This is a free article from AdNews print magazine August edition. You can download a digital version of AdNews and subscribe to the premium print edition here.
As new avenues for marketing continue to open up and brands have more opportunity to connect with their consumers than ever before, it is increasingly difficult to create a meaningful brand message that resonates seamlessly across all platforms. Especially in markets heavily saturated by mobile devices.
The consumer is in control and you have no story
The consumer journey is no longer linear. Consumers are now in control of their own buying experience; they are already informed and are looking at brands to answer their needs across numerous mediums. They are disinterested in brand narrative and care more about where the product is sourced, ease of access to the product and its impact on them and the real-world.
With this in mind, brands need to execute on their vision effectively to form a relationship with their customer, a relationship that can be maintained, so that customers become loyal. Subsequently, this means that marketers need to be decisive and deliver – bad execution, no matter how great the vision, is the main reason marketers fail. Closing the gap between vision and execution is the challenge, and to do so you need to have the right marketers or agencies with the right skills to implement and execute on both.
Channel agnosticism continues to stretch and mobile continues to dominate. New-era marketing channels such as Snapchat and InstagramLive are here to stay and these real-time micro-moments form a pivotal point in the consumer journey. Brand storytelling has well and truly changed; take “Brand Filters” in Snapchat for example. Consumers now create and curate their own branded stories and distribute these themselves, providing powerful real-time content. This not only acts as a form of content marketing, but it also provides in-depth information on the consumer given the context, timing and reason for their sharing.
One channel too many and the data rat race
With so many new, as well as traditional marketing channels available, brand marketers need to understand which to use and when. As consumers continue to channel surf, delivering the right message, on the right channel, at the right time is imperative. Controlling all of these touchpoints and ensuring unified messaging in an increasingly fractured communications landscape, is a fine art.
Once you have chosen a channel, the customer experience, is now affected by the utilisation of personal data. As more and more emphasis is placed on tailored user experience, brand managers need to look at what they do with data and how it fits into their long term strategy.
This growing trend for personalisation has led to a rat race of customer information gathering and brands need more and more data to continue to stay ahead. An easy differentiator for a brand in a crowded market place is the depth to which they know their customer and how they choose to use this data. But it is rare that marketers actually know how to effectively use this data, with many lacking an understanding of how to use it in application.
More marketing opportunities and more customer data are all well and good, though the downside is that investing in so many channels is costly. But costs are significantly reduced through the reuse and repurpose of assets across platforms. This efficiency empowers brands to achieve greater consistency of brand message at the global, local and regional level without spending more.
The power of a partner
With so many moving parts, it is no surprise that brands are putting so much importance on their strategic agency partnerships to streamline processes and gain efficiencies. A successful partnership is one where there is a deep understanding between agency and brand of the bigger picture and the smaller milestones passed to get there.
As brands seek to do more with less, as budgets plateau and channels increase, it is easy to get carried away. Working with a strategic partner can give you a fresh perspective and can help you execute cross-channel campaigns efficiently, without compromising on effectiveness. With the right partner, message and channel, brands can place customers in an echo chamber where their brand message reverberates seamlessly from every device.
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