How brands think about strategies and next-gen technologies

We had a conversation with Stacy Takaki Goss, the Head of Planning & Global Strategy Director at Spark44, who has over 25 years of experience in brand strategy on both sides of the Atlantic, and Josh Woods, brand strategist at the Accenture Metaverse Continuum Business Group. They both work with clients aiming to thrive in a highly competitive marketplace with increasingly diverse and sophisticated audiences, across a complex and dynamic media landscape. However, emerging technologies require brands to adapt and experiment, leaving them vulnerable to the rapid pace of change.

Stacy and Joss discuss the enhancing power of next-gen technologies at a time when solid brand strategy is more needed than ever to connect with people across new and exciting channels that challenge the traditional approach to building a brand voice.

What are the fundamentals of building a brand strategy today?

Stacy Takaki Goss: First and foremost, as a brand strategist, you need to be a passionate advocate for what the brand represents and be genuinely excited about what the brand wants to express to the world. It’s not just about embracing the brand’s purpose but also embracing the passion and excitement that the purpose generates. For example, UPS managed to make logistics exciting for the whole world. We need to harness the obsession people have with the purpose.

Secondly, simplicity is crucial. With the expansion of channels and global markets, it’s essential to articulate the brand and its meaning in a way that people can easily grasp.

Josh Woods: I’d like to offer a counterpoint to the passion aspect, which is humility. It’s important to understand realistically the role of a brand in the lives of its customers.

Given the current climate, how can you build a solid brand strategy under such complex circumstances?

Stacy Takaki Goss: Over the past 25 to 30 years, the landscape for building a brand has continuously evolved. We moved from building brands in retail and advertising environments to building brands in internet and social environments. Now, we’re looking at building our brands in deeper, more interactive environments. Throughout these changes, the understanding of what a brand represents and means to people has to evolve.

It’s a challenging time for brands because there used to be a consensus on what’s good, and positive, who’s in charge, and what leadership means. However, due to increased polarization in society, it’s harder to find shared common values that brands can safely embrace and say, “We believe in this.”

But that’s what makes brand planning and strategy interesting. The mediums change, people change, and culture changes, but the art and science of brand strategy remain the same.

Josh Woods: I agree. Brand strategy has always been about building a perception of value. I started my career at the tail end of the digital revolution when people realized that digital enhances brand building, but it doesn’t fundamentally change it. For instance, a lagging brand can demonstrate innovative, progressive, or sustainable behaviors by adopting new tech and utilizing emerging media channels. New technologies can be great assets for a brand.

And how about the role of the consumer in building a brand today?

JW: Great brand strategy involves understanding the consumer and their needs, then building products, services, and advertising campaigns around that understanding. Being customer-centric has always been a good business practice for brands, but economic conditions have reached a point where customer-centricity is viewed as a nice-to-have rather than a must-have.

STG: Absolutely. A customer-focused brand needs to stay relevant to its customers, which has been the norm for a long time. However, in many cases, “being relevant” has been used as a way to censor certain types of people, behavior, or relationships. It has been used as a code for not embracing progressive values in certain markets. Brands need to understand what they truly stand for, what they believe in, and their key point of differentiation. They should identify the consumers that share those values and seek to engage them in ways that are creative, effective, and additive to their experience, and not just blasting irrelevant messaging on every channel possible.

JW: On the other hand, brands need to be mindful to marry consumer and cultural insight with an innovation-led mindset, a differentiated proposition, and a clear, well-communicated positioning.

Can you share some examples of successful brand strategies?

STG: There isn’t a single definition of success. When you have a radically new service or product, it requires a different approach to branding. Companies like Starbucks, Red Bull, Amazon, Uber, and Tesla heavily invested in marketing, not advertising, to build strong brands. They were disruptors, bold, and different. Being new gives a brand an edge, but newness doesn’t last forever.

All these companies adapted their strategies over time. They now engage in advertising, focus on search, and even run promotions. And just when you think you’ve seen everything and that everything has already been done, suddenly, a technology like ChatGPT emerges, and the whole world knows about it. It brings something new and accessible, and everyone recognizes it as a brand.

JW: To me a successful strategy balances the short and long term, following the principles set out in Binet and Feild’s ‘The Long and Short Of It.’ For example, Airbnb has found success recently in investing in building a stronger, more resilient brand for the long term through creative PR activations, and pivoting away from short-term focused sales-driving activity.

STG: The key question is how long a brand’s success will last. Second Life lost much of its value, and there are countless internet companies that were famous for a few months and then disappeared. Many social media brands achieve cult status quickly, only to be sold or absorbed by larger brands within 3–5 years. This is also accepted by users and fans. Creating a cool brand, selling it, making money, and moving on. Micro and social brands are changing the traditional brand-building process, and it’s fascinating.

Sport leagues have been building strong brands for a long time now; the NBA and the NFL are great examples of brand building with the complexity of multibrand (teams) identities. But they have embraced new technology and are doing lots of fun experimentation.

The National Hockey League, for example, is recreating goals as 3D Roblox highlights through the league’s puck and player tracking system, which collects data from sensors in the puck and player jerseys and cameras in arenas.

When a client asks about the latest cool tech, what is your response?

STG: I always ask why. In most cases, a good reason cannot be found.

There’s a great quote from the marketing director at Burberry, even though it’s nearly 10 years old now. His perspective at the time was that Burberry didn’t conform to fit the rules of new media; instead, they made new media adapt to the needs of the brand. Regarding one of the new platforms, he mentioned that it wasn’t considered a luxury behavior until Burberry made it one.

JW: If you’re a brand, you need to prioritize your audience first and your brand audience second. Let’s take Fortnite, for example. As a brand, you don’t want to do something that detracts from the experience people already value there. It’s about understanding the overall experience and incorporating those concepts of passion, humility, and balance. You must strongly believe in your brand while being humble enough to recognize that you’re part of a bigger experience. A brand plan should set the strategic foundation which experimentation and fun build upon with these new places, platforms, and technologies.