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How experiential marketers can build community in 3 cultures

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By Michelle Collins

Experiential marketers’ value proposition cannot solely be about managing influence; they need to make the case for a brand’s vested interest and influence within a community.

Doing more with less seems to be a common challenge agencies and brands currently face. However, the pressure to gain market share equals the need to prevent attrition in a world where loyalty and a “cancel culture” can ultimately drive or damage, respectively, the success of emerging and heritage brands. In recent years, brands have increasingly fueled their marketing initiatives with extravagant experiential pop-ups and digital immersive experiences.

But now, these brands are being challenged by a new cultural paradigm with the power of influence now in the hands of the consumer, the community and the influencers who cultivate loyalty versus overnight fame. For example, SHEIN and H&M were once the pulse of accessible, fast fashion. However, they’ve recently faced backlash for business practices that no longer align with the globally- and ecologically-minded generation of consumers.

As a result, the conundrum now facing experiential marketers is how to create unique, exciting and exclusive experiences to attract new “fans” while continuing to reward the loyalists through access and reassurances that their loyalty retains significant value.

To that end, brands are shifting their focus toward loyalty programs that can connect communities of peers, curate meaningful cultural opportunities and foster authentic relationships within different cultural and economic ecosystems. Experiential marketers cannot rely solely upon media and industry consulting firms for their research, strategy and tactics to fuel their business value. They must become active, valued and engaged community members in order to best understand the needs, interests and social landscape which influences the tides of culture in an effort to cultivate this all-important loyalty.

3 communities of culture

While anthropologists recognize three levels of culture: international, national and subculture, in the brand ecosphere, experiential marketers look to cultivate brand loyalty within communities that are built around three entirely different cultures:

1 Technology 

Artificial Intelligence is a controversial hot topic that has divided creative, business and technology communities. There are those who believe that AI is the start of humanity’s demise and an art/creative industry killer and those who believe it is an empowerment tool for creativity. The fear of unknown technology, intellectual property violations, economic implications and the human existential crisis are clear dividing lines for both sides.

Regardless of one’s point of view, AI is being leveraged by brands and marketers. So how can a marketer communicate and develop experiences if they do not utilize the technology or actively engage in discussion groups and the communities that create, educate and consume?

AI is a tool that can be used in problem-solving, creative thinking and production. Rather than speculating, marketers should actively engage with the tools and the various AI communities such as OpenAI or Reddit’s AI. It’s the means by which hyper-personalization is proposed to be delivered virtually and in real life.

Consider organizations that advocate for AI as a human empowerment tool, such as AI For Good Summit or FB AI Art Universe. They unite in sharing their learnings, creations and encourage the advancement of responsible use. These communities have established an ecosystem built on more than consuming a product and assisting others to benefit from shared learning experiences.

Likewise, those who are of the opposite opinion like Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk equally advocate for regulation, mitigation and limited access.

Experiential marketers must pay close attention to how brands associate with this technology regardless of their personal point of view or risk serious backlash from consumers, or worse, be seen as irrelevant in the workforce of the future.

Here are a few examples of how marketers can better form an opinion and understand both perspectives:

  • Host virtual or live panel discussions and invite technologists, human resources, creatives and marketers.
  • Attend Generation X, Y and Z summits, networking and learning events.
  • Create opportunities to unite communities of similar values across different geographies and industries through workshops, and partnerships with education and nonprofit organizations.
  • Become a creator. There’s nothing more valuable than knowledge. Learn about the technology history, trends or create something that harnesses the power of your own human intelligence.

2 Luxury

Luxury brands have staying power and continue to thrive in all economic cycles. Heritage, legacy and craftsmanship have long been pillars of their credibility and influence. Through the influencer era and the growth of the creator’s economy, luxury brands continue to cultivate loyalty and connect communities of celebrities, influencers and non-influencers alike. They do this through credible content and curated social and cultural experiences that elevate and further distinguish their legacy while also stirring the desire for access and the associated prestige.

Luxury industry marketers are keenly aware of the etiquette, value metrics and the way these experiences and content must look, feel and be managed.

This loyalty toward luxury brands is measured by spending power and the ability to influence action (versus visibility alone). Because the spending power of their loyal communities transcends traditional marketing tactics, the relationships and influence that these brands cultivate are prerequisites to an invitation to their cultural communities.

3 Art & Design 

Historically, art and design have been culturally integrated into the fabric of luxury brands. However, they also are at the heart of AI and technology conversations. As a result, brands and marketers should be mindful of how these technologies can facilitate how art and design can influence communities of consumers to take action, while also allowing the influencer to create and curate, manage and sell to those communities that they influence. The design process and inspiration are forms of artistry now empowered by AI and other technology – with consumers using this same technology to create, curate and influence the communities they belong to.

For example, the Opensea.IO, Instagram and Community Tokens are platforms and mechanisms that allow creators and their communities to promote, connect and create value with fans, followers and collaborators. OpenAI’s generative art (Dall-E 2) and language-oriented tools (ChatGPT) are different community tools but equally influential due to their rapid adoption. These very different tools appeal to different mindsets and users so it is critical for brands and agencies to understand why creators might gravitate and use one versus the other.

A brand’s influence requires access to these communities as a valued contributor to its ecosystems. Loyalty and authenticity rankings are key metrics of influence metrics, less so than followers. A brand’s successful experiences will need to be curated, conceived and designed by those who are active members of the communities with whom they wish to leverage, elevate and establish relationships.

Feature Image Credit: Pixabay/Pexels

By Michelle Collins

Michelle Collins is president and CXO of A\N/A A Non-Agency®, a NYC-based consumer experience marketing design consultancy. A\N/A A Non-Agency has worked with luxury and global brands such as Richemont North America, Van Cleef & Arpels, Phillips NY, Kate Spade and Delta Airlines to develop and deploy their first experiential marketing strategies and installations and has received numerous awards. The firm ranked #413 on the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Companies for 2020, and in 2022, among Inc. magazine’s Regionals List for the Northeast.

Sourced from SmartBrief

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4 Things Marketers Need To Know About Direct Marketing Right Now

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By Arthur Hall

Every marketer worth their salt is constantly analysing consumer data. For those who specialize in collecting that intel — through direct metrics, surveys and other instruments — well, let’s just say there’s no rest for the weary.

At Quad, we work with more than 2,900 marketers across every type of vertical — from automotive, CPG and retail to financial services, pharma and healthcare — so we’re constantly hearing about the challenge of making sense of the nonstop flood of data. How much data is too much data? Which data is actually actionable? And when it comes to analysing specific campaigns and channels, how can we see the forest for the trees?

The answer to that last question is to step back — way back — but doing so is, of course, a lot harder in practice than in theory.

That’s why at Quad we’ve built a research and insights practice that regularly surveys both consumers and marketers on their engagement with, and deployment of, channels — everything from digital and broadcast to social media and direct — independent of specific campaigns.

Our recent big-picture research effort focuses on direct marketing (both digital and print). It’s available in the form of a free white paper (more on that below), but for now I want to share four key findings:

Marketers remain heavily committed to direct mail

Despite rising costs — thanks particularly to higher postal rates — nearly seven out of 10 (68%) marketers surveyed reported that their direct mail budget allocation had either increased or stayed steady year-over-year.

Notably, financial services marketers reported the highest year-over-year increase in their direct mail ad budgets — 47% — followed by insurance, retail/wholesale and telecom marketers, who reported an average 26% increase.

Consumers — especially younger consumers — find direct marketing to be useful

In Quad’s survey of consumers, 84% of respondents said that the direct mail they receive from a company they purchase from regularly is “extremely useful” (24%), “very useful” (26%) or “somewhat useful” (34%) — statistically on par with email (with a combined extremely/very/somewhat usefulness of 87%).

Notably, younger generations are the most enthusiastic about the usefulness of direct marketing — both in the form of direct mail and email. A total of 90% of 18- to-34-year-olds said they found email extremely/very/somewhat useful, and 85% said the same about direct mail.

Among 35- to 49-year-olds, 88% reported the email they received was extremely/very/somewhat useful, the same percentage that said direct mail they received was extremely/very/somewhat useful. These two age groups reported a stronger embrace of email and direct mail than older generations.

Multitouch — and personalization — matters

Quad’s consumer research strongly supports the value of multichannel communications. Nearly four out of 10 (39%) of consumers said they are extremely or very likely to respond to an advertising promotion when they see it across multiple channels; the tally rises to 78% across the extremely/very/somewhat likely responses.

And consumers appreciate when multichannel communication is personalized across all the channels. Among consumers surveyed, 44% said they are extremely or very likely to open a direct mail offer when it’s coordinated with a personalized email and social media ad; again, the tally rises to 78% when “somewhat likely” responses are added in.

Direct mail isn’t fleeting — and consumers like that about it

In this age of transitory media experiences, Quad’s survey revealed that consumers — across all product and service categories and age groups — hold onto direct mail. The reason? They see it as a resource.

For instance, 46% of consumers say they’ve saved a piece of direct mail because it contained “information I intend to use/follow-up on.” Also notable: Nearly a third (29%) have saved a piece of direct mail to “share with friends and family”; i.e., they see direct mail as a tangible form of, or back-up for, word-of-mouth marketing.

Where should you go from here?

We embarked on this research project with the goal of providing marketers with the big-picture consumer intel they need to help plan direct marketing campaigns — while also giving them a sense of how their peers are thinking about and deploying DM.

The data above is just a sampling of the insights contained in “The direct marketing revolution 2023: New consumer & marketer intel reveals how brands should shift their DM strategies,” Quad’s latest white paper.

If you’re a direct marketer who wants to see the forest for the trees, I invite you to download a copy.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Arthur Hall

As Sr. Director of Consumer Research & Insights for Quad, Arthur leads a team of research and technical resources focused on…Read more

Sourced from Forbes

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Why Advertisers and Marketers Should Tap into Web3 and Metaverse?

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By Paromita Gupta 

While Metaverse and Web3 will take a few years to take their full form, advertisers and marketers need to be prepared and get going on it.

Web3 is touted to have the potential to change the way systems work globally. And the world of marketing and advertising is and will not be privy to it. Much like how marketing took the form of digital marketing, it will now have to embrace the possibility of becoming decentralized in nature and adapt to the technologies of Web3 and Metaverse.

While Metaverse and Web3 will take a few years to take their full form, advertisers and marketers need to be prepared and get going on it.

Why the need to adapt?

Brands such as Nike, Hyundai, Adidas, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Samsung have embraced the virtual world and made it work for them. Demand Sage shared that the majority of revenue earned by the Metaverse came from advertising and made USD 114.93 billion in 2021.

Thoughtworks, in April, announced the purchase of its digital land in Jump.trade’sDX Racing Metaverse to leverage innovative ways and broadcast their brand and message. In March, Maggi announced the launch of its NFTs on OneRare Foodverse for reaching out to their fans and foodies in an all-new avatar. Puma announced Black Station 2 as an experimental 3D spatial playground for users to explore the virtual experience offered and/or mint NFTs by connecting their wallets.

“Brands should consider Web3 and Metaverse advertising and marketing over traditional methods due to the unparalleled potential for immersive and interactive experiences. By embracing these innovative approaches, brands can enhance their brand awareness, foster customer loyalty, and drive meaningful connections with their target audience. More importantly they no longer are constrained by geography and can sell to/engage customers anywhere literally,” shares Piyush Gupta, CEO, VOSMOS, a Web3 and Metaverse-oriented marketing company,

The user base will expand

Long story short, the user base for Web3 and Metaverse platforms will keep on increasing. The key reason for it is the control over data and the increase in privacy and security. Metaverse is reported to currently have 400 million monthly users as of 2023 and is expected to reach 800 billion users by 2028.

Users are and will be drawn to the virtual and decentralized world because of features such as ownership and control of digital assets, data and identity, transparency and trust, and enhanced privacy and security.

“With this strategy, brands may capitalize on the expanding trend of digital innovation while forging closer ties with their target market and staying ahead of the competition,” shares Hiren Shah, Founder & Chairman, Vertoz.

Why marketers and advertisers should tap into it

User engagement, direct communication, data ownership, and tokenization are the main reason why marketers and advertisers should tap into Web3 and Metaverse.

  • Tokenization- Tokenization lies at the centre of Web3 as a concept. With cryptocurrency and NFTs, brands can create an incentive system for users upon engaging with the brand content. The users can be rewarded with tokens which in turn can be utilized with the brand.
  • User engagement– Web3 will bring transparency to the table for the two parties. The relationships on this platform will be built on direct communication and trust. Marketers and advertisers will be able to learn the likes and dislikes of their target audience and how they engage with a brand publicly.
  • No middleman involved– The concept of tokenization and smart contracts will help remove intermediaries and middlemen from the process. Marketers and advertisers will be able to directly incentivize users to engage with them without any platform or ad networks coming in between. When it comes to marketers and advertisers, and influencers, the two can strike a deal with the need of any intermediaries, such as talent agencies or influencer marketing platforms.
  • Data ownership- Users will have more control over their data and will have more privacy and security. The data can be monetized by the user at will. A possible aspect of Web3 can be focused on enforcing data confidentiality and integrity on each transaction by having the owner of the wallet ‘sign it’. This concept can see advertisers and companies seeking permission from the user to access and use their data and have the user be compensated accordingly.

When should a brand think of using Metaverse and Web3?

“Firstly, understanding their target audience’s presence and engagement within these platforms is crucial. Secondly, brands should ensure their messaging and experiences align with their core values and resonate with the audience in the virtual space. Lastly, brands need to evaluate their technological readiness and capacity to provide immersive experiences,” shares Shah.

“There needs to be clarity on why the brand is getting into metaverse and what the short and long-term goals are. For example many brands are not there for sales but to reinforce and deliver a more immersive brand experience to their consumers. Second is ensuring readiness in terms of scalability and accessibility, in order to deliver a consistent and effective experience to a diverse and global audience, before taking the plunge. Half-hearted attempts simply backfire and do more harm than good. Last, look at aspects like security since web3/metaverse needs to be seamlessly integrated into the company’s existing systems/channels and that poses a potential threat if not well protected,” adds Gupta on being asked the question.

Feature Image Credit: Freepik

By Paromita Gupta 

Covering news and trends in AI and Metaverse segments. An avid book reader running her personal blog on the side. You may reach me at paromita@entrepreneurindia.com.

Sourced from Entrepreneur India

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I’m Gen Alpha, and I think adult marketers should stop trying so hard to define us

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By Ginger SV Lidsky

A recent report from Morning Consult purported to be a “brand’s guide” to kids my age, but it ended up perpetuating the same old generational tropes.

Market research firm Morning Consult recently released a report entitled “A Brand’s Guide to Gen Alpha,” and as a part of Gen Alpha, I think it’s completely ridiculous. This report feeds into the idea I’ve heard from adults that they can sit back and do nothing while Gen Alpha solves the climate crisis they gave us. It makes us seem as if we’re tech wizards and cyborgs who spend our days in virtual reality. So let’s look through the many layers of weirdness in this report.

Right off the bat, Morning Consult defines Gen Alpha as “ages 0 to 9” when, in fact, Gen Alpha is usually defined as people born between 2010 and 2024. Then, throughout the piece, the authors include ages 10-18. Little odd, right?

Some statistics are just poorly presented. Morning Consult continuously uses charts and statistics that make no sense. Like when it says that “most” Gen Alphas own a tablet, but actually means 54%. Or the terrible pie chart on gender identity, where it is says that 63% percent of Gen Alpha identify as female, 68% as male, and 1% as “not listed.” Not genderfluid or nonbinary, just “not listed.” Fun Gen Alpha Fact You May Not Know: We understand that pie charts should add up to 100.

Morning Consult

Other statistics are just really unbelievable. Like how it says that 7% of parents have already opened a retirement account for their Gen Alpha children. About half of adults don’t even have their own retirement account! I also sincerely doubt 9% of parents of Gen Alpha have a certificate of deposit for their kids. Half of adults aren’t even sure what they are. It seems here that it’s more likely that 8% to 9% of Gen Alpha parents were just messing around and putting in absurd answers for fun.

That’s my assessment on a lot of Morning Consult’s statistics. One part says that 11% of Gen Alpha owns a VR headset, and 17% of this group spend more than seven hours a day in VR. Seven. Hours. Seven hours is more than the average school day. Does this kid have a full-time job in the metaverse? How is this even possible? Do they sleep at all? Fun Gen Alpha Fact You May Not Know: We don’t spend most of our waking hours in virtual reality.

It also says that most parents don’t control their kids’ internet usage, but think they will when they are older. I don’t personally know of any kids 0-9 whose parents have absolutely no control over their “online content usage.” In Morning Consult’s world, it’s 74%. It says 4% of children ages 0-4 spend seven to 10 hours a day online, and that 61% of Alphas spend seven to 13 hours each day online. While a lot of Gen Alphas would like that to be true, I don’t think most of us get that wish. I’ve never heard any parents say “I just toss my phone into her crib and let her do whatever she wants.”

It also tries to prove how brand-conscious Gen Alpha is. Morning Consult came to the conclusion that McDonald’s is the preferred “restaurant” of the youngest generation. I think it’s more likely that saying “I want McDonald’s” means “I want a burger and fries,” not brand loyalty. But who knows? Maybe some three-year-old is really going “WHAT?! I don’t WANNA go to Burger King! McDonald’s or NOTHING!” Fun Gen Alpha Fact You May Not Know: We don’t really care which fast food place we are getting French fries from.

All in all, this report is a silly attempt to document Gen Alpha like we’re an alien species. It makes Gen Alpha seem like magical beings from the future who will only take off our VR headsets to go to McDonald’s.

Feature Image Credit: Julia M Cameron/Pexels

By Ginger SV Lidsky

Sourced from Fast Company

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Artificial Intelligence is Revolutionizing Marketing. Here’s What the Transformation Means for the Industry

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By Jessica Wong

Artificial intelligence technology is changing how marketers reach and engage customers. From programmatic advertising to data analysis, AI can help marketers do a better job, but this rapidly evolving field also raises concerns and uncertainties.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has started transforming every aspect of our professional and personal lives. The marketing industry is not immune to this digital transformation, with leading brands starting to embrace the opportunities the technology brings. Gaining a better understanding of customer behaviour is one of the core benefits of AI in marketing.

For years, marketers have gathered and analysed data about customer behaviour. Their goal has remained largely unchanged — extrapolate patterns and predict which products and services will be most popular with a certain audience. From that basis, marketers would then identify the channels to reach their target customers.

AI is giving marketing professionals an essential advantage in this quest. This fast-evolving digital technology can analyse more data more accurately than humans can. AI and its subfields, such as machine learning (ML), also identify existing behavioural patterns and predict future behaviour based on that.

The growing role of AI in marketing

In 2020, the market for artificial intelligence technologies in marketing was valued at just over $12 billion. While that may seem impressive, it pales in comparison with the global AI market, which was valued at over $325 in 2021. However, the current market size does not reveal the true potential of marketing-related AI. That only becomes clear by considering growth predictions.

According to experts, the market for AI in marketing will exceed $35 billion next year, nearly tripling in size in only four years. Another four years later, in 2028, industry insiders believe that this area of the marketing industry will have tripled once again. Statisticians expect that marketers will utilize AI to a value of nearly $108 million before the end of this decade.

How marketers are using AI today

How realistic are those expectations? Consider this: as of last year, four of five marketing industry experts said they had already included some form of AI technology in their work. When asked to identify the areas in which AI and ML were already enhancing campaigns, marketing professionals named benefits in several areas:

  • Automation of repetitive tasks
  • Analysis of large quantities of data
  • Personalization of campaigns
  • Predicting conversion rates
  • Optimizing the timing of email marketing

Most of those areas benefit the current leading application of AI technology in marketing — programmatic advertising. A recent survey found that 50% of participating marketing professionals named more targeted advertising as one of the main advantages of integrating AI and ML in their approach.

How AI enhances programmatic advertising

Placing the right adverts in front of the right customers at a time when they were receptive to this content used to be a painstaking process. Machine learning algorithms have allowed marketers to automate buying and selling digital advertising space.

Once programmed, the ML algorithms are not static. They mimic human behaviours, including learning. In practice, the algorithm ‘understands’ whether an advert has missed or exceeded expectations and learns from this outcome. There is no need for additional human intervention. The algorithm, or the machine, learns without additional input simply by analysing results and iterating its approach.

Marketers and the brands they represent benefit from improved targeting of specific audiences with customized messages. As a result, conversions grow, and advertising spends more efficiently. Programmatic advertising platforms work by analysing quantities of data that would overwhelm humans.

These platforms cannot only compute data about user behaviour, website analytics, and demographic information. They also see trends and patterns before humans can. Marketing professionals can then use those insights to make their content more relevant, increasing the likelihood of customer engagement. Plus, marketing algorithms can optimize ad placement and bid pricing.

Understanding AI-related concerns in marketing

Like most powerful technological developments, AI has raised some concerns in the industry. In addition, marketers starting to invest in AI technology are dealing with unanswered questions as the technology continues evolving at great speed. Two of the main concerns relate to customers and marketers themselves. These concerns are privacy, data protection and job security in the industry.

Protecting privacy — AI and ML rely on access to large quantities of customer data to recognize patterns and predict potential behaviour. Despite their far-reaching capabilities, these technologies cannot self-police. They will analyse any data fed to them. Marketers need to ensure that their data collection and usage practices are not only ethical. They must also comply with current privacy and data protection legislation, such as the European Union’s GDPR or the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

Job security for marketers — Job security for marketers is another concern about the growth of AI-based applications. Most recently, these concerns have been discussed in connection with OpenAI’s ChatGPT software. Granted, it is not possible to predict entirely where the marketing industry is headed, but most experts believe that AI and ML will change existing jobs rather than replace them. Marketers can work more efficiently and effectively to benefit the brands they represent. Their daily routine may change, but it is unlikely that robots will replace human marketers anytime soon.

Final thoughts

While AI has the potential to transform the marketing industry as we know it almost beyond recognition, the technology is not here to replace human marketers. Instead, AI and ML can optimize and streamline current marketing approaches.

Both technologies can also take care of repetitive tasks, allowing their human team members to focus on what they are best at and develop creative campaigns that engage more customers than ever before.

By Jessica Wong

Entrepreneur Leadership Network Contributor. Founder & CEO of both Valux Digital and uPro Digital. Jessica Wong is the Founder and CEO of both Valux Digital and uPro Digital. She is a digital marketing and PR expert with more than 20 years of success driving bottom-line results for clients through innovative marketing programs aligned with emerging strategies.

Sourced from Entrepreneur

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Forrester: Brands Shouldn’t Bail on Twitter Altogether

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By David Cohen

The research firm suggests treating the beleaguered platform like an emerging channel

A new report from Forrester, “Twitter Isn’t Canceled; It’s Downgraded,” stresses that Twitter is far more relevant to users than advertisers and provides suggestions on how marketers should treat the platform moving forward.

Forrester data reveals that 22% of online adults in the U.S. used Twitter weekly in 2022, well behind Facebook (63%) and Instagram (40%).

The company said in the introduction to its report, “Twitter ranks highly on the cultural relevancy scale but low on the advertiser priority list. It’s where news breaks, politicians debate, activists organize and niche communities meet. And despite Twitter users threatening to leave the platform, application downloads are up since Elon Musk took over. No other social media platform—not even Reddit, Mastodon or Hive—can replace Twitter for consumers.”

Principal analyst Kelsey Chickering delved further into the advertising side in a blog post, writing, “The advertising community has given Twitter more oxygen than it deserves since Elon Musk took over. The reality is that Twitter has never been a critical media channel in the overall media mix, comprising just 1.3% of 2022 digital ad spend based on Forrester’s 2022 Advertising Forecast, U.S. Why? The ad experience on Twitter has never quite caught up with other ‘legacy’ social media platforms such as Meta’s family of apps. According to media buyers and social media strategists who spoke with Forrester, Twitter doesn’t quite deliver on lower-funnel performance.”

Forrester said in the report that advertising executives it spoke with believe Twitter’s direct-response ad products pale in comparison to those from Meta when it comes to meeting lower-funnel media goals, and they only rely on Twitter for mid- to upper-funnel media goals like awareness and consideration.

Advertisers also told Forrester Twitter’s targeting and personalization capabilities are less mature than those of other social media platforms.

Forrester suggested that marketers treat Twitter as an emerging channel within the advertising maturity spectrum, breaking out that spectrum as follows:

Always on:

  • Meta: Ad formats for every part of the customer lifecycle and proven performance

Campaign-dependent:

  • Pinterest: Original Pin formats still useful but finding its way in video and commerce
  • Snap: Leader in augmented reality and advanced in providing creative resources to brands
  • LinkedIn: Top channel to capture consumers when they’re in a business mindset

Test and learn:

  • Reddit: Rising star in advertising capabilities and advanced in brand safety
  • TikTok: Social media’s darling but hard to succeed without creator partnerships
  • Twitter: Unevolved ad experience and growing brand safety concerns, but still offers a unique experience for live updates and news

The research firm added that marketers should consider the following questions when planning for the remainder of 2023:

  • Will my brand consistently appear in a space that complies with our safety guidelines? Forrester noted that Twitter’s policy on brand safety and moderation is a moving target at best, suggesting that as these policies change, brands should evaluate them against their own overall digital media brand safety guidelines.
  • To what degree is my target audience spending significant time on Twitter? Forrester said even if an advertiser’s target audience loved Twitter before, they may be shopping around, so brands should determine if their time on Twitter is growing or waning and whether they’ve transferred that time to other platforms.
  • What share of social media spend has Twitter historically held on my media plan? If Twitter hasn’t taken up a large portion of a company’s media spend to date, the dollars are probably easily absorbed elsewhere.
  • What material impact has Twitter had on our business results? Forrester believes advertisers should look at whether they have seen a dip in brand health metrics or sales after shifting their Twitter budget to other channels.
  • Does Twitter deliver an ad or user experience that’s not available on other platforms? Forrester suggests keeping a pulse on Twitter’s changing ad experience and whether other channels can deliver on a brand’s goals and audience.

Chickering wrote in the blog post, “Advertisers such as Chevrolet and Chipotle paused their Twitter spend for fear of appearing beside extremist, racist and inflammatory content. The Washington Post found ads for over 40 advertisers on white nationalist Twitter pages recently reinstated by Musk. At the same time, not every major advertiser has decided that Twitter is unsafe. Amazon continues to run paid media on the platform. Musk also introduced a ‘flash sale’ in an attempt to lure lost advertisers back.”

She suggested that brands that are not comfortable with Twitter in its current state under Musk:

  • Refrain from posting any brand content to Twitter. Direct social media teams’ efforts to other channels that meet brand safety requirements.
  • Monitor and respond to customer-service-related questions. If customers are reaching out for help or have questions about products, continue responding in order to ensure a positive customer experience.
  • Listen for relevant cultural trends or product feedback. As usage continues on the platform, use social listening tools to find out what trends are popping and how consumers are talking about your company’s category to inform your marketing strategy.
  • Test other social media channels. Twitter has downshifted into a social media startup rather than an established platform. Roll your previously dedicated Twitter dollars into a pool of test dollars for channels including TikTok, Reddit and Snapchat.

Finally, Forrester shared the reasons cited in a survey last November of 101 adults in the U.S. who stopped using Twitter or planned to do so in the next month:

  • 31% found content on the platform to be too hateful
  • 29% said there were too many bots or fake accounts
  • 28% found content on the platform to be too political
  • 21% didn’t like the amount of misinformation being spread
  • 21% thought the platform’s moderation process was too strict
  • 18% felt they needed to stop for their mental health
  • 17% don’t support Musk as Twitter’s new owner and CEO

Feature Image Credit: tanyamcclure/iStock

By David Cohen

David Cohen is editor of Adweek’s Social Pro Daily.

Sourced from ADWEEK

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Why a Brand Platform Should Be Your Next Big Idea

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By Gidyon Thompson

For years marketers have obsessed about finding and exploring a singular narrative that galvanizes all brand communication efforts and delivers a unified story. This quest for a singular idea is the reason every brand communication sequence is expected to start with a Big Idea. However, ideas are fleeting so brands need something more.

What is the Big Idea?

According to Smart Insights, “Any new campaign will need a hook or theme that you’ll want people to recall, share and act upon. A campaign’s big idea is the overarching message that underpins all elements of a campaign in order to resonate with the target audience. The big idea will need to be rooted in a piercing insight and linked to the campaign’s objectives to ensure it has maximum impact and relevance.”

A Big Idea is a core concept or proposition based on research and informed by insight that serves as the focal point or springboard for tactical engagement. Big Ideas are anchors that give a strong sense of direction for brand communications and actions.

However, Big Ideas are limited in their longevity of application. Since the Big Idea is expected to anchor a brand’s specific action or communication sequence, it means at the start of every new sequence, a new Big Idea must be identified and adopted. This impacts cumulative brand equity over time and requires extra upkeep to achieve a singular, abridged, and long-lasting narrative that will drive the business forward.

This is where brand platforms have the advantage. They are the springboard as well as the anchor for the brand’s ideas. Creative ideas can be continually weaved out of a strong Brand Platform.

What is a Brand Platform?

According to SendPulse, A Brand Platform is a marketing idea created to describe the distinctive features of a brand both ideologically and visually. It is essential to form the holistic image of the business and provide a unique offering for the target audience. The Brand Platform is often regarded as being timeless because it takes its form from the brand’s identity, and serves as the constant foundation for the brand. While the Big Idea for brand communication can change as competitive context and target audiences change, the Brand Platform doesn’t change.

Coherent brand communication is often based on a clear and compelling Brand Platform. With Brand Platforms we can synthesize all the elements of the brand identity including the history, vision, values, positioning, promise, visual identity, tone, and more.

A Big Idea is timely as it strives to connect a brand’s identity to culture whereas a Brand Platform is timeless because it is a foundational philosophy inherent to the brand’s identity.

Think of a Brand Platform as ground zero for brand communication. It is the epicenter for all brand expressions and the core philosophical center for the brand’s activities.
– Gidyon Thompson, strategist @ eikon grae

Distilled from a brand’s purpose, a platform defines a brand’s personality and is enriched by a brand’s cohesive communication. It can start as a brand’s slogan, or as a campaign tagline like Nike’s “Just do it”, but it must reflect a fundamental human truth that isn’t necessarily only focused on the sales of a product, but on a philosophy.

Big Ideas change and are retired after a campaign, while a Brand Platform evolves and adapts to innovations and market trends.

Progress with every walk: Johnnie Walker

In 1999, Johnnie Walker launched the Keep Walking campaign. It was strongly influenced by The Striding Man, which cartoonist Tom Browne first sketched on a napkin over lunch. Previously, Johnnie Walker was promoted through seven separate advertising campaigns, that means seven different Big Ideas with seven disconnected creative executions. The seven ideas didn’t support each other or build a singular narrative. However, on 8 June 1999, it was time to bring the whole thing under one roof and give Johnnie Walker the coordinated strategy it deserved. The brand moved beyond introducing new ideas to articulating a singular framework that guides all of the brand’s expressions.

The “Keep Walking” Brand Platform core message was to “inspire men to progress” (a fundamental human truth that isn’t necessarily focused on sales of a product but of a philosophy). Johnnie Walker describes it as a rallying cry for progress, encouragement in adversity, a joyful expression of optimism, and as the best piece of advice you’re ever likely to hear.

While a Big Idea would’ve only been relevant within the lifetime of a campaign, this Brand Platform guides the overall brand communications and brand experiences, before, during, and after a campaign – and even the future of the brand.

Working with actor Harvey Keitel, Johnnie Walker released a TVC to launch the campaign. They have since created brand films to embolden and enrich the narrative by showcasing people and their journeys of progress. The brand only focuses on showing many different ways to talk about progress.

More recently, the brand invested about £185m into an experiential dimension of the Brand Platform by creating Johnnie Walker Princes Street, an eight-floor visitor attraction located in Edinburgh that features shops, a whisky cellar and two rooftop bars. This is not a temporary installation designed to just sell products. It is a physical location designed to help customers experience the brand’s message. It is where “Keep Walking” comes to life.

Since they created a clearly defined Brand Platform, they were able to evolve to launch the facility and invest in the physical structure that is now an integral part of the overall brand experience. According to Edinburgh News, despite the pandemic the facility welcomed more than 300,000 visitors from 97 different countries around the world in 2021. Through consistency of messaging and the utilization of their Brand Platform, the location has become a pilgrimage for whisky lovers globally.

Johnnie Walker broke into the top 10 of Kantar BrandZ’s Most Valuable UK Brands 2021 ranking, coming in ninth with an estimated value of $8.3bn. The whisky brand is in good company, in a list topped by Vodafone ($30.9bn), HSBC ($15.6bn) and Shell ($15.4bn), and is worth more than Unilever’s Dove ($7.3bn) in tenth position.

Why building a brand platform is important

  • Brand clarity
    Brand Platforms are a singular idea that serves as the single running manifesto of the brand. It is the “one thing” the brand is about. For years, Coca-Cola drove their entire brand vehicle on the premise of “Happiness For All.” Customers know Coca-Cola as the happiness brand. Whether in the development and execution of campaigns under multiple slogans like “Open Happiness” and “Choose Happiness,” or in product immersive experiences like the Coca-Cola Happiness Machine, the manifesto and message is always clear to consumers. A Brand Platform helps your audience make sense of what your brand is really about.
  • Brand propositional cohesion
    One struggle for marketing communication professionals are narratives. Across the business engagement journey, multiple propositions are introduced and maintained like the advertising idea, the brand positioning statement, the PR policy, etc. New thinking is constantly introduced to all aspects of the business. However, when a brand evolves a Brand Platform, clear synthesization of all brand propositions becomes possible because the brand is saying just one thing across the board. Brand Platforms can easily evolve without losing the thread of the brand.
  • Faster and richer brand salience
    Brand salience refers specifically to whether people are aware enough of your brand to immediately think of you when it’s time to make a purchase. For example, if people feel like buying shoes to live an active life, they think of Nike first. They think Nike because the “Just Do It” Brand Platform has effectively positioned the brand as the brand for action. With a well-developed Brand Platform your brand will build faster salience.
  • Positive brand association
    Brand platforms are philosophical propositions about an ideal world that the brand promotes. This means they offer a beautiful perspective on how the world could be better. Guinness’ brand platform “Made of Black” speaks to originality, authenticity and self-awareness. Coca-Cola’s “Real Magic” is based on connectivity. Coca-Cola believes, “Real magic happens when people get together and when what we share in common is greater than what sets us apart.” These propositions quickly build positive associations for the brand. Through these platforms, the brand is seen as an active participant in building a great world.
  • Increase in brand loyalty
    With resonance comes a deep desire to pay more attention, engage with and even follow the brand. You want your customers to go beyond buying your product to feeling like they are part of the vision you are building. You want customers to feel like they are part of a movement.

How to build brand platforms 

  • Articulate a brand truth
    Brand Platforms are not just nice catch-phrases. It goes beyond that, it’s a fundamental human truth that the brand can champion because of its relationship to the reality the truth describes. To build a strong platform you need to ask, what is true about your brand? You could focus on the truth about the product formulation like Guinness does, or a brand journey like Johnnie Walker, or generally how consumers perceive or see the brand. Then, tie that to how consumers see themselves or want to see themselves. At this level, you are simply looking for a fundamental human truth that your brand is better suited to defend, promote and grow with. The intersection of brand truth and consumer truth is a good place to start drawing inspiration for your Brand Platform. No matter what the proposition is, never forget that the consumer should care enough about it. They should see how it impacts their everyday life, with or without your product. 

    Click image to view case study
  • Spread the Word
    A platform can be introduced as a tagline or campaign slogan, but the ultimate goal is to give it enough visibility that it will slowly begin to catch the eyes and ears of people and start to make sense. As you embark on spreading your new brand gospel, remember people will not line up behind a manifesto they don’t understand. Be creative with your brand education to demonstrate the density of the proposition and work it till it becomes a brand asset. Go beyond visibility and engage them through storytelling that enriches the perspective of the proposition so that your audience clearly understands the “what” and “why” of your proposition. All Brand Platforms are brand assets but not all brand assets are Brand Platforms. I’ve seen many brand managers and brand owners try to force a campaign tagline into a Brand Platform. For a proposition to become a Brand Platform it must represent a core human truth that resonates with the realities of the consumers, seen and understood. Then, it must be malleable enough to guide the thinking of the brand across all dimensions. It should be the guiding philosophy for integrated marketing communication, but not necessarily tied to a brand sales agenda.
  • Bring it to the center
    When you are sure that you’ve found the truth, and it’s gaining resonance, you can make your entire brand engagement process ride on the thinking.

    Click image to enlarge – Customer Journey Framework by Method

    Using the Patrick Newberry, Kevin Farnham and Method brand engagement framework, the Brand Platform will be the running line sandwiched between the customer goals and business goals. It will be the thinking that the engagement experience is built around. At every touchpoint, the philosophy of the Brand Platform will have to be seen, heard, felt, and understood. It must permeate every realm of business communication and engagement. “Keep Walking” isn’t just a spot or print ad, it’s locked into a physical location, packaging policy, influencer engagement, global campaign, etc. It is the Johnnie Walker brand’s thinking.

Every touchpoint that defines the brand must be an outlet to sharing the brand’s thinking. The thinking must connect with consumers where they are in a very authentic and human way. This is why it is called a platform, because every brand engagement activity across the customer engagement journey map will have to take its life from and be enriched by the thinking.

It takes time, effort, and budget to build a solid Brand Platform. However, that investment is justified in the stability, structure, and focus that Brand Platforms deliver. Don’t just think about the Big Idea for your next campaign, take it a step further and build a platform that will sustain your brand experience into the future.

Feature Image Credit: Daniel Vogel 

By Gidyon Thompson

Sourced from Brandingmag

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Composable: The Marketer’s Perspective and Roadmap

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By Sana Remekie

What does it mean to leverage a composable tech stack if you’re a marketer?

Most of the time we speak about composable commerce, the audience is technologists and engineering teams. In order to accelerate adoption of a composable architecture, we need to include marketing teams as equal partners in this initiative. Everyone in the organization must understand the reason for the change and the benefits they’ll get from adopting that change. For this reason, I have chosen to write this article for the marketing audience.

Vendors Making the Move to Composable

Gartner recently released some research on the latest industry trends and called out “composable commerce” as the future of the ecommerce enterprise. This was swiftly followed by some of the biggest ecommerce and DXP players such as Salesforce and Sitecore announcing their membership in the cool composable club.

Sitecore announced the move from XP, an all-in-one DXP suite to XM, a headless CMS at the core and an ability to pick and choose capabilities such as personalization from other vendors. Salesforce announced a composable storefront, basically decoupling its core commerce functionality from the presentation layer.

What Does This Mean for Marketers?

So, as a marketer, what does this all mean to me? Composable commerce is about giving organizations the choice to pick and choose what Gartner describes as “packaged business capabilities” from more than one vendor as opposed to an all-in-one, single vendor, closed solution. The analysts have been following the industry trends for the last few years and have finally decided to give it a name.

Now, in order for organizations to build composable tech stacks, each of the individual business capabilities you buy from a software vendor must lend itself to being pluggable into the overall digital stack. This means that each vendor in the composable ecosystem must play nice with everyone else.

MACH Alliance was formed in 2020 to provide guidance to organizations on how they should go about building their technology stacks in a composable fashion. They have defined the criteria that software vendors should follow to make it possible for organizations to build a future-proof architecture that is built from lego blocks that are easily pluggable, but also displaceable. MACH stands for Microservices, API-First, Cloud-Native, Headless.

Digging Deeper Into MACH Architecture

To everyone other than engineers and architects, each of these terms may mean very little, so I’ll break these terms down first:

  • Microservices: A self-contained functional component of the overall system that can be deployed independently and is not coupled with any other component. This allows each component to act as a lego block in the overall architecture, and the goal is for it to be swappable when and where necessary.
  • API-First: APIs are a standard way of two systems talking to each other. When dealing with a multi-vendor ecosystem, individual solutions need to talk to each other, and having a standard set of documented APIs allows for this to happen.
  • Cloud Native: The vendor solution must be deployed in the cloud, as opposed to on-premise. The importance of this is that cloud provides the benefits of auto-scaling, performance, speed and agility.
  • Headless: Head is the touchpoint that delivers the visual (or sensory) experience to the end user. Being headless means that the content and business logic residing in each of the components of your tech stack does not contain any information about how the information is presented on the frontend. In other words, you should not find any html or CSS in your content. This is important because it allows content and business logic to be used across multiple channels instead of you having to duplicate the content and logic for each channel.

Paradigm Shift to Omnichannel

Most brands are still focused on the web channel, but this is ripe for change. With the pandemic, followed by a recession, brands will compete tooth and nails to get attention from the customer. Many brands crashed during the pandemic if they couldn’t offer their customers to complete a purchase online. In the coming months and years, if you can’t meet the customer where they choose, you will lose their trust and the opportunity to convert them.

Meeting the customer where they are means that you need to move beyond a website. Many traditional Digital Experience Platforms (DXPs) have a very web or page-centric view of the world. If you are looking to move beyond the web, you’ll need to adopt technologies that allow you to build consistent and connected omni-channel experiences. There is no way to accomplish this without a headless mindset, one of the foundational components of a MACH architecture.

The Need to Differentiate

In order to compete, you must offer a differentiated experience. If you choose to build your digital experience with a monolith that comes with a predefined set of templates, there is very little you can do to create a differentiated experience.

Having the ability to build your own visual layers on top of a set of back-end services empowers you to create a unique brand presence. For instance, if you’re a real-estate brand, you may want to create a unique digital experience such as a virtual real-estate advisor who helps the customer find a home that fits their needs. This wouldn’t be possible with a set of templates that came out of the box with a traditional DXP.

The Impending Demise of the Third-Party Cookie

With Google and Apple about to remove the ability for brands to use third party cookies to track them across sites, brands will need to gain control of their relationship with their customer. Not only do you need to be able to create a single view of the customer across their journey, you need to be able to activate this data on all paid and owned channels.

The ability to build first-party relationships with your customer starts with a technology infrastructure that is able to connect the customer journey across all channels, digital properties, brands, regions, etc.

The Need for Speed in Digital Experience

We are all painfully aware of the endless release cycle that comes with all-in-one monolithic suites. The pandemic has proven to us that we need to be able to move quickly to meet the demands of time, and, if we don’t, the customer will find an alternative.

For instance, as a grocery store provider, if you were not able to offer online ordering and curbside pickup, you lost a bunch of regular customers. The pandemic, although temporary, has had a permanent effect on customer behavior. Even though many customers are going back into the store, a lot of them will continue to enjoy shopping from the comfort of their own homes. This means that you must be able to power delightful online experiences quickly and having a cloud-native and headless architecture is essential for that goal.

Attracting and Retaining Millennial and Gen Z Talent

Something that is not often discussed is the need to attract and retain talent. More than half of the US population is now Millennials or younger, which means that your customer is getting younger.

In order to build modern experiences that appease these digital natives, you need their perspective and their talent on your team. To retain this talent, you need to be building a technology ecosystem that is modern and “fun” to work with. Millennials and Gen Zs simply don’t want to work with old/legacy tech. This is a vicious, or virtuous, cycle depending on how you look at it.

Modernizing your digital stack will attract digital natives who in turn will act as the voice of your customer allowing you to create experiences that resonate with your customer base.

The Need to Avoid Vendor Lock-In

Monolithic vendors have become very comfortable with their power and monopoly in the digital experience space. One of the biggest reasons for this is that once they’re in, it’s hard to replace them because of the closed nature of their architecture combined with the size of the investment you’ve made.

MACH vendors entering this space are providing the much needed healthy competition between vendors pushing the legacy players to “up their game” and drive innovation in the industry. So, if you’re looking to get more out of your existing vendors, you want challengers, not just the incumbent leaders into your technology ecosystem. Let’s keep everyone honest!

This Seems Like a Lot of Work and a Lot of Money

One widespread misconception about MACH architecture is that it requires a huge investment to get started. If you do a rip and replace, this would be the case regardless of the type of technology you are talking about.

Because of this myth, many organizations choose the path of inaction or business as usual. I’d like to challenge that thinking. If you want to change your eating habits, you don’t go from having hamburgers, fries and pop daily to salads, herbal teas and a 45-minute workout everyday. You take small steps to get you to your ultimate goal.

This is what you need to do when modernizing your technology infrastructure —start on a journey and iteratively make small changes towards the goal. It’s not an option to do nothing.

Making Incremental Changes Toward Modernization

One way of achieving this is the “Strangler Pattern,” an idea first conceived by Martin Fowler. You encapsulate a legacy system into a facade that interfaces with modern front-ends and services and work on replacing the back-end. Once the backend is replaced with newer services, you switch the facade to point to the newer services.

This keeps your customer-facing front-ends working seamlessly during the transition and also reduces the disruption caused by having your internal teams having to change their workflows overnight.

So, if your IT team says that modernizing your tech will take too long, be too disruptive, or will be too expensive, go ahead, challenge them and tell them you know about the Strangler Pattern!

Too Many Vendors to Deal With?

The one charm of the all-in-one traditional DXP was that marketing knew exactly what application to log into to create an end-to-end experience, albeit limited to the web channel only.

This is no longer the case within a composable stack. I have multiple channels and multiple point solutions that come together to build a composable, best-of-breed solution. If I want to create content, I need to log into a CMS. If I need to manage my search behavior, I turn to a search platform. If I want product recommendations, I go to a recommendations platform. If I need to manage my checkout experience, I log into my commerce engine.

This plurality of both sources and destinations requires careful orchestration. This is exactly what “experience orchestration” platforms are trying to solve. Some examples include Uniform.dev, Gatsby and Conscia.ai. Many of these are quite early and are trying to figure out exactly what part they play in the overall composable ecosystem, but they are moving in the right direction, and the industry analysts are taking note. The goal of these platforms is to stay headless, composable and still have centralized control for marketing and product teams to create omnichannel experiences.

In order to make composable work, marketing needs a single, intuitive interface to orchestrate experiences from any content and data platform for any channel or touchpoint. They need to be able to preview what the end user experience will look like in a seamless fashion. They need to determine what is working and what is not on every channel, browser, device, target customer segment or any other context relevant to their business. We can no longer have a single hand to shake as far as a vendor is concerned, but we can have a single point of control to manage and orchestrate what experience is delivered to what channel for which customer.

From Digital Experience Platform to Digital Experience Orchestration

Here is the definition of composable DXP as per Forrester:

A platform that provides the architectural foundation and modular services for developers and practitioners to create, orchestrate, and optimize digital journeys at scale — to drive loyalty and new commerce outcomes across owned and third-party channels.

Note the term, “architectural foundation.” This means that even in the world of composability, we have a center or foundation. This foundation no longer needs to have all the capabilities in the digital stack such as CMS, Search, PIM, CDP, etc. Its role is to support the connections to all these independent packaged business capabilities and act as the orchestrator, a composer.

Perhaps, Gartner and Forrester will change the category of Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) to Digital Experience Orchestration or “DXO?” Just a thought.

By Sana Remekie

Sana Remekie is the CEO and co-founder of Conscia, a Digital Experience Graph that orchestrates and personalizes content from both legacy and modern sources in a truly headless fashion.She has spent most of her career architecting, developing and selling digital solutions to large enterprise clients with a deep focus on data-driven experiences.

Sourced from CMSWire

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Why Marketers Should Explore These 4 Emerging Technology Trends

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By Claudia Ratterman
Marketers should explore four emerging tech trends and how they impact customer data management and consumer privacy.

For brands, the pandemic’s initial disruptions are easing, if not absent, while spiralling inflation, talent scarcity and lingering supply chain challenges continue to contest marketers’ best laid plans.

Against this conflicting backdrop, marketers seek to balance between tried-and-true, personalized campaigns with novel digital experiences that differentiate their brands.

In contrast to the new customer acquisition strategies of 2021 and early 2022, the rest of this year and next will emphasize a more comprehensive view of the customer to unify cross-functional data to improve customer experience (CX), drive conversions and ensure retention.

New to this year’s Gartner Hype Cycle for Digital Marketing are four key technologies that will help marketers with this renewed focus of integrating customer data to drive innovation: generative AI, emotion AI, digital twin of a customer and customer data ethics.

Here’s how digital marketing leaders can incorporate these crucial technologies into their strategies.

Generative AI: Determine Initial Marketing Use Cases

Generative AI is a disruptive technology that impacts content development, CX enhancement and the generation of synthetic data. It learns from existing artifacts to generate new, realistic artifacts (e.g., video, speech) that reflect the characteristics of the training data without repetition.

In spite of third-party data depreciation, enterprises are still charged with both delivering a strong CX and influencing customer decisions. Generative AI can help marketers identify the core characteristics of customers to then target them with custom content in a privacy-compliant way.

In fact by 2025, Gartner expects 30% of outbound marketing messages from large organizations will be synthetically generated.

We see generative AI take hold in digital commerce; for example, where brands can generate human images for customers to try on clothes or makeup virtually. Avatars and virtual influencers can also engage customers on social media and in the metaverse to provide customer support.

Obstacles in digital marketers’ use of generative AI include potential government hurdles that seek to limit associated research, or the unfortunate reality of the technology being used for deepfakes, fraud and disinformation.

What can digital marketers do? Start by investigating how generative AI techniques benefit your industry and determine initial marketing use cases where you can rely on purchased capabilities or partnerships. Document the opportunities synthetic data could bring in terms of facilitating data monetization and lowering the cost of data acquisition.

Emotion AI: Explore Vendor Capabilities

Emotion AI uses computer vision, audio/voice input and more to translate behavioural attributes into human emotions, helping marketers better personalize digital communications. This is part of a larger trend we call “influence engineering,” which seeks to automate elements of digital experience that guide user choices at scale by learning and applying techniques of behavioural science.

Emotions play a key role in all phases of customer journeys. Access to emotion data delivers insights into motivational drivers that help them test and refine content, tailor digital experiences and build deeper connections between people and brands.

By 2024, 30% of marketers will use emotion AI, up from less than 5% today. Yet privacy concerns remain an obstacle to rapid adoption of many use cases, especially in live situations (versus lab/research environments). Hesitation around the manipulative power of emotion-aware algorithms and potential bias are prevalent, too. To avoid bias when using facial expression analysis, models must be retrained in different geographies to detect nuances due to different cultural backgrounds.

What can digital marketers do? Review vendors’ emotion AI capabilities and use cases carefully in order to enhance customer analytics and behavioural profiling. Appoint responsibility for data privacy in your organization to a chief data privacy officer or equivalent and ensure they work with your chosen vendor to avoid user backlash due to sensitive data being collected.

Digital Twin of a Customer (DToCs): Run Pilots, Establish Trust

A DToC is a dynamic virtual representation of a customer that simulates and learns to emulate and anticipate behavior. DToCs help data-rich organizations provide a more personalized, curated CX to customers, many of whose buying habits have changed due to inflation.

DToC can both transform and disrupt: Privacy and cyber-risk concerns may lengthen the time it takes DToCs to mature. Plus, it’s challenging for organizations to embark on customer data ethics initiatives, which are essential to the success of DToC projects.

What can digital marketers do? Begin by running a pilot and comparing results with and without a DToC and define the benefits to customers and establish trust. Explain how they can control, or cancel, data usage, and eventually integrate DToCs with existing marketing technology systems for maximum utility.

Customer Data Ethics: Be Transparent

Customer data ethics aligns business practices with moral and ethical policies that reflect a company’s values. The need for such arises from the often unintended social and environmental consequences of using customer data to maximize profits.

It’s clear that AI is a growing force within marketing as techniques for marketing automation and personalization. The public — and marketers — increasingly recognize the tendency of these techniques to amplify biases in customer data used to train them. As organizations expand their focus on privacy and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues, addressing the ethical challenges of algorithmic marketing practices becomes imperative to keep company practices and values aligned.

What can digital marketers do? Go beyond mere compliance and treat customer data ethics as an ethos that your company publicly shares with all stakeholders. Operationalize the ethical evaluation of all automated decision making and tailor global brand or corporate frameworks to specific geographies, audiences and societies. Establishing and monitoring long-term metrics that tie customer data ethics to economic factors (e.g., ESG ratings and brand equity measures) will ensure the most value is realized.

Conclusion: Determine Value for Emerging Marketing Technology Trends

While investment in such technologies continues apace, digital marketing leaders still grapple with the challenges associated with these powerful yet immature technologies. AI and machine learning (ML) are highly dependent on access to customer data, yet only 14% of organizations have achieved a 360-degree view of the customer. Furthermore, consumer and regulatory concerns about their ethical implications may erode trust among customers.

Digital marketers must take a critical look at each of these technology trends to determine what value they bring to their organizations, especially within the confines of economic headwinds.

By Claudia Ratterman

Claudia Ratterman is a Director Analyst for Gartner for Marketers, based in Los Angeles. She has over 14 years of experience building Social Media Marketing Strategies for billion-dollar brands such as Disney, Tide, Pampers, Olay and Amgen.

Sourced from CMSWIRE

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In the Age of Brand Authenticity, Most Marketers Are Missing the Mark

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By Amy Balliett

88 percent of audiences value brand authenticity, but the majority of marketers are ignoring the one strategy that will meet this demand.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Amy Balliett

Sourced from Inc.

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