A Brand Manager’s Call for Change

The following post is originally from my blog Hard Knox Life and was written in 2009. I’m moving all of my content permanently to Medium, thus the repost.

“The amount of change in marketing over the past 3–5 years probably equals the amount of change over the past 30 years.” — Robert Liodice, CEO, ANA (Association of National Advertisers)

Let’s face it; it used to be a lot easier to be a Brand Manager. People were looking for brands that delivered functional benefits like “better tasting” or “longer lasting.” They heard about those brands through a handful of media vehicles like TV, magazines, radio and billboards. And when they decided to buy that “longer lasting” brand they saw on TV, they went to the neighborhood store, which was happy to stock the trusted brands. The purchase funnel was a simple, straightforward process that Brand Managers could easily follow and plan against.

Those days are gone and are never coming back.

What people want out of a brand has changed dramatically over the past several years. While functional benefits still play an extremely important role, consumers want more. They want a brand to stand for something more than just “best tasting.” They want the brand to have a purpose and in many cases, they want to have an emotional connection with the brand. In particular, these changes in attitude are being driven by a new generation of consumers:

• Gen Y is 40% more likely to “pay more for products consistent with an image I like”
• 59% of Trendsetter Youth would rather buy a $4 Organic Vegetable than a $2 Non-Organic Vegetable”
• 62% of 14 to 34 Year-Olds claim to have taken steps to “living a more environmentally conscious lifestyle”, including 14% who have bought environmentally conscious brands.
• Gen Y is twice as likely to claim to be “influenced by what’s hot and what’s not.”

Digital is transforming how people interact with brands and with each other.

Just as important as the change in what people want from a brand is the change in how they interact with brands. You see, thanks to digital, people today have been permanently reprogrammed and they are engaging with different forms of media and technology like never before. Their time is being split across all sorts of media channels and their opinions about products are no longer shaped by just what marketers tell them. Consider these facts of today’s digital world:

• Nearly half of US online adults are social media users, but 71% of online tweens and teens connect to a social network at least once a week.
• There are more Paypal accounts than Visa card holders.
• Americans sent 75 billion text messages in June 2008, a 160% increase from June 07.
• 70 million of the 90 million homes in the United States that are online have broadband connection speed and 37 percent of US Homes have Wireless or Wi-Fi.
• 9 out of 10 teens considers themselves to be “video gamers” and more than half play video games at least 3 times per week.
• 29% of teens would rather shop online than in a store.
• Consumers aged 18–26 are spending more time using the Internet (12.2 hours per week) than watching TV (10.6 hours per week) according to Forrester.

These are just a few facts that provide the background for what Forrester describes as a Groundswell. In this Groundswell, dramatic changes in technology and media have caused control to shift away from companies and shift to consumers. As a result, the Brand Manager no longer has the control of creating a message, buying 3 television spots and then sitting back as everyone in markets starts to hum their advertising jingle. Today’s empowered digital consumer has completely changed the game…but its not just about new marketing tactics or media. What we are witnessing is not only a shift in the fundamentals of marketing, but also in brand building. Simple put, the digital consumer is revolutionizing the basic duties of a Brand Manager.

The brand builders of tomorrow need to change what they are doing today. The fact is we cannot afford to sit this one out. People are not limited in their choices of brands and they are starting to hold us to a higher standard. The fact is that digital is fundamentally changing the way companies and consumers communicate….it’s not just another marketing tool. Instead, digital is an enabler of new means of communication and conversation between people and brands. To thrive in this new world, brands and businesses need a new type of leader with a fresh set of brand building skills. They need a Brand Manager with a new leadership philosophy.

So I guess the question is, “What are you doing to be that brand leader of the future?”

Originally published at www.hardknoxlife.com on April 29, 2009.