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Consumers are Loyal to Experience, not Brands

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By Ted Rubin

It’s not just the brand, product or price, IT’S The EXPERIENCE…. especially now when Health at Safety are the top of everyone’s list!

Think about your favorite song or artist and consider why it’s your favorite. Do you remember when you first heard it? Does it transport you back to a certain time in your life? It may not be the ‘best’ song you’ve ever heard on a technical level, but it means something unique to you because of the way that you experienced it. If you happened to be listening to a different song frequently at that important time in your life, perhaps that one would be your favorite instead.

While we interact differently with art than we do with brands, there’s no doubt that our personal experience with a brand plays a more important role in where we shop than any name, logo, or marketing materials. That personal experience is often a reflection of the brand’s overall commitment to the customer. The consumer’s interactions with employees, trust in the company, quality of service, ability to get what they need, when they need it, and so many more factors shape a consumer’s experience with a brand. If the experience isn’t there, then the consumers won’t be either.

Unless you make the brand the experience

The most effective brands understand that the experience is what matters most to consumers, and that brand loyalty can evaporate instantly if the experience no longer delivers what the consumer is seeking. If you want the consumer to be loyal to your brand, then you need the brand to be synonymous with the experience that it represents. Making that happen takes work, because loyalty must be earned, and the process of earning loyalty never really stops.

You don’t need me to tell you that Amazon is the behemoth of online retail, or that it offers an experience that is hard for many brands to replicate. For most of us, the Amazon experience is very familiar and is constantly associated with the brand. The selection of products, prices, diverse services, convenience, marketplace and innovation of Amazon is the experience. If you’re a loyal Amazon customer, then that experience is likely what drew you in and keeps you coming back.

But what about small, mid-sized, or chain businesses that have nowhere near the clout of Amazon? Why do you buy your hardware, automotive supplies, food, or anything else you need at one local store instead of another? So often, it comes down to the quality of the people, and the small, meaningful connections that you build with the brand over time. If a smaller business remembers you, caters to your needs, makes you feel welcome, stocks your favorite items, and helps you find what you want in a quick, convenient way, then it’s creating an experience that earns your loyalty.

Never be satisfied with a substandard experience

In fact, don’t even be satisfied with an excellent experience. Always look for new ways to make your brand more valuable to consumers, and never take their loyalty for granted. The experience can always be improved, and there will always be competitors working hard to earn the loyalty of your customers. If you don’t adapt, they will.

Every consumer is a micro-influencer, because ‘everyone influences someone.’

Ultimately, the experience is what defines your brand, and not the other way around. Consumers are simply too savvy. They read reviews, compare their experiences with others, and they’re not afraid to speak up when the experience is substandard. This makes every consumer a micro-influencer, because ‘everyone influences someone.’

Warby Parker is a great example of experience defining the brand. Its product is not the best, BUT it is good enough… because the experience is outstanding in every way. It is not simply a company that ‘gets’ the OmniChannel experience, it exercises the concept of being OmniPresent… be where your customers are, and be prepared to deliver and communicate in the way they prefer. The store shelf is now wherever the consumer wants it to be.

The good news is that, when the experience is a consistently positive one, consumers are willing to speak up about that, too. Smart brands understand the influence that each consumer wields, and work to create an experience that causes consumers to use their influence in a positive way for the brand. A referral alone isn’t close to enough to build brand loyalty, but it does provide the opportunity to show one more consumer why your experience is worth their loyalty. #WeAreInThisTogether… Be Safe Everyone.

 

By Ted Rubin

Sourced from Medium

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Why brands can’t keep consumers in the dark on data tracking

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By Thomas Hobbs

Marketers are still not doing a good enough job explaining to consumers how their data is being tracked.

Speaking on a panel at The Drum’s Programmatic Punch event earlier this month, Belle Cartwright, director of data strategy for EMEA at Essence, said that even though GDPR is changing how brands approach data, many are still banking on consumers being willfully ignorant. She argued that this was the “wrong strategy.”

“You have to inform consumers properly on how their data is being used. How many of them know, for example, that their device ID on their smartphone is being stored so brands can look at their viewing habits to programmatically target them in the future? My guess would be not many,” Cartwright explained.

“We need to do a better job explaining why this data is collected and what the value exchange is to the consumers. Banking on them to not ask any questions is the wrong strategy and will only cause more damage in the future.”

Yet Tim Hussein, managing principal at Ebiquity Tech, questioned why marketers would heavily invest in this kind of programmatic advertising in the first place. He called out “mistruths”, likening them to lies told on the infamous ‘Vote Leave’ bus in the Brexit campaign, which give marketers a false impression of the true power of programmatic.

“Generally programmatic ads perform worse than other types of media. A lot of advertisers can pull back from programmatic and it won’t effect their ROI at all,” he claimed. “Publishers are selling programmatic with mistruths. Big DMP companies say it will make your efficiencies go up X amount, but then their cookie pools are inaccurate or these projections aren’t applied to all campaigns. There’s a lot of half truths being told.”

He added: “Right now there’s two extremes out there: you either get told programmatic is the best thing since slice bread or it’s a disaster. The reality is it’s somewhere in the middle.”

Also on the panel was Nick Stringer, vice president of global engagement and operations at Trustworthy Accountability Group, who claimed marketers should brace themselves for even more changes around data and GDPR.

“Yes, in theory, GDPR should cover the challenges we face around data, but it was only six years in the making and with the rapid rate of change we’re seeing technologically, it will almost certainly be altered soon,” he advised. “You would hope policy makers would put something in place that is more robust and covers things like the privacy directive, and reforms electronic communications much more deeply.”

The biggest looming threat approaching programmatic advertising will be the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which comes into place at the start of 2020, according to Jacob Eborn, privacy consultant manager at OneTrust PreferenceChoice. Although it won’t affect the UK, it could well set the tone for global changes.

Echoing Stringer’s comments, he concluded: “Everyone needs to be aware that how you define requirements for GDPR today probably won’t be the same in 18 months time. Thanks to the CCPA, it could soon be a lawyer who makes the case that a brand has been doing some unlawful. If you are a marketer and not comfortable with privacy litigation then you need to get comfy, and fast.”

By Thomas Hobbs

Sourced from The Drum

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Overexposure is making UK consumers ‘apathetic’ towards ads

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By Imogen Watson

A report from Kantar has shown that consumers are suffering from ad fatigue, with bombardment and oversaturation putting the UK ad industry at risk.

The research firm’s Dimensions report, found that almost three quarters (73%) of UK consumers had seen the same ads ‘over and over again’. As a result, just 11% said they ‘enjoyed’ advertising.

Kantar commissioned the report to examine the risks facing the advertising industry as a result of over-targeting. It is based on the findings of 5,000 consumers in five markets with a combined total ad spend of $352bn.

The study found that Brits’ perception of advertising has been tainted by repetitive and obtrusive ads, with more than half (55%) saying they felt ‘apathetic’ towards advertising, an increase of 2% on 2018’s figure. On the flip side, 61% of people conceded they were open to receiving ads relevant to them.

The report also looked into ad-blocking technology, and found use remains steady. Despite this, the study detailed how better content was continuing to pull consumers towards subscription offers with paid-for TV and video services on the rise.

As one of the 58 brands who contributed to the report, Eve Mattresses’ chief marketing officer Cheryl Calverley said: “What you can’t see from data is the damage you might be doing by re-targeting people endlessly with your products.”

On the matter of rebuilding consumer trust, Kantar’s UK chief executive, Mark Inskip said there needed to be: “More responsible use of data across the industry.”

He added: “By adopting an integrated approach, balancing niche targeting capabilities with mass marketing tactics, brands can provide consumers with a helpful, additive experience.”

The findings of the report echo concerns raised by top brand marketers about oversaturation. Back in 2017, P&G’s Marc Prichard warned of the content “crap trap,” and advised brands and agencies to dig themselves out of exposure overload by creating fewer, but better, ads.

Earlier this year, the thinktank Credos and Advertising Association president Keith Weed launched a study that aimed to tackle consumer trust in advertising. It presented similar findings to the recent Kantar report.

For Credos, bombardment of advertising messages was found to be the biggest issue of all the public concerns about advertising and accounts for half of the ‘negatives’ in the search.

By Imogen Watson

Sourced from The Drum

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Consumers say they don’t care about personalisation — but that doesn’t mean marketers shouldn’t do it

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By Sylvia Jensen

A recent survey of UK consumers by Acquia revealed lacklustre demand for personalised experiences. Sylvia Jensen, VP EMEA marketing at Acquia, argues that these findings shouldn’t dissuade marketers from investing in personalisation.

What do consumers care about most when it comes to digital experiences? Engaging content? Effective social media? Personalisation? That was a question we at Acquia asked recently of consumers in a survey, and the results were, in some ways, surprising, and in other ways, completely understandable. Actually, when it comes to digital experiences, consumers say they value simplicity above all — saying all they want is just a brand website that’s quick and easy to navigate. Personalised experiences fall way down the list of consumers desires.

Personalisation works

Our initial reaction to consumers’ lacklustre opinion of personalisation was that of surprise. Certainly, from a business point of view, personalisation is paramount to success, and multiple studies have shown that it’s key to driving brand loyalty and repeat sales. McKinsey believes effective personalisation can lift revenue growth by as much as 15%. Econsultancy concluded through research that 93% of companies see an uplift in conversion rates from personalisation. And Gartner predicts that by 2020, personalisation technology that recognises customer intent will enable digital businesses to increase profits by up to 15%.

So, if businesses believe in it, why don’t consumers? Our argument is that while consumers may say they don’t care about personalisation, marketers must not take that to mean that personalisation efforts are futile. Part of the reason consumers told us they don’t care about personalisation is almost certainly down to the fact that it’s much subtler than a website that’s easier to navigate. Arguably, the best kind of personalisation is when the customer doesn’t even know they’re getting a tailored experience. So, it’s understandable that consumers don’t list it as a top priority.

Having said all that, the whole marketing industry is going through an incredible change at the moment, thanks in part to GDPR and thanks in part to scandals like Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. Consumer awareness around data collection and personalisation is increasing, and now is the time for brands to hammer home the message that they’re using customer data to improve the experience for customers through personalisation rather than anything sinister.

But getting personalisation right is still a massive challenge

The trouble, though, is that brands are finding personalisation to be a huge challenge. Previous Acquia research found that 48% of large businesses struggle with personalisation because they don’t know anything about their website visitors. 45% say they don’t have the budget for it, and more worrying still, a third (34%) say they don’t have the support of their board of directors. We conducted that research more than a year ago, and then took the opportunity to ask how things were getting on again at our inaugural Acquia Engage Europe event in June 2018, which saw the heads of digital at major world brands like Virgin Sport, Hiscox, Warner Music and Stage Entertainment come together to share their experiences with digital. It turns out, everybody’s still finding it difficult. Only 11% of attendees had the confidence to say they weren’t struggling with personalisation.

Why personalisation is difficult

When you’re a big brand that operates in multiple regions, cultures and languages, and you have different business units in each region working towards their own objectives with their own level of autonomy, it’s no wonder personalisation is difficult. This kind of global structure makes executing on even the most basic of marketing principles difficult, let alone the newest and hottest trends like personalisation.

And quite often as you grow as a business, your technology infrastructure takes a while to catch up. The number of times we at Acquia have spoken to big businesses operating on small-business technology is huge. And it’s the technology that was once fit for smaller businesses that’s holding back from taking advantage of the biggest marketing trends like personalisation.

My recommendation — a global platform to manage a global brand before crawling, walking and running with personalisation

Before doing anything, you need to make sure you have the right infrastructure in place. Using a single content management system that enables you to manage a brand at a global level while giving each specific region the autonomy they need to succeed is key. This kind of setup will help you maintain a consistent brand in multiple regions, enable you to spin up new sites quickly, and help you to manage content much more easily.

Once that’s in place, your next step is to read our recent blog on how to crawl, walk and run with personalisation… No-one’s every said it would be easy, but it’s an approach we take with clients to help them beat their competition that works.

By Sylvia Jensen

Sourced from Digital Doughnut

 

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Timing is key if marketers want consumers to share their video content

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By Mike Krings

Spend any time online or browsing social media, and you’re likely to come across branded video content. Advertisers and marketers want people to not only see their content but to enjoy it so much that they share it with their friends. A new study from the University of Kansas has found that the prominence of the brand and the advertisers’ decision to disclose whether the content is branded can heavily influence how people view and share the video.

The study is forthcoming in the Journal of Interactive Marketing and was co-authored by Dongwon Choi, Bart Wojdynski and Yen-I Lee of the University of Georgia and Kate Keib of Oglethorpe University.

Bang, who researches digital advertising, marketing, consumer engagement and how individual traits moderate media effects, said the study provides both information for how marketers can better reach potential audiences and how consumers can protect themselves. Native advertising, or branded content made to look like it was produced by individuals, can be deceiving. Federal Trade Commission guidelines state branded content must be labeled as such.

“When people are exposed to native advertising such as branded content, they can be influenced without even knowing they are viewing advertising,” Bang said.

There are no laws on when branded content must be labeled, or how heavily the brand can be featured. The research project measured branded content’s effects by having participants view content for Red Bull energy drinks in four different ways. Disclosure was made at the beginning of the video, but the brand’s placement during a YouTube video of extreme sports set to music was either prominent or subtle. Disclosure was also provided at the end, and placement was either prominent or subtle.

Researchers used eye-tracking software to gauge if viewers were paying attention to the videos and questioned them after viewing if they would share such content.

“When is given at the beginning, it activates consumers’ defensive mechanism against the marketing content, thus they try to intentionally avoid such content,” Bang said. “As a result, it could also reduce their intention to share. However, if it was disclosed subtly, and there was not much brand placement in the video, the activation of defense mechanism is kind of faded out, thus people are more likely to share.”

When measured alone, if disclosure was at the beginning or end, it made little difference in viewers’ intention to share. But if disclosure was made at the beginning and brand placement was prominent, they were much less likely to share. The same was true for heavy brand placement videos with disclosure at the end. Videos in which brand placement was subtle had the highest rate of attention and were more likely to be shared, the viewers reported.

“In cases of the subtle brand placement, the timing of disclosure did not make differences in terms of visual attention,” Bang said. “However, in case of highly prominent brand placement, the post-disclosure attracted way more visual attention compared to the pre-disclosure.”

The study also measured participants’ persuasion knowledge. The factor, or accumulated knowledge about marketing and awareness that content was advertising, correlates highly with viewers’ intentions to share branded content. The findings, along with sharing intentions, provide scientific evidence as to which types of disclosure and branded content can be most effective.

“The reason we chose sharing intention as our main variable is because the goal of this type of video is to make it go viral,” Bang said. “That’s why we wanted to know more about how other variables such as disclosure timing and brand placement affect sharing intention.”

But the findings can also be valuable for consumers, providing information about what type of branded content viewers are not as likely to discern as advertising. In future research, Bang plans to measure viewers’ physiological reactions to branded content and what effects they may have on favorability toward the content. In the meantime, marketers will continue to produce videos touting their brands with different levels of disclosure and brand prominence in hopes of scoring the next viral hit.

Feature Image: A fireman rescues a kitten from a burning house in a still image from a YouTube video by camera company GoPro. The video is a successful example of a branded content marketing piece in which the marketer disclosed the marketing nature early and was subtle in its company placement. It has more than 38 million views. Credit: GoPro, YouTube.

By Mike Krings, University of Kansas

Sourced from PHYS ORG

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Consumers Moving To Watching TV On VR Headsets

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Television viewing is coming to virtual reality.

While VR headsets have been most notably used for gaming, many consumers around the world expect to use VR for TV and video viewing within the next few years.

Almost a third (30%) of consumers say they will be watching TV via VR headset, negating the need for big screen TVs, based on a new global study.

The study comprised a survey of 20,0000 people in 13 countries (Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Italy, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the U.K. and the U.S.) who have a broadband internet connection at home and watch TV or video at least once a week. The eighth annual study was conducted by Ericsson ConsumerLab.

Many consumers expect their habits will change over the next few years, including a move to watching TV in virtual reality. Here’s how consumers anticipate their habits will change over the next five years:

  • 30% — I will watch TV in virtual reality, as if I was inside the content
  • 29% — Will talk to my devices rather than using buttons or screens
  • 27% — Will get most news from social media
  • 27% — Will watch more 360-degree video content
  • 25% — Will spend more time watching video than today
  • 24% — Will get live sports from streaming services
  • 20% — Will not watch scheduled linear TV anymore
  • 18% — Will spend less time watching video content than today
  • 12% — Will not watch news on the TV anymore
  • 12% — Will watch less on-demand, since I will get lost in the variety of content
  • 6% — Will not watch on a big TV screen anymore

Of course, not everyone sees their habits changing, with almost a quarter (23%) saying they don’t think they will have changed over the next five years.

The big change coming is from using virtual reality as a solo experience to watching the same content together with others.

More than two in five (41%) consumers with VR headsets already watch movies and TV programs on their devices with others and more than a third (35%) watch other video content with others.

One of the potential inhibitors to the growth of virtual reality is cost. Nearly 55% of those planning to get a VR device would prefer if the headsets were cheaper.

Additionally, about half of consumers think there should be more immersive content available and a third would be more interested in VR if they could get a VR bundle from the TV and video provider.

Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock

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Sourced from MediaPost

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What Consumers Want from eCommerce Websites [Infographic]

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By Andrew Hutchinson.

What are consumers really looking for from eCommerce websites?

That’s the question MDG Advertising sought to answer with their latest report – they went looking through various consumer studies and data resources to establish the five key elements that consumers have identified as essential elements of the eCommerce experience.

They’ve compiled their findings into this new infographic – you can check the full data here.

 

 

By Andrew Hutchinson

Andrew Hutchinson is the Head of Content and Social Media at Social Media Today. He’s a multi-award winning blogger and author, a social media marketing analyst and an occasional advisor on social business strategy. He lives and works in Canberra, Australia.

Sourced from Social Media Today

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What Bothers Consumers Most About Brand Marketing

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By Ayaz Nanji.

Consumers say the thing they dislike most about brand marketing is false, misleading, or phony advertising, according to recent research from the CMO Council and Dow Jones.

The report was based on data from a survey of more than 2,000 consumers in North America and the United Kingdom.

Some 23% of respondents say false, misleading, or phony advertising is one of the things that bothers them most about brand marketing; stupid television/video commercials and false promises are tied for second (11% cite for each), followed by poorly trained store personnel (10%) and bad product design (8%):

Respondents say the types of digital advertising that bother them most are intrusive pop-up ads (22% cite them) and auto-playing video ads (17%):

Consumers consider negative advertising experiences to be those that are obnoxious/intrusive (19%), discriminatory/hateful (18%), and irritating/annoying (12%):

Two-thirds of consumers say having a negative advertising experience would make them feel differently about a brand or choose not do business with a brand:

About the research: The report was based on data from a survey of more than 2,000 consumers in North America and the United Kingdom.

By Ayaz Nanji

Sourced from MarketingProfs

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