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.

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Why is it evaporating in CPG and retail brand building?

Your customers want to be part of a brand world and ecosystem you construct through conscious cultivation of your brand’s deeper meaning, higher purpose, convictions and expressed values. Never before have CPG and retail brands had this extraordinary opportunity to build such close and endearing user relationships because our culture — and consumer behavior with it — has permanently changed. Yet far too many organizations struggle with this, or ignore it, because they have inadvertently lost, diluted or forgotten their own soul. Yes, brands indeed have a soul.

• In the absence of a clearly wrought and codified “brand constitution,” too many compromises amidst the battles of year-to-year commerce and the inevitable maturation of category rules and conventions, work to chip away at this essential brand foundation.

In the go-go 80’s and early 90’s prior to arrival of the Internet and the power transfer from corporations to consumers, much of the dialogue in brand building had a distinct military flavor to it, with brands seeking to dominate their categories, erect barriers to entry and defend their territory through command-and-control tactics. Vestiges of this thinking still remain, despite the evidence that consumer-to-brand relationship creation has transformed. In this milieu, too often the disciplines of soul nurturing are circumvented by surface level attempts to bolt on shiny imagery and applied marketing lipstick that glosses over a baked in priority for commerce metrics and transactional behaviors over consumer-relevant strategic thinking.

Building, codifying, prioritizing and delivering on the levers of brand soul are indeed vital and essential to sustainable growth in the modern consumer-powered era. People are far more interested in and attracted to your “why” (values, purpose, beliefs) than either what you do or how you do it — no matter how enamored you may be of your superior product mouse trap.

How a brand’s soul gets buried

As virtually every business category grows and matures, an implicit set of rules and boundaries begin to arise, informed by consumer and retail customer expectations, competitive actions, regulatory requirements and industry standards of conduct. These conditions tend to push all category participants towards the middle resulting in comparable product offerings, features, benefits and pricing. Over time this includes growing similarity in business practices, supply chain standards and even manufacturing processes.

The not-to-be-taken-lightly threat that incubates in this environment is the ceaseless, endless and rust-advancing march of commoditization. The condition that compels category players to emphasize scale over other considerations as they pursue efficiency gains, enforce retail leverage and bolster thinning margins.

Commoditization has already taken root in cell phones, computers, hotels, airlines, cars and many food and beverage categories – and in doing so, opportunities for innovative, soul-inspired disruptors are unleashed to move in and gain marketplace traction.

In sum, over time…

1. Meaningful differentiation can dissipate
2. Marketing leverage based on budget tonnage in spending eventually starts to post diminishing returns
3. Brand soul and purpose recedes into the background amidst commoditization pressures
4. Increasing similarity rules the day among category participants
5. Businesses begin to focus on price promotion to achieve volume goals

Whole Foods was once a champion of purpose and meaning, its business model informed by advancing the organic movement, education around same and the firm belief foods produced this way ultimately contribute to the improved health, wellbeing and happiness of people and the environment. Since its acquisition by Amazon the belief system has receded, and in its place traditional supermarket merchandising mechanisms like PRIME promotions are driving the brand story.

Meaning and values were at one time the insulation and inoculation for Whole Foods’ higher pricing and the value proposition underneath it. Now the banner faces more competition and pricing pressures because the belief system is no longer the tip of the brand spear. Further the adoption of organic brands and sections within mainstream supermarkets serves to commodify the uniqueness of Whole Foods’ differentiation and so the advantages of its original specialness atrophies.

• Soul is the engine that drives brand separation and elevation with consumers who actively pursue and are attracted to deeper meaning and values-leaning strategies.

Symbols can tell the tale

Consumers are remarkably adept at reading the room. We immediately understand the cues, signals, icons and images that explain what and who we’re dealing with, where we are, how to behave and what to expect from a brand.

• What signals is your brand transmitting?
• Are you sending the right message?
• Do your values come through in the symbolism you generously (or not) display through every point of consumer contact?

Brands informed by their soul are always focused on fulfilling consumer need, dreams, expectations, desires and growth. They are also unafraid to express views on societal issues that consumers care about such as sustainability, environmental responsibility and the wellbeing of disadvantaged people.

Soul signals and consumer-centricity

Brand soul and higher purpose tends to fall from a deep understanding and preoccupation with supporting consumers on their life journey. This manifests from genuine care and consideration for their welfare and personal growth while also helping people realize their hopes and dreams.

It is in those dreams and aspirations that we find an emotional anchor for storytelling that moves people to embrace and join your brand ecosystem. Every human, every day wishes for progress and improvement. Are you actively helping them on their journey to grow?

From:

Unhealthy to healthy

Good to great

Weak to strong

Lonely to popular

Confused to wise

Invisible to recognized

Novice to expert

Poor to secure

Plain to fashionable

Make no mistake, to be human is to be emotional. However, brands without a soul-led code of conduct tend to talk endlessly about themselves and product features rather than enablement and celebration of consumer passions. In doing so the brand story is likely to be fact-dense and analytical, despite the reems of research confirming people won’t burn the mental calories to decipher that kind of messaging. People simply are just not fact-based, analytical decision-making machines.

How do you know if you’re succeeding? When consumers can state with clarity what your brand stands for, its meaning and purpose.

A powerful tool at your disposal: surprise and delight

Do the unexpected. In his book Unreasonable Hospitality, restaurateur and author Will Guidara tells the tale of a table of New York City visitors who were overheard saying they were disappointed that the following day they were leaving the city without ever having sampled a hot dog from one of the many carts that line the streets of Manhattan.

Mind you his restaurant, Eleven Madison Park, is one of the finest, most elite culinary palaces in New York. His team sprang into action sending a runner to track down hot dogs at a cart. They were ferried back to the kitchen where the chef arranged an artful hot dog presentation. The diners were blown away that the restaurant would do this without a word ever being spoken to staff about their hot dog curiosity. It was the restaurant’s soulful belief in unreasonable hospitality that brought the surprise to life.

Have you ever been to Harrod’s department store in London? If so, have you shopped in their over-the-top food hall? Harrod’s isn’t a supermarket mind you but thy indeed sell fresh and packaged foods. Their fresh fish displays are legendary for their artistry and creative arrangement of fresh fish choices.

Of course, any grocery store with vision and applied talent could do the same thing, with the goal of making their store talked about and Instagram worthy. Yet nothing of the sort happens past the layers of crushed ice surrounding rows of whatever fish is on feature.

Surprise and delight are a choice. It is a strategy. It recognizes the very human preference for artistry and empathy.  Stores and brands with a clearly curated and developed soul are more likely to find this path and exploit it than those that don’t and who are more comfortable staying within the category accepted norms of behavior.

• When you’re willing to be a disruptive player you have a chance to alter the paradigm of what consumers think you are about and engineer a new and more engaging perception of your brand.

If this article has you thinking about how this could be brought to life in your business, it’s important to note you will need outside experts to help you work through the right mix of tools and messages. Use the link below to start a conversation with our team of brand soul experts.

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Bold moves can overcome limited uniqueness…

Let’s face it, in the vast majority of CPG categories — despite efforts by some brands to push forms of differentiation — for the most part they are cloaked with sameness and similarity. It is just hard to find fertile territory for defensible, sustainable and obvious-to-everyone uniqueness. You may start out as a unicorn, until competing brands reverse engineer your leap, then differences in story and concept start to recede.

That doesn’t mean you should give up on constantly pushing the strategic envelope towards radical differentiation. The benefits of creating a “category of one” are remarkable and profitable. Brand standouts spend less on marketing because of their natural magnetism, allure and the elevated distinctive value they possess. It just doesn’t require constant drumbeating to out shout adjacent competitors. You don’t need to, and you aren’t focused on them to begin with.

Let’s be real: it’s likely over time that what made you famous will be commoditized. Jamba Juice invented the smoothie business. Over time smoothies were commoditized by similar competing products/brands and the emergence of RTD (ready to drink) versions in every corner of grocery and foodservice retail. Jamba started down a strategic path to differentiate itself by transforming into a healthy lifestyle brand. We know the details as we were part of the effort.

But that takes time, added investment — and less patient investors pushed back on doing anything that stepped beyond the core concept, forcing Jamba back into its commoditized cup. Which reminds me of Marlon Brando’s famous line from On The Waterfront, “I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody” – ah yes too many brands find themselves eventually in a wistful trap, at times of their own doing. (Assuming they recognize the lost opportunity).

Leaning into over-reach

But don’t despair, there’s another pathway available if you have the courage and fortitude to pursue it. Here it is – do something generic with such bravery and power it appears to others that you are the only game in town. Whatever that focus might be, you creatively own it, manifest it, and lean into it without reservation, hesitance or limitation.

In Will Guidara’s eye-opening book “Unreasonable Hospitality” he recounts the journey for his restaurant Eleven Madison Park to being named the best restaurant in the world. Not by pushing the envelope of complicated, artistic tweezer food excellence – a frankly similar strategy advanced by nearly every top-echelon restaurant and celebrity chef on the voyage to four stars-dom. No, they bent the rule and devoted themselves to ridiculous, unreasonable, over-the-top, crazy levels of hospitality and guest service. In doing so Eleven Madison became a category of one in a uber-class of similarly great kitchens all helmed by talented culinary commanders.

First Alert, the smoke alarm brand, invented the residential smoke detector and in doing so saved countless lives. An engineering driven company, it beat everyone else by being first with the most. Over time however, the transfer of marketplace power to large format retailers like Walmart and Home Depot, the business was commoditized and sold on price – technology appearing to most consumers as the same between brands. However, another tech innovation at First Alert opened the door to rethinking the brand and business.

First Alert once again stepped up to invent the residential carbon monoxide alarm, addressing an insidious household hazard and source of deadly blood poisoning from an invisible, odorless  gas released by malfunctioning furnaces, stoves, water heaters and fireplaces. The event created an opportunity to pivot, and First Alert embarked on a journey to home safety brand focused on the health, safety and wellbeing of families. The mission- oriented platform enabled a new brand voice in parallel with unusual collaboration partners that reached way beyond “stop, drop and roll.” It was a magical era for the company and its growth until ownership changes forced it backwards into the old engineering mindset and price driven player in commodity categories. Heavy sigh. We know the details because again we were engaged in building the strategic shift while it lasted over a nine-year period.

Outerwear brands embracing sustainability isn’t unique. Messaging around protecting planet earth is everywhere in the category. Strategically there’s not much separation in this business based on these beliefs and the tech in garments. But Patagonia has emerged as a category of one despite this condition by its sheer tenacity and willingness to over-reach, over-extend itself on the path to sustainable behaviors and policies.

If its broke, they fix it. Yes Patagonia, in their effort to reduce its impact on resource consumption and emissions, encourages users to avoid purchasing new garments by offering free and unlimited repairs on any of their products. Some might say, are you crazy? Like a fox we say. The continued efforts by Patagonia to break rules and stretch itself beyond ‘normal and expected’ is testament to a form of strategic brilliance. It is and they are unique in a business where other types of real differentiation are hard to own.

The requirement here is boldness and courage; to take your belief system and push it to ‘unreasonable’ edges. On the path you can expect to face decision making that will be hard, strange at times and difficult. You do it because as a business you actually, really, truly mean what you say and claim to be important. The call to action happens when the ethos holds the decision-making keys to the kingdom and you just over-commit.

Do something inspiring

If you’re looking for a consistent thread in these examples, it’s in executive leadership that is both visionary and courageous. That means leaders who hold the belief system close and see the advantages hidden in the tea leaves to push beyond the norms of expected and reasonable brand behaviors.

The Super Bowl is coming soon. While it may be distant memory for many, or not a memory at all for most, Apple introduced its Macintosh computer with one of the boldest and most ambitious TV commercials ever made. It was expensive to produce and air. It was an over-commit of the highest order employing a strategy counterintuitive to tech category behaviors. The marketing budget was invested in a swing for the fence that didn’t mention a single product feature or benefit. It was wholly a cinematic and emotional statement of ‘now you can change the world.’

Kapow in 60 seconds. It was a gutsy move to be sure and a manifestation in 1984 of new thinking about brand purpose and meaning that cast Apple as a category of one. The belief system held sway and the courage shown there was palpable. Jobs made it so, enabled by his creative partner Lee Clow from ad agency Chiat Day. Eventually Microsoft did their turn on the ‘graphical user interface’ innovation with Windows, but it never pushed Apple off its course. Even with some tech equivalence in there, Apple remains a separate, unique and distinct brand with a huge base of advocates and ambassadors.

• Make no mistake, employees are part of the solution here. When you over commit, they need to join you as a population of insider, storytelling evangelists.

The roadmap to adventure

This all starts with your brand’s higher purpose, deeper meaning and belief system. If you don’t really have a fix on that then none of this really works because there’s nothing powerful enough to over-commit to.

• What are you on the planet to accomplish beyond balance sheet imperatives? How are you working to improve people’s lives? Whatever your higher purpose might be that draws consumers in, you should know that people want to be a part of something greater than themselves.

Once you have refined your brand “why” it’s fair to ask what can you do to stretch and over-deliver on that promise? If the answers you come up with bring some discomfort, that’s a good thing. When courage is required, you know you’re on the right path.

Our point: differentiation isn’t always found only in the product and category you created. It can be brought to life going above and beyond to deliver on your purpose. This can get you to ownable differentiation, just remember you can’t take your foot off the gas. If you do, commoditization’s rustiness will begin to take root. In the immortal words of rock band Journey’s legendary lead singer Steve Perry, “Don’t Stop Believin.”

If this story inspires you to explore brand courage and boldness, and you’d like to discuss the potential framework with experienced hands, use the link below to start an informal conversation to discuss your journey to uniqueness.

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

How’s your sustainability practices’ steering right now?

Last year was the warmest ever for our planet. We continue to pump more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere anyway. Consumer sustainability concerns are evolving and it’s about to take a hard turn. Are you ready to navigate? Stay with us while we peel the onion on how we got here and what’s coming.

In June of 2020 Emergent started working with a new food technology start-up called Air Protein, founded by MIT physicist Dr. Lisa Dyson. We came onboard to help install the strategic building blocks for a new category, brand and business. Dyson’s ground-breaking mission to create meat proteins that were identical in every way to the animal version without any animal involved in making them. Instead, she borrowed a chapter in protein creation research from NASA that launched during the Apollo Mission era – aimed at figuring out how to feed astronauts during extended space travel.

The basis for this ground-breaking work was emerging evidence responding to the detrimental impacts of livestock farming and industrial agriculture on our environment. We were in a word, awestruck, by the gravity of the environmental challenges and convinced that Dr. Dyson’s “carbon transformation” technology held great promise for a more sustainable way to create meat proteins that didn’t carry the eating experience challenges of plant-based options.

• The more study we did through our relationship with this important new company, the more persuaded we became that the entire food and beverage industry needed to step up on the journey to more sustainable practices. Admittedly, we were likely ahead of the curve at that time on the details that sit underneath why our food system (industrial agriculture) is a significant contributor to carbon emissions.

By late 2020 and we had amassed enough secondary research on the emerging issue of climate impact and sustainability to draw some conclusions. First, consumers were responding with some alarm to stories of global warming outcomes and rising greenhouse gas levels. Second, it was clear to us that food, beverage and retail brands were trying to figure out what this meant to the business and how they should navigate the issue.

Early in 2021 we responded by creating the Brand Sustainability Solution (BSS) platform designed to help frame the key challenges, compile what we knew about evolving consumer preferences and tie it all together with a five-point sustainability readiness best practices guide.

At the time our primary conclusions were:

1. The food system is a significant contributor to greenhouse gases, primarily from raising livestock for protein.
2. Consumers are trying to identify sustainable choices, but brands were behind the curve in responding.
3. Businesses were unsure of the correct path to sustainability readiness. Even what readiness consisted of was hotly debated.

Today we stand at the edge of a significant change

Sustainability impacts to date have been defined within a framework of Systems 1, 2 and 3 impacts. System 1 and 2 are both within an organization’s own ability to manage and make changes whether that be energy use, resource consumption or packaging upgrades. However, studies have confirmed that 80 to 90 percent of companies’ carbon emission challenges are in System 3 – outside their direct control and in the hands of suppliers. In sum, the primary source of greenhouse gas emissions for food, beverage brands and retailers are in the supply chain. Said another way, how products are produced, the ingredients that go into them.

Now comes the tough part

Consumers are increasingly connecting the dots between sourcing, ingredients and emissions. As have regulators and other influential players including media. Here’s what the New York Times recently had to say: “Supply chain hurdles complicate food companies’ climate pledges – The bulk of emissions — in many cases more than 90 percent — come from the companies’ supply chains. In other words, the cows and wheat used to make burgers and cereal.”

• Witness the explosion of interest in regenerative farming practices as brands seek to mitigate the System 3 conditions. Goes without saying, we’ve reported time and again that scientific assessments are vital to this process for the simple reason you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you are to start with.

Now we enter the era of emissions reporting. Businesses will need to conduct credible System 3 assessments of current conditions, report on that data and also set realistic targets over time for mitigating GHG (greenhouse gas) contributions. The operative word here is reporting. People want to know what products constitute a more sustainable choice, and the conditions underneath the supply chain will be a determining factor in that understanding.

Our analysis over time of where companies are on the path

For 18 months we conducted questionnaire assessments with numerous CPGs and retailers on their sustainability journey. We learned:

• Science based System 3 assessments were lacking along with the mitigation goals that accompany them.

• A significant disconnect between sustainability investments and policies, and programs designed to convey that progress to all stakeholders, especially consumers.

• A pervasive presence of siloed conditions inside organizations where newly formed sustainability teams were working separately from marketing, where outreach and communications resources usually reside.

Far too many brands are still preoccupied with the low hanging fruit of say recyclable packaging when we know that the vast majority of emission issues are in the ingredient supply chain. It’s time to make science-based assessment of System 3 a core part of the sustainability management discourse, and to connect that analysis with reasonable steps to improve through partnerships and goal setting among suppliers, farms and other actors along the product creation path.

What consumers want

Truth, transparency and honesty from the brands they care about, backed up with credible, third-party verified data on current performance and a clear path forward for setting sustainability improvement goals.

The hard turn

Transparency and reporting of emissions status, visibility to science-based analysis and disclosure of current conditions followed by reasonable targets over time for advancements. Thus, a call for brands and businesses to collaborate with supply chain partners to create a virtuous ecosystem designed to bring all participants along on the path.

Importantly, communicating this work to all stakeholders, too.

Marketplace competitive leverage

Progressive brands get the urgency of this and the opportunity it presents. As consumers want to make more sustainable choices, this presents an opportunity for category leadership in sustainability best practices. And by doing so to gain lasting competitive marketplace advantage as a best practices leader.

The downside of pushing this off

As the call for clear emissions reporting and standards gains traction, brands will increasingly be held to account on their progress or lack thereof. Those who choose to wax on about progress in System 1 and 2 at the expense of dealing with the more complex and taxing conditions in the supply chain will risk being called out for half measures and greenwashing.

As consumers start to look for this information from brands and on product packaging, those operating without that data will become conspicuous regardless the reasons. This is an opportunity to seize the day and lead the category towards better practices and outcomes for people and the planet.

The future ahead

What’s notable now, however, is the absence of clear standards that help prevent a descent into the wild west where brands and businesses decide independently what constitutes an acceptable outcome. Third party recognized frames for different businesses are essential. It will come. Here’s the evolutionary changes we expect to see:

• Carbon emission labeling
• Development of recognized standards of performance
• Best practices in supply chain emissions management

Sustainability guidance for 2024

The most glaring error we’ve encountered on this journey is the absence of robust efforts to communicate. Too many brands labor on these issues behind the corporate curtain without a strategic, creative program in place to let consumers and other stakeholders know what you’re doing. Some may be fearful of getting called out for not going fast enough.

We think its time to worry more about helping people understand the great efforts you’re making to map a more sustainable future. In fact, we’d say you have already acquired a responsibility to do this early and often.

Should you decide your organization would benefit from guidance on better managing these changes and the communications tools needed to enhance your effectiveness in getting the word out, use the link below to ask questions and start an informal conversation. We’d love to help you sort out the right path, message and comms tools.

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.

Securing consumer relevance while mitigating sustainability outcome challenges…

You might agree, improved sustainability performance in our food system is challenging to achieve. Concurrently, staying ahead of shifting consumer sentiments is equally difficult. Both are essential to continued progress in transforming how food and beverage are created while driving appeal to those that will buy environmentally-responsible products.

Two new studies on the topic, one from Bain and the other from Sustainable Brands, show some alignment on key areas of consumer insight.

Here we will provide an update on consumer behaviors that impact the potential growth of business opportunities, while reflecting on the systemic challenges inherent in getting products optimized for the three criteria driving business growth:

Delicious. Healthy. Sustainable.

Both reports detail disconnects that stand in the way of progress to connect the dots between corporate sustainability efforts, product efficacy and results at the point of sale.

• Putting to rest the #1 myth about consumer sentiment: Sustainability activism and interest are not exclusively the province of politically left-leaning, progressive liberal mindsets espoused by a small fringe cohort of conscious consumption advocates. Rather, 72% of consumers across all age segments consider themselves to be sustainable, ethical consumers. Yet there remains distance between this self-assessment and their marketplace behaviors.

• Remarkably, the predominant interest in sustainable choice is important to Boomers as much as it is Gen Z.

• Gen Z consumers are not all activists and more than half of them are less likely to act on their preferences due to perceived barriers (cost, lack of choice).

• Among the barriers, is the inability to truly distinguish which products are sustainable vs. those that aren’t.

• Consumers universally remain skeptical of companies’ ability to deliver change and operate in the best interest of people and the planet ahead of profit. Brands need to address this.

• Younger cohorts feel more pressure to align with sustainable living, thus are more actively willing to switch brands from habitual choices when trying to execute of their priorities.

• Absence of choice: consumers believe there are not enough sustainable options across categories that matter to them, frustrating their desire to live more sustainably. This operates like a brake on behavior.

• Ironically, however, they think exercising their preference and choice for sustainable options while shopping is their primary path to being influential on creating a more sustainable lifestyle and environmentally healthy planet.

• Nearly half of consumers believe living sustainably is too expensive.

• Even so, consumers are willing to pay more for sustainably-made products.

• However, the acceptable sustainability upcharge is in the range of 12%, not the average 28% premium consumers frequently experience, especially in the U.S.

• Consumers want more information and believe companies must share specifics about what they are doing to address sustainability challenges in the products they provide.

• They also believe companies and brands are not doing enough to communicate their sustainability bona fides. This can be addressed via investment in education.

• While greenwashing – messages that get ahead of real, authentic performance – isn’t helping anyone secure trust and belief in the efficacy of what’s said and on offer.

Sustainable Brands’ survey of 23,000 consumers revealed this summary of how consumers shake out along the spectrum of “act now” to “don’t care”:

Activists:  17% – the situation is critical, and we must act now before it’s too late

Pragmatists: 28% – they are concerned, aware and watching yet actions are more limited

Conflicted: 19% –they care as well but pocketbook considerations remain the top priority

Busy bystander: 19% – also concerned but this is less important right now

Disengaged deniers: 17% – nope, just not buying into it.

For your next internal update report, here are some data points on where consumers (by generational segment) are relative to hot button topics.

Companies are not doing enough to address their sustainable performance:

Gen Z – 80%

Millennial – 77%

Gen X – 72%

Boomer – 69%

Will switch brands when presented with a more sustainable choice:

Gen Z – 75%

Millennial – 79%

Gen X – 70%

Boomer – 67%

Are willing to pay more for sustainable choice:

Gen Z – 72%

Millennial – 69%

Gen X – 60%

Boomer – 56%

In answering where they go to secure reliable information on which to base their decisions, consumers cited these sources in descending order of priority in their behavior:

1. Product packaging and label communication
2. Reading reviews
3. Looking at company websites and social channels
4. Asking friends and family
5. Checking out third-party certifications
6. Checking for information at retail stores

All of these behaviors and preferences, however, spin on the head of actual performance by brands to create authentically more sustainable products that also meet considerations on taste and price point.

• What we can tell from the consumer data is confirmation of a cultural shift that will become one of the biggest levers of competitive marketplace advantage in the years ahead. This means the current predominance of silos separating sustainability leadership from marketing strategy must collapse.

That said, the thorniest of all issues brands will confront on the path to more sustainable outcomes and performance are efforts to address the current System 3 mitigation crisis that dogs the industry. Why is this so important? Because of the role the supply chain and all its complexity plays to reduce carbon emissions – far more important than any other area of sustainable standard and policy.

This chart from Bain reveals the significance:

Where does all of this lead?

The time to act is now. Separation and elevation for environmentally-relevant brands and businesses will continue to grow. It’s power as a regulator of market share growth and brand differentiation will only increase.

Here’s how Bain characterizes the challenge:

“Incumbent consumer goods companies will continue to cede growth to insurgents that are doing a better job of serving consumers’ rising demands for healthier (and more sustainable) food. Companies across the food chain will find themselves losing out amid the scarce supply of limited raw materials that meet environmental standards. They’re already lagging in the war for top talent. A telling fact: No agribusiness or food producer was named in the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list in 2023.”

“By our analysis, food companies that seize the initiative can benefit from a potential 15% five-year revenue uplift compared with a 43% revenue decline for companies that fall behind based on a scenario of increasingly aggressive regulation.”

Companies can begin this journey into the future by asking and answering a series of fundamental questions.

1. How are we contributing—both positively and negatively—to the health and environmental footprint of the food system?
2. How might environmental, health, consumer, technology, and regulatory dynamics/developments affect the food industry over the next 10 years?
3. What will the agri-food company of the future—and our company—need to look like in 10 years?
4. How do we scale our regenerative agriculture and portfolio reinvention priorities?
5. How can we better mobilize our entire organization?

At Emergent we see sustainability performance and leadership as a decisive move for business growth and brand purpose leadership. As you consider the facts arrayed here, if you have questions in your mind about sustainability readiness and best practices, use this link to start an informal conversation about your concerns.

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