WHY MARKETING MUST NOW EXTEND BEYOND JUST MARKETING
For today’s marketing leaders, business as usual is no longer an option. The marketing landscape has changed forever and a new business dynamic is in play. CMOs can’t simply focus on selling products and services anymore. Broader social and economic trends are not only impacting business strategy, but fundamentally shifting the way consumers view brands and the role they play in society.
We have moved past cause marketing, ethical marketing, and social good marketing as niche specializations or passing trends: Today brands have no choice but to evolve beyond long-held marketing tenets, in order to tackle these complex challenges. That means engaging with consumers in a more dynamic and meaningful way. A human-centered approach that puts people at the core of brand actions and initiatives.
We believe that marketers must broaden their horizons beyond traditional confines, in order to embrace this new reality and seek new opportunities.
REDIFINING THE ROLE OF CONSUMER
According to Accenture, consumers worldwide believe that businesses have a role to play in dealing with critical challenges like job creation, economic growth, pollution, clean energy and corruption. Consumers (81 percent of respondents) expect their dollar to buy more than just products and services.
The word “consumer” is itself inadequate, a reductive artefact from a passing era. A more enlightened approach to is to view interactions between organizations through a more human lens and recognize that people are multifaceted and complex.
Marketers need to broaden the prism through which they view consumers and engage with them as citizens: it’s no longer simply about creating messages for the masses, but about creating messages with meaning.
Joseph Barbieri, Partner and Managing Director of Content at Sid Lee, believes this change in focus will be the key to success: “A new dynamic is at play, and marketers who can articulate a clear voice and engage with consumers in a transparent and meaningful way will earn their trust and loyalty.”
Acting for the greater good is also good for business — and the bottom line. A recent international study by Unilever revealed that a third of consumers (33%) are now choosing to buy from brands they believe are doing social or environmental good.
This shift is no longer a choice for marketers — it is critical for achieving business success.
THE IMPORTANCE OF BUILDING TRUST
It’s no secret that consumer trust is declining across the board. Brands are having a hard time: 54% of people don’t trust them. According to the 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer, public trust in four key institutions — business, government, NGOs, and media — is eroding at a steady pace, a phenomenon not reported since Edelman began tracking trust among this segment in 2012.
Establishing trust and credibility can be complex, and requires transparency and a thoughtful approach. Earnest and well-meaning attempts by a brand to address social issues can easily descend into pandering and trivialization.
Building trust requires proactively acknowledging the profound changes taking place in the global economy, in technology, and in demographics — it starts by being viewed as part of the solution.
Authenticity is critical, and it’s important to ensure that a clear connection exists back to brand purpose, mission, and values. “Authenticity has to be captured, not conjured, and should be a sincere reflection of a corporate culture,” says Barbieri. “Making a statement that lacks credibility or isn’t supported by action is a recipe for failure. It requires backing up core value statements with actions designed to support and defend them, and encouraging the public to do the same.”
Corporate involvement on social issues must also go beyond simply achieving the halo effect of reputational benefit. The involvement of employees, particularly the millennial workforce, and providing them with a platform for empowerment, can result in a tangible and positive effect on overall business results. The workplace, where millennials feel most influential, accountable and impactful, is the ideal place.
THE POWER OF PURPOSE
Powerful ideas transcend marketing. They give brands purpose and provide consumers reasons to believe — and to act. They have the potential to trigger meaningful change.
Swedish furniture giant IKEA, for instance, has been committed to “transformational change” since 2012, with a focus positively impacting people and the planet. The brand has invested in a range of social entrepreneur-led projects around world and recently embarked on an ambitious project to employ refugees in Jordan, as part of a long-term plan to create employment for 200,000 people.
Over the past few years the culture at IKEA has undergone what has been described as a “generational shift” in support of a proactive view to a more humanitarian way of doing business, with a clear acknowledgement that corporations have a responsibility to be active and taking on the problems that the world faces. In 2016, IKEA’s flat-packed refugee housing solution, the “Better Shelter,” was awarded the Beazley Design of the Year.
San Francisco-based ride-sharing service Lyft pledged to donate $1 million to help the ACLU defend the constitution following Trump’s immigration order. It was an action that was in keeping with the company’s core values and culture. A statement by company founders said: “We created Lyft to be a model for the type of community we want the world to be: diverse, inclusive, safe.” Banning people of a particular faith or creed, race or identity sexuality or ethnicity, from entering the U.S. is antithetical to both Lyft’s and our nation’s core values.”
A number of other Silicon Valley companies expressed opposition to the immigration order, including Google, Microsoft and Apple
Ben Goldhirsh, is the co-founder & co-CEO of Good Worldwide, a global media brand and social impact company that recently merged with Upworthy, is decisive about the issue: “ Brands that see this as a macro business opportunity vastly outperform those that see it as opportunistic. This is not an exercise in window dressing, rather a core commitment to people and community. It should be viewed as a ‘guiding star’ that drives corporate strategy.”
There are clear signs of major shifts taking place in social and economic trends. Businesses that avoid acknowledging those shifts risk the very real possibility finding themselves on the wrong side of progress.
BREAKING THROUGH WITH CREATIVTY
More than ever, creativity is proving to be a critical tool for reaching consumers and empowering brands. Blending disciplines, understanding issues from outside the industry, and speaking in terms of human truths and values are critical to cutting through the noise and engaging with audiences in a meaningful way.
At a time when reliance on predictive data and algorithms is increasingly ubiquitous, consumers are less trusting of traditional marketing, as stated by Harvard-trained mathematician Cathy O’Neil:
“The real misunderstanding that people have about algorithms is that they assume that they’re fair and objective and helpful. There’s no reason to think of them as objective because data itself is not objective and people who build these algorithms are not objective.”
Viewing technology as a panacea and jumping on the next tech or social media bandwagon is unlikely to solve your marketing challenges.
A multidisciplinary approach fuels creative innovation. Collaboration with, and influence from, a diverse group of stakeholders from multiple disciplines like the arts, design, entertainment, architecture, and technology, to name a few, helps foster a more holistic view and more impactful creative output.
Sid Lee now forms part of the kyu collective, and shares the in the fundamental belief that creative collaboration can be a force that drives new solutions to the world’s toughest problems. The collective’s partner companies, including IDEO and SYPartners, harness their creativity as a source of positive impact and join together on key issues to propel the greater economy and society forward.
PROPELLING ECONOMIES AND SOCIETY FORWARD
Originally imagined by Sid Lee, C2 Montreal is an annual international creativity conference. “This year’s edition of C2 will be an invaluable resource for business leaders in navigating this new market reality, including curated content for marketing leaders” says Barbieri. C2 will bring together leading global thinkers, disruptors, and creative leaders around the theme Ecosystems: A new lens for exploring the intersection of commerce and creativity.
If you are a marketing whiz, you will be able to expand your horizons with a special track curated by Sid Lee and IDEO that will explore critical issues and trends impacting today’s marketing leaders and fast-changing marketing landscape, with content developed in collaboration with leading CMOs on topics including Creativity & Leadership, Social Impact, Design Thinking, Storytelling, Artificial Intelligence, Experiential Marketing, and Behavioural Science.
You may take advantage of our Friends of Sid Lee rate and book here: Sid Lee rate, using promo code SIDLOVESC2.Learn more about C2 here.
KEY TAKE-AWAYS
· Successful modern marketers understand the new reality: marketing is no longer just about marketing.
· Understanding technology and society and embracing disruptive new ideas is essential for senior marketing executives, who seek to play a central role and propel their organizations and careers forward. Above all, marketers understand the power of ideas to influence actions and create change.
· Establishing a brand voice and tying it in with broader issues of social and economic relevance is critical to building trust.
· Investments in innovation and creativity are key to broadening the impact and effectiveness of marketing and shepherding the role of brands into new territory.
· Business as usual is no longer an option. The brand landscape has forever changed and a new business dynamic is in play. CMOs can’t just focus on selling products and services anymore. Broader social and economic trends are not only impacting business strategy, but fundamentally shifting the way consumers view brands and the role that they play in society.
___
If you enjoyed this article, please subscribe to the Sid Lee newsletter to receive exclusive content each month.
Co-writers: Joseph Barbieri & Camille Cardin-Goyer
