Mindful Consumption

All-you-can-eat! Shop till you drop! Everything must go!

Well, actually, no thanks. The age of mindless consumption (“Would sir like to go large with that?) is over. People want a simpler, more self-sufficient life.

Gone is the insatiable hunger for more, when we bought too much, ate too much and owed too much. Replacing it is a sense of responsibility, community and authenticity.

The shift is everywhere, from compacts overtaking gas guzzlers to farmer’s markets pulling in the crowds. Here are a few characteristics which will help you spot it.

·         It’s about rightsizing
Goodbye hyper-accumulation. Hello sustainability. After years of wasteful excess (XXL homes and OTT weddings), consumers are cutting back, wanting to feel good about their purchases and making do with “just enough.”

·         It’s about purpose

People are planning their pleasures instead of bowing to instant gratification. The dizzying world of Buy-Throw away-Repeat is being replaced by folk taking more care in deciding what - and whether - to buy.  

·         It’s about keeping it real

Consumers are moving away from the superficial and embracing causes larger than themselves. Look at the rise of organic food, the popularity of buying local, the drive to eco-consciousness. Being real is about community and its happy sense of belonging.

So, what does all this mean for today’s brands? To engage meaningfully with customers and continue to prosper, modern brands need to embrace this new “less is more” paradigm, place its qualities right at the heart of their offering and “be the change”.

As Volkswagen said it in their famous ad when they launched the Beetle in big-car-loving USA: Think small.

Have a great 2013 everyone!

 

 

Hilton Alexander Rose
Your Brand Agency | Director

linkedin.com/in/hiltonrose

Skype: hilton293

www.yourbrandagency.co.za

www.facebook.com/yourbrandagency

Brand Transparency

The inmates have taken over the asylum! Hello brand transparency.

Oh my gosh, how did that happen? Brands used to be so, you know, in charge. Anything went wrong and their PR armies could spin things right back under the carpet. Then along came transparency and it all changed.

As with most changes these days, it was the internet whodunit. So now (shock! horror!), your crazy-as-a-loon customers are in charge of your brand’s success. Say goodbye to command-and-control and hello to co-opt-and-cooperate.

The internet has cleared out the neat little hidey-holes which brands could use to stash their bad service, over-priced goods and ethical transgressions. Now, a fully informed public has access to countless stories about your brand, written by people just like themselves as well as professional and impartial review sites.

Gee, what’s a company got to do to maintain its modesty these days?

First off, recognise that the rules really have changed. Reviewing is the new advertising. Accept that customers’ decisions to buy from you or your competitor have largely moved peer-to-peer. Whether its word of mouth, social media, complaint or review sites, people who are not employed by you are either promoting you or panning you. Every industry now depends on virtual goodwill, from consumer electronics to hotel rooms to your neighbourhood doctor.

Remember that complaints only spin out of control if nothing is done about them. So if someone badmouths you on HelloPeter, do something that will change their frown into a smiley face. Voila! Instead of a moaner, you have an ambassador.

Stay price-competitive. With price comparison websites, like pricecheck.co.za, offering potential customers “the internet price”, why would people possibly put up with being ripped off, when they can get the same product for often thousands of rands less?

And when it comes to your ethical behaviour, just remember that the green movement growing every day - and they are using the net to find out if your chickens really are getting massaged every day or whether you’re sewing the fingers off Eastern child labourers.

So remember, the world’s changed: the facts are in plain view – and at the inmates’ fingertips. Make the most of it!

Hilton Alexander Rose
Your Brand Agency | Director

linkedin.com/in/hiltonrose

Skype: hilton293

www.yourbrandagency.co.za

www.facebook.com/yourbrandagency

The goal of marketing

Convincing your customers to bring you the gold

Everyone knows what the goal of marketing is, right? At least, we think we do. But how many of us are right? Is it about casting your company in the best light? Promoting your product? Gaining new customers? Keeping old ones? Or driving sales?

One of the world’s most popular marketing books describes it as "the process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships, in order to capture value from customers in return". 

That sounds great in jargon-speak. But let’s put it in simpler terms. Imagine an island of gold.  You (and your competitors) have a problem. You’re not on the island. You’re staring at it from across the sea.

How do you get at it? Well, a lot depends on which kind of business you run. If you’re sales-focused, you’ll round up a team of self-starters and row madly, fighting the currents and winds as hard as you possibly can.

If you’re product-focused, you might watch the brawny guys battle and laugh. Surely there’s a better way. What if you designed a better boat? Or gave it an engine? Wouldn’t you get to the gold faster?

A market-focused company would be more concerned with taking advantage of prevailing conditions. What are the wind conditions? What if you harnessed the power of the current?

The real answer, of course, is that all these approaches have merit. But what makes the marketing-savvy company special is that it’s not just about aiming for the gold. It’s also about making the gold aim for you. The real goal of marketing is to create desire, by building a brand that people want – and then making a noise about it. 

So instead of struggling all the way across to the island of gold, the smart businesses attracts its markets – and then only has to meet them half way.


Hilton Rose

Your Brand Agency | Director

linkedin.com/in/hiltonrose | Skype: hilton293

www.yourbrandagency.co.za | www.facebook.com/yourbrandagency

Internal and external brand alignment

Two sides. One coin. That’s brand alignment

They say that nothing kills a bad product faster than good advertising. They’re right. You can spend millions on hiring the most creative ad agencies, producing the most memorable adverts and broadcasting those ads far and wide, but if you don’t pay attention to what’s happening under your nose, you’re toast.

Customers are generally smart. But with internal and external brand alignment, customers can be as thick as planks and they’ll still catch you out when what you promise isn’t what you deliver.

You say that all calls are answered within five rings. Then answer them within 5 rings. You say there’s a discounted iPad with every account. Then deliver that iPad timeously. You say that your product is the fastest, oldest, strongest, cheapest, sharpest or cleverest. Then make damn sure it is the fastest, oldest, strongest, cheapest, sharpest or cleverest. Better yet, don’t say it until you know it’s true!

Why? Because customers forgive a lot of things but they don’t forgive liars. And they hate being made to look like fools. So when you make a promise to your marketplace, keep it.  If, after talking to your company or buying your product, your customer is left disappointed or feeling duped, he’ll let everybody and his brother know. Believe it.

In our world of Twitter and Facebook (not to mention consumer sites like HelloPeter), news travels fast. The reputation of your brand can soar or crash almost instantly. And as more and more of our lives are spent online, that speed will only become faster.

So it’s essential for your brand to be internally and externally aligned. Work with your sales force, customer service, tech-support, upper management and even your customers to establish a single-minded, unified approach to the way you do business. Make sure that when your CFO talks to the financial press and when your cashier talks to your customer, both stay on-message.

Staff buy-in to the brand and what it stands for is crucial to alignment. Employees who believe are your finest ambassadors. Employees who feel frustrated and unhappy are assassins.  So how you hire, treat and train your staff is crucial to building a consistent brand. Involve your staff in the branding process – and they will reward you by becoming more involved.

So when they answer the phone, and there is a complaint, your staff won’t dismiss it as, “Oh, that’s just the ad campaign, ma’am. That’s not how we do things. Lol!”

Instead, your staff will feel personally involved and help fix the issue. Whatever it is.

Now that’s brand alignment.

Hilton Rose

Your Brand Agency | Director

linkedin.com/in/hiltonrose | Skype: hilton293

www.yourbrandagency.co.za | www.facebook.com/yourbrandagency

Dave. He’s why branding is so important

 

Dave. He’s why branding is so important

Dave is the guy that you’ve known all your life. You remember the first time you met. It was the seventies.  He wore brown tracksuits. But there was something special about him. He stood out, even though everyone, even you, was wearing brown tracksuits.

And though you grew up, graduated, got a job, Dave was always there. He stayed with you. Sure, he changed with the times. Everybody did. His hairstyles stayed current. His clothes stayed sharp. He even learnt to dance like a robot.

But there was something solid about him. You were always able to recognise him as the Dave you’d always known. You knew that, whatever happened, you could rely on Dave to deliver on his, well, “Dave-ness”.

Dave is Coca-Cola. Every time you shared a Coke with a friend or watched a Coke ad in a darkened cinema or saw a Coke sign mounted above your local cafe, you’ve spent time with a brand you’ve known all your life. A brand you’d probably call a friend. In fact, a brand you’ve spent so much time with, it’s almost part of your family.

That’s why branding is important.

Because when Coca-Cola came up with New Coke or Cherry Coke, and it didn’t quite work, you cut it some slack. Just as you might a friend who didn’t quite get that latest look just right.

Because even when, in that famous blind-taste test, Pepsi beat Coke on the basis of pure flavour, you didn’t run off with the new, hot thing. OK, Dave might not be the handsomest kid on the block anymore, but he’s still your Dave. He’s the one you’ve shared a life-long friendship with.

And because even when people tell you that when Coke was really, really young, it mixed cocaine into its cool drink, you forgave that too. Hell, everyone does crazy stuff when they’re young.

So why is that you are so accommodating? Because Coke is Coke and Dave is Dave.  And just like Dave’s always stuck with you, well, you’ll always stick with him.

Because over the years, over ALL the years, Dave has always been consistent. You know that whatever he does in the future, whatever products and services he offers under the name of his brand, and chances are you’re still going to be his friend.

And that’s what makes branding so important. It’s about creating an identity that people can trust and rely upon, an identity so special that people will celebrate its successes and forgive it its failures - whether it’s a guy called Dave or the world’s largest cola.

 

Hilton Rose

Your Brand Agency - Owner

linkedin.com/in/hiltonrose