Specsmanship skips over relevance and resonance…

Our goal in this article is to reverse some entrenched myths about brand outreach, consumer behavior and sound strategy, working to reorient thinking on the most effective deployment of your investments in marketing communication.

The status quo in marketing

All too often we find brands laser-focused on touting their “superior” specs: formulations, ingredients, sourcing, process, science, engineering and standards of performance, believing this forms the unshakeable foundation of their brand outreach path to fame and fortune.

• Afterall, doesn’t it make sense considering the steep investments in R&D, processes, better ingredients, superior formulation skills and novel manufacturing design. Thus, the theory goes once the world is made aware of this better tech, consumers will in turn respond by beating a path to the shelf or showroom and reward the hard work, high quality commitment with ever increasing sales.

• Isn’t it then vital to tell the world why your brand is better than the other choices? That you offer 25% more of the best ingredient than the closest competitor. Or that your sourcing standards are flying above everyone else?

Better mousetrap marketing has been a foundational paradigm of go-to-market thinking since the dawn of the mass media era in the early 1950’s. Companies showcase their deep commitments to build a compelling value proposition through their efforts to innovate, improve, engineer higher quality into products. It seems fundamental then, that brand communication must focus on telling stakeholders about the facts and details of these accomplishments.

Are you always reaching for product ‘betterness’?

The rinse-and-repeat environment that fosters this way of operating is woven into the institutional fabric of many brands and businesses.

• The regional potato chip brand that believes to beat the big guys they must be better by meticulously sourcing an improved strain of potatoes. They carefully curate a blend of frying oils to impart taste and texture without any greasy residue. In-house chefs work to test and combine the highest quality spices and flavoring ingredients for dusting the chips to assure the perfect taste notes. Their manufacturing technologists perfect a frying process to achieve the right texture and crunch. Surely this level of quality commitment and superior craftsmanship forms the foundation of a compelling story to capture the hearts and minds of chip lovers?

• The team of highly talented engineers and food scientists committed to inventing the future of more sustainable food, works tirelessly to develop a molecule that perfectly replicates the identical protein of a meat or dairy product. Their discovery delivers ideal, sought-after characteristics of a protein ingredient that is indistinguishable from its conventional counterpart, such that no taste or nutrition sacrifice is required in the finished product.

The new innovative process completely reinvents a legacy product category without any requirement to employ the living, resource-intensive, carbon emissions contributing impacts of an animal-derived version. It’s an incredible leap forward to fully satisfy the consumer’s preoccupation with taste and eating experience, yet is sustainable, cost comparable while it also de-risks the supply chain. Surely this bio-technology achievement story well-told to consumers, investors and retailers will draw people like a magnet to the new, better solution.

• The pet food company that knows dogs and cats require high quality proteins to assure their health, wellbeing and quality of life, so their nutritionists and scientists devote considerable energy to formulating food that utilizes the very best in class animal-derived protein ingredients, fruits, veg and botanicals. The formulation meticulously combines this cornucopia of better ingredients into a nutrient dense feast for fido and fifi.

Their supply chain experts scour the globe for the best sources to secure ‘human grade’ food ingredients that will deliver on the foundational ‘better’ nutrition story. Manufacturing works to optimize the process by improving cooking techniques designed to preserve the nutrient quality of the finished food in a shelf stable or refrigerated form. Of course, once pet parents know of these details, the decision to buy will follow.

• The auto brand known for its better engines that employs world-class engineers using higher quality parts to produce superior power that won’t break down over time.

• The running shoe company that devotes countless resources to understanding human anatomy, the mechanics and physics of athletic performance, building better shoes to help the wearer win races.

• The computer company that looks at machines as enablers of creative expression and reinvents designs to democratize technology forming an intuitive tool anyone can use.

The list goes on and on… That said, what if this isn’t the reason why your brand will be more successful. What if this incredible investment of time, talent, quality and infrastructure is actually table stakes to your victory. And second, that all this data and information works harder and more effectively with consumers as post-purchase confirmation of why their decision was a good one.

Best-in-class product creation is a must-do

Yes, you need to make the very best product

Yes, you need to employ the highest quality ingredients

Yes, you need to refine and improve manufacturing processes

Yes, you need the best people

Yes, you need to continuously innovate and improve.

However, this is not the path to successful brand communication that helps you achieve leaps in sustainable business growth.

Our point is while authentic best-in-class products are integral to your marketplace growth, there is a difference between providing top quality solutions and effective, engaging brand communication. If you consider how consumers think and behave you see that fact-based, analytical selling is not the path to consumer behavior victory on brand preference and purchase.

Facts don’t change minds

The brand that gets closest to the consumer wins. That means embracing their humanity.

It also means acknowledging that consumers are feeling creatures who think and not thinking creatures who feel. Facts and features serve to feed our need for confirmation bias after purchase that we’ve made the right decision. The experience with your product is rewarded by its performance because you’ve labored to produce the very best product. However, when it comes to effective outreach communication…that’s something else entirely.

Heart-felt connection

Moving as close to the consumer as possible means putting your brand in league with them on their journey. It’s forging an emotional connection founded on trust and integrity, where the consumer understands and wants to join your brand mission, purpose and deeper meaning. Ultimately, they see through your integrity and actions you have their best interests at heart.

• Your ability to form a relationship with consumers is not based on the stats and specs of your product formulation. Relevant brand engagement operates on a higher plane of context much like the heartfelt bonds that form between people we care about.

The neuroscience informed path to purchase

The steps to taking action on a purchase decision look different when you know how the brain’s Limbic System informs our actions. Emotion is at work here. It is how we feel about a brand that guides our decisions, not rational analysis of factual arguments. Simply stated, humans are not analytical, fact-based decision-making machines.

Sound strategy: different beats better

Most of what we see in legacy marketing outreach is a belief that “better” is the winning approach. Except that’s not bank-able strategy to start with. Uniqueness and differentiation comprise the basis of beneficial strategy, not being better. Better is tantamount to saying you’re the same as the other choice, only better. This is a zero-sum and unwinnable game of one-upmanship that operates to commoditize your business. Parsing degrees of better-ness isn’t as powerful as “only” and uniquely different.

When you know emotion rather than analytical arguments form the basis of successful communication, how will that change your messaging approach? This isn’t an indictment of your efforts to make the best product. It’s a given you must never dilute your quality commitments. However, when it comes to brand communication, the most effective outreach is based on emotional drivers, not specsmanship.

If this article has you thinking about improving your brand communication and you have questions, use the link below to ask them. We promise to respond quickly.

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

Bob Wheatley is the CEO of Chicago-based Emergent. Traditional brand marketing often sidesteps more human qualities that can help consumers form an emotional bond. Yet brands yearn for authentic engagement, trust and a lasting relationship with their customers. For more information, contact [email protected] and follow on Twitter @BobWheatley.

Absence of trust creates uncertainty…

What trails consumer decisions like an ever-present shadow and has profound influence on the path to purchase? Fear and risk aversion. Fear is a pervasive if unwanted participant in brand growth outcomes, one that requires a closer look. How does fear manifest?

• Fear of making a bad decision
• Fear of disappointment
• Fear of loss (or loss of control)
• Fear of disruption or change
• Fear of rejection
• Fear of the unknown or unfamiliar

This is the number one barrier to consumer buying decisions and actions for any emerging brand or product. If consumers are unsure and perceive there’s any risk involved in purchase, they invariably opt out. Why? Disappointment is an emotion people universally seek to avoid. More often than not, marketing strategies assume the consumer is primed and ready to buy as soon as “consideration” is activated through an awareness building tactic.

That approach, however, fails to account for the reality of how people think-then-behave and what’s required to intentionally displace fear with trust.

• This article is about moving past fear to embrace trust and the steps brands must undertake to earn consumer faith and belief to unleash growth and business expansion.

Why is this challenge gaining traction?

Fear breeds anxiety and uncertainty, and what do consumers treasure above all things? Certainty. Perceptions of risk are persistent and exist systemically around: what is unknown, relationships with other people, income/careers, politics and social protocols. Risk and its evil twin fear are omnipresent. In part because consumers are constantly reminded of unexpected consequences through the daily barrage of “who knew” information and negative opinions they encounter in social and digital media channels.

Origin of the anxiety build up – social media transforms passive readers into active makers

Indeed, the world was forever altered in 2007 with the game changing introduction of Apple’s iPhone and Facebook’s decision to open source their platform. This kicked off the rapid rise of social media channels as enablers of citizen journalists and soothsayers, while also unleashing armchair critics, public humiliation, ghosting, bad actor media, even turning dating rituals into an electronic catalog of human choices with often spurious selling propositions designed to trigger a risky swipe.

Big media with its legacy rules and standards of professionalism, lost control of the information age while an unintended consequence of this “always on” scrutiny spotlight emerged – increasing levels of anxiety about ourselves and the state of the world around us. People resent feeling they’re no longer in control or are potentially being manipulated.

This is the instrument that brought about a sea change in how brands are built. It presaged the modern era of brand higher purpose, meaning, beliefs and values – all human characteristics we admire, trust and respect. In sum the entire cultural shift has placed a premium on the importance of trust because the old-world paradigm of family social vigilance and the ‘village’ traditions of influence has evaporated. Trust-ology as we call it, is now a core pillar driving brand growth and evangelism, in response to correcting the growing impact of risk.

Fear as a marketing tactic

On the flip side some brands have appropriated fear as a strategy to advance their business goals by working to demonstrate various forms of loss people reap if they fail to use the promoted insurance, drug therapy, beauty product, career platform, safety device, et al. It can be a powerful tool because it hits on that sensitive nerve of deficit avoidance – whether its social, financial, physical or self-esteem. Of note, occasionally the negative sell will backfire.

Dr. James Richardson, the former Hartman Group researcher and “Cultural Anthropologist,” pens a Substack column entitled Homo Imaginari, where he published a revealing analysis on fear and the election. Here is an excerpt:

“We know that fear and humor are the primary drivers in consumer marketing, though consumer brands skew towards humor because their objective is to maximize reach in the target segment. Political ads tend to stoke fear as the critical emotional variable because fear aligns with imaginings of external threats to one’s niche lifestyle or beliefs. And fear motivates a smaller group to act immediately. Humor is more memorable than motivating.

Also, voting to protect yourself is vastly more compelling than voting to reform society (an abstraction).

The former has an immediate, albeit largely imagined, payoff. Not the latter. 

America’s current political system is polarized, yes, but it is the fear-based manipulation of tiny, extreme population segments that will continue to determine many races at many levels. 

This stoking of fear runs in parallel to the high baseline anxiety many of us feel due to the extreme lifestyle fragmentation all around us. If you don’t know what to say to your neighbor because you know they are gay or voluntarily childless or atheist, that mundane awkwardness exposes many of us to fear-based manipulation from bad faith media sources. When the world is genuinely confusing us, it takes little to push some into high anxiety right before election day.”

Humanization of brands helps break the grip of fear

Brands imbued with deeper meaning and values are worth more because they are trusted.

• They convey a deeper emotional thread
• They encourage a scaled community of believers
• They are more human like and thus more relate-able
• They are more culturally relevant and resonant

When honesty, integrity and operating in the consumer’s best interests are held high and canonized in brand values, trust breaks out. The impact of that is de-escalating risk, mitigating anxiety and removing barriers of hesitance on the path to purchase.

Importance of validation, verification and advocacy

Why is word of mouth the most powerful form of communication? Because people trust the voices of their peers. Important knowing brands cannot claim or invoke trust. Earning trust benefits from a brand’s ability to credibly verify their claims and commitments.

This is where outside third-party voices and respected experts can prove invaluable in authentication of what you want consumers to believe. Earned media plays a role here, too because it is widely seen as “reporting” information rather than promoting a brand’s self-interest.

Higher purpose commitments convey presence of a soul

Do brands and businesses have a soul? Fair question, and in many instances, it may be hard to detect. However, brands leaning into trust do so with more strength and power when it is the outcome of a belief system. We define this as a higher purpose and mission that operates beyond balance sheet considerations.

People want to be part of something greater than themselves, and smart brands are in a position to provide that deeper meaning. This soulful adventure makes a brand transcendent, inviting consumers to join the brand on its mission as advocates and ambassadors rather than just transactional customers. The corrosive conditions of risk and fear are in left the rearview mirror when the consumer’s welfare, growth and needs take precedence and people believe the brand has their best interests at heart.

This is the new world order for healthy brand growth. The primary benefit: risk melts away in the face of trust and belief. 

If this post struck a chord about optimizing trust and belief to activate a committed community of brand believers and evangelists, us the link below to ask questions and start an informal conversation. The impact on your growth could be transformational.

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

Bob Wheatley is the CEO of Chicago-based Emergent. Traditional brand marketing often sidesteps more human qualities that can help consumers form an emotional bond. Yet brands yearn for authentic engagement, trust and a lasting relationship with their customers. For more information, contact [email protected] and follow on Twitter @BobWheatley.

The benefits of a focused strategic platform and message

There is no substitute for a relevant, focused brand story that capitalizes on a form of ‘secret sauce’ — conjuring added meaning, purpose and value to support why consumers should join your brand’s “movement.”

These transformational moments in business trajectory are an outcome of amplifying a story that rises beyond your products to focus on a higher purpose platform. One that unifies the brand value proposition in a more impactful, powerful narrative.

It may seem counterintuitive to push hard on meaning and mission ahead of product features and benefits, but the neuroscience, consumer insight and real-world examples of this are too compelling. Want a deeper relationship with your core consumers (of course you do)? Then imbue your brand with deeper meaning and make that the hero of your narrative.

It all begins with…

The power of an anchoring, differentiating concept –

In every case where we’ve been privileged to help shape transformational growth for a client, there is one recurring and vital theme: a foundational idea that focuses marketing and your message on pushing deeper meaning into the brand.

When this occurs, it is always in collaboration and partnership with a courageous client looking to transform their business outcomes — rather than settle for recycling another product-as-hero launch “campaign” with reworked theme and tactics.

• The alchemy of this transformational thinking falls from consumer insights blended with a refined understanding of brand purpose and value. There is a core principle at work here that can manifest across different businesses when brands reimagine who and what they are about – we describe this as leveraging your brand “why.”

These ideas always forecast change, momentum, growth and renewed energy for a brand because they spring from a culturally relevant insight: people now want to be part of something greater than themselves. This explains why brand building has shifted to a more purposeful, relationship-centric path.

Here’s the thinking that informs this approach:

When connecting your brand to a new and deeper understanding of its higher purpose, we create a cohesive guide for all go-to-market tools, strategies and decisions.

This method is a consistent winner because it employs the new rules of brand building:

• Relevant brand relationships are now built on admiration and trust and will deliver significant financial premiums
• They represent goodwill that can be isolated as a component of business value
• They can result in higher margins, traffic
• They also work to reduce the cost of promotion, improving ROI and balance sheet performance

This strategic foundation creates the opportunity for transcendence – the state of being admired – where consumers “join” the brand as community members, not just customers.

In order to mine an opportunity for building a more relevant and resonant brand, we have a responsibility to push added meaning, trust and belief to the forefront of the brand-to-consumer relationship.

We express it this way because the world has changed and relating to a brand is now fundamentally the same thing as relating to another person we care about.

Brands that lean into deeper meaning and prosper

• Chobani just announced its intention to transition to a wellness lifestyle brand. Yes, while they make yogurt and other related dairy products, this challenger brand is about to enter a new phase in its storied growth founded on these deeper meaning principles. It will be interesting to see how it manifests since acquiring upscale coffee shop brand, La Colombe.
• Redbull began as a highly charged energy concoction aimed at fueling a subculture of young people who inhabit bars and dance clubs. Along the way Red Bull launched a DJ training school to help solidify its relevance in this subculture. Successful yes, but then they smartly pivoted to embrace a bigger concept in extreme sports. They quickly became the author and face of this engaging athletic world with one of the most sophisticated brand content creation strategies ever devised for a beverage business.
• Yeti is a cooler brand? From the start this company understood the concept of a higher purpose and platform. Their marketing is focused on outdoor adventure lifestyle experiences. Was this approach centered on feature/benefit selling of their insulation tech? No. It was an effort to support, celebrate and align themselves with inspiring outdoor experiences inspirational to hunters, fisherman and hikers. Enlightened, engaging, unexpected and has paid business dividends since inception.
• In the early years Clif Bar pioneered the energy bar market and from day one focused their brand on celebrating a specific channel of outdoor adventure in trail, road and mountain biking experiences. Their storytelling invested deeply in this lifestyle space and created a happy marriage with the “fuel” aspects of their product line. It also provided guidance on their product formulation standards that kept their brand in sync with the ethos of people who embrace this lifestyle. Clif Bar’s narrative elevated the conversation with this unique audience and helped drive their rise to category leadership.

For our part we’ve devoted our thinking to these principles in due diligence discovery with client businesses, working to recalculate their brand narrative.

• For Sargento we helped them lead premiumization of the dairy aisle cheese business, nourished by focusing on a highly engaged consumer cohort called Food Adventurers. The brand became a guide, coach and enabler of consumers who enjoy cooking and see it as a form of creative expression and a measure of their self-esteem. New media, new voices, new narrative, new stories and new products. The business results were dramatic and transformational.

• For First Alert home safety products, inventors of the residential smoke alarm, we helped them move from an engineering centric brand focused on its tech achievements to a business centered entirely on saving lives and protecting the wellbeing of families. Storytelling shifted from product features to focus on families impacted by unforeseen, life-threatening events and their stories of rescue. When we launched the first residential carbon monoxide alarm in the U.S. this strategy helped deliver a new $250 million business and 80% market share within 18 months of launch. Emotional stories drove the purchase.

• Jamba Juice started as a smoothie innovator that owned a ‘healthy halo’ because of the blended fruits in their beverages. But alas the world changed, and consumers started to demand healthy lifestyle choices from an increasingly discerning audience that called out the sugary truth about Jamba’s classic drink nutritionals. Chairman and CEO James White recognized this and the opportunity to shift the business down a different pathway. We came on board to help author the framework for a healthy lifestyle brand transition, that included developing a slate of new better-for-you beverages. Our goal to help this brand secure a respected voice for healthy living. Lifestyle relevance led resonance for this new story.

• For Champion Petfoods we created a foundation concept designed to earn brand trust and belief by positioning Champion as the pet industry transparency leader. At a time when consumers were demanding more complete and credible information about how pet foods are made, we created the perfect truth serum. The Champion Transparency Council delivered the voices of trusted third parties to observe, examine, see and report on the truth about how Champion sources ingredients and crafts its pet food. The openness rewarded brand believers and reinforced the role of higher quality nutrition as the consumer’s primary path to express love for their furry family members.

Merits of a focused platform

When the brand narrative centers on a core idea that brings deeper meaning and purpose to life, great things begin to happen:

Deeper engagement – because the approach is always consumer driven, people see themselves in the narrative. We quickly achieve higher engagement levels while cultivating a stronger community of ambassadors and evangelists.

Emphasizing earned, owned and social channels – higher purpose brand outreach is steeped in story relevance and so the path to engagement is dependent on expensive “better than” paid media awareness building tactics. You don’t have to chase awareness when your story is naturally magnetic.

Focused message builds clarity – outreach effectiveness and message comprehension go up because all channels of communication are complimentary to each other and there’s less risk of confusion by chasing too many message imperatives.

• The product story doesn’t disappear. It simply moves adjacent to the core concept as information that reassures and confirms consumers have made the right choice.

If this approach to building business has got you thinking, we would be honored to help you sort through the options and determine the right anchoring idea. Use the email link below to start an informal conversation.

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

Bob Wheatley is the CEO of Chicago-based Emergent. Traditional brand marketing often sidesteps more human qualities that can help consumers form an emotional bond. Yet brands yearn for authentic engagement, trust and a lasting relationship with their customers. For more information, contact [email protected] and follow on Twitter @BobWheatley.

Trust failures infect successful brand building…

Now more than ever, earning consumer trust is paramount to the growth and development of your business. You can’t claim it. You can’t invoke it. Trust is only earned through credible, verifiable behaviors and openness. We believe this is sufficiently important that it deserves a unique discipline in the marketing eco-system we’re calling “Trust-ology.” Emerging trend: the world around us keeps supplying consumers with reasons to be skeptical, wary and thus more susceptible to perceiving added risk from engaging the vast array of brands and businesses seeking our attention.

Dramatic and ‘didn’t see it coming’ case in point

The iconic, premium positioned grocery Deli dominant meat brand, Boar’s Head, suddenly faces an unprecedented self-inflicted challenge to its busines and reputation. Tainted meat processed at one of their plants is recalled after 9 customer fatalities and 57 hospitalizations from listeria food poisoning. Amazingly, the investigation reveals an incredible failure in the most fundamental aspects of quality control, food safety and plant hygiene. Astounding. Once again, the world sees a business reputation fouled by performance that incredibly fractures the perception of basic standards and values the public expects. What was hidden behind a corporate veil is suddenly revealed in the intense, bright spotlight of media reporting.

As the lens of this media scrutiny inevitably widened on Boars Head, we also discover disturbing allegations of sexual harassment, racial and disability discrimination the company is facing in the form of lawsuits now getting visibility in the press. Where there’s behavioral smoke, there’s bad reputation fire?

Yet another example of why consumers are skeptical and hesitant of what companies say vs. what they do. What appeared as bright and shiny on the outside (gorgeous roasted hams) is revealed to be darker and without proper values on the inside. Thus, why trust must be earned through openness, vigilance and purpose when brands operate with the consumer’s best interests in mind 100% of the time.

This recurring barrier to brand belief is soaking in reputation challenges

In the digital era, all things that can be known, will be known instantly. Every brand now exists in a glass house that too often reveals breakdowns in trust. We observe brands, businesses and individuals outed on half-truths, misstatements, bogus claims, failures to admit mistakes, reckless hyperbole, baseless assertions, lies by omission, overt selfishness and outright deceit.

Who do you believe?

Who has an unassailable reputation?

Who is honest?

How do you know what’s truthful?

The mechanics of effective brand marketing requires trust. Without it, messaging becomes noise, dismissed as self-promotion wired to self-interest acted out on a paid media stage.

Consumer shift

Consumers today are demanding, for good reason, more information about the products they use and how they were created – some companies are paying attention. Earlier this year, bedding brand Boll & Branch launched Origin Track, which lets consumers trace how their sheets are made, from raw materials to finished product. At the foundation of this development is trust and how to acquire it. Brands that offer more disclosure and information earn deeper loyalty and engagement from consumers.

The dawn of trust-ology

Trust is needed in any brand-to-consumer relationship that lasts. You can’t simply say ‘we’re trustworthy’ and expect consumers to fall in line. Trust must be earned through daily deed and credible supporting action. Trust is the must-have goal as you work (hard) to secure consumer belief in your statements. This requires vigilance and intent.

Anatomy of trust-ology

• Belief is an idea rooted in a form of truth
• Faith is more than a thought — it is a deep-seated conviction
• Belief is centered in faith, and faith is centered in trust
• Trust is actionable, based on a credible, verifiable validation of rightness

Trusted means you accept the sender’s message because you believe they have your best interests at heart. You have faith in them and what they tell you. It is earned through consistent actions and verified by the validation of third-party trusted sources – expert voices without a compromising financial incentive.

The hierarchy of trust-ology

1. Consumers come first – you genuinely care about their welfare and happiness
2. Their best interests are always served
3. It is supported by honesty, reliability and consistency in how you operate (business behavior)
4. Your brand is consistently empathetic to their needs and aspirations

Trust-ology as strategy

In a study from Innova Research on the Top 10 Trends of 2023, they report 66% of consumers would trust a company that is upfront and truthful about the challenges they’re facing to operate more sustainably. The report goes on to say honesty and transparency are the most important values related to food. More specifically:

• How food is produced
• Where ingredients are sourced
• How value chain stakeholders are treated

In sum, consumer interest in transparency is fueling demands for more transparency. Why? Enabling trust. Allowing consumers to see for themselves how you do what you do results in credible proof of what you want them to believe. Thus, why trust building is a core proposition underneath brand strength and business growth.

Will you do something bold, new and unexpected in the name of earning credibility?

The trust-ology building platform – Champion Transparency Council

Champion Petfood owns some of the highest standards for quality ingredients in the pet food industry. However, that can be a tough message to credibly convey in an industry known for its lack of transparency and visibility to supply chain details, verified ingredient standards and manufacturing processes. Champion needed to reinforce trust at a critical time when consumers were demanding that pet food companies back up their assertions of high quality, human grade food ingredients.

Three steps to transparency transformation

1. Emergent’s solution: build trust through the voices and observations of real people and respected Veterinarian physicians
2. The strategic vehicle: The Champion Transparency Council
3. Their mission: see everything in every phase of pet food making from farm to production and report on what they witnessed firsthand

Leverage: we tapped into a unique operational commitment at Champion — their legacy long-term contracts to supply fresh proteins from farms, ranches and fisheries within driving distance of their kitchens.

We took Council members to nearby farms and fisheries to witness how animals were raised, chat with farmers and hear about their story and methods. We took them fishing so they could participate in the harvest of fish that would be used in making pet food. They observed the fresh proteins arriving at Champion’s kitchens. We invited them to see and ask questions about every aspect of pet food manufacturing, from intake to final packaging.

Their first-person reports verified Champion’s claims and were published through an array of channels reaching consumers and retailers. It was the truth about pet food making from a company that had nothing to hide and everything to gain by being totally transparent.

The Council strategy nourished Champion’s community of brand evangelists and enthusiasts with validation and proof that their faith was warranted and respected. We provided the media with unprecedented access to Council members for interviews.

Does your organization see transparency and traceability as a business opportunity? If so, how are you surfacing data and information to enable it and help your business benefit from it?

Components of trust-ology

Access

Openness

Dialogue

Customer-first values

Demonstration

Transparency

Integrity and honesty

This approach assures that the marketing story is consistent with company performance and consistent delivery of promises.

Why is this so vital to business growth?

Imagine for a moment that consumers no longer trust the claims and assertions brands make. Consider that their fears of misplaced loyalty and belief are confirmed in surprising moments of outing via an internal whistle-blower, government or media investigation or aftermath of a recall event. This manifests as a compelling need to know more, see more and make an informed evaluation based on evidence provided. Trust is merited through trustworthy actions.

This is why trust-ology should be a component of the marketing discipline, and trust creation must be a considered and embedded platform within the brand marketing game plan.

Open the curtain and let people see firsthand. Actions speak louder than words. At stake is rewarding their faith in your brand. When trust is secured, you should continue to invest in retaining it. As we’ve seen repeatedly, once lost, trust can be hard to reacquire.

• Trusted brands earn loyalty, admiration, and advocacy. Just make sure this commitment is woven into the fabric of your organization’s belief system. Efforts here will make your marketing more effective and your brand more resilient. Someday we hope to see a Chief Trust-ologist on the c-suite team.

If this discussion makes you anxious to discover more about the pathway to deploying trust-ology and belief, use the link below to arrange an informal meeting and start a dialogue on your questions.

Link to Download Champion Case Study

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

Bob Wheatley is the CEO of Chicago-based Emergent. Traditional brand marketing often sidesteps more human qualities that can help consumers form an emotional bond. Yet brands yearn for authentic engagement, trust and a lasting relationship with their customers. For more information, contact [email protected] and follow on Twitter @BobWheatley.

You don’t need to roll the dice on chasing attention…

The legendary Peter Drucker said, “business has only two functions, marketing and innovation, and everything else is just costs.” His bucket of cold-water reality statement is based on a profound understanding: even superior products can fail to gain traction in the marketplace, where strong brands built on a foundation of compelling strategic differentiation can beat everything else. However, perception doesn’t lead reality by very far, so the relative strength and power of the product innovation remains a critical component of sustainable business growth. Yet still his point well taken, but often missed.

• Thus why Emergent is a hybrid integration of brand strategy guidance and creative brand storytelling, because both must be in harmony for business results to manifest. A poorly positioned and undifferentiated brand does not improve when the media spotlight is turned on and amplifies those weaknesses.

• Our perspective and experience having launched hundreds of brands, new categories and products helps shorten the distance between investment and bankable results. Yet all too often, businesses get stuck in rinse and repeat performances that essentially handcuff the “marketing” outcomes to marching in step with prevailing category conditions (good or bad).

Far too many organizations view marketing as “the department down the hall,” and don’t give it the priority and resource allocation it so richly deserves. Perhaps this is a holdover of old business school traditions about the importance of finance and operations. Yet we have mountains of evidence that marketing/brand led businesses will outperform everything else. You can’t “balance sheet control” your way to marketplace success.

Equally important though not to conflate this perspective with big attention chasing ad campaigns and media spend overreach that depresses profits while serving up some marquis brand-ertainment. Pepsi just recently released a Gladiator-themed commercial to coincide with the return of football season, stuffed with A-list stars including Megan-thee-Stallion and Travis Kelce. It’s big budget blast used to chase awareness. Is this strategy at play? No, it’s tactics at play, albeit a well-financed and cinematic version. Of note, retailers may appreciate the spend regardless of whether or not the brand itself is sufficiently separated and elevated from all choices it competes with. However, most businesses will need to be more strategic to succeed.

The goal of sound strategy is differentiation. Said another way, an effort to gain monopoly-like status in a crowded field. Businesses faced with a lot of similar competition can struggle to deliver profits because` of market forces that inevitably push pricing towards the top of the competitive agenda.

A better path

Marketing in its purest form is always led by strategy, and optimal strategy is centered on how to separate and elevate a business from the competition, such that it creates its own distinct category by offering something consumers can only get from you.

Peter Theil in his excellent book, “Zero to One” helps us understand the relative power of successfully positioned brands in his description of challenges posed by sameness and similarity in a category. “In 2012, when the average airfare each way was $178, the airlines made only 37 cents per passenger trip. Compare them to Google, which creates less value but captures far more. Google brought in $50 billion in 2012 (versus $160 billion for the airlines), but it kept 21% of those revenues as profits—more than 100 times the airline industry’s profit margin that year. Google makes so much money that it’s now worth three times more than every U.S. airline combined. The airlines compete with each other, but Google stands alone.”

• Different business model you say, but the principle is clear: the more you seek to operate as a market of one and not many, the more control you have over your destiny.

The business end of marketing well played

Entirely too much emphasis is placed on expensive ad campaigns as a poster child of marketing best practices. The war is often won in the trenches and chasing high media investment awareness is an expensive, profit draining gambit many brands would be foolish to pursue.

Well-positioned brands that are imbued with deeper meaning and mission can attract legions of ambassadors, enthusiasts and believers who join the brand community and then turn around and talk about it. This is the 80/20 rule writ large (most of your sales and profits come from a smaller segment of devoted customers) and the most powerful and credible channel of communication because it is trusted and not dependent on mega-sized paid media spending.

Combine this with a solid retail marketing plan and you’ve got your hands on the levers of push and pull that can drive profitable results. Let’s take a closer look at example elements of strong retail support that can secure sales traction for a well-positioned brand.

Retailer support concepts

1. Strengthening retailer relationships

• Personalized engagement through dedicated account handlers to build stronger relationships and ensure retailers feel valued and supported.

• Ongoing communication to keep retail customers in the loop about new products, promotions, and company news using tools such as e-newsletters, webinars, and retailer townhalls with executive presentations.

2. Tailored marketing support

• Co-branded marketing materials, including in-store displays, brochures, and social media content.

• Localized marketing outreach designed for resonance with the specific demographics and preferences of a retailer’s customer base.

• Providing training on digital marketing techniques, such as social media marketing and online advertising, to help retailers more effectively reach a broader audience.

3. Comprehensive training

• Developing training programs for store sales staff, focused on your brand narrative and differentiated story. This can be delivered through online modules, in-person workshops and webinars.

• More targeted lifestyle education in meaningful areas like nutrition and wellness, helping store staff become trusted customer advisors — to enhance retailer reputation as knowledgeable and caring.

• Sales training to help staff improve their customer service and engagement skills.

4. Exclusive promotions and incentives

• Building exclusive promotions around special discounts, bundle offers, or limited-edition products to help drive traffic and sales.

• Retailer loyalty programs that reward partnership and performance, such as rebates, free product samples, or marketing support funds.

• Partnering with retailers on in-store events such as seminars, product demonstrations and experiences to engage customers and increase brand visibility.

5. Feedback and ongoing Improvement

• Creating retailer advisory councils to gather ongoing feedback and insights so you can better understand their needs and challenges.

• Conducting regular surveys and feedback sessions to monitor the effectiveness marketing activity and identify areas for improvement.

6. Leveraging community and cause campaigns

• Supporting local cause events and charities that retailers are already involved in to strengthen community ties and brand loyalty; or partner with retailers to build original cause marketing campaigns that resonate with their customer base.

Why does this matter?

Getting as close as possible to your customer at the point of decision is never a bad idea. The moment of truth at shelf can be significant as consumers navigate choice and think about their priorities and spend.

Yes, it’s an eco-system that helps people understand and “feel something” about your brand BEFORE they go to the store. However, what happens at retail should also be carefully designed and not left with other brands to usurp.

Integration of the two is your strongest play: a highly differentiated brand with a great story to tell, matched with strong retail partnerships and support to close the loop. In a way this explains why Emergent exists and what we aim to deliver. Separately, these tools don’t perform as well. Planned and integrated, it forms a strong cohesive foundation on which to build a lasting, profitable business.

Can you see it?

If this approach stimulates questions about how it can apply to your unique brand challenges, us the link below to ask questions and open a dialogue that should prove insightful and useful for your planning.

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

Bob Wheatley is the CEO of Chicago-based Emergent. Traditional brand marketing often sidesteps more human qualities that can help consumers form an emotional bond. Yet brands yearn for authentic engagement, trust and a lasting relationship with their customers. For more information, contact [email protected] and follow on Twitter @BobWheatley.

Is it time for a re-stage?

In 2021 and ’22, nearly every month in the food and environmental trades there was another announcement of a Series “pick the letter” closing as hundreds of millions in capital raise flooded the “start-up” march to glory on the road to solve the future of food.

• The philosophical underpinnings of this wave of new brands and businesses was based on a profound new, powerful understanding that the food system as we know it is a significant actor in the carbon emission contributions to global warming from agricultural sources.

New technologies promising exact replicas (bioidentical) of animal-based proteins with no taste or eating experience sacrifice operated like magnets, drawing private equity and VC funding right and left as investors labored to spread their risk across a broad swath of promising players. Their hope to land on some commercialization and scaling magic that would amply reward investors who searched for the next Golden Goose headed for the animal-free protein hall of fame.

It often felt like a crusade to save humanity by remaking where food comes from in ways never before imagined. Meanwhile the nascent plant-based meat proteins marketplace was further along its journey and about to explode as Beyond Meat unveiled its now famous claim of “Plant-Based Meat for Meat Lovers” to lure in a non-vegan, larger audience of early adopters. It was an audacious claim of decadent hamburger eating experience but crafted from plants. The other not-so-recognize-able ingredients in this highly processed product would later surface critically as a drag on its healthier premise.

The plant-based protein hype machine in full throat fomented a wave of channel expansion into fast food, mass grocery retail. Of note the rapid moves into mass distribution may have been il-advised when the core audiences of these behemoth retail outlets were populated with consumers driven more so by pocketbook issues than the loftier cries to reduce carbon emissions from food creation.

• When certain consumer cohorts are less enamored with the environmental goals, they can be more sensitive to the price premium “ouch” and less tolerant of any sacrifices in taste or texture of a food you’ve been in love with for most of their lives. Impact of this on repeat purchase velocity, a prime indicator of stickiness in the core value proposition, became self-evident.

Know thy market?

In a crusade to rapidly change the world’s eating habits, over-reach ensued with large cap CPGs, QSR restaurant chains and other patrons of the mass market love jumping on the plant-based bandwagon to either launch a subpar knock-off product or grab a new menu board item to wave in front of consumers in the midst of a media storm that trumpeted the rise of plant-based solutions as ‘better for you’ – with a side order of less taxing to the environment.

All well and good and yes, the number of consumers who care about sustainability has been rising for years. Still important to consider the core user base for these premium food choices is found in higher income, higher education household zip codes where people are more intrinsically inclined to support the global warming story — while looking past the price premium and not-quite-the-same eating experience. Had the early category moves been more respectful of channel and audience selection, some of the inevitable over-the-cliff fiasco on sales volume draw down might have been avoided.

An eco-system of Confirmation Bias inhabitants drives the future-food ship

The near zero Federal funds rate pushed dollars on the hunt for an investment home in new directions. This coincided with a ramp up in media attention to global warming impacts, and the role agriculture plays in contributing emissions (especially from livestock). The emergence of various technologies like precision and biomass fermentation and cell-cultured protein creation swarmed the decks of a start-up tsunami fueled by ample funding to go around.

Stirring this pot is an eco-system of attorneys, bankers, VC’s, distributors, pundits and alt. protein convention companies all with a stake in the future food pie, helping promote expansion, while simultaneously encouraging new combatants to join the fray. One look at the aggregate logo farm on convention web sites of investors, suppliers, brands and supporting actors promised a form of ‘more is better’ while the line-up to secure capital infusions got longer.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are now somewhere in the range of 500,000 new startups every year, much of this an outcome of investment flow and the growing availability of contract manufacturing that lowers the capital cost bar of entry.

Kaboom!

Lots of noise, a friendly media spotlight, ambitious environmental virtue signaling that the future of food was about to flip — all fueled by escalating global emissions and rising temperatures moving at a record busting pace threatening to disrupt life as we know it, especially in the southern hemisphere.

Then poof!

Beyond Meat’s decision to access public markets with a stock offering also created a high level of scrutiny on performance reporting, with cracks in the veneer starting to show as questions swirled about ingredients, processing, taste, cost and whether or not these products were actually better for you. This analysis caught up alongside the erstwhile decisions to jump the new category development shark by entering broad market retail and QSR distribution (too) early. The false positive of rapid volume growth slammed up against a souring media climate and wave of consumers who had less at stake in the plant-based protein promise.

The shift in results met with a media whip that questioned, “is the plant-based meat party over?” The net effect of all this had a dampening impact on all corners of the emerging proteins marketplace, while inflation pushed the cost of money up. Investment slowed and suddenly the emerging brand players were confronted with decisions on mitigating cash burn. Horns pulled inward and the entire innovation train quickly slowed. The push towards market launches with it now moving at golf cart speeds, while the mechanics of survival of the fittest had its way.

Truth remains inescapable

• Has climate change stopped? No, it is accelerating.
• Has the repurposing of valued Amazon rainforest for raising livestock reversed? No, it is expanding.
• Has food somehow become less of a contributor to global warming? No, it continues.
• Has the promise of proteins made without an animal become less relevant? No, it is an important tech development that deserves to win.
• Is it conceivable the expanding demand for protein based on world population growth will outstrip the conventional supply system? Yes, we need better, more efficient way to make proteins to nourish a world with 10 billion souls by 2050.

The biggest barrier to successful commercialization of new food tech?

Most will argue it’s the lack of manufacturing infrastructure to make these fermentable proteins at scale to both lower prices to parity with legacy products while producing in sufficient volume to be a reliable, viable replacement. That’s a real challenge. One that desperately calls for government support to speed up the development of fermentation manufacturing capacity. Yet I would counter there’s ample proof that major shifts in technology that impact consumer behavior and perceptions can inadvertently form a stalwart block to change, if not addressed with skill and strategic consideration.

When the capital flow started to slow in emerging brand land, so did the efforts to effectively educate the world about the who, what, how and why of these new food solutions. You can’t just show up one day and say here’s meat and dairy made without an animal that’s not plant-based, but is exactly the same as the animal version only more sustainable.

First question: is that even possible?

Second: How did you do it?

Third: is it safe?

Fourth: will I like the taste?

Fifth: can I afford it?

Sixth: does this mean conventional meat and dairy goes away? What about farmers?

Complicated messages about things people aren’t familiar with runs a chance of falling flat right out of the gate. Perceived risk is a killer of innovations that don’t find early footing. People will not tolerate a substandard experience.

Time for a restage, restart, recommitment to authoring the future of food

The negative baggage trailing plant-based meat is unfortunate. It sent a chilling effect across the entire alt. protein investment landscape. The cooling became circular as shelf presence narrowed while people returned to their traditional food buying grocery list habits.

No, it’s not over by any means. But this whole future of food engine needs a restart. The fundamentals of why it must happen aren’t weaker. That said we’re talking about food here, and food is a uniquely emotional category. The bar for safety, health, taste, texture and cost is higher for anything people put in their bodies.

There needs to be a collective meeting of the minds on how to talk about and romance these new foods in a way that’s respectful of how people behave and make decisions. Too many brand cooks in the messaging kitchen and you have chaos on how the story is told. Organizations like the Precision Fermentation Alliance need proper funding and experienced marketing guidance on how to package and present the story (insight research) about a better way to make proteins, while managing consumer expectations and reservations. No, Founder intuition won’t solve this.

A word to the wise: adapt to changing food culture

Historically, America’s beginnings with a north European immigrant base led by England, Ireland and Germany brought generally brand cuisines to our shores that later collided with America’s industrial complex built on cheap, fast and efficient. What did we get? Fast food, TV dinners, microwaveable meals and industrialized processing. Now comes a sea change…

Live to eat vs. eat to live

A massive makeover in how we view food is in motion, and the emergence of foodie culture once reserved for high income households has democratized with the Food TV network, food trucks, chef driven fast casual, sensory appreciation, and a realization that food is integral to human bonding. Thus, why cuisine exploration, meal preparation, experiences has spawned an unprecedented interest in better ingredients, creativity, craftsmanship and slower paced meals. America’s preoccupation with capitalistic efficiency personified in McDonald’s is evolving with new culinary infusions:

France – croissant and coq au vin

Italy – pasta and prosciutto

Japan – sushi and ramen

Food is an adventure

When we move to the most significant change in where food comes from since agriculture was invented 10,000 years ago, the context we build around food experience walks alongside the important story of sustainability, carbon emissions, natural resource consumption, land use and better farming practices. Ultimately leading with the mouth and heart before head, it is incumbent on future food to embrace the moral static of the right way to live.

People need something to believe in and we can provide that by building a better food world with new rules. Changing behaviors will lead to changes in beliefs. To get to behaviors we would be well advised to cast a net in taste adventures and culinary creativity while being careful to navigate around any perception of mechanized, highly processed, industrial friendly efficiencies. Lean into science and you’ll lose people in a heartbeat. The questions we’ll be tasked to answer: will people rave about the new food products we create? And in doing so will it change their expectations about what’s possible.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression, so how it starts is meaningful. That said the time to start is NOW. Prepping the beachhead won’t happen overnight. Laying track now to get the world comfortable, even looking forward to what’s coming, is essential.

If this discussion got you thinking about the future of food, us the link below to ask questions. If a robust dialogue ensues, we will do a follow-up story.

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

Bob Wheatley is the CEO of Chicago-based Emergent. Traditional brand marketing often sidesteps more human qualities that can help consumers form an emotional bond. Yet brands yearn for authentic engagement, trust and a lasting relationship with their customers. For more information, contact [email protected] and follow on Twitter @BobWheatley.