Would you like some critical insights into the future trends of branding and business today?
Join me at The Future Business Forum 2016, Romania, where I’ll be addressing the key trends in branding and how they’re impacting business so you’re empowered to make the right decisions for your future brand success.
Glen Kieran, Founder, Future Business Forum will provide an insight into the critical challenges organisations are facing when looking at their business 10 years ahead.
Ozana Giusca, Founder and CEO Tooliers, will share her strategies to generate business without any sales reps, no sales calls or meetings, simply by smartly using the Internet.
Discover where the world is going and use those insights to drive your business strategy for your future brand success and increased profitability.
https://www.personadesign.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Persona-Design-Logo-512px-300x300.png00Lorraine Carterhttps://www.personadesign.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Persona-Design-Logo-512px-300x300.pngLorraine Carter2015-12-22 14:00:002016-05-22 15:06:08Lorraine Carter Speaking at The Future Business Forum, Bucharest
Are you curious which Persona Branding and Design articles have been the most popular over the past year?
We’re always interested to see which of our posts resonate most with you, our reader. Even though we do lots of research and planning, there are no guarantees which topics will trigger the most interest.
Here you’ll find an insider’s peek into our top ten most popular branding articles of 2015, some of which you might have missed.
I’m sure you’ll find at least one that will be very useful to your business in the year ahead.
The differences between a tired, old, has-been of a brand and a fresh, lithe and provocative one can be boiled down to a singular concept: storytelling. The art of telling a story, and telling it well, is integral to grabbing every potential customer’s attention, and a key part of your brand strategy.
The secret to success in the elegant art of storytelling lies in understanding its fundamental components. Though by no means comprehensive, what follows is a breakdown of some major elements that any good story should include. These are in fact some of the key ingredients we incorporate in our Story Selling System™ used when developing our clients’ brand stories:
Launching a new brand is both exciting and challenging. The excitement comes in the promise of something fresh and new that could be wildly successful, be it for your well established, emerging or new start-up company — and the challenge comes in getting it right the first time.
It provides the roadmap and rationale to get you out of the starting blocks and heading in the right direction towards your ultimate success. And similar to your business plan, it’s also a key foundation to any successful business, be it product or service.
The question here is, do you know the key ingredients required for building a new brand?
More than a half century ago, the customer-centric branding pioneer Walter Landor said, “Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind.” [1] In 2016, the path to that consumer experience is a two-way street, and guess who’s in the driver’s seat? Brands with strong personality are the winners, because consumers equate experiences with brands.
Branding keywords for 2016 include: personalized, authentic, humanized, interactive, engaging, and mobile.
Your brand is much more than merely a product or service, or a logo. Brands are an experience—the relationship between your business and your customers—and to create an exceptional customer experience, your brand must have an irresistible personality.
To quote Martyn Newman PhD “In the information age and globalised economy where values and meaning matter more in the market place, the value of emotional capital increases. This creates brand value and goodwill and results in repeat sales through customer loyalty, lifetime relationships and referrals. In other words, the brand is more than a name or a logo; it creates trust and recognition and is a promise and an emotional contract with each customer.”
Brand profiling is the systematic process of creating, developing and implementing your brand character and personality through shaping its brand promise, values, the do’s and don’ts of its behaviours, story, emotional benefits, its culture and what it stands for and so forth.
It’s this humanized entity that gets your brand message out into the market, cuts through the noise and gets the attention of your primary customers in a way that matters to them.
When creating and developing the profiles for our clients’ brands we use our bespoke Personality Profile Performer™, a systematic approach which underpins the commercial, rational, and holistic aspects of successful brand profile building.
Co-branding is defined as a partnership between brands. It typically works best when Brand A partners with Brand B, each with a different set of customers and brand associations of their own.
As in the expression, “the whole is bigger than the parts,” co-branding can add value when synergy exists between the brands; it creates an emotional energy, starts conversations and creates buzz around both partners and can delivery significantly increased financial returns for all involved when done right.
In addition to brand revitalization, co-branding objectives may include getting more bang for your buck, growing market share, building audience reach and altering perceived positioning. Co-branding is primarily used an alliance of two brand partners, although there’s no rule against bringing three or more to the party.
Colour increases brand recognition by 80%. 93% of shoppers consider visual appearance over all other factors while shopping. It adds huge power to communications, opinions, recall and emotive influence. In fact when used correctly, colour is a pivotal tool to substantially influence purchasing decisions, service or product.
Since colour choices impact every aspect of a commercial enterprise, brand owners should aggressively re-evaluate that choice throughout their brand strategy.
The question is, has your brand’s colour palette been selected with the right intent and applied to best possible effect throughout all your brand communications and touch points to ensure your brand grow and increased profitability?
Find out more about why colour matters and how you can use it more effectively within your business.
The growing proliferation of multiple different brands in the market place has made customers spoilt for choice, but often at the expense of easy decision-making.
When presented with an assortment of packaging options in which nothing decisively stands out, with a compellingly clear message that speaks to a customer succinctly, analysis paralysis sets in. It’s when faced with this situation that a confused shopper will typically default to making decisions based on price alone.
The question here is, where does your brand sit in the mix?
Leading brands cut through the visual and cognitive noise created by an oversaturated market full of aggressive competitors and hook their ideal customers by meeting their needs both emotionally and rationally.
The combined value of the various luxury goods markets in 2014 was an estimated 865 billion euros, with luxury cars, personal luxury goods and luxury hospitality taking the top three places, with values of 351 billion, 223 billion and 150 billion respectively.
You might think those statistics make luxury branding a very interesting sector, however if you want to reposition or establish your brand targeted at a high-end customer then there are six keys factors you need to consider within your brand strategy.
Firstly there are four main characteristics by which the luxury customer defines a luxury brand. However the way in which someone perceives luxury will depend on factors ranging from their socio-economic status to their geographical location.
Millennials, the newest generation of influential consumers (also known as Generation Y or Gen Y), spend more than $600 billion dollars annually with spending power expected to reach $1.4 trillion by 2020, (or 30% of US sales) according to Accenture 2013 research.
While these statistics sounds like ‘gold bullion’ for many brands, in our experience often smaller companies and organisations struggle to develop their brand strategy in a way that relates relevantly to this fast changing group of buyers.
Millennial consumers are a very fluid constantly moving target with multiple devices overflowing with content clamouring for their attention 24/7. However once you really understand this discerning consumer properly and tailor your brand to really meet their needs, you can, like many others tap into this incredibly lucrative market.
The average consumer spends 88% more time on content with video and video is shared 1200% more times than links and text combined. A landing page with video gets 800% more conversion than the same page without video.
If you ever thought using video to promote your brand was too difficult or beyond your reach these statistics might make you think again.
Find out exactly how you can use video to grow your brand here.
You can even find out how one small start up brand used video to achieve worldwide distribution and now has more online viewers than its competing massive global brands combined!
Image via Google / YouTube
Did your favourite post feature in one these top 10 branding articles of 2015? If there was an alternative that was your first preference, drop us a line and let us know.
Meantime I’d love to keep you up to date with what’s happening in the world of branding and make this blog really useful to you. If there’s anything branding related you would like to read about in this blog or if you have any questions or comments, suggestions for a blog post, feedback or even just to say Hi, just send me a short note, I’m here to help!
More than a half century ago, the customer-centric branding pioneer Walter Landor said, “Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind.” [1] In 2016, the path to that consumer experience is a two-way street, and guess who’s in the driver’s seat? Brands with strong personality are the winners, because customers equate great experiences and emotive meaning with strong, distinctive brands.
While Mr. Landor had massively insightful branding vision, he couldn’t have foreseen the challenges brands face in 2016. The 21st century consumer shopping and purchasing experience has changed, and continues to change…fast. Demanding and sophisticated customers no longer simply reach for “new and improved” brands on display shelves.
Digital Developments in Branding
In 2016, any brand overlooking the following trends would do so at their own peril:
• Shift to mobile is the main message for every small, medium, or large-sized brand in 2016. According to Google, “Mobile has forever changed what we expect of brands.” [2]
• Understanding digital is key. For even the smallest brands, the monetization of social platforms means we’re in the “pay-to-play” era. So going forward, every big brand marketing department needs a deep understanding of digital and every small brand needs to maximize their resources.
• Interpreting data tells brand marketers what’s working and what’s not, ensuring that spending choices are made wisely.
Simply put, your customers are online and that’s where you need to be. Specifically, they’re on mobile and increasingly, they’re watching video content to make purchase decisions.
Yes, just when we thought ubiquitous online shopping had tolled a death knell for bricks-and-mortar stores, Amazon introduced its first-ever real physical bookstore in Seattle University Village. [3] What does this signify 20 years after Amazon went live with cut-rate books online that nearly destroyed bookstores? Amazon is connecting the dots between its troves of big data on customer preferences and the 2016 desire for a humanizing browsing and shopping experience. No one is yet pronouncing this first bookstore as a trend, but it’s worth keeping an eye on. (Remember, Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos purchased the Washington Post when everyone said print newspapers were dead.).
Image via www.amazon.com
Branding Studies Highlight Customers Expectations
“Speedy, seamless and sensory,” is the brand experience consumers want in 2016, according to the Landor Associates study released in November 2015.[4] Today’s challenge for brands, says Landor’s CEO, is to continuously evolve, to be utterly relevant, while all the while staying true to the brand’s essence.
The largest group of consumers on the planet are Millennials (born between 1980 and 1995), and they’re adults now. The youngest in this cohort will turn 21 in 2016. As Edelman reveals in their latest worldwide “8095 Survey” of Millennials’ purchasing preferences, brands must surprise and delightto gain loyalty, because average is not acceptable.[5]
Image via www.edelman.com
In PwC’s latest global survey, “Retailers and the Age of Disruption,” the overarching trend is that “…the premium in the future will be on creating unique, brand-defining experiences that keep customers coming back — whatever the channel.” [6]
Branding keywords for 2016 include: personalized, authentic, humanized, interactive, engaging, and mobile.
We take a closer look at some outstanding examples from brands that illustrate key 2016 on-trend pointers to successfully target today’s customers.
Brands Can Flaunt a Sense of Humour
Lowe’s Home Improvement highlights their products by inspiring successful DIY through amusing, real life storytellingvideos. The series are short and sweet, showing projects that will make you feel like you can accomplish anything, from painting a room to building an outdoor deck. Anyone who has ever tried to fold a fitted sheet will empathize with this guy.
“I don’t think the world is ever going to want to stop hearing stories,” is the sentiment expressed by Angela Ahrendts during her tenure as CEO of Burberry. She emphasized that anyone who is touching your brand wants to see, feel and hear its authentic story. Tell it visually, amplify it with music, create energy around it. Ahrendts obsession about doing all of the above is why she’s America’s highest-compensated female executive as Sr. VP of Apple.
Brands Should Support Good Causes
Aligning with charitable endeavours, championing social issues or running an environmentally sustainable business is good for a brand, its customers and the community at large. Choose wisely, care deeply and gain credibility in the process. Marks & Spencer produced their Oxfam donation partnership called Shwopping profiling celebrity ambassadors, Annie Lennox, Emma Thompson, Twiggy and other leading ladies.
Brands Gain Trust via Authenticity
RED Lookbook is an Estée Lauder advert for their fragrance, Modern Muse Le Rouge. It’s delivered as a feel-good video featuring a “real” person, UK social influencer Fleur DeForce, wearing lots of red and using the fragrance. “Top priorities to succeed have to be authenticity and passion,” the beauty video blogger with 1.3 million subscribers told Digiday. Followers are accustomed to seeing Fleur in intimate, authentic videos relaxing with her husband, friends, dogs and favorite products. The 27-year-old provides a disclaimer, “I only ever work with brands that I personally use and love, and only to promote products I genuinely like and believe in.”
Brands Become Approachable
The evolution of wine reveals a case in point about humanizing a brand. Today’s winemakers are portraying down-to-earth personalities. Even the glamorous bubbly Moët & Chandon, founded in 1743, is behaving in a way that’s anything but stuffy and old fashioned.
Image via www.moet.com
In California wine country, “7 Deadly Zins” from Michael David Winery just knows how to have a good time with their Zinfandel branding, paired with fresh air and a mountain hike.
Image via www.michaeldavidwinery.com
And, there’s a seriously excellent wine inside the bottle illustrated with dancing elephants on a cartoon-like circus label; this Syrah was rated #2 in the world for 2015 by Wine Enthusiast Magazine. [7]
Image Courtesy of Lodi Winegrape Commission
Brands Relate To Consumers’ Lifestyles
In just six months, Fitbit has scored 6 million YouTube views for its 30-second rom com, “Know Your Heart.” It’s completely relatable and inexpensive to make. “The campaign plays off the duality of knowing your heart emotionally and physically in a cheeky and relatable, story–driven way that resonates with our brand,” says Fitbit global marketing VP Tim Rosa. “We wanted it to be relatable and charming, while showing that getting fit and healthy is attainable if one sets his/her heart to it.”[8]
Top 16 Brand Trends Checklist for Engaging Customers in 2016
1. Consumers cravebrand authenticity. They want personalized, engaging and humanized interaction with brands, even humour that brings a smile to the face.
2. Customers are embracing disruptors, from healthcare wearables to taxi services and non-hotel stays. 3. Consumers are makingemotional decisions about brands that feature distinctive, compelling storytelling and a friendly tone of voice, not corporate-speak bravado. 4. Customers wantresponsibility and accountability from brands. They’re looking deeper into a company’s ethics, environmental position, supply chain, production processes, diversity hiring, mission statement and corporate giving. 5. Consumers are tuned in. They place morevalue on online reviews from strangers than on brand advertising. 6. Customers are listening to employees as brand champions whose opinions on the brand culture can speak volumes via social media and in person. 7. Consumers are searching and shopping online.They expect fast, seamless, quality brand experiences from super fast mobile websites to free, next day delivery. 8. Consumers are looking at FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) and packaging design that goes beyond a logo, photos or serving suggestions in favour of labels that may reveal personality, tell about a product’s backstory and offer interesting “did you know” facts up front. 9. Consumers continue to relate to brands thatrelate to their own lifestyle preferences. 10. Consumers are consulting with children living at home in making their purchase decisions, including vacations. 11. Customers require asense of place when they travel, not cookie-cutter, look-alike hotel and restaurant chains.
12. Customers express themselves through the brands they associate with, including artisan, hand-crafted, small production items from bricks and mortar stores or limited edition and customized products from larger brands.
13. Customers want two-way communication and co-creation with brands that are connecting with their customers and responding to feedback.
14. Consumers are tired of annoying in-your-face advertising that screams a one-way message. Native advertising and re-targeted effective messages that deliver relevance are the way to get attention in 2016.
15. Consumers expect multi-channel agility from brands. They prefer original brand video content and how-to advice to be seamlessly accessible across their multiple devices.
16. Consumers are rejecting photo-shopped, zero-sized beauty definitions in favour of natural and real, wellness and gender-neutral positioning.
Image via www.edelman.com
In conclusion:
• It’s not your brand anymore. It belongs to your customers.
• Brand experiences matter more, not stuff. Bring shareable new ideas to the marketplace.
• Brands must be created and developed using strong well developed personas.Make it personal, emotive, relatable and real.
• Clever and amusing is the new approach. Humanize your brand.
• Brand loyalty must be earned. Sophistication and authenticity are the order of the day for a much more discerning customer.
Ask yourself:
• How many of these 16 trends can you tick off your brand must-do list as part of your brand strategy for the year ahead?
• Has your brand found the right tone of voice for 2016?
• Have you identified your brand’s positioning and unique selling points and successfully incorporated them?
• Has your brand aligned with a charity? Has it embraced sustainability and green initiatives? Is there a corporate social responsibility message that’s making its way to customers’ ears?
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