Do behavioral driven analytics prevent brands from building emotional connections?
A follow-up to Jon Callaghan’s ‘The Brands they are a changin’
Jon Callaghan of True Ventures recently documented the change underway in Silicon Valley brand building. It’s a great post that everyone should read. No really, I’ll wait for you here.
Digital advertising has excited consumer brands for a long-time. “IT’S QUANTIFIABLE!” everybody screamed. Don’t mention CTR at an ad tech cocktail party if you want to enjoy your evening.
The same obsession happened to online retailers & brands. We can now track everything. This led to an unhealthy relationship with business intelligence, where analytic providers focused entirely on behavioral data. This is especially true in the Lean Startup era, where we’re all building to what our customers want today.
THE PROBLEM
All the analytics and customer intelligence systems are focused solely on behavioral data. There’s unlimited access to data around what your customers are doing and how much they’re worth. Today’s tools allow you to easily see Customer X clicked on Facebook Ad Y and purchased Product Z. Leading to a CAC of 1, an LTV of 2 and an estimated Churn Rate of 3.
But do you know why that customer clicked on that ad? Do you have any idea what motivated them to actually complete the purchase?
Do you know who your customers are as people?
Behavioral data gives us no insight into who the customer is as a person, the lifestyle that they live or the emotions that motivate them to purchase from your brand.
Or in Jon’s words:
“These equations lead us to believe that a digital brand is quantifiable and measurable. We like numbers and we like predictability, but it is also a bit of a mirage, and it’s short-sighted: a positive LTV/CAC equation does not a brand make.” @JCal7
IS NPS THE SOLUTION?
The one area that I strongly disagree with Jon is his take on NPS.
“perhaps we need to create the cult of the Net Promoter Score, because NPS is the sum of all interactions across all channels.” @JCal7
We’re going to save detailing NPS shortcomings for another post, but you can find a lot content, with a simple Google search. However, the fact that Silicon Valley brands now care about NPS, is a step in the right direction. As more and more CPG executives transition into digital brands we’ll continue to see a transition to focus on long-term brand building, leading to a stronger emphasis on consumer insights.
WHAT IS CONSUMER INSIGHTS?
Consumer Insights is the intersection between consumer interests and brand traits. It allows us to understand why the consumers care for brands and their underlying mindsets, moods, desires, aspirations, and motivations that trigger consumer attitude and actions.
Consumer insights is not new. It’s been a key cog in the CPG machine for years. In the past, retailers stood between CPG’s and their consumers, creating a major barrier for CPGs to understand their consumers.
That barrier created a $30B Market Research industry that connected brands to consumers.
Today, digital brands have direct access to their consumers, but all the tools built for e-commerce brands are behavioral focused business intelligence. There is a massive opportunity for digital brands to directly incorporate consumer insights into their business, without the same barrier to consumers. Brands will now be able to to build a deep, decades-long emotional connection with it’s consumers.
And here’s where you get to roll your eyes. This mission of creating consumer insights, specifically built for digital brands, is exactly what we’re fighting to accomplish everyday at Tandem.
Yes, I’m going to shamelessly plug our own product. But hopefully this post demonstrates how passionate we are about this future and how excited we are to share it with the world.
We’re in closed beta, but opening new accounts every week. If you want to see how we do this and get set-up on a trial. Request a demo here or email me directly at scott[at]intandem.io.
