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BUSINESS STRATEGY
Over the years, banks have lost many? totally central to the organisation and, well and leverage technology to engage
of their traditional product and service while many companies may claim this them as effectively as possible. Not doing
offerings to other brands PHOTOS: GETTY/GALLO IMAGES, SUPPLIEDwas the case before, in my experience so leads to a competitive disadvantage
it rarely is. There was even a time that will haunt large brands that ignore it.
any kind of meaningful engagement when I produced little 3D figures of Market share lost is not easily won back.
with customers. It literally started with consumers and put these in the centre
posters. The brand held up a sign of boardroom tables to represent So, for companies, the message is to
telling you what it delivered. It was what the business was really about. change while it’s still possible and debate
simple, direct, show-and-tell. options while you still can. Waiting does
Retail interface is changing, even not make a company more competitive,
Much of brand strategy is still based it simply forces the business into a corner
on that thinking. Some industries, if most retailers do this kicking faster. It is always better to change when
like tobacco, are still (literally) stuck you are not yet forced to.
in that paradigm. and screaming
Technology enables consumer
Established brands seem to find it very The growth of e-commerce is forcing
difficult to accept that consumers can the retail and media industries to fragmentation
engage with them as equals now. This rethink how they operate, although
engagement relies on a far deeper level this is taking much longer than The most marked impact of digital
of consumer insight; mass marketing expected. Some brands are starting technology is on individual consumers.
and segmentation are simply not enough to use QR codes for example, as are They are able to live a life of persona-
when individual consumers react and certain consumer magazines and store lised interface with their friends, peers
engage in their own unique ways. merchandisers. Virtual reality is also and brands. Consumers can construct
emerging in the more dynamic stores their impulses, communications,
Brand authenticity lies in being and media brands such as Sports networks, interests, information and
able to do the same. Such two-way Illustrated and National Geographic. entertainment in their unique ways.
engagement cannot be faked, it has They can now live in their own worlds.
to be real. Being ‘average’ cannot do Yet, the vast majority of retail stores The construction of individual reality
this either, as a brand is expected by and media continue to operate the way has happened.
consumers to deliver what it promises. they used to decades ago.
People now create content on an equal
This new and immediate Even the early adopters of footing with brands and large companies.
communication demands a far greater e-commerce, such as Amazon, are still They review, praise or criticise as equals
interaction between marketing and stuck in a simplistic notion of predictive with the biggest brands. They are able
the other operations of a business. analytics. The brand has not moved on to make far more informed decisions
Hence, marketing has now become from its initially very innovative ability about products and brands than ever
to predict the products and brands you before. They can access vast sources
may be interested in. This is despite the of information – some highly specialised
much-improved depth of data they now – when reviewing issues or making
have about a specific individual. brand decisions. Consumers decide
to share a brand’s content. Or they
More data arguably enables a far decide to ignore it.
greater depth of engagement with the
consumer. Yet, to deliver this requires All-in-all, the public is in control. They
great agility and the adaptation of have so much access that they pay
existing data, marketing technology attention for a very short time and then
and business operations. move on. This means innovation around
brands and the brand experience have
Given the array of data, social increased significantly. Now not only are
platforms and new technologies now consumers bored faster, they are also
available, the level of ‘distraction’ tempted by competitors more quickly.
for the average company has also
multiplied. Distraction is bad for weak This means innovation is key,
brands and will attack the weakest first. a mindset still fairly foreign to
At the very least, it forces companies to most companies.
put consumers first, understand them
30 strategicmarketing August–September 2016
