Brief 1 and 2 Brands User Experience/Current thinking

Thomas Moranzo

Thomas Moranzo

What is a brand
It is not just a logo
It is not just a slogan
It is not just a product

'A Brand is a consumers feeling about your product, your services or organisation' Martin Numeier/ Brand Gap

A Brand is what people feel it is.

Phillips the feeling they want their consumer's to have is 'simplicity'
Methodology User experience Flow...  Allows research social listening and visual data they have it helps them as a team  focus on the areas that matter and share.  Enables them t respond precisely

Being Social by design.

A live discussion about Brands on The Guardian Media Network

branding-future-consumers-product-live-discussion

Dean Johnson is vice president at Brandwidth Innovation Lab
Phil Dearson is head of strategy and user experience at Tribal DDB
Toto Ellis is a strategy director at TBWA\London
Sam Fielding is senior brand manager at Kronenbourg 1664
Jeroen Matser is vice president of strategy at Blast Radius
Toby Southgate is CEO of The Brand Union
Juliet Stott is a director and head of content at White Horse Digital

Key points

• crowd-sourcing as a brand strategy i.e. getting your consumers to build your brand for you.
• If a brand has a powerful belief about the world/category it operates in and a clear behaviour to evidence that belief then the answer can be both comms and behaviour itself. Brands will always be judged by the sum total of their behaviours, but there is still a role for advertising in setting out the brand's belief. Even the most modern brands like Red Bull, Google etc. do both, not one or the other...
• Important to look at your brand strategy, identify the key strategic focuses for communications, and then define (usually with a good planning agency) what's the best activity to deliver the objective(s).
• It's the moments of interaction, the collection of experiences, that influence consumers relationships with brands. The balance of power has flipped on its head. 'Advertising' is one of those experiences, but far from the only one. Great brands perform consistently across all moments of interaction.
• People trust and buy into other people's experiences increasingly over a brand-led ad.
• Successful brands now disrupt consumer narrative. Sounds like buzzwords but means the brand talks to its audience at an acceptable level, and introduces products and services in a meaningful way. A 2-way conversation, rather than a ignored billboard or skipped web or TV ad.
• What is clear is that many of these examples are blurring the lines between identity, branding, advertising and communications - the core brands remain central and become the launch pad for entire schemes, never pushed back into the corner and back to anonymity. These changes cost money, but in many cases the funds and awareness raised quickly offset the outlay.
• The strongest brands in the world set out their own agenda and POV first, but inviting audiences in is essential as part of a brand's activity. They'll ultimately decide if they believe you and what they like about you. I find it hard to find any major examples of consumers creating the brand from its inception
• User experience (online and off) should be at the heart of the way brands communicate with their audiences, but that doesn't mean a death to advertising. I do feel however that brands aren't on the whole aren't recognising the multitude of ways their customers are coming to them. Campaigns are often built around 'multi-platform' concepts, but in my experience, when the brand presence itself doesn't live up to this, you end up with frustrated customers. That's a pretty holistic take on UX,
• A look to the future indicates they'll be doing more content, less paid for advertising. Just look at how Nike has shifted its focus. It only spends 33% of its budget on paid for ads. This is the future.
• re crowdsourcing - blunt and quick view is that this can be an interesting research model when brands are defining new offers, but it's less useful for existing brands with existing strategies, equities, consumers, distribution channels, business models...
• Any digital activity, be it crowd sourcing or experience engineering, has to be part of a total brand experience strategy. Inconsistency is unsettling for consumers, so all your touchpoints must ultimately lead back to the same core brand story
• Do you think data will become a bigger part of brands strategies in the future, it seems at the moment plenty of company's are failing to spot opportunities within data
• there is a nice talk from Michael Buck at Dell in the link below. He talks about a vision for the company where they strive to become a real-time decision making structure in the years to come. That is the most challenging part of Data. http://www.bazaarvoice.co.uk/resources/videos/summit-europe-2011-michael-buck-dell
• There is a risk we divert our attention to creating experiences as a mean to an end and forgetting that brands are ultimately created to persuade and influence a purchase decision. Ads are still part of that.
• Ads still work, it's just the opportunities to skip them before we get to the punchline are increasing. They need to work harder and faster where this occurs, or move on.
• Nike is a great example. Their organising belief is probably "If you have a body, you're an athlete". That can inform the next innovation like Fuel Band as much as the next big ad or indeed their endline. I hear you - spends are shifting. I remember PlayStation being told to shift their spend to 60/40 digital/ads 2 years ago. But I think both sides of the coin require a coherent, if not consistent story/belief/narrative
• I think brands that meet their customers across all channels will be most successful. Take a look at Domino's Pizza. It engages on every platform:- from in-store self service touch screens, to digital TV, to a mobile optimised site. It meets its customer’s needs and demands at a precise moment in time in a consistent way.
• I'm sat next to around 8 of our finest @tbwalondon data planners who are crunching the numbers for Four Seasons. Harnessing guest data will be essential to their focus over the next few years as all travel brands seek to customise the experience. The key is what to focus on in what order on the journey to the holy grail of one to one customisation. Data is of massive significance for sure @oliver. I even know a client who recently monetised their data division as its own business.
• What are the panel's views on a 'traditional' brand with a strong history that in order to survive has to change the way it engages....eg: the guardian. Do they have to accept they will loose some old loyalists in the hunt for the bigger digital pool? Are they missing any brand strategies in keeping the old and aquiring the new?
• I think you can keep both audiences happy. Embrace openness to audience participation in the right spaces e.g. here but in the traditional product people will always value the high calibre journalism and commentary that only an experienced journalist can provide. Knowing that twitter will give you the quickest channel to let the world know what's going on inside a courtroom is important, but never to the detriment of why people pay for The Guardian - for world-class commentary and journalism
• To my previous comment re brands becoming defined by moments of interactions - the whole point is that great brands should deliver a consistent experience, through whichever channels you choose as a consumer to engage with them. It's YOUR choice whether you phone, go into Domino's, use the web or download the app. You may do many of these over time depending what you're up to, who you're with...if your experiences vary, Domino's is failing from an experience standpoint.
• Vasileios Tziokas, Marketing Manager at Upstream, a world leader in mobile marketing solutions. I think that the next big shift in online advertising is around original content development and storytelling. Native advertising is booming but it still has a lot to learn. BuzzFeed and QZ have implemented this kind of ad business models in a unique way.
•  There are some interesting things going on with 'native' advertising and Buzzfeed are a leading example for that. It's just a question of scale and how brands can engage with this kind of marketing activity in a way that's credible.
•  Referring to quartz news. i think they have tailored their ads on the business content they are producing and the reading flow is very smooth
• It is scientifically proven that human mind is more inclined to "interact" with a message when it doesn;t need to interrupt what it is doing. Usual banner ads do interrupt the customer from what he is doing at that given time resulting not only to poor ROI but also negative brand impressions.
• The problem for them is, convincing more brands to invest in getting that kind of advertising put together. Their editor (Kevin Delaney) spoke at an event we just held in New York, and we introduced their commercial team to a couple of digital brand marketers interested in this sort of thing at a small event in London just before Christmas. Hopefully, Quartz will lead and the rest will follow. Condé Nast's studio is also doing some interesting stuff in this space. A couple of examples here of in-app advertising: GQ iPad apps from Hyundai and Omega
• Brands that combine interaction with consumers - be it on social media or advertising will have greater engagement. We loved the Nivea ad for this reason. A view can create the narrative themselves & change the outcome of the ad. We believe this type of advertising will be the future.
•  social media platforms have transformed the relationship between the consumer & the brand. It's no longer a top down relationship. Take Jamie Oliver on twitter this morning asking people to choose a backdrop to his new menu sleeve. Or on a more corporate level look at Rowan Dunne of O2 - he uses twitter to walk the floor every night to check what his customers are saying - he personally responds to disgruntled customers. It's great. Makes big brands more accountable.
• Social Media has fundamentally changed the way in which consumers 'experience' brands. While Social may not yet be as scaled as other traditional media, it can deepen the relationship between consumers and your brand. Consumers expect to find brands in the digital space. The challenge is to embrace this so your brand is part of the conversation, but importantly, do so in a way that feels true to your brand and its story, and consistent with it's tone of voice.
• Social media - for audiences, an opportunity - to write/comment/talk back. For brands, both a risk and an opportunity. We've seen the risk side when working with BA, where an effective, always on conversation management strategy was needed during the strikes and indeed always. On the flip side, for Skittles it was a hell of an opportunity - to take the brand belief/behaviour out into the world and entertain people daily
•  I am still surprised how many brand guidelines completely lack any behavioral traits or components. With the rise of Social brands will have to define how they interact with their customers. Think we are only scratching the surface of what this means for any brand.
• Social media is THE most important brand channel - but only if staffed by humans rather than viewed as yet another broadcast opportunity. Our Citroën Click campaign was massively successful for the client as we crowdsourced the first Facebook car - and put the end result into production. You can't do this every time but the audience understands this and still feels part of the brand.
• There are more smartphones being sold each day than babies being born worldwide. Everyone will have this technology within the next 3 years. Currently 54% of the UK has a smartphone, 21% a tablet. Domino's has recognised this shift and been first to meet customers there. With handsets & contracts getting cheaper - more & more consumers will be demanding these services. What Domino's is good at is meeting consumers on where ever they are.
• Brands like Innocent do this brilliantly. (was voted most social brand in 2012). We love Yorkshire Tea's new "behind the scenes" ad of the new ad. It connects the consumers with the people creating the brand and the advert itself. It tells the story of the ad. Great for user engagement. Consumers need to be rewarded for their interest and curioisity.
• DO think mobile, but do it properly
• DON'T think social if you're not going to put a human on the other end ALWAYS assume you audience adopts new technology and networks faster than you do. You'll rarely get there before they do... unless you work with people who's job it is to get you to the front. Brands that recognise we're a nation of 2nd & 3rd screeners will have the highest user engagement. Social TV is one element of this. Brands that are successful will have the best disruption strategy.
• As for DOs - listen 24/7 to your consumers needs - give them what they want, when they want it on every channel.
• Do give your customers something extra, added value, reward loyalty
• Don't - talk down to your consumers.
• Don't complicate the message.
• Do think of brand as reputation, that can build and influence through an evolved awareness of the experiences you offer consumers .
• Don't think brand = tactics and executions and campaigns.

Some slides from Marty Numeier The Brand Gap  This reinforces a lot of the other research I have done around Brands today. This is about how companies can narrow the gap between Creativity and Strategy.  Like Simon Manchipp this advocates brands which can change and interact with people.

The Brand Gap from coolstuff

Creative Review - Whats in a name

Branding in the experience - An article by True North, their first 'Think Piece'

I have got a copy of this but didn't think I should put on Issuu.