Fighting the creep of commoditization…

As all business categories grow and evolve, there’s a law of physics in the food, beverage and retail industries that comes into play to establish an implicit set of brand rules and behaviors. This often emerges in the form of industry accepted standards, regulatory requirements, consumer and trade partner expectations and competitive actions.

A pervasive condition, it creates a palpable magnetic momentum that pushes category participants towards the middle of the market — and away from whatever unique corner of the industry they originally occupied. Over time, it will manifest in comparable features, benefits, even pricing and product offerings. The edges of distinction get dull.

At its zenith it translates into sameness across business practices, supply chain standards and manufacturing processes – all helped along by growing similarity in product development as well as the technical processes employed for manufacturing.

The impact of category commoditization unleashed

As category players inevitably work to drive scale, secure efficiency gains, improved margins and retail leverage, brands level out their distinctiveness to appeal to a wider mass market. This happened in the dairy aisle cheese category as the major branded players eventually started to compete on price rather than disruptive innovation. The similarity in product choices and packaging helped commodify the consumer’s perception of quality.

The outcome? “Cheese is cheese is cheese” took root and the share leadership torch passed to private label products. Inevitable because the product experience wasn’t substantially different between private and national brands.  This ushered in an era of tit for tat price wars as combatants worked to build share by reducing price at the expense of brand equity and margins.

We encountered this condition and moved to tackle it while representing Sargento. The agency/client team launched a multi-stage process aimed at repositioning the brand, optimizing the product portfolio and walking away from “all things to all people” forms of marketplace behavior. The resulting “premiumization” of the Sargento brand showed up in new European influenced package design, new value-added products called Artisan Blends that borrowed equity from artisanal cheese makers. Most important to success, breaking out required recasting who the core customer is. We narrowed and focused on a high involvement premium cheese consumer called The Food Adventurer – roughly 26% of the category shoppers.

The customer priority decision was key to breaking the back of commoditization. It pushed our marketing team to rethink everything from innovation to messaging, media and market strategies while building in separation from all other players in the dairy case. The impact was startling. Sargento brand strength and resilience multiplied, while also helping establish more control over what was a price-driven business. The impact resulted in share gains against a larger competitor and fostered a spirit of creativity that set the stage for break-through new category ideas like the Balanced Breaks snack cheese innovation.

We’ve observed commoditization conditions blossoming in other places such as cell phones, computers, airlines and mainstream cars. When meaningful brand differentiation and separation dissipates, market leverage moves almost automatically to favor expanded budget investments that chase “top of mind awareness.” When the brand isn’t remarkably, authentically different, dependency on profit sapping awareness spending is required to keep repeatedly reminding consumers of the product features. Whereas distinctive and differentiated brands are naturally alluring and therefore less dependent on heavy media spend to attract and retain a loyal following.

When meaningful differentiation starts to fade, courage is required

It takes vision, fortitude and courageous leadership to create and launch the antidote to commoditization. You must be willing to tear up the category conventions rule book and seek fresh territory in the form of:

• New and emerging markets where competition is still forming.

• Bravery to jump over category behavior traditions and pursue whitespace opportunities that offer a new solution.

• Become a disruptor – a challenger brand that pursues radical differentiation designed to shut the door on equity robbing price competition.

When a brand is informed by a clear set of values, a strong “why” and a purpose that brings deeper meaning beyond transactions, it’s easier to recognize the advance of commodity behaviors and react proactively.

Sound strategy ignites the engine

Pushing the envelope of new category creation is a dynamic and powerful exercise intended to dial the brand far enough to the right or left of the vanilla middle that a new, ownable category can be established.

• Distinctiveness here is the essence of sound strategy because the goal is to offer a product or service the consumer can’t get anyplace else.

Here’s the catch: the forces at work in every category that drive brands towards similarity are fierce. Thus, vigilance around observing the creep of commodity inducing behaviors in pursuit of a mass market are ever present. Simply said, you will face it eventually. Your courageous efforts to catch this early before it takes root will pay long term dividends.

The last thing you want to hear is the word “mature” to describe your brand, which is code for the plateau you reach just before tipping towards the slippery slope of declining relevance.

If this discussion has you thinking about remedies to ever-present commodity pressures in your category — and fresh thinking around renewed emphasis on differentiation — use the email link below to start an informal conversation about refreshing your plans and programs.

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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.

Who is the hero of your brand story?

If you want to witness great storytelling designed with skill to be engaging, immersive and occasionally transformational, go to the movies. Yet 90 percent of the time, storytelling in the brand communication world fails to engage, move or influence its intended audience because construction of the outreach is upside down.

• There’s a simple formula in here to help improve the effectiveness of brand comms just about 100% of the time. It follows simple rules that great movie screenplays serve up with exceptional skill. But you don’t have to be a famous screenwriter to do this.

Granted words are meaningful and a deft hand at casting a narrative will matter in helping convey a message with stickiness and impact. That said the principles governing the ability to connect and engage are there for anyone to employ.

Here’s the fundamental insight that most brands fail to grasp:

• The hero of your story isn’t your brand or product.

• The hero is your customer — their wants, desires, aspirations, needs and concerns.

The role of your brand in powerful communication is a character that shows up often in the best movies: the guide, coach and enabler who supports the hero on their journey, and who selflessly helps the main character overcome adversity to improve and ultimately succeed.

The customer is James Bond and the brand is Q

The customer is Luke Skywalker and the brand is Yoda

The customer is Frodo and the brand is Gandolph

The customer is the hero of your story for the very simple reason that each and every day your user wakes up believing they are the hero of their own life journey. They have needs. They make mistakes. They suffer. They improve. They learn. They ultimately win. Their character coach in the form of Q or Yoda provides guidance and tools that help them prevail.

• When the brand is focused on self-promotion and talks endlessly about product features and benefits, the communication is automatically embedded with a disconnect. For the very reason the brand is now competing with the customer for the hero role.

What happens: the customer walks right on by, tuning out the story while continuing to look for the brand that will help guide, improve, enhance and enable their own growth and fulfillment. For many in brand marketing this will appear counter-intuitive because they’ve been trained to believe that marketing is about selling product features and benefits.

Moviemakers know the one thing, the great insight, that will powerfully engage audiences they want to attract. Here it is: the person viewing their story is a human being and not a fact-based, analytical decision making machine.

We humans are feeling creatures who think and not thinking creatures who feel. Moviegoers put themselves in the hero’s shoes. They identify with the struggle, the challenges, the setbacks and the desire to learn and improve. Over the course of the movie, the main character overcomes barriers and eventually wins. We drink in the thrill of the victory at the end, embracing the journey with all of its harrowing conflict, usually doled about by a recognizable villain. Meanwhile the Yoda character dispenses counsel to evolve and improve.

This is the core essence of impactful storytelling.

Here is the recipe in sum:

Stop talking about yourself.

Embrace the humanity in front of you.

Recognize the power of emotion.

Be the guide and enabler.

Focus your narrative on the customer as hero.

Their lives. Their needs. Their struggles. Their desires.

Show them the way.

Help them win.

Care about their success.

Your brand communication will move from flying over the top of acceptance and into the center of seen, heard and appreciated. Some brands do this better than others to be sure.

The Nike of 2012 got it right in their pool of stories entitled Find Your Greatness. The soulful vignettes recounted the stories of people who faced various obstacles and challenges in their lives, and how they overcame those limitations. Was the communication focused on shoes, designs, product features or trendy fashion? NO. The heroes were real people struggling to grow and improve.

Are you seeing it?

The heartwarming stories draw us in so We-Pay-Attention.

Most important it makes us feel something. In that moment, the brand is connecting with the heart and soul of its customer. Now we’re getting somewhere. Now we’re witnessing engagement and results. In the end, your brand’s deeper meaning, purpose and thus ability to secure a base of committed enthusiasts and believers — runs in correlation and proportion to your focus on them and their journey.

Boom!!

It’s how people feel in the presence of your brand that ultimately tips the scale on the path to purchase. All of the facts and rationale for your better mousetrap will come into play post-purchase to satisfy our reflexive need for confirmation — evidence we made the right decision.

If you apply these principles to your brand communication, it will be transformational on the path to engagement. Your litmus test? Who you invoke as the hero of your story, and how the brand is positioned as guide and coach. There it is. The secret sauce of being seen and heard. So stop selling and start communicating.

It will take discipline and commitment to break with the past and walk from the self-promotion paradigm. Just remember how movies occasionally rivet your attention for two hours. The writers know how to craft the journey so you get invested in the outcome. You just need to work on bringing out your inner Ridley Scott and Steven Spielberg.

Scene One, Take Two!!

If you think your brand might benefit from better, more relevant storytelling, use the link below to open an informal dialogue.

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Important to respect the human sitting on other side of the screen…

The Super Bowl attracted a bit north of 123 million viewers, the greatest aggregation of human eyeballs in one place at one time, and thus the reason why 53 TV spots aired at a $7 million per 30-seconds clip. It is an unprecedented event where advertising is as much of a contact sport as the action on the football field. People tune in specifically to consume the ads — what an amazing impact opportunity-in-the-waiting, but nevertheless not often optimized largely due to an absence of sound strategy on how people make decisions and take action.

• David Ogilvy once famously remarked that if attention was all that mattered then you could put a ‘gorilla in a jockstrap’ in an ad. Yet that’s not what drives real effectiveness. He knew it and built a global agency powerhouse on that model of respect for consumer insights, perhaps now forgotten in the age of ‘can you top this’ over-reach with the display of so many digital bells and whistles.

Moreover, the Super Bowl ad is just the tip of the spending iceberg when looking at the total costs of gargantuan celebrity contact fees, massive production budgets and the veritable supermarket of extensions in packaging, retail tie-ins and social media on and off ramps.

Yet in astounding fashion, sound strategy is mostly absent from this festival of short form cinematic spectacle. The temptation to pursue attention at the expense of real relevance is just too great. In circa 2024, the ad party turned into a conspicuous mish mash of celebrity faces, much like excessive name-dropping at a Hollywood cocktail party. It’s no secret that all-too often the celebrity brand will outshine the product brand. So why does it go this way?

Guess what, emotion drives behavior

The neocortex area of the human brain governs our decisions and the actions we take. As much as we would all prefer to believe that people are logical beings who make decisions based on facts and information, instead we respond to emotional cues – how we feel in the presence of a brand. Yet too few of the ads we saw were designed with intention to drive for that kind of authentic connectivity. Given the huge one-shot spend level, you’d think it would be different.

Yes, a different approach is needed

In 2023’s super game, the highest rated commercial was a total outlier from a small pet food company called The Farmer’s Dog. This high-level and instructive achievement in strategic brand communication was the polar-opposite of the celebrity dragon-riding special effects we witnessed this year. Here Farmer’s Dog offered a story well-told that traced the poignant and touching relationship between a dog and young girl owner, charting the course of their life’s journey together. Not a word was spoken. No celebrity cameo. No green screen special effects wizardry.

It was an emotional, heartfelt, memorable celebration of the incredibly powerful and important relationship between a person and their dog. There was no recitation of production formulation features or superior ingredient claims. The brand wasn’t shouted in every frame. It didn’t need any egregious self-promotion to get the message across. It was supremely effective because people left it with an emotional connection. We all recognize that unique bond between pet parent and furry family member. The pet food existed as an enabler of pet wellbeing on life’s pathway.

Desperately seeking attention

Creating content for an engaged audience is just different than trying to capture an audience with some wild content. Too many brands seeking attention at the expense of sound strategy. The truth is human beings are feeling creatures who think not thinking creatures who feel. If you want to manage perceptions of your brand, and yes that should be a goal, then you really need to manage emotions. If your objective is to assure communication is remembered, to have impact, then emotional gravitas is paramount.

Proper use of the world’s greatest ad venue to deliver boldness

Way back in 1984, Apple used the setting to unveil their new Macintosh computer with a historic ad that captivated the world’s attention. It was a bold and also controversial strike, so much so the Apple Board was wary of showing it right up to the telecast. It aired and both ad history and the upstart Apple brand was made. It was a powerful message about democratizing the power of creativity and expression in the hands or everyone – railing against the dictates of the “establishment.”

Speaking of bold, what about sustainability and ESG in the midst of uncertainty?

Nearly every major brand in the food, beverage and lifestyle worlds is working hard to address their sustainability bona fides and emissions performance. It is by definition an opportunity for a brand to focus on higher purpose, mission, reputation and value beyond transactional thinking. Yet we don’t see that showcased here. We have entered a new era where brands are expected to have a point of view, a belief system and to be standard bearers of change. We remain hopeful that someday soon, a progressive brand will take advantage of the super venue to convey what people seek – a healthier, safer planet.

Guidance going forward

Put the consumer at the center of your planning and thinking and work backwards from there. Recognize that shameless self-promotion makes a brand the hero of any story told, and by doing so casts the brand in direct competition with the consumer who sees themselves each and every day as the hero of their life’s journey. Celebrate your consumer and their wishes, needs and aspirations like Farmer’s Dog did with such excellence. This is sound strategy. Your brand deserves this approach to spending effectiveness and outcomes, whether at the Super Bowl or in routine quarterly brand and business support.

If this post gets you thinking about how best to optimize and improve your planning for improved communications effectiveness, use the email link below to ask questions and start and informal conversation.

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Narrowcasting to fans, followers and advocates…

If you look under the hood of a strong brand with a demonstrated higher purpose, belief system and investment in social community building, you will find a percolating audience of consumer ambassadors and believers. A symbiotic relationship exists here as the brand invests in them and they reciprocate with support as frequent users and evangelists often via word-of-mouth. All of this, mind you, can be strategic and intentional, even when the manifestations appear to be organic.

An outcome of the digital age, we find greater efficacy in narrower channels of media that cater to special interests and topics resonating to the hearts and minds of the brand’s most devoted followers. In many cases this also attests to the 80/20 rule: 80 percent of profits come from 20 percent of a brand’s most ardent followers and users. This happens repeatedly.

• So we pose the question: how does this play out in earned media strategy? It’s a fair question because earned media outreach is often devoted to a long-standing tool of the mass media era, the venerable press release, its distribution usually a shotgun affair that goes in every direction.

Narrowcast vs. broadcast

Name the category where strong brands exist and you’ll find media resonant to core lifestyle interests and passions of a brand’s most frequent users. It is here where the truly gifted earned media artists devote time and energy to building relationships with editors and contributors – those who populate these influential media channels with engaging content.

Earned media isn’t transactional, at least not most of the time. The path to outcomes in this setting are negotiated through interaction and conversation between people. The communications experts from the brand side are packaging and presenting relevant story background ideas/material to discuss with reporters whose areas of focus closely matches the topics of interest for a brand’s best users.

The entire proposition is driven by mutual respect, credibility, service to the reader, editorial sensibility and well-researched supporting material, reports and sources who form the alchemy of any solid feature story treatment. The paradigm is fueled through mutual interest and effort over time to build a solid, reliable relationship between source and scribe. It’s definitely not “spray and pray” as press releases can be referred to in wire service distribution terms.

• Our point: there’s more to be gained in narrowcasting earned media strategies to specific channels where special interests are served, and this is territory where media relationships are nurtured over time. Reporters tend to go back to reliable sources.

The ladder: vertical to national

Ask any brand executive and you’ll get feedback that national bluechip media coverage is always a desirable outcome from elite media brands like the New York Times, Bloomberg, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal or network TV news. Vertical media often get the short sheet in this conversation, but they shouldn’t. Category trade media plays a vital, vibrant role not only between a brand and its key stakeholder audiences of distributors and retailers, it’s also a proving ground for larger story ideas.

Trade coverage that touches on a core editorial idea relevant to larger national media is an immediate credibility booster to the story efficacy and dimensions in a non-competitive setting. This comprises a circular editorial eco-system where coverage in trades is useful in conversations with national media. While national coverage tends to drive incremental stories in vertical channels. Both are good, solid, strategic components of a strong earned media plan.

• Both indeed are driven by relationships, creativity and solid performances by brand PR experts who know their results depend on fulfilling the promises in a good working relationship with key editors, reporters and producers.

If this stimulates some questions about optimal editorial media strategies or similar situations you wrestle with, use the link below to open an informal dialogue.

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Deploying the biology of effective communication

For a brand message to have any real impact, to influence behavior and seed advocacy, it requires more than awareness and publicity. It must advance a relevant higher purpose, cause or belief system that people who share your values will immediately resonate to. Only then can your message create any lasting marketplace impact.

It is not the quality of your products that causes the category to tip your direction. Absent a refined brand WHY, new innovations and technologies will rapidly find themselves playing the circular and commoditizing price-and-feature game. Your competitive advantage gets real traction when you are crystal clear about the human-relevant purpose and mission you exist to champion.

An identifiable cohort of consumers exists who share your beliefs and then want to integrate your ideas and products into their own lives. It is their ability to understand and embrace your purpose, your WHY, that causes them to embrace your brand. They view what you make as a tangible path to reflect and demonstrate their purpose and beliefs to the world around them.

Beliefs are powerful and can be enlisted to change the trajectory of brand growth

It’s important to remember that “consumers” are first and foremost real, human three-dimensional people. As such, we are hardwired to gravitate toward people, places as well as things (products) that reinforce what we believe about the world and ourselves.

• Beliefs influence our behaviors and how we see ourselves
• Beliefs are emotional and rise from deep within us to inform decisions
• Beliefs run underneath our cognizant, analytical radar to impact our feelings and decisions
• Beliefs help people understand, connect and engage with your brand
• Beliefs are respectful of human biology and how we’re wired to take action (through feelings not facts)

Yet we find that belief systems are largely undernourished in business strategy because of a flawed assumption that a better mousetrap is the motivating tool that draws in consumers. Ultimately, products in any given category will be more similar than they are unique. Frankly, there isn’t any proprietary tech advantage that can be sustained over time without competitive dilution.

Instead, people are magnetically drawn to leader-type brands that communicate what they believe. This unique approach helps consumers feel safe and special – like they belong – and are inspired to align with the brand because the story and mission resonates so personally.

Future of food brands are often mission oriented

Emergent works with emerging food brands who are reinventing how food is created with a vastly improved sustainability story. To a one, the founders and leadership teams believe they exist to improve the health and wellbeing of people while measurably improving the impact of our current food system on global warming.

Their technologies are instrumental in changing the greenhouse gas paradigm. But that is not the reason they will be successful or that people will be drawn to their offering. It is the inspiration they provide to help enable consumers in exercising their conscious consumption wishes. To improve their wellbeing with healthier food choices and create a safer future for themselves and their families. These brands understand that taste, eating experience and proper price are all table stakes and not the real reason for marketplace success. Empowering consumers to experience ‘making a difference’ is the real brand elevator.

Thus, why conveying values, mission and purpose are so vital to success rather than relying on historic tactics that attempt to leverage features, lower price or the more subtle tactical manipulations of persuasion, fear, vanity, status, shame, peer pressure and social acceptance to close a sale.

One big example: we live in a nation founded on inspiration of a better future for people

In July of 1776 the world was forever changed with the emergence of the United States, the first-ever constitutional republic – a democracy ‘of and for the people’ – now at 247 years of age the oldest of its kind on earth. A new nation founded on ideals and principles that espoused freedom of speech and press, an elected representative government, the rule of law and a promise of a better future for people.

These ideals form the foundation of an inspired sense of opportunity and the expectation of an individual’s ability to pursue their own goals and aspirations. Despite the enormous flaws and inconsistencies that dogged the nation through a Civil War 84 years after its founding, the resilience wrapped in these beliefs and sense of purpose have stood the test of time.

America is one of the most powerful examples of “Why” culture and the influence of deeper meaning writ large. It is embedded in our American attitudes, thinking and distinctive behaviors. These principles and aspirations have spread around the world, yet most of these new democratic governments are less than 70 years old and still evolving.

• We have unique stories to tell about our nation’s founding
• Symbols abound about the American legacy of freedom
• It is inspirational to how we think and see our lives
• Our societal beliefs are founded on the concept of greater good

Yet for all of the evidence of how a nation founded on beliefs and values serves as an inspiration to a brighter future over time, and the power of values to impact attitudes and behavior – this POV hasn’t rubbed off as fully as it could on business and brand development thinking.

When brands become symbols of values and beliefs we hold close

Health, wellbeing, achievement, creative exploration, better relationships, education, love, serving others – there are so many places a brand can live to inspire users and improve their lives. It is in this moment of unselfish thinking that an environment of trust is created.

The process to explore and refine a brand’s “why” begins with consumer-centricity and works backward from there. It is formative insight into your customers’ interests, concerns and desires that informs a creative exploration around brand beliefs – which should reflect and mirror your users’ aspirations.

Emergent has developed a proprietary process for this evaluation we call Brand Sustainability Analysis – in this case the word sustainable refers not to environmental concerns directly but to sustainable brand growth over time.

The six primary components include:

• Core beliefs that are consumer centric and address how the brand contributes to improving users lives and the world around them.

• Based on those beliefs, Why the company exists, its core mission and higher purpose.

• How the company will fulfill its belief-driven higher purpose and mission.

• Therefore, What business the company is truly in and assets required to fulfill that promise based on the brand purpose.

• The company BrandStand that expresses the business’ true north and becomes an embedded guide for decisions on strategy, policy, employee policy and recruitment, innovation and marketing going forward.

• Implications of the BrandStand on company operations and marketing strategies.

If you agree that inspiration is a stronger path to influencing consumer decisions than passe’ tactical manipulation, and that an optimized purpose and mission – your why – can lead to brand advocacy and evangelism, then we should talk. Use this link to begin an informal get-acquainted conversation.

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Divining the formula for consistent engagement and growth…

Are you aware of the remarkable chain reaction that will unleash powerful forces to immediately increase your brand’s salience, relevance, resonance and traction? Significant brand dynamism and energy are released when this singularly vital key unlocks engagement with your intended customer audience.

• This is a law of marketing physics that creates trust and enduring relationships with consumers who will join your brand as supporters, believers, advocates and evangelists. Read on…

The theory we’re working to change…

Marketing has been hamstrung for decades on a recurring, reflexive default to using various forms of manipulation as the primary currency for purchase motivation. Chasing consumers with messaging that pushes status seeking, vanity, peer pressure, fear or social acceptance, alongside a devotion to amping product features and benefits often goosed with a price incentive. All of these tactics won’t deliver on the requirement of consumer trust and relationship. Brand business built on a foundation of transactional thinking is passé and expensive. Over time these all-too-familiar tactics inevitably commoditize your brand while forcing a continuous, elusive pursuit of incremental differentiation.

• It’s a hamster wheel of strategic misfires that springs from a misunderstanding of how human beings are wired to make decisions.

Let’s take a collective timeout, step back and consider more deeply the human condition. New insight on how our minds function can indeed lead your brand to create trusted consumer relationships.

This requires moving away from a perception that consumers strictly buy “products” – and the only message that resonates is repetition of feature/benefit selling.

People aren’t buying what you do anymore, they’re buying why you do it.

Inspiration vs. manipulation

A reliable formula for repeatable, predictable results founded on brand mission and purpose is fundamentally more effective.

People are on a continuous search for deeper meaning. They innately resonate to values and beliefs that are aligned with their own views. When your brand reflects their values, you offer them a symbolic flag they wave as evidence to the world around them of who they are and what’s important to them.

In reality, this is human biology at work. Two important areas of the brain govern how we operate – the limbic and neocortex. The thinking, rational side of the brain (neocortex) governs learning, analysis and language. The limbic area informs our decisions and behaviors. It is driven by emotion. Brands want to find a home in the limbic zone that influences our decisions. It’s only there, that a brand will truly matter to the user beyond its functionality.

We know the sheer volume of data the limbic side can process per second is vastly superior to the learning area. Simply stated the limbic brain is far smarter than we give it credit for – thus, why our “gut instinct” can be so immediate and important to informing behaviors. This explains why the neocortex routinely defaults to the limbic part of the brain for our actions.

Inspiring consumers with your higher purpose, beliefs and mission – your “why” – is the pathway into the limbic brain. If you want to have a deeper relationship with consumers, then imbue your brand with deeper meaning by focusing on your why.

• Brands that fail to focus on an emotive sense of “why” end up forcing people to make decisions with only empirical evidence, reluctantly burning precious mental calories in the neocortex. This explains why those decisions often require more personal commitment of time and energy, leaving us feeling taxed and uncertain.

This is what we mean when we talk about winning hearts and minds. The heart represents the limbic feeling part of the brain, and the mind is the rational, language center. Most brands are quite adept at attempting to win minds; that usually requires a comparison of product features, benefits and price points. Winning hearts, however, takes more effort and in the long run is far more rewarding.

• Products with a clear sense of “why” give people an emotional pathway to trust them. Their purchase of your product serves as another way to tell the outside world who they are and what they believe.

In his book, Start with Why, author Simon Sinek provides a salient example:

“WHAT Apple makes, serves as the tangible proof of what they believe. It is that clear correlation between WHAT they do and WHY they do it that makes Apple stand out. This is the reason we perceive Apple as being authentic. Apple’s WHY, to challenge the status quo and to empower the individual. It is a pattern that repeats in all they say and do. Apple, unlike its competitors, has defined itself by WHY it does things, not WHAT it does. It is not a computer company, but a company that challenges the status quo and offers individuals simpler alternatives.”

There are lots of ways to temporarily manipulate people to do things – lowering price, for example. However cultivating long lasting brand advocacy is an outcome of inspiring people with your mission and beliefs. Only when your brand “why” is clear and people believe what you believe can a true consumer-to-brand relationship unfold.

It’s hard to make a case that your products or services are important to someone’s life if your efforts are founded on analytical facts and arguments the brand deems as valuable. However, if your “why” corresponds with consumers’ beliefs, they will see your products as a tangible way to help them express what they believe.

This formula for success shows up in messaging

Your brand narrative and story are either founded on your “why” (inspiration) or on what you do and how you do it (features and benefit selling). Inspiring consumers to join your brand as advocates and evangelists begins with embracing your mission and higher purpose. At Emergent we’ve created proprietary messaging process designed to refine and articulate brand higher purpose and how that manifests in characterizing the company’s mission, products and business strategy.

• We’ve learned that the journey through this experience can be enlightening for company leadership. The outcome produces a clear foundation and anchor to help inform strategies, decisions and business investments moving forward.

Importantly, the real magic here is the shift a refined “why” creates in resonance and relevance of brand communication. By replacing the outmoded manipulation selling tactics and its requisite higher media costs to generate traction, this new modality of inspiring consumers will open doors to sustainable engagement and improved relationships with your brand’s user base. This is how communities of believers are created and brand trust is secured.

If you are inspired to further investigate and optimize your company’s “why” use this link to open an informal conversation on how this can work for your business.

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