Brand Humanizing: The Game-Changing Business Strategy to Outlasting your Competitors in the Age of AI
Back in 2018, we introduced the world to Brand Humanizing and its importance for organizations in a world increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence and machines. Since then, the rise of generative AI, such as ChatGPT, has made the contents of this article even more relevant and important. So here’s a desperately needed updated version of that article.
As technology continues to evolve at an unprecedented rate, it’s becoming increasingly clear that organizations need to adapt in order to remain competitive and relevant. The fear of machines replacing humans in various areas of work has ignited questions about the future. However, with Brand Humanizing we introduced an approach that doesn’t look at this shift as a threat, but as an opportunity for organizations to become more human(e) than ever before.
Brand Humanizing is a skillset that involves understanding the strong suits and limitations of both humans and technology. By deploying human and technological resources in a way that maximizes their unique abilities, organizations can create a powerful synergy between the two. This approach allows human workers to focus on tasks that require emotional intelligence, creativity, and other skills that are uniquely human, while freeing them from tasks that technology excels at.
In this article, we will explore the benefits of Brand Humanizing and why it is crucial for organizations that want to maintain their role in shaping the future. We will delve into the concept of human-technology synergy and how it leads to greater productivity and efficiency. Additionally, we will discuss the four key skills required for Brand Humanizing.
Moreover, we will examine the challenges organizations face while dealing with rapid technological advancements and explain how adopting a Brand Humanizing approach can future-proof their operations and keep them ahead of the competition. Real-world examples will be provided to showcase how companies have successfully implemented Brand Humanizing strategies to drive innovation and achieve long-term sustainable growth.
By the end of this article, you will have gained a deep understanding of Brand Humanizing and its significance in today’s digital world. You will recognize why it is a crucial skill you can’t afford to miss out on, as it provides a competitive advantage to organizations that embrace it early on. Don’t let the rest of the world catch up before you do — join us on this journey to unlock the power of Brand Humanizing and ensure your organization thrives in the future.
Understanding the Benefits of Brand Humanizing
In today’s fast-paced business world, technology is advancing at an unprecedented rate, and it’s only going to continue. AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT are becoming more apparent in daily work life, while robots are increasingly taking over repetitive and tedious tasks. With technology seemingly taking over more and more of our daily lives, it’s easy to see how some may view it as a threat to the role of human beings in the workforce. But what if we could work in harmony with technology? What if we started using it to our advantage to create a more efficient, productive, and human-centered workplace? This is where Brand Humanizing comes in.
As mentioned in the introduction, Brand Humanizing is about understanding the strengths and limitations of both humans and technology. Organizations that understand this concept can work towards human-technology synergy, which means deploying human and technological resources to only work on those things where they specifically outperform the other. This complementary partnership between humans and technology prevents organizations from looking at humans and technology as competitors, and instead, as partners.
While some (short-term focused) organizations use technology to cut costs for higher profitability, Brand Humanizing offers an alternative for organizations to reinvent themselves and increase competitiveness for long-term growth instead of short-term gains.
Applying Brand Humanizing, helps organizations to free up human resources from tasks that technology excels at, and allows them to focus on areas where they excel. This, in turn, creates huge opportunities for organizations. Essentially what happens is that organizations create extra time for their employees. Instead of doing things that technology can do better and faster, they can use their skills and experience to create value for the organization in ways that were previously unattainable. This, in essence, is the power of Brand Humanizing.
An example
Imagine a supermarket that completely and automatically restocks its own shelves and is cashier-less, and used this model to cut personnel costs. Oh wait, something like that already exists, yikes! Now take it a step further. You’re in a future where all supermarkets have adopted this model. The world now exclusively exists of similar-looking supermarkets, with similar prices, in similar locations only for the logo to be the main point of difference. Not very exciting and competitive, right?
But what if some of those supermarkets started to reinvest the costs saved to provide better and more innovative experiences? For example, one of those supermarkets could offer you access to a human dietician, completely free of charge. Someone who helps you meet your dietary goals (losing weight, gaining weight, gaining muscle, improving your vitamin & mineral levels, etc.) by creating tailor-made meal plans, while also functioning as an accountability partner. You meet with them in the supermarket, and all the ingredients you need will be packed & ready before your appointment is over. Or maybe shipped to your home to arrive at a moment that suits your agenda, so you don’t even have to do the heavy lifting.
By implementing Brand Humanizing, this specific supermarket would have created a previously unimaginable human-centric experience, while also distinguishing itself from its competitors to create a competitive advantage. This is just one of many examples that illustrate how differently the Brand Humanizing approach is compared to the using-techology-for-cost-cutting-approach.
In the next section, we will dive deeper into the skills needed to start incorporating Brand Humanizing into your organization.
The Four Key Skills of Brand Humanizing
Now that we’ve established why Brand Humanizing is crucial for organizations that want to stay relevant in a world where technology is becoming increasingly dominant, let’s dive into the four key skills that are required to achieve it. We updated the Brand Humanizing Skillset to better reflect the most recent developments and all the insights and experience we gained since 2018.
First up: Programming, Automation & AI. As technology continues to evolve, organizations need to be able to leverage it to their advantage. These skills will help you identify which elements of the organization can be taken over by technology and how to implement it. In the supermarket example, we showed how they could replace human shelf-stackers and cashiers with fully automated restocking and cashier-less check-outs to create time and resources for other things.
Secondly, Creativity & Organizational Awareness. It is essential for organizations to understand the ins and outs of their organization so they can harness creativity to come up with new and innovative ways to serve their customers. With the supermarket creating time and resources, they need to understand how they could potentially turn that into more value for their customers and thus create a competitive advantage. In our example, they created the opportunity for their customers to meet their in-house human dietician, an innovative consumer experience closely tied to the organization’s industry and products.
But something else is also needed for this, namely Human Sciences and Research. These skills are key to understanding the human element of Brand Humanizing. This involves analyzing customer behavior and preferences to gain insights into what your customers want. Are your customers (or a subset of them) even interested in a solution such as a dietician? Combine that with the last set of skills, Emotional Intelligence & Ethics, and it will help you to create human-centered solutions. These final skills enable organizations to understand and empathize with the people that decided to buy from them, and to make ethical decisions that align with the values of their organization.
Bear in mind that we specifically say human-centered and not customer-centered. A customer is a number, a faceless entity that spends money to buy your service and/or products. A human is a unique individual with a real life, who can be both positively and negatively affected by your efforts as an organization.
When looking at a human as a number, it opens the gate for organizations to abuse cognitive biases and other unethical behavior for short-term gains. Take our word for it, we’ve been there before. In fact, it’s one of the reasons we created Brand Humanizing.
And thus is exactly why you find the word care in the heart of the Brand Humanizing Skillset. You can deploy all of these skills all you want, but if you ultimately don’t truly care for your customers, the flesh-and-blood humans that picked your organization over others, you will not be able to take full advantage of Brand Humanizing. This approach forces you to strictly think in the long-term, so if you’re looking for a get-rich-quick-scheme, this is not the place for you.
You can’t become an expert in all skills
While it’s not realistic for individuals to be experts in all four of these areas, it’s important to strive towards a T-shaped skillset that combines deep expertise in one these areas, with a broad understanding of the others.
Ideally, Brand Humanizing is done in teams with diversely-skilled team members. While each member brings a different area of expertise to the table (so a deep knowledge in one of the four key Brand Humanizing skills), they all speak the same language and share common knowledge over four skills. This enables them to achieve greater productivity and efficiency, while creating a human-centric approach to business.
Real-World Examples of Brand Humanizing
Although Brand Humanizing is still a very new approach and no one is yet adopting it to the fullest extent, there are great real-world examples of organizations displaying Brand Humanizing behavior and actions.
Take the example of Apple, a company that has long been at the forefront of innovation. The Apple Store is the number one retailer in terms of sales per square foot, all while employing an average staggering amount of 117 employees in even the most modest-size Apple Stores. They use technology to automate mundane tasks and employ large numbers of employees so they can spend most of their working hours not on administrative stuff, but genuinely listening and interacting with Apple customers. A recipe for success it seems, all while the retail market is increasingly challenged by the rapid growth of e-commerce.
Another great example is that of Octopus Energy, a British renewable energy company. Their mission is to drive cheaper, greener energy, with all employees deeply committed to this purpose (remember the ‘care’ in the Brand Humanizing Skillset 👀). By fostering authenticity and understanding individuals beyond their roles, they have built a strong, cooperative culture that boosts morale and enhances the customer experience. Additionally, they developed ‘Kraken’, an innovative software that optimizes electricity grids using advanced AI algorithms. Kraken integrates renewable energy sources, manages demand, optimizes electric vehicle charging, and handles vast amounts of data. With real-time information and analytics, Kraken aims to create a more sustainable and efficient energy infrastructure. This dedication to customer-centricity and technology has propelled Octopus Energy’s exponential growth, making them the UK’s third-largest energy supplier despite only being established in 2015.
These companies and many others like them demonstrate the importance of Brand Humanizing in driving innovation and growth.
By taking a holistic approach that combines all of the four key Brand Humanizing skills, organizations can position themselves for long-term success by becoming extremely human-centered in the face of rapid technological change.
So, what’s keeping your organization from adopting Brand Humanizing?
Want to learn how to start incorporating Brand Humanizing into your organization? Shoot Ferry an email at ferry@brandhumanizing.com so we can set up a short call with you to see how we can help you out.
First want to learn more about what we do? Totally fine! Simply visit our website at: www.brandhumanizing.com
