It might be a struggle, but it’s really is time for us to admit that since the digital revolution, advertising doesn't work as well as it did and that brands and the business models they employ still rely too heavily on advertising and its metrics.
Thanks to constantly evolving tools and the ‘g’ word; consumers have sharpened their search skills and developed an exceptional ability to locate, purchase and receive anything they desire, anytime, anywhere, on their own terms.
Consumers view advertisers and their ploys with heightened scrutiny over the relevance, shared values, sincerity, provenance and effect of the overall business on their society.
Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to today’s customer-centric digital world where ‘the people’ and no longer the brands have the driving seat. Furthermore, mobile ubiquity and optimal connectivity will simply emphasize this.
To be in with a chance of being taken seriously by increasingly savvy target audiences, the brands which we interact with on a daily basis need to learn not to continually portray themselves as the hero of their own stories. In fact, if possible, they should attempt to take a back seat in their own brand story. If this is impossible then they should, at the very least, make their customers feel like the hero instead. I understand that this issue is problematic for most brand marketers and seems to go against the grain, but just how does a brand even begin to start removing itself from being the main focus of its communications strategy?
Maybe the answer lies in marketers returning to and studying their brands roots and reinstating their true use, virtues, values and raison d’etre as a product or service. Since the dark ages, market traders have sold goods at face value; based on the ripeness of apples and plums or the plumpness of their chickens which are things that actually matter to the purchaser (albeit momentarily0. In today’s society, the evolved digital-native consumer still wants to buy juicy apples or plump chickens like his ancestors, but these goods are now performance-enhancing sportswear, delicious food & drink, time-saving technology on smarter devices and worldwide experiences, it’s just that now they want to find and make choices themselves, simply because they are able to, and are no longer willing to dazzled by ‘ad-hype’.
Significant amounts of industry activity over the past year and a half, focusing on the need for brands to become publishers, could be due to the fact that there is lots to be learnt from the lessons of behavior of broadcasters and publishers who have successfully established brand identities and garnered faithful audiences. This has been achieved by the broadcasters and publishers focusing on content itself first (rather than their brand), as the primary method to grow.
Equally the ‘editorial ‘approach adopted by broadcasters and publishers provides a broader, ‘something-for-everyone’, volume game with content as opposed to a one-size-fits-all campaign. It benefits from the lack of necessity to jam-pack a brand message (which brings with it the risk of appearing disingenuous to the target audience) into anything and everything that it produces. The brand credentials of these channels manifest themselves differently via the tone and voice of the selected stories. In addition, the narrative, and the overall curation is frequently based on an explicit empathy with the wants, sensibilities, social persuasions and/or sense of humor of the society.
These elements often imply the polar opposite to advertising - it can be engaging for consumers who are bored of the dictatorial approach to brand storytelling. A good editorial is often created to show both sides of an argument – even if it results in an exact conclusion - and presents all the options to its audience. Ultimately leaving them free to make up their own minds.
It will take considerable effort, news skills, structures and resources, for brands to have enough confidence to stand for a clear purpose to present their whole story, and to be generous in their approach to enhance the lives of their client base. However, there are great rewards to be reaped and after all; if a brand’s products and services don't stand up to the test of public scrutiny, perhaps it isn’t the ‘brand’ itself that needs re-focusing in the first instance !!
By Christopher Lockwood, Editorial & Publishing Director at Adjust Your Set.
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