Contextual Content is King

Note: This is the first program to air on TV, where people started to see a meaningful need for one of these big boxes in their home over a radio.

I've been thinking a lot about content lately, and how we've grown to be so dependent on it. But not only that, it has to be the right content on the right channel in the right moment.  Content is no longer king on its own. Rather, it's contextually relevant content that's king.

This concept isn't new in the slightest.

Just look at the TV.  No one could rationalise why they would ever need a TV over a radio for information and entertainment. That was until special TV programming was introduced in 1930s. It all started with a test to prove the medium's ability through its first ever television drama The Man With the Flower in His Mouth. The test was a success, and, well, the rest is history.


To prove the relevancy of this product, the TV, it needed to become the answer to a consumer need, even if that need hadn't been fully realised yet. By giving people content in a way that both satisfied their current needs and made them realise new ones (i.e. 'You mean I can see what people are doing while they speak, just like the cinema, but in my home?!"), you can carve a space in those people's lives for your offering. And the better a brand meets these needs, meaning the more relevant the solution is, the more it will be embedded in their daily routines.  


Clearly, by me using an example from 1930, this is not a new concept.  But what is new is that we're seeing this kind of thinking injected in the world of brand positioning and communications, blurring the lines between product development and marketing.


In the recent Most Contagious 2011 report, it talks about marketing as service design. With brands' ability to access and use consumer data, that's available because of people's digital lives, it enables brands to see gaps and/or unmet needs it can fill.  Additionally, because consumers are aware that brands know more about them, they expect more relevant and ultimately less company-serving marketing being presented to them.  


In fact, for people to stick with a brand these days, they expect to be to engaged in a relevant manner, which encourages their participation (collaboration in product/service/experience design) in both on- and offline arenas seamlessly, while still delivering what they want before they even have to ask. 


At the heart of engagement, which is seen as a branded service more and more, is the delivery of content beyond the product extending its value. This proves the brand's value in people's lives because it's demonstrating that it 'gets' you and why you buy its products/services/etc.

But it's not content alone. There's a lot of content out there - too much in fact! It's about contextual content. Contextual content has been curated by subject matter experts and delivered to you at that moment of need.

This is where the branded service comes into play. The brand can be the subject matter expert for a topic they are known for and deliver on based on their brand purpose and existing products/services/etc. They can then create and/or curate interesting and useful (aka relevant) content and provide people access to it during a moment of need.

Take Simple - the "Worry-free alternative to traditional banking" for example. Simple is not a bank. In fact it uses another un-named bank as its banking provider, but what it does do, which is the reason for all its popularity, is overlay a service on the banking experience. This service is providing content that people feel is missing. Like being able to see real-time transaction data or using natural language to search your  entire transaction history (i.e. "How much did I spend on lunches in July?"). By making this content not only more accessible but contextual, the brand is able to establish more loyalty from users because it creates an extremely useful experience.

Another example, featured in the Most Contagious 2011 report, is Sneakerpedia by Foot Locker. Sneakerpedia is a: 

"Wiki-esque website [that] enables users to create a profile and then upload pictures of all the cool kicks in their collection - complete with a brief history and info on the make, model, material etc. This tagging helps the site to then archive each model correctly, creating a vast and infinitely navigable database of every significant sneaker ever bought and cherished"

Here Foot Locker has created an environment where people can collect and curate their personal shoe data, while learning from a large body of other shoe data they wouldn't normally see, to see what other amazing kicks people have and connect with those who share their passion. So not only are they offering unique content, but they're also inspiring their customers to create their own content and foster their passion! Further embedding the brand into its customer's lives.


I recently read a great quote from Mark Addicks, CMO of General Mills, which I feel sums this up perfectly:

"In 2012, many marketers will start with content as a way to engage their best customers and grow their business versus advertising...They will realise the power of content to enhance the brand experience, deliver the brand's purpose and extend opportunities for the brand to serve"

So how is your brand going to get to know its customers and their behaviour to provide branded content in a way, and at a time, that provides value to their daily lives beyond the product?  
How will you make contextual content king?

Patagonia - Legally Bound to its Purpose

Finally, a brand, other than Apple, we can express immense admiration for, or as my flatmate tweeted this week, "open-mouth kiss" - hello Patagonia!

Last week, I wrote about its Common Threads initiative, where Patagonia clearly establishes its role/purpose within the global community - "to build useful things that last, to repair what breaks and recycle what comes of its useful life"- then asks its customers to do the same to help accomplish its purpose.


Now, Patagonia has asked the government to help it truly live by its purpose without boundaries, becoming California's first Benefit Corporation. This gives Patagonia's directors legal protection to consider social and environmental benefits over financial returns!


"This new legal status was designed to embed goals into companies’ missions that go beyond profitability"


For too long, companies have had to sacrifice their brand purpose - the big hairy audacious goal they set out to accomplish upon inception - to meet the short-term demands of shareholders when going public.  I'm ecstatic to see a brand who wasn't afraid to challenge the rules and ask for support from the government to ensure its ability to live up to its brand purpose everyday.


Often, shareholders are so concerned with short-term returns, that they forget to take a long-view perspective of the brand.  By Patagonia actively, consistently and, now, legally living up to its brand everyday, helping reduce unnecessary purchases and creating products that will live 'forever', it establishes immense trust and advocacy for the brand, which creates demand and sustained or even increased value for itself in the long-term.

It's a step in the right direction, having brands ask for and receiving support, to create, and be truly caring, responsible and sustainable brands.  I look forward to seeing more brands become Benefit Corporations or finding other creative ways to satisfy their big hairy audacious dreams!  The key is not to be afraid to imagine what isn't possible today and ask for it, so it can be a reality tomorrow!

Note: Image found here

2012 - Let's Say Less and Play More

Image Found Here

Happy 2012!! 

I think we're in for another exciting year, and I'm rather pleased where branding is going, maybe slowly, but it's in the right direction...let me explain...

With so much distrust and uncertainty - lots of skepticism - towards corporations and advertising, people are more receptive to brands that are consistent in their actions, transparent with information and good to everyone around them.

However, a consistent, transparent and good brand cannot be developed through an ad campaign any more. People are too smart and have endless access to information (thanks to Google searches and social network, SMS, etc. conversations). Rather, brands have to prove this behaviour and be truly recognised for it and its brand claim, which should be or be tied to its brand purpose.

So for 2012, rather than the 'x' number of things we need to be on our radar this year, I think there is only one to focus on: brands needs to think about long-term engagement programs not campaigns.

Campaigns are born to die, which don't lend themselves to the consistency people want, no demand from their brands. Programs come from the heart of the business, and are built to grow and evolve with purpose at the root.

For a program to be successful, it requires the support of various internal parties, along with engaging and collaborating with consumers. This creates a transparent and communal environment around the brand's purpose/essence.  

The ecosystem created from an initiative is beneficial for a couple reasons:

1. The IKEA Effect - being a part of something, either helping it take form or being involved in someway makes someone proud of their creation/involvement and, therefore, more attached to that brand stimulating loyalty and advocacy
2. Real-Time Consumer Insights - by having people involved enables the brand to learn more about their consumers in context with how they interact with the product, service, program, etc., creating a continuous learning loop to optimise, not only the experience/message but also the product/service being offered. This ensures your brand evolves in a way that is relevant to the market.

To encourage a deeper level of engagement, creating meaningful social connections within the brands community, created from the initiative, there needs to be a powerful motivating purpose exciting both internal staff and consumers to choose to be involved and, more importantly, stay involved.

To do this, the initiative has to be focused on something the brand actually cares about and has the ability to act on, both physically (you can actually do it) and mentally (it aligns with, or delivers on, your brand purpose).  This becomes the brand's opportunity to prove what it stands for while making a positive impact in the real world.

Initiatives are by far not new, just look at the Dove Real Beauty campaign, which is a long-term campaign aimed to do good. Or Threadless, which is a highly engaging platform, nay business model! But what we're seeing is these two elements coming together more and more. So it's becoming something with relevant do-good meaning at the heart, fusing with consumer involvement and engagement to provide some kind of relevant experience that defines a role for a brand in those people's lives.

Just look at Patagonia's Common Threads Initiative where it partnered with eBay to reduce excess consumption by creating a site where people can buy pre-owned Patagonia merchandise. This proves Patagonia's role as a builder of "useful things that last, to repair what breaks and recycle what comes of its useful life", while giving its consumers a role in aiding Patagonia's mission.  Consumers are asked"to buy only what [they] need, repair what breaks, reuse (share) what [they] no longer need, and recycle everything else". This initiative not only becomes a reason to believe in Patagonia's purpose, but gives its consumers the tool they need to hold up their end of the bargain, helping the brand sustain its purpose. I LOVE IT!

Consumers are beginning to expect these kinds of programs from their brands, which aids in re-building trust and loyalty, in addition to maintaining this as markets become over saturated and people spend less on things and more on life enriching experiences.

So this year, rather than just saying stuff to our consumers, let's ask them to play, hangout, share stories and build things together. After all, isn't that how some of our closest and most meaningful relationships, which we feel comfortable confiding in, are built? 

Let's do the same for brands. Lets help them build ways to play and engage with their consumers over the long-term creating an ecosystem that gives them a role in their consumers' lives that they will happily welcome you into because it offers them real meaningful value.

Happy 2012!! Let's play!

Happy Holidays

Note: Image from flickr

With another year coming to a close and an exciting 2012 just around the corner, I'm going to sign off from my blog while I travel back to Canada to spend some time with family and friends for the holidays!!

Thank you for continuing to follow my blog and challenge me to explore my great passion for branding and all that it encompasses and impacts! Although I would have loved to write so much more, this year was very exciting with many adventures, from making the difficult decision to leave Blast Radius, to volunteering in Tanzania for a month and then coming back to start an exciting role within the CSU (Central Strategy Unit) at M&C Saatchi!

I think next year will continue to see the importance of meaningful brands. Today's (and tomorrow's brands) will need to be delivering meaningful value beyond its products. In fact, everything it does must be built to satisfy a unmet need in its consumers' lives creating a role for itself in their daily lives. This will see a rise in the need to continually innovate to remain relevant to people, and this innovation won't be to create only new products, but rather how to evolve existing products or developing new uses and/or services around these products.

I'm very excited to see where branding is - rather than just being a branded identity, it's a branded behaviour and role in the consumer's lives!

Have a wonderful holiday season, and I look forward to chatting some more in the new year!

The Experience is the Brand

A couple weeks ago, my flat mate, Roger, made a wrong turn and went to use the map on his Blackberry (having just switched from an iPhone - I should note not by choice), and it was anything but an intuitive experience. This led to an immediate trip to the Apple store, where he bought the new iPhone outright, and will never look back at Blackberry (BB) again.

This got us talking about where BB went wrong, and why the once market leader in smartphones seems to be stumbling all over the place.

I believe BB lost sight of its core competency - mobile business solutions. Rather than focusing on its bright spots (i.e. what it excels at), it became distracted by the seductive personal smartphone market that every smartphone manufacturer was after, forcing BB to think defensively. This caused BB to lose sight of who it is and what makes it unique, forcing BB to be reactive rather than a thought leader. Thinking defensively will always keep you at the very best #2 - you need to think individually to be #1.

BB would have been better off focusing on innovating business consumer-centric experiences that better enabled on-the-go communications.  In fact, within 2 blocks of chatting, Roger and I were able to come up with a long list of helpful solutions BB could have developed had it remained focused, such as enabling the use of its devices in-flight; or forming strategic partnerships with Microsoft for collaborative working/editing while on-the-go, etc.

Another brand that seems to be losing its focus is Tim Hortons, a popular Canadian bred coffee and donut shop. I recently read that it's launching more Starbucks style coffees, like lattes and cappuccinos, to the menu. Let me be clear, Timmy's is a place you go to get a donut and a cup of Joe, or as many lovingly call it a Double Double (two sugars; two creams) not a venti Americano.  To top it off, it's focusing less on donuts and introducing new foods like lasanga - sorry but a WTF is needed here. I was less than impressed when they started to bake their donuts off-site, something they used to do fresh in-store, but now this!?

This is a classic case of losing focus of the brand's essence and taking a competitive approach. Clearly, Timmy's core customer is being taken for granted, much like the BB business user, where they think, 'Ok, so we have that segment, lets go and find someone else' causing them to forget their core business and no longer develop experiences to leverage that area fully.

Lest we forget this happened to Apple in the 80s when Jobs left. Jobs started Apple with user-centered design at the heart, and when he left it switched to a competitive/defensive strategy. The company almost went under until Jobs returned in the 90s with a focused product line, which centred on its core purpose of making technology approachable, and it ensured every element of the experience communicated the brand in a way that resonated with the end user, from the products, to the stores, to the un-boxing experience. Doing this led to a 1000% increase in market value for the organisation, while practically forming a religious following of customers.

Focusing on great customer experiences pays off.

I mean, just look at one of my favourite brands, Lululemon who do this fabulously (as an aside I think it's awesome that all the brands I'm writing about today, minus Apple, are Canadian! How patriotic of me - LOL).

Lululemon has built its brand on a life philosophy, that by investing in your health, you are bettering yourself and society, elevating the world from mediocrity to greatness. What a wonderful and motivating philosophy to build a brand from.

All of its products are designed with the wearer in mind. I always love the surprise of having a new piece and thinking oh I wish it did this, then BOOM, they've already done it! They think of everything one needs to enjoy fitness, be comfortable and look great doing it.  

Additionally, the feng shui friendly stores are always buzzing with staff fully engaged in conversations with customers, or as they call them, Guests, about the latest wrap or a type of fabric. This is just chatting, this is community building! Engaging consumers with the brand's philosophy motivating them to associate and live the brand, so that when they buy something, they feels as though they are bettering themselves.

Lulu continues to enable this life philosophy with additional experiences like hosting free yoga sessions for staff and Guests in its stores after-hours. It was also one of the first retailers to offer reusable shopping bags covered in inspirational quotes on personal enrichment and health, so its Guests can take home the Lululemon philosophy.

Having a strong commitment to its life philosophy and delivering it through relevant consumer experiences (products and services), has allowed them to see a 250% gain year over year -- I think that says enough!

So, it is clear, yet often difficult to see when in the daily grind, that for a brand to be successful in the long term, it needs to create experiences that are relevant to the brand's purpose/philosophy and are designed with the consumer at its heart.

Remarkable Stories = Social Currency

I've been wanting to write this post for some time now, but oddly haven't got around to putting it down.

I want to talk about stories again. I did so a year-plus ago, but it's a topic that seems to be continually popping up.

Everyone has a story to share and/or are working towards creating them. I find it slightly amusing when I'm walking around London seeing people pose for the perfect picture, which immediately makes me think - profile pic!

People are continually striving for social currency.

Social currency is a concept that comes from the social capital theory, which is about increasing one's sense of community, access to information/knowledge to help shape his/her personal brand/identity and providing status and recognition.

Clearly this is not a new concept, but with the use of social media and instant communications through mobile technology, which can share a status, image or even location, increasing the importance of defining one's personal brand. Not only that, it's resulting in an increased understanding of creating a personal brand, which is a whole other interesting blog post!

Today, the majority of millennials spend less than one hour a day offline! Yes that's right - offline. We are a hugely connected generation. There are even stats proving that Facebook is the first thing people look at when they get up and the last thing they see before they go to bed. What's equally crazy, is that there are mobile apps that monitor your sleeping patterns! This means that people are now sleeping with their mobile phones - talk about a meaningful relationship!

So, where do corporate brands come in? Well, it's important to note that brand association is so important to people, especially millennials, that it's equally ranked in importance for expression of personal identity as religion and ethnicity!

This tells us that people care a lot about the brands they associate themselves with because it will greatly impact the personal brand he/she is trying to shape for themselves.  So, brands need to be able to connect with their audience on not just an emotional level, but a level that provides them with the tools to express or shape their personal brand. Making it important to feature a brands benefits in terms of the end state it creates, answering the inevitable question, "how is this going to help feature and define who I am [aka who I want to be perceived as]".

To adequately give the answer to this question, brands need to have a compelling story to tell. This enables the brand to create an experience around itself, which will captivate the audience and provide them with a increasingly meaningful end state of heightened social capital!

The root of these brand stories come from the organisation's purpose - its reason for existence; that big hairy audacious goal/idea/dream it has set out to accomplish. This provides the content to fuel the story and the way it's shared.

I believe there are 4 key ways to share your brand's story and give your hyper connected audience the social currency it wants:

1 - Movements:

This is where the brand takes an stand on something, and has the audience rally around its purpose to spread the gospel. People are usually proud to be a part of these movements if they align with their personal values and will give them the creds they're looking for, and make them feel a part of something bigger than just making another purchase.

TOMS Shoes, fits perfectly here. Its business model is designed to give back and wearing a pair of TOMS is more than wearing a pair of shoes, it says something about the kind of person you're striving to be - one that cares about the global community. We can even look to brands that are less philanthropic like Puma who has started a movement supporting After Hours Athletes, bringing people together online and offline in support of 'sports' like billiards.

2 - Legacy/Product Stories:

A classic, but I find people are craving meaningful companies with local flare or interesting background stories.  In fact, the last time I was in NYC, there wasn't a place I went to that didn't have a unique story behind it, from which, I had to tell everyone about, and, to that end, I wouldn't have even gone had there been no story fuelling our interest in checking out the spot.

This works really well for restaurants, cafes, etc. One place I was recommended was Levain Bakery - it's famous for its $4 cookies - yes $4 for one cookie! Each weighs like a brick, and is totally decadent, but if it was so outrageous it wouldn't be as remarkable, and instead it would just be another place that sold cookies, rather than a notable place that sells cookies.  In-n-Out Burger is another brand with a great story and discipline to live up to that story everyday.

Both of these places give people something interesting to talk about and share.

3 - Special Experiences:

Building off the desire to give people something interesting to talk about, why not give them something that also helps them seem a bit more interesting by involving them in a unique experience. This can range from involvement with the product or the brand experience on a whole.

For instance, there's this company, Wool and the Gang. It's a company that sells trendy knitting packages. In essence, this company is involving people in the creation of their products in a unique way that provides bragging rights because firstly, you made it and, second, you now have a new skill because of it!

Other experiences, can include creating a unique retail experience like Net-A-Porter did during Fashion's Night Out, where they took their online business offline and created a store window where people could actually buy items using their mobile app.

It's all about creating something that's remarkable -- something you will want to tell to others about because in doing so you will appear interesting, having taken part in these activities.

4 - Consumption Rituals

As we're seeing, the stories brands give their audiences don't have to only be about them, but rather are stories for consumers to share about themselves that happen to involve the brand.  I think consumption rituals, a special way you can/should consume a product, is another way to help consumers earn social currency with brand enabled stories. 

Take for instance the game of getting 'Iced'. This is where if a mate hands you a Smirnoff Ice you have to down it right there, but if you already have one, then your mate has to down both. Sure Smirnoff may never admit to creating this game, and I'm sure they didn't, because it probably came from one of their agencies. But this game has spread like wild fire, and the stories on how people are getting 'Iced' are hilarious, proving that creating a bizarre and entertaining way to consume a product can create buzz and give people stories to share

What we can take from these 4  activities is that they take the brand's purpose and turn it into remarkable experience, which involves the consumer, or story that they can't help but share with their mates! So how are you going to make your brand enable people to earn social currency and stand out?

Note: Above image from The Brand Gap

Creative & Collaborative Partnerships

Note: This is The Hudson's Bay Trading Coin from 1855 

In the last couple weeks, I've had the privilege to attend a couple trend briefings. One from nVision: Radical Times - Radical Response? And another from LS:N Global: The Wisdom Age.  I find trends very interesting and always inspiring. So it's certain my next few posts will be inspired by what I've heard at these events.

One topic that I found particularly interesting was the idea of the trader generation, mentioned at The Wisdom Age. Essentially, this is about everyone being a brand with something to say; we want to contribute and be a part of things we believe in -- the idea of B2B and B2C is long gone. Rather, we are all traders, buying and selling / giving and receiving.

The rationale and strength behind this trend began to make more sense when I went back and looked at my notes from the nVision conference.  There, I learned that 70% of people want to learn more, 50% of people want more experience, while only 30% want more stuff. Making it quite evident that people are looking for more self-fulfillment than material objects.

I think this stems from various things, but social networking and shaping our personal brands in very public arenas have played an important role in this shift. People are looking for ways to express themselves and appear interesting, unique and someone with a point of view - much like how we approach positioning brands.

We can see this in a few other stats, like the importance we place on having lots of friends has more than doubled since 2006. And interestingly, yet I'm sure it will come as very little surprise, there has been a 700% increase in the purchase of photo equipment since, I believe, 1980 (I apologise, I didn't capture the exact date range in my notes). And lastly, there has been a 40 point increase, from 21% to 61%, in the desire for personal creative expression, since 1980.

Knowing this, it's fair to say that it's important for brands to give people, more specifically their consumers/fans/ambassadors an outlet to express themselves or get involved with the brand in some way. However, there must be a reward to do so, as 70% of consumers would be interested in contributing ideas to a brand only if rewarded to do so.

The level of the reward obviously depends on the level of involvement, and the type of reward can vary from something that is monetary in value to something that contributes to their daily life.

In fairness, this isn't new. We saw this years ago with the creation of Nike ID or the ability to personalise Kleenex boxes and M&Ms. But it's evolving to be a bit more sophisticated and the benefits aren't just personalised products.

Looking at an oldie but a goodie, Threadless, has done a great job creating a highly collaborative business model that allows users to contribute designs while being able to purchase others. We also, saw this with the Keds Collective, which encouraged people to create their own custom trainers, then put them into the collective market to sell. For every pair sold their would get a percentage of the profits.  This idea was then taken to the next level with the release of Kaiser Chiefs' latest album.  People were asked to create their own album from a selection of 20 prerecorded songs and then create their own cover art to reflect their selection. For every one of that person's album sold, they receive a pound. Another unique example involving consumer involvement and creativity, is Heinz using Facebook to encourage people to send a personalised call of soup as a Get Well gift to friends.

Brilliant!

We're seeing people's creativity tapped into, which creates the IKEA affect, increasing brand affinity. Not only that, these brands are providing people with amazing stories to share with their community/friends, elevating their personal brand.

So, when thinking about a brand, we need to start asking ourselves, 'What are we going to do to create a creative and/or collaborative partnership with our consumers that will create a meaningful role within their lives beyond its base products and services?'