Leading marketers at the World Federation of Advertisers Global Marketer Conference 2016 wowed Kuala Lumper last month, championing B2H: Business to Human. While brands are putting technology, speed and efficiency first, the real key is people – both consumers and staff respond and grow with a personalised, focused and emotional connection.
What does that all mean in practice?
Consumers are people – they expect to be treated like individuals and want a brand that does something, stands for something. There’s no revolution in parachuting in a brand, localising the marketing and distributing the product. Innovation needs to have a cultural basis – people carry their cultural identity with them when interacting with brands. Embracing cultural products, such as halal cosmetics, can bring disruption to a market.- Privacy & personalisation – people are worried about privacy but like personalisation. The challenge is to build trust around the exchange of data and its value. Tony Fernandes, Group CEO, said AirAsia was moving from being a marketing airline to a digital and data airline in a bid to personalise service and upsell on relevant ancillary products like foreign exchange, duty free and wifi, as well as aiming to leverage data for other brands.
- Human data – Data without human interaction is meaningless and often gut feel is the determinative factor, according to Fernandes. John Kearon, CEO and Chief Juicer at BrainJuicer, also talked up the benefit of data and insights when used with a human overlay to make emotional rather than persuasive ads to resonate with people.
- Emotional response – Kearon also cautioned that “people think they think more than they think”, meaning that people actually make instinctive decisions and respond to storytelling. A level of fame, feeling and fluency is needed for profitable brand growth – essentially awareness, provoking a reaction and having a distinctive asset.
- Customer centricity – Being anything less than 100% customer focussed is not an option. But marketing teams aren’t necessarily dealing with customers, those on the front line are and while you can turn them into an opportunity to market directly to consumers, only motivated people deliver brand power. Polish employees into the right roles for them, making real diamonds out of raw diamonds.
- What’s in a name? – Job titles shouldn’t define your contribution according to Maria Mujica, Global Leader Fly Fearless for Mondelez. Bring agitators to the table and give time limits to focus activity. Given the new jobs that have been created in the past few years, from Vlogger to Millennial Expert to Chief Listening Officer, there’s scope for people to be proactive and to participate in the development of creative work. There’s no point sitting back and then complaining about what your agency brings you.
- Consumer demographics are changing – Thirty years have been added to the average lifespan but those 30 years are not added to the end, they are added to middle age. Urban centres are also exploding meaning that marketing will be directed to hubs and corridors, not at the country level. The village has moved online.
- Ad blocking – No marketing conference would be complete without paying attention to ad blocking and the need to:
– standardise and improve digital formats
– accelerate the time to download content
– educate users that content is not free
– make better ads
– reduce “bad ads” – those that are misleading, lead to counterfeit sites or deliver unwanted software
– create a better user experience and ad settings
Connected and conscious customers, engaged and encouraged employees – there’s no room any longer for an either/or approach. A mindset of and/and is needed. It’s listening and integration and collaboration and keeping an open mind. Customers can be your best consultant and employees can be your best brand asset. Each layer of technology is like being on a different floor of a building, you can’t hear each other. So make your staff people who sit together and customers the people they focus on.