IRL: Building physicality in a digital-first world
While the number of digital-only brands may have skyrocketed in recent years, we as human beings still primarily occupy a physical world.
“What?!” you may be asking yourself right now, but — as shocking as it may be — it’s true. We as people don’t live our lives in computers just quite yet.
All jokes aside (obviously we all know this is true), what does this mean for digital-only brands? As one of these companies, how do you build initial awareness and maintain yourself in someone’s consideration set beyond the confines of their digital lives? Sure, we spend a lot of time online — 7 in 10 Americans say they are spending more time online than ever before (Ipsos). But strong memories are formed by engaging the senses. All of the senses. We need to feel, hear, taste, and smell in order to fire our synapses and forge stronger, lasting memories. How is this possible when your brand only exists for consumers in zeroes and ones?
Maintaining some sense of physicality to your brand, meaning to show up in the real world’s tangible spaces and places, allows digital-first and -only brands to grow their market share against a more competitive market set.
Here are three steps that break down how to do this.
Prioritize “physical” partnerships
If maintaining a permanent physical space just doesn’t align with your vision for the brand or is financially infeasible, look to align yourself with complementary brands that already have a strong tangible, physical presence. You may be inclined to partner with brands that are technologically analogous to yours, but stop and think about what leverage this really gives you? Consider instead looking to brands that can offer something yours doesn’t have and vice versa. For instance, digital transformation has often been tough for old-school, old-fashioned brands — turning on a dime and upending legacy systems is almost impossible after decades of sameness. And conversely, retail partners offer an extra opportunity to get your product in front of more people in places they wouldn’t otherwise have. The best case study of this is when Harry’s partnered with Target to sell its razors in their stores. Others have run with this, including recently when the luxury bedding company Parachute partnered with Crate & Barrel.
Embrace physicality as a media planning principle
When allocating media dollars, it’s important to always look at the big picture. Yes, you’ll have goals and numbers you’ll need to hit. There’s blocking and tackling that will have to be done regardless. A brand that largely exists in the physical world (say, your neighborhood grocery store or your city’s baseball team) would never forgo digital media just because the core of their experience isn’t online. But too often we see digital-only brands without a physical media presence. Smart planning means opening your eyes to all the barriers your consumer faces — not just in isolation of media. This could mean spending to offset an imbalance in an overwhelmingly digital presence if you find awareness or recall lacking. Some of the brands investing the most money, in fact, happen to be tech-centric companies like Amazon and Google, both of whose spending has risen greatly in the OOH space in recent years.
Events and experiences open the door to cementing memories
Even when your brand is embracing the physical world, that interaction with consumers is often passive, with little exchange or communication between the two. After all, this is how most people have relationships with brands. To counter this, latching onto an experience in real life that already exists via sponsorship offers an enticing opportunity. While starting from scratch is always a possibility, it requires significant investment both in terms of money and the energy needed to create an entire idea out of nothing. Partnering with an existing experience offers you the chance to leverage some of their existing equity and use their own media platforms (CRM database, social media followings, etc) to reach an intended audience. The trick here is to spend the time identifying where else your audience is and then build a list of prospective brands to start building relationships with. From here all you need to do is iron out the details and build onto their experience in a way that works for your brand.
These are only three glimpses into only a few of the countless possibilities that digital-first brands have for building a bridge into the physical world. The important part is to start building and not let your origin story determine every single element of your marketing plan.
