in building awareness? No. It’s risk mitigation built on the back of a trusted source of guidance.

Doesn‘t it make sense then to shift the planning approach from aggregating eyeballs to winning hearts and earning trust? If so, how can we do that most effectively as stewards and builders of brand relationships and reputations?

What do all of these case study examples have in common?

Sara Lee – restoring brand relevance and growth.
Sargento – leaping ahead of the tyranny of a commodity category
Jamba Juice – restaging brand belief in the health and wellness era
First Alert – establishing a new category solely through editorial reporting
Champion Petfood – leveraging a unique brand strength for enhanced trust and reputation
Molson beer – restoring business credibility and brand resonance
Schuman Cheese – ending the era of category fraud and restoring trust and faith\

They all represent Emergent’s approach using an integration of client/agency collaboration, authentic sound strategy, consumer and trade insight, curated messaging, advocacy and trust tactics, credible voices, industry participation, focus in earned media and cross channel deployment creating a bandwagon effect (multiple sources that agree).

7-point recipe for effective brand communication

1. Foundational strategic work on brand purpose, mission, values, differentiation, archetype, language, consumer insight and foundational narrative precedes tactical considerations
2. Optimizing business behaviors, policies, plans and infrastructure to role model and enforce a culture of consumer centricity and brand reciprocity founded on improving consumers’ lives
3. Brand communication designed around consumer as hero of storytelling, with brand operating as coach, guide and enabler of the consumer’s journey.
4. Investment in building a community of advocates and trusted sources to verify and validate key messaging, build credibility and earn trust.
5. Steering clear of self-promotion, feature/benefit selling and other old school behaviors that make consumer relationships transactional and self-serving
6. Deep investment in earned media and integrated social community activations to influence consumer perceptions, build relationships, develop trust and affirm claims
7. Seamless integration of message and story from web site to social channels, outbound communication and branded content creation

The best work falls from partnership

Our experience with this approach signals evidence that when brands invest in their “why” over how and what they do to imbue their brand with deeper meaning founded on a relentless drive to help improve consumers’ lives, the business results follow.

When earning trust and working to mitigate risk is foundational in go-to-market behaviors, a new era of engagement and relevance is established because consumers elect to “join” the brand’s mission as advocates rather than mere users.

• We’ve seen this recipe pay dividends over and over because the brand and business’ heart are not only in the right place, the tools in the marketing toolkit have been optimized for relevance and meaning rather than chasing awareness.

The most powerful way to achieve these outcomes is through a true collaboration between brand and agency. Partnership vs. vendorship – are miles apart in outcome potential.

If this inspires questions and conversation about improving your marketing approach — Use this link to let us know if you would like to discuss further.

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

Announcing our new service for mid-year brand fine-tuning and 2025 Planning!

Emergent has designed a customizable 7 Point Brand Health Tune-Up™ keying in on the most important strategic concerns to enhance your business’ results. This may be the insight you’ve been looking for to unlock your brand’s growth potential!

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

People yearn for belief and assurance…

Is it any surprise the most powerful force influencing consumer choice is the desire to avoid making a bad decision? The threat of disappointment lurks in every corner on the path to purchase. So great is our need to elude the risk of unhappiness, we will stubbornly hang on to anything we believe to be true, while potentially missing the opportunities of new product or category exploration.

• Yet herein lies an enormous opportunity for brands to step into the midst of this condition with tools that work to resolve consumers’ express need for certainty in an uncertain world.

Yes, you can help people overcome their perceptions of risking a bad decision.

Yes, you can earn consumer trust and confidence.

Yes, you can solve this intractable barrier on the path to purchase.

Yes, you can create a real relationship with users that evolves into fandom.

Why are people so distrustful and risk averse?

In our hyper-digital media-saturated world, we have entered the era of glass brand houses where anything that can be known, will be known almost instantly. Thus, people are exposed to a revolving rogues’ gallery of living, real world case studies in deceit, manipulation, lies by omission, under-delivering, overt selfishness or failures to protect the integrity of promises made. Too many times we witness the extension of claims conveyed that either can’t or won’t be served and instead appear as a form of marketing spin or at the minimum, outright failures of honesty and integrity. People witness too many brand perp walks that fuel distrust, enable anxiety and cement our static cling to the tried and true.

The end result is a more cynical mental state that slathers on a deep coating of skepticism factored into risk assessments of literally everything we consume and do. Fearless people, those most likely to step into the abyss of uncertainty and take the risks of new product and service trial, represent a small proportion of any addressable market – roughly 14% on average. For a business to be successful, you simply must leap way beyond the fearless minority of early adopters.

Dawn of the age of advocacy

Every day, you have an opportunity to earn trust and belief. By the way trust is a prerequisite to secure a lasting, genuine brand-to-consumer relationship. Yet people are subjected to outcome claims and assertions by brands, mounted too often inside self-promotion of product features and benefits. Therefore, the brand’s commercial self-interests is the primary message and leaves the consumer to think the brand cannot be an objective, reliable guide.

You can step into the warmth of belief and trust by carefully examining all points of consumer interaction, while working to field flags and symbols of purpose, mission and beliefs that convey there’s a genuine heart and soul informing your brand’s business behavior and ethics.

Consumers want to believe they are always your top priority – that their happiness and wellbeing is paramount to your brand. When the business presents itself as customer-first, and actively operates in their best interests, then and only then have you opened the door to gaining trust.

Brand communication and action on the road to credibility

Having instilled customer centricity as an anchoring principle of brand ethos, advocacy is your most important strategy towards cultivating risk-abating comfort and confidence. What do consumers actually want from trusted brand communication?

Credibility – consider the mediums of trusted communication

Validation – invoking the imprimatur of respected sources

Verification – deploying believable voices

Advocacy can help you narrow the chasm between what brands proclaim and what consumers will accept as true.

The source of advocacy

There are outside voices we pay attention to and believe. …Those with unique knowledge and credentials that qualify them as respected experts. Especially people who elect to study and evaluate the merits of products and businesses and whose objectivity and reputations precede them. Thus, we grant these voices a mantel of independent assessment that we’ll accept.

Important to note, advocacy at its heart is about independent observation, and is not the province of paid influencers who have commercial biases attached to their endorsement.

Whom do we trust?

1. Outside third-party subject matter experts, scientists and authorities
2. “Medium is the message” – credible channels such as social community activation and earned media reporting
3. Activating word of mouth – the most credible form of communication available
4. Employees – the most overlooked cohort for advocacy support

Active and optimized brand social communities are recognized when the majority of content is supplied by community members who share their experiences, rather than the usual ample dosing of brand self-promotion content. We accept the evaluations and testimonials of IRL users before we will believe the brand’s claims of performance.

Advocacy in action

We represented the largest cheese company in the Italian sector at a time when adulteration, mislabeling and misrepresented products had been growing like a cancer in the category. We were tasked with working to help put an end to food fraud in Italian cheese. As our client was market share leader, we needed to bring the voices of the entire industry to bear in support of eradicating adulteration, otherwise the effort risked being seen as self-serving.

We met with industry and government organizations and leaders to advocate for change. Their presence was intended verify and validate the scope of the problem and reinforce why consumers deserved to know the cheese they were buying was genuine and made correctly according to the Federal standard of identity.

When we launched this effort in the media, these voices were essential to confirm the conditions impacting Italian cheese and the call to “out” the practice of making fake products in order to hit a lower price point. The project turned into a referendum on truth and best practices in cheese making. It would not have been successful without advocacy from all sectors of the business.

Advocacy in brand communication

We worked closely with the CEO of Jamba Juice Company on an enterprise level strategy to re-stage the business from a smoothie chain to a healthy lifestyle brand. This was happening at a time when consumers were increasingly scrutinizing Jamba beverages based on sugar content against the desired concept of healthier choice.

Thus began an initiative to address product formulation and new product innovation in an effort to reframe consumer perceptions of Jamba’s menu board and its role as part of a healthy lifestyle. To help confirm, verify, validate and educate consumers about these key initiatives we formed the Jamba Healthy Living Council, recruiting some of the most well-known and respected names in the world of registered dietitians and nutrition expertise.

We asked Council members to advise the company on healthier recipes while also verifying the efficacy of the changes Jamba was making to its existing products. Their voices were essential to helping the world see and believe that real changes were being made by America’s number one smoothie restaurant brand. It was the Council’s affirmation and validation of these developments that built credibility under the brand’s healthy lifestyle strategy.

• Brands are faced with risk-averse consumers who seek belief from the right sources when uncertainty is present. Which is everywhere by the way. Advocacy offers a path to reliable, credible truth that works to authentically confirm what we want people, retail customers, consumers, employees and other category players to believe.

Belief leads to trust while trust leads to acceptance and repeat purchase. If this sparks a conversation on your end about the potential role of advocacy strategies in your business, use the link below to start an informal conversation with an experienced team of advocacy strategy experts.

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

New direction on the evolving role of brand marketing

For the last 50 years CPG and retail brand building has been focused on chasing awareness. The theory that top-of-funnel recognition will lead to consideration, and if the brand is persuasive while spiraling further down the funnel, a consumer purchase will occur. Leave it to the impact of evolving culture and the presence of existential, environmental threats to shift behaviors and push the funnel off its pedestal. A distinctive new path to brand building has emerged and we will unpack it here. The good news: we are entering a period of unprecedented brand engagement, but the rules to success are decidedly different.

Remarkably the century old thinking that underpins the funnel was first developed in 1896 by E. St. Elmo Lewis, owner of a Philadelphia-based ad agency, who published the first theory on “consumer path to purchase” he called AIDA – short for Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. By 1924 this concept had morphed into what we now refer to as the Purchase Funnel. Yes, there have been a few modifications along the way to accommodate digital and social media channels, but the basic view of awareness as the golden goal has traveled with the adjustments, until now.

The funnel is dead, long live the funnel…

The fundamental weaknesses of the funnel model have been exposed, as follows:

• It is grounded in transactional thinking that positions consumers as walking wallets
• It fails to address the dynamics of how real brand relationships are built
• Assumes that consumers will behave in a linear fashion on the road to purchase

It’s fair to say that the focus of brand marketing work and investment has leaned heavily on top of funnel activity, frustrated somewhat by the demise of mass media, the splintering of consumer attention across channels and their uncanny newfound ability to avoid it all. Of note, tactical sophistication here in digital media eyeball aggregation isn’t helped by inherent strategic weakness.

Here’s the truth as we now know it. Consumers – especially Gen Z and Millennials – no longer operate in linear fashion. For one, the purchase isn’t the end game, rather it is the starting point. Consumption is now an infinite loop of inspiration, exploration, community participation and advocacy.

• Old brand world: defined by conventional advertising, digital or analog
• New brand world: defined by content, events, experiences and fandom

What are you risking if you continue to be an awareness chaser?

Declining relevance: your brand and business are seen as exploitive, possibly manipulative and transactional.

Lacking authenticity: your brand expresses promotional hype over user help in a world now longing for trust and deeper meaning from the brands consumers care about.

Incidentally, this is why Emergent exists. We focus on new strategic approaches that are grounded in culture and the latest consumer insight. Today, when consumers buy a product, they are actually buying your story and not a stock keeping unit (sku).

Edelman Trust Barometer sheds light on the shift

Edelman’s latest trust report revealed a remarkable change in behavior that has significant implications to sound brand building strategy. People have a strong cognitive bias for post-purchase rationalization. In fact, we also know that 95% of the time, consumers are driven by their efforts to avoid making a bad decision, or to experience disappointment.

Edelman’s research confirms where the action is: 50% of consumers now conduct the vast majority of their brand research AFTER purchase and not before. What’s more, 78% are looking for credible proof and validation that they made the right decision. Turns out post purchase is when people are most open to brand engagement.

You might be wondering what’s behind this change…

1. The systematic dilution of trust and belief based in part on the absence of any prevailing brand value system, higher purpose or real, obvious evidence of same.
2. The precipitous rise of vulnerability, uneasiness over a perceived lack of personal control authored by political, social and environmental stresses. 
3. Too many brands think all they have to do is invoke the word trust in their marketing and they are automatically, well, trusted. Not so. Trust is earned not acquired. Always deeds more than words.

Right below the surface people look for safety and security in the midst of accelerating experiences sponsored by uncontrollable events around them. This manifests as a desire for deeper meaning, purpose and trust – now at an all-time premium. Call it heightened expectations for visible, demonstrable, easy-to-see brand values and a courageous point of view.

So how does it work now?

Consumer pre-purchase research leans into the influence of brand social communities where they uncover member reviews, experiences and hopefully advocacy. Thus, the strongest predictor of a thriving social strategy is the rate at which members connect with each other vs. the brand’s self-promoting posts. It just makes sense – people believe and respect the voices of their peers before they accept assertions claimed by brands.

Brand marketing is now about cultural influence

The great news – consumers in a post-purchase focused world are primed for engagement. No need to wrestle them to the ground with look-at-me overreach. Here’s directional advice on best practices.

1. Trust creation: you should be conveying and demonstrating your brand purpose, mission and identity beyond the product on offer. Brand actions, reinforced through communication and education, helps you earn trust. 
2. You’re working to confirm: competence, ethics, values and relevance to your consumer based on their identity and aspirations, which you endeavor to help enable.
3. You deploy: credible and trusted voices in the form of “people like me” (via User Generated Content), scientists and academic experts, brand tech experts and employees.

It’s exciting to know that following purchase 79% of consumers engage in branded content, will participate in brand activities and want to connect on your social platforms. Your brand marketing should be operating to help feed and encourage this behavior. Trusted brands are repurchased, they secure loyalty and encourage evangelism.

If you’re interested in exploring the implications and strategies of a post-funnel marketing environment, use the link below to ask questions. Discussion and exploration can be enlightening, and we would be honored to talk informally with you about this exciting topic.

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

Artifice falls away, replaced by a tour behind the product creation curtain…

Much of what unfolded in 2023 has laid down a runway for how your strategy should evolve in 2024. Over the last year we’ve seen a distinct rise of consumer uncertainty, a decline in feelings of control and increasing uneasiness over extraordinary climate change impacts, a chaotic political environment, see-saw inflation, raging wars and other forms of personal and societal disruption.

• According to Kantar, 43% of Americans experienced mild to severe anxiety, up from 26% a year earlier, while half of millennials now rank their mental health as part of their well-being they are most concerned about.

It has authored a distinct premium on the desire for authenticity, truth, honesty, values, belief – all of which, incidentally, are desirable human traits. So how should brands respond in an environment where consumers crave honest, respectful relationships between themselves and the brands they care about? By adopting more human-like qualities and behaviors.

• In a recent story on viral engagement at Fast Company, Clinique Global VP of consumer engagement Lucy Burns said, “Gen Z can smell ads a mile away. They are the first generation that really wants brands and creators to authentically speak to them. And what does that mean? You don’t create an ad. You create content that they would want to engage with.”

This will be the year of yearning for discernment of the real and true while working to avoid the artificial and questionable. As reported earlier this year in the Emerging Trends Report, consumers have turned inward to themselves for guidance. Why? People have become increasingly skeptical and wary of less credible independent sources and therefore what they perceive to be unreliable and not-so faithful recommendations about products and services.

• Key insight: Further probing on this condition, we find consumers moving to seek a deeper level of discovery and understanding about the products they care about.

Know more, want more granular info

Emergent has been crunching the consumer insight research reports and studies, as we lean into our predictions for where CPG food, beverage and retail marketing is headed in 2024. The overriding theme and guidance for the coming year is an advancing consumer interest in securing more details about how products are created, manufactured and what’s inside them.

• In short both retail and CPG marketers will have a lot of explaining to do as consumers demand truth and transparency from the brands that matter to them.

What this means: consumers want to understand what the food and beverages they ingest consist of. They want their expectations to be fulfilled and this requires brands to take consumers behind the curtain and reveal more substantive details about formulation, ingredient sourcing and production methods.

Truth: consider the credibility of the content source and how the story is packaged

Transparency: take them behind the scenes to see how you do what you do

Here are six specific food/bev industry trends that remain common across generational audience segments:

1. Less Processed

Consumers do not believe that ultra-processed is a positive attribute. Brands with ultra-processed products should consider investing R&D energy to create less processed versions of products, with simpler labels and emphasis on the nutritional density of ingredients used. Plant-based brands should bear in mind this applies to how products are created and presented. Plant-based used to automatically convey an item is better for you. Not so much now. Some plant-based categories are seen as overly processed. Consumers know more, so Show Me is the operative behavior in brand communications.

2. Upcycled

We’re seeing a growing interest in upcycled ingredients used in product creation. Consumers perceive this as less wasteful and more sustainable. Plus, it’s a great story to tell in product creation narratives.

3. Sustainable

Consumer attitudes on sustainability has shifted due to greater knowledge and understanding of the environmental impact of our food system. It is no longer just the use of recyclable packaging, efficient energy sources and water management. Consumers have connected the dots between supply chain and emissions performance. They want to know what brands and retailers are doing to advance policies and standards related to regenerative agriculture and use of less carbon-intensive ingredients.

4. Nutritional Density

Consumers believe there is a connection between what they eat and their overall quality of life and health. Alongside the redefinition of what aging looks like and how lives can transform over time based on taking better care of yourself, brands can position themselves squarely in the bulls-eye of lifestyle partnership. This is accomplished by delivering products that provide functional ingredients designed to enhance delivery of vitamins, minerals, proteins without added sugars, the wrong kinds of fats and high sodium content.

5. Energy Reduction Plays

Previously, refrigeration translated to fresher, higher quality. That said, consumers increasingly see these as a hidden cost tradeoff to the planet on energy use. Development of more shelf stable versions of products will enable brands to talk about ways they are helping reduce energy signatures in how their products are distributed and merchandized in-store.

6. Disguising Fruit and Veg

Lingering in the back of consumers’ minds is a fundamental consideration that more fruit and veg in the diet is a good thing. How those better-for-you servings are acquired and consumed presents an opportunity for brands. How can you bring the nutritional benefits of these ingredients in a form consumers will find simple, easy and delicious to consume? Some smoothie beverage brands are great at this.

2024’s megatrend – healthy living, aging and self-care

People believe that what they consume has a direct relationship to the quality of their lives. This impacts health, wellness and helps answer their desire to slow down or even reverse the effects of aging. How can you partner with consumers on their healthy living journey? How can your brand proceed as guide and coach on helping them realize their goals and ambitions? Think of your brand as a true, reliable friend. What would a real friend do to help?

Tactics: what’s behind the thirst for information?

Consumers want to know more about how you create your products and what’s inside them because it helps re-establish their sense of control and ability to create customized solutions for themselves. With so much environmental noise causing people to believe they are losing control, giving it back to them is vital in your relationship. More information puts them in the driver’s seat while you supply the grist for their own lifestyle consideration. This should be reflected in your content creation plans.

Primacy of emotion, best served

As we’ve said before, decisions and actions originate in the limbic area of the brain, and our subconscious (dictates actions we take) is heavily influenced through emotion. This is best seen by emphasizing the joy of cooking alongside the joy of eating and drinking – no matter the category, this rule remains true: celebrate the experiences of cooking, consuming and their related social interaction benefits.

Emergent’s role refined for 2024

We believe that strong brands win so we’re obligated to help strengthen client brands by driving towards greater uniqueness and differentiation. Well-positioned brands say and do things differently than others in their category. They bring a different tone, see the future differently and have a clear point of view.

Our role: to help clients refine and package how they show up in the world. To that end, we work to build brand reputations, credibility, belief and transcendence. We believe the foundation for this work lies in refinement of brand purpose, deeper meaning and values. We know that conveying your brand’s “why” – its true purpose – is a more effective tool to win hearts and minds than the typical feature/benefit story. People are irresistibly drawn to brands that share a vision and reason for being they believe in. We connect this story to the brand users through stories – content and earned media.

Final guidance for 2024

Brand optimism. Through all of the doomer conditions people are confronted with on a daily basis, smart brands can be a safe harbor for an optimistic outlook based on progress and personal fulfillment. Your brand’s role as coach, guide and enabler can help people envision a better, brighter and more meaningful future.

If these observations and possibilities strike a chord for honing your 2024 plans, use this link to start an informal conversation about your questions and concerns.

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