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How Direct Mail Can Win Back Marketers In A Volatile Digital Economy

May 7, 2026 No Comments

Digital advertising seems to be everywhere. You turn on your laptop, only to be greeted by promo messages from the manufacturer about your expired warranty. The web browser you launched seconds ago? Well, now all the pop-ups are trying to convince you to buy or try the latest invention. And don’t forget about all the app notifications on your smart devices and the emails waiting to be read (more like deleted) in your inbox.

It’s exhausting. Coined as digital fatigue, the mental overload caused by constant marketing messages in online spaces is why effectiveness is declining. Although global digital marketing spend is forecasted to reach $936 billion in 2029, customer acquisition costs have gone up 222% in the past 10 years. In response, marketers are turning back the clock, increasingly relying on direct mail to cut through the noise.

I was recently speaking to Eric Goodstadt, CEO of Upswell Marketing, about the shift. Upswell Marketing is the parent company of Taradel, which helps small businesses launch direct mail and digital ad campaigns. The return to direct mail doesn’t mean companies are ready to abandon digital. But it does mean marketers are aiming to restore balance in an unpredictable landscape.

Hedging Against Digital Volatility

Goodstadt recently explained to me how digital has become less predictable and often less efficient due to rising costs for impressions, privacy concerns and a host of tech and economic challenges. Direct mail, on the other hand, offers deterministic targeting without relying on cookies or algorithms.

Deterministic targeting runs on verified first-party data, such as interaction or purchase history. It’s information someone has willingly given to your company. Compare that to third-party data, where you’re not sure how it was gathered or whether it’s relevant to your outreach efforts. In the past, digital platforms had the advantages of scale, speed and targeting.

But changes in privacy features, including Apple’s range of controls across apps and its Safari web browser, mean more limitations and higher costs. Channel diversification offers marketers a way to hedge against this unpredictability. Direct mail is no longer seen as a legacy tactic, but a way to stabilize your marketing mix.

I think of it as a way to balance your portfolio. You dedicate a percentage of your outreach to digital while (re)introducing a percentage to direct mail. Marketers aren’t solely relying on third-party cookies and algorithms for audience reach. With direct mail, there’s a higher level of control, precision and predictability, leading to better performance in customer acquisition.

Driving Results With Frequency And Familiarity

USPS cites findings from the National Association of Advertisers about the ROI of direct mail versus digital channels, such as paid search and email. Direct mail’s average ROI of 112% beats email’s 93% and paid search’s 88%. Goodstadt and I agree that a reason is the familiarity direct mail builds with an audience over time.

It’s easy to dismiss, block and ignore digital ads. Physical mail can’t be brushed aside as easily because it’s tangible.

“Consistency builds familiarity and trust,” Goodstadt said. “We typically see strong results with one touch every three to five weeks.”

Nonetheless, hitting frequency targets isn’t sufficient. I’ve found you also need variety. Otherwise, you fall into the same campaign fatigue trap digital ad bombardment creates. You want to mix up your creative, promos and formats to keep your touchpoints fresh.

By mixing it up, marketers replicate digital marketing best practices. Yet, they benefit from direct mail’s less competitive environment. Marketers stand a better chance of getting their audiences’ attention because the physical inbox is less crowded than the digital one.

Gaining A Surprising Edge With Younger Audiences

It seems counterintuitive. Why would younger audiences resonate more with a marketing tactic from the pre-internet explosion age than with digital? After all, they’ve only known online marketing as the norm.

Yet, the stats tell a different story. Gen Z and Millennials engage more with direct mail than Gen Xers or Boomers. Eighty-five percent of those younger cohorts interact with direct mail, partly because it’s novel to them. They didn’t grow up in the days when postcards and mailers were one of the few means of direct outreach.

Industries with local and personal connections tend to perform stronger with younger audiences. Direct mail from gyms, wellness providers, in-home services, home improvement and quick-service restaurants shows solid promise. Proximity and trust are factors behind the edge, and direct mail reinforces both. For these categories, the physical inbox can drive higher results than the digital newsletter.

Creating A Winning Formula

Design and interactive formats play a role in the success of a direct mail campaign. Overly polished and corporate-speak creative displays are going to fall flat. Authenticity and clear, concise messaging tend to win.

Goodstadt and I have seen higher engagement with interactive formats, such as oversized postcards or QR-code driven experiences. A QR code from a direct mailer can return an audience to an abandoned cart or offer a personalized discount to place an online order. But you want to make the value proposition immediately clear. The call to action should be simple and seamless.

When I was checking into current interest in print marketing, SelfEmployed editor-in-chief Renee Johnson said combining direct mail with digital tracking is a tactic gaining traction.

“We’ve seen interest in direct mail marketing from younger business leaders and solopreneurs who have discovered legacy channels like direct mail aren’t ineffective in the modern age,” said Johnson. “What’s different now is the integration of digital tracking, which changes direct mail from a general population blast into a precise, ROI-driven strategy.”

Omnichannel integration plays a key role in direct mail and will continue to. Connecting direct mail campaigns to measurable outcomes while improving targeting will become more of a focus. Synchronizing data from point-of-sale and CRM systems like HubSpot will increase in importance to overcome direct mail’s weaknesses. Lack of accountability and difficulties with measurement are drawbacks that advanced personalization can counterbalance.

Direct Mail’s Advantage In A Fragmented Future

The fundamental challenge marketers face continues to remain the same. How do you effectively break through the noise? Direct mail can be a compelling answer. With the channel’s tangibility, precise targeting and advancing improvements in measurability, direct mail can serve as a complement to the digital realm.

I believe bringing direct mail back to the marketing mix will help brands create more resilient customer acquisition strategies. Outcome predictability will offer marketers stability in an increasingly uncertain environment. The physical inbox won’t be a nostalgic relic, but a competitive advantage.

Feature image credit: Getty

By John Hall

Find John Hall on LinkedIn and X. Visit John’s website.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

6 things marketers need to know about Google’s new analytics platform, GA4

December 1, 2025 No Comments

By Can Ozcer

With the launch of GA4, Google has put in place its biggest change to analytics in the company’s 21-year history. The new system unifies the measurement of apps and websites and is intended to provide marketers with a far more detailed understanding of their campaigns.

Fifty-five London waxes lyrical on the potential of GA4.

As it is set to replace the older version of Google Analytics, digital marketers should develop a plan now for fully implementing it. Here are six things you need to know about the new system.

1. It is built for the mobile-first era

Google Analytics has been around for 21 years and was built with desktop websites in mind. But in today’s mobile-first environment, the insights we need are different. Apps have been the catalyst to transform how we consume information on mobile by providing brands with controlled content environments. GA4 combines data from the two sources into a single suite. Although this was possible before, GA4 has introduced a new framework to make this far more practical and intuitive. This enables us to glean richer insights with customers behaving very differently across apps and websites.

2. It’s not just about app and web measurement

Google’s new platform was initially named App+Web. However, the new system isn’t just about analysing data from mobile apps and websites in one screen. GA4 will become the new version of Google Analytics. However the new product has different and more advanced capabilities than Universal Analytics. It uses machine learning based automated insights, new report types and improved data sampling behaviour to provide actionable insights. This will enable practitioners to develop more sophisticated and personalised customer experiences and journeys. This will also apply even if they are just focusing on website data.

3. Events are the new building block

The old product was based on the idea that people have ‘sessions’ and ‘page views’. This was behaviour compatible with a web and content-focused approach. GA4 takes a radically different approach, looking at user behaviour through a different lens. It replaces page views and sessions with a building block called an ‘event’. This could refer to a variety of different behaviours. It could still be a ‘page view’ to understand how people consume content. However it could also be people completing a specific series of actions, like a funnel. Therefore, it is more suited to the way modern brands want to engage with their customers. It represents a fundamental change in the framework of how we measure people doing things.

4. It enables more advanced personalisation

The platform can be coupled with other Google products including the Google Marketing Platform, Google Ads and its personalisation platform – Google Optimize. This will enable marketers to glean new machine learning led insights about individual behaviour. Currently, Google Analytics based audiences in Optimize take several minutes to be processed and calculated. The new data model enables this in a matter of seconds. Additionally previously challenging analyses, for example segment overlaps or user journey pathing, can now be built in a matter of minutes thanks to the new Analysis section of the platform. GA4 also means better calculation of audiences and the ability to serve ads to these audiences at a cross-device and cross-platform (web & app) setting. This is of course provided that the advertisers have the required consent on multiple devices.

5. Don’t delete your old analytics yet…

Despite its potential, it is important to work with the right experts to unlock the system’s potential. Part of this is setting up the right parameters. Like with any new system, upgrades are occurring each quarter which are then being refined and improved as result of user feedback. It is critical to manage expectations as to what can be achieved. Although GA4 is a massive step in the right direction, there are some features missing that exist in Universal Analytics. This includes important marketing analytics functions such as multi-channel funnels and data-driven attribution. Therefore you should retain access to the old Universal Analytics and GA4. This will be crucial for year on year reports for a holiday season comparison for example.

6. It presents an improved suite of privacy & consent options

There have been significant changes to privacy regulations and more importantly, the public’s awareness of how their data is used, since the inception of Google Analytics 21 ago. Google is working on a new suite of features to ensure compliance with modern privacy regulations that will be applicable to GA4. This ranges from region-specific audience personalisation settings to their new Consent Mode product. We can expect GA4 to receive continuous improvements on this front.

By engaging with the platform now, digital marketers can get a head start on competitors by truly realising its potential. With GA4 set to become the mainstream Google Analytics platform in 2021 there is no time to waste.

By Can Ozcer

Can Ozcer, head of analytics and insight, UK at Fifty-five London.

Sourced from The Drum

In News

AI Won’t Replace Marketers—Someone Using It Will

November 14, 2025 No Comments

By Greg Peters

AI is the biggest jolt of energy marketing has felt since the internet. Rather than fear it, smart operators will grab it and ride the wave.

In the Mad Men era of the 1960s, marketing lived in the boardroom, born from creative conversations and driven by strategy. The internet’s arrival in the mid-1990s flipped that world, pushing marketers from shaping big ideas to managing tactics like SEO, banner ads, pop-ups and content mills. Now AI is here, and the shifts feel constant. At a breakneck pace, it’s commoditizing once-core marketing tactics, doing the work so effectively that public opinion assumes machines can replace marketers.

Here’s where the pressure amps up: Clients and executives often don’t care how the work gets done, as long as it’s completed on time and within budget. You can manage revenue, risk, cost and cash flow however you see fit, as long as the numbers move in the right direction.

For some, that sounds terrifying and like a sure sign AI will decimate the creative process and eliminate jobs. But I’m here to tell you that this isn’t the end. You’re not going to lose your job to AI. But you could lose your job to someone who knows how to use it.

Creative Resistance And Adoption

You can see the resistance to AI playing out in the talent market. Countless writers have “open to work” on their LinkedIn profiles. The perceived value of writing has been eroded, hitting marketing intensely. AI makes tactics easier to access, so agencies and professionals must demonstrate that their work drives outcomes beyond what a tool can produce.

Those of us using AI daily know marketing has never stopped being valuable. Agencies need to demonstrate their value through tangible results. Smart AI adoption combined with expertise delivers faster, lasting outcomes. Understandably, the resistance often comes from creatives who are hesitant to adopt new tools out of fear.

I’ve always been a late tech adopter, but even I use ChatGPT. I rely on it for decks, engagement plans and strategy documentation. If I’m embracing it, the debate is over. The only question now is how to use it well.

Real-World Disruption In Action

Examples already show what this looks like. At my agency, we built an internal AI we call DirectorGPT. It captures our team’s knowledge so anyone can get quick answers without waiting for a senior lead. It saves time, facilitates onboarding and provides a reliable knowledge base. At the same time, agencies are experimenting with platforms that help analyse performance and optimize campaigns faster than ever before.

The lesson isn’t that agencies have no future. In fact, it’s a call to recognize where humans add the most value. Agencies must determine where AI is most effective and where human creativity remains essential. AI can generate a first draft of an email or a landing page. It can even create long-form narrative content and develop a brand strategy. But it can’t replace human creativity.

Inspired marketing pulls from culture, art, literature and even the bizarre. Think about campaigns that feel strange, yet stick because they capture attention in ways no tool could predict: A fast food brand sparring with competitors on social media. A beverage upstart disrupting the bottled water market with unconventional tactics.

True creativity takes something from one corner of culture and combines it with something unrelated to reveal something new. AI can’t make those leaps because it works only with what already exists. Humans can. When creatives use AI for mundane work, we gain time to focus on originality.

AI is the ultimate yes-man. It will flatter you into failure. It’s never going to push back and stop you from publishing something you’ll regret. The person behind the keyboard must be able to distinguish between good and bad. If those skills erode, teams will generate endless stale content that inspires no one to click, read or buy.

The Playbook For Using AI Right

Winning marketers will be the ones who use AI purposefully. These are the moves worth making:

• Leverage AI for speed. Summarize data, prepare talking points and cut down on research time.

• Build stronger engagement plans. Use AI to connect client objectives with practical marketing moves.

• Prompt with purpose. Iterate to refine results, and keep a library of the best prompts.

• Gut-check outputs. Never accept AI at face value. Apply human taste, style and critical thinking.

• Shift your lens to outcomes. Don’t view AI solely as a cost savings tool. Use it to drive outcomes and stay ahead.

Punk Rock Lessons For The Future

For me, adopting AI feels like punk rock. Punk was about breaking the rules, but the best musicians knew the rules first. It’s the same with AI—you must understand how the work is done before you can rebuild it with these tools.

The fear surrounding AI is loud, but like every disruptive technology, the noise will fade as adoption becomes commonplace. Conversations that feel urgent today will sound outdated soon. The same thing happened with the fax machine, the printer and the internet. Each one faced scepticism before becoming standard. AI is following the same path, albeit at a faster pace.

When the Spanish brought horses to North America, the indigenous Plains people had never encountered them before. Within a few generations, they’d incorporated horses into their way of life. They took a foreign technology and used it to leap forward. That’s what humans do. We harness technology and bound forward with it.

The tools are here, and the tide is rising. Marketing isn’t disappearing. It’s about to get more demanding, more creative and more fun. Grab hold, ride the wave and own it.

Feature image credit: getty

By Greg Peters

Find Greg Peters on LinkedIn. Visit Greg’s website.

COUNCIL POST | Membership (fee-based)

Greg Peters is the president and founder of 4B Marketing, a full-service tech marketing agency based in Denver, CO. Read Greg Peters’ full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

How experiential marketers can build community in 3 cultures

February 28, 2024 No Comments

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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In News

4 Things Marketers Need To Know About Direct Marketing Right Now

November 27, 2023 No Comments

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

In News

Why Advertisers and Marketers Should Tap into Web3 and Metaverse?

July 31, 2023 No Comments

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

In News

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

April 6, 2023 No Comments

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.

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

April 3, 2023 No Comments

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

January 30, 2023 No Comments

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

In News

Why a Brand Platform Should Be Your Next Big Idea

December 5, 2022 No Comments

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