Every time we hear the story of (i.e.) two guys, nature lovers, outdoor adventurers who, in search of better experiences and results, come up with (i.e.) an Energy Bar that upgrades outdoor adventures in every way, we immediately love that product.

Products with a powerful story are a no-brainer for us, consumers. It’s a unique opportunity to make something ordinary, like grocery shopping, sound meaningful.

But then comes growth and expansion. From a financial perspective, everything looks promising. From a marketing point of view, quite the opposite. The fresh and consistent story of those two adventurers that needed this product to take what they do a step further starts to lose shape as the company gets more people between the brand’s soul and its audience.

The company soon starts targeting also mothers who want a healthy snack for their children, young men that work hard and want to recover energy to keep up with their life after work… (not to mention the 18-35 years old girls— metrics).

While Energy bar’s digital and social activity turns into an invasion of this kind of posts, published on a regular basis:

Now, is this marketing de-process new? Not at all. Is this a problem these days? YES.

10+ years ago this would’ve been a story of success and profitability. Energy Bar would’ve been considered an outdoor hero for people willing to take their adventures to the next level. It would’ve been loved also by mothers and even 18-35 years old girls. But now, fortunately, brands are no longer legends or myths. They are in contact with their audience on a daily basis, whether they do something about it or not. Consumers can now get to know the company and embrace its story in deeper ways, or get bored in a matter of minutes. One of these two WILL happen, is up to the brand to choose which. We, as marketers, can no longer create Back to School / Summer / Christmas campaigns and remain silent expecting our audience to embrace our narrative through the whole year. What’s worst, posting banal stuff on several channels, like the examples above, are story-killers all the same. Social media and digital platforms, are here for us to solidify those stories or blur them. There’s no safe zone. And the risks of falling into the second category are way bigger than the benefits of them being “free”, “easy” and “fast”.

In order to succeed, a brand’s digital and social media contributions need to be bold, meaningful and above all, instrumental to the story. The same way consumers love a narrative because they want their grocery shopping to be more interesting, they will engage with your digital activity if it contributes to their lives in any way. For example, GoPro contributes to our lives with extreme videos and pics, Red Bull does the same with sports and music content. While brands like Subway and GE, which probably don’t have much fun or meaningful content to post on Instagram or Facebook, compared to GoPro, took even bolder decisions using great and not traditional resources like Giphy and Jelly to better engage their users. These last examples prove that when a brand’s activity on Instagram and Facebook is not valuable for consumers, it’s smart to look for different resources that would better serve the brand’s goals and avoid making Energy Bar kind of mistakes.

At Plyfe we’re helping and encouraging brands and publishers to do more of this stuff by providing them with interactive and game-like layers to be added onto their content. This means that articles, products, videos, etc.; on webs, social pages, mobile devices, etc.; can now have vote, trivia, game-like and many other layers of interactivity for users to actually participate in conversations.

This empowers brands and their stories in several ways: First, by allowing CMOs, community managers or interns to create interactive and meaningful experiences out of their branded content in a matter of minutes and with no development cost. Second, by rewarding their audience for participating in the conversation, as users can win points for every action they take (in competition, sweeps or instant reward structures). While one of the problems in digital is how fast everything vanishes, Plyfe helps brands create a bigger impact and better engage their audience making every piece of content more interactive and fun.

If you want to find out more about Plyfe, or just say hi, feel free to reach out: armando@plyfe.me.