Insight Categories: Brand Strategy

Super Bowl commercial water cooler talk is the natural order of business, especially at marketing agencies, in FEBRUARY! But who knew it would follow me to March—the end of March mind you, during Spring Break. Seriously.

There I was yesterday, minding my own business, enjoying a spring training game in Florida with my son and our beloved Washington Nationals, when from the top of the aisle I hear the beer vendor bellow, “Peanuts, water, ice cold Dilly Dilly!” Again, “Dilly Dilly, ice cold!”

It’s no secret that Wieden+Kennedy’s advertising for Bud Light launched last year, ran during pretty much every football game, went viral and is now a “love it or hate it” campaign and Urban Dictionary catch phrase that just won’t go away. And then, to hear this affirmed, nay proclaimed long after the end of football season, beckoning the beginning of baseball wasn’t entirely unexpected. But it was surprising—pleasantly, even joyously surprising.

And, dammit, instructive.

What got me was the reaction of the crowd. Our beer vendor’s town crier “Ice cold Dilly Dilly!” chant sparked a wave of infectious smiles and chuckles in the sea of parents, grandparents, and kids in section 116. Good will and camaraderie drifted happily through the crowd, followed by an echo of “Dilly Dilly!” from fans in row K, responding with resolve to our vendor’s battle cry for beer, “Yes, I’ll have a Bud Light—thank you, Kind Sir—Dilly Dilly!” The chuckles grew louder and spread to section 115 next door, right behind the Nats dugout. I think Bryce Harper heard the call as well, but alas could not reply as he was next up to bat.

So, crap, I’m not supposed to be thinking about work on Spring Break. Yet, here I am, sipping coffee at 6 AM, thinking about marketing and strategy implications for Grafik and our clients. And there are several:

First of all—Strategy? C’mon. It’s not like Anheuser-Busch crafted a strategy to spew “Game of Thrones” inspired nonsense and fun in their Bud Light marketing? Well, actually, they did: in a Business Insider interview last month, Miguel Patricio, Chief Marketing Officer of Anheuser-Busch InBev, shared, “‘Dilly Dilly’ doesn’t mean anything. That’s the beauty of it. I think that we all need our moments of nonsense and fun. And I think that ‘Dilly Dilly,’ in a way, represents that.”

Okay, then the research numbers must have strongly supported the campaign? Actually, they didn’t. Mr. Patricio continued, “A lot of people asked me, ‘How did you approve that?’ To tell you the truth, we never expected this to be so successful. We did that ad, actually, because of the new season of “Game of Thrones” coming, but when we tested, it didn’t test that well. We said, ‘Consumers will get it.’ And especially with repetition. We have a chance here for this to become big. So, we went against the research and we gave a chance to ‘Dilly Dilly’ and we are so happy!”

Happy, indeed.

The lesson here is central to brand strategy—something we discussed just last week in two different branding workshops with our clients: “Don’t forget the right brain. The essence of your brand isn’t just what you say about it, it’s also how it makes people feel.” Yes, the words are important—critical in fact, but make sure they do more than just explain the “debate points” of your selling proposition. They have to articulate the idea of your brand and the feeling it conveys. This is true for all companies working through brand and marketing strategies—including Grafik’s Fortune 100, technology, startup, and Government agency clients who are all solving this right now.

The second lesson comes not only from our “Dilly Dilly” town crier beer vendor, but also from a short video segment from the seat screen on my JetBlue flight down to Florida. In an interview, a prominent CEO was asked, “What was the best piece of business advice you ever received?” She said, “Trust your gut.”

Trust it, indeed.

AB focused on how Bud Light makes you feel, trusted their gut, and launched a very successful advertising campaign. It’s not their only marketing and messaging, of course. We all know the “debate points” about why we should choose Bud Light over other light beers. But these facts, mixed with a ballpark full of fans sharing a feeling of delight and attaching it to the Bud Light brand, completes the picture.

“Dilly, Dilly!” indeed.

In a previous blog, I mentioned website personalization as a key to engaging audiences and improving mobile experiences. What, precisely, is website personalization, and how can it help your business?

Rather than following a broad one-size-fits-all approach, website personalization creates and delivers customized content to meet user needs. This is not a new approach. Shop keepers get to know their regular customers, call them by names and know their likes and preferences—it’s what keeps them coming back. For companies to achieve the equivalent on their websites, they need to use digital technology and perform regular user research to deliver personalized experiences.

Persona Development

Creating personalization starts with getting to know your customers. You can’t generalize your audience’s needs and still provide a truly relevant user experience. User research needs to be conducted on a regular basis to segment your users into key groups sharing similar needs and backgrounds, known as personas. The purpose of creating these personas is to have reliable and realistic representations of your key audience segments for reference. According to usability.gov, effective personas:

• Represent a major user group for your website
• Express and focus on the major needs and expectations of the most important user groups
• Give a clear picture of the user’s expectations and how they’re likely to use the site
• Aid in uncovering universal features and functionality
• Describe real people with backgrounds, goals, and values
• Help formulate decisions surrounding site components by adding a layer of real-world consideration to the conversation
• Offer a quick and inexpensive way to test and prioritize features throughout the development process

Buyer’s Journey

Modern marketers coined the term Buyer’s Journey referring to the progression of consumers, from research to final decision, that culminates in a purchase.

It’s a three-stage process:

1. Awareness Stage: The buyer realizes they have a problem.
2. Consideration Stage: The buyer defines their problem and researches options.
3. Decision Stage: The buyer chooses a solution.

The graphic below from HubSpot, illustrates a sample buyer’s journey for the simple purchasing decision of a doctor visit during an illness.

Personalized Experiences

After personas and their buyer’s journey have been determined, a company can tailor site architecture, landing pages, and on-site navigational cues that deliver relevant content and rich on-site experiences specific to each stage of that journey. An important part of your digital marketing strategy is to be omni-channel, allowing prospects to choose the right channel for them at the right time; a website alone will not sell product or drive leads.

Monetate’s 2017 Personalization Development Study reports that organizations across all levels of maturity use an array of different data sources to personalize communications. Few are fully integrating offline and online data insights today, a reflection of the challenges that still exist when integrating data sources.

(Source: Monetate’s 2017 Personalization Development Study)

Personas and buyer’s journeys help set the framework, but companies need to continue to mine analytics and digital tools to help deliver real time relevance. Retailers can provide targeted offers to online shoppers based on browsing behavior. Travel websites can offer promotions based on the current weather or season. Restaurant and coffee shops can highlight stores near a user based on their location.

Implementation Challenges

Despite the tremendous value it can bring, personalization is complicated—gathering buyer insights, data integration, and connecting systems is indeed hard work. Again, Monetate’s 2017 Personalization Development Study shows how companies can take a phased approach in their personalization strategy, making it less daunting to implement.

(Source: Monetate’s 2017 Personalization Development Study)

The findings are unanimous: personalization is important

Consumer expectations have shifted: they now expect a personal digital experience to be comparable to offline experiences. Many business and technology leaders name personalization as a top commerce technology investment priority. Personalization increases loyalty, drives higher conversions, and grows revenue. Google reports that eighty-nine percent of U.S. marketers reported that personalization on their websites or apps resulted in an increase in revenue. According to BCG, “brands that create personalized experiences by integrating advanced digital technologies and proprietary data for customers are seeing revenue increase by 6% to 10%—two to three times faster than those that don’t. As a result, personalization leaders stand to capture a disproportionate share of category profits in the new age of individualized brands while slow movers will lose customers, share, and profits.”

Personalization offers companies the ability to engage with consumers individually and to build lasting relationships. Advances in data and technology are already making this possible, and will only improve over time. Take advantage of personalizing your online branded experience to better engage with your customers, so that when they are ready to purchase, you are top of mind. Learn more about personas and content strategy. 

Grafik, a Washington, DC metro area-based branding and digital marketing agency, and Merritt Clubs, an affiliate of Merritt Companies, today announced its joint receipt of the prestigious REBRAND 100® Global Award for their collaborative efforts in successfully positioning and rebranding the Baltimore-based fitness club. This highly respected biennial competition, judged by a panel of international business, marketing and design executives, showcases the world’s most effective brand transformations through its evaluation of design and measurable results.

Merritt Companies engaged Grafik in 2017 to align its three distinct organizations—Merritt Clubs, Merritt Properties and Merritt Construction Services—under a singular vision of delivering uncompromising service. The rebrand of Merritt Clubs focused on better expressing and distinguishing its bold and vibrant connection to the Baltimore, MD community. A strategic transition from the name “Merritt Athletic Clubs” to the more inclusive “Merritt Clubs”—followed by a reimagined logo, a new mantra, visual identity, and website—have helped underscore the company’s value to both prospective and existing members and employees.

“We chose to work with Grafik because of its unparalleled creative eye and strategic, business-driven approach to branding,” said Donyel Cerceo, Marketing Director of Merritt Clubs. “We have always been focused on the well-being of our members, and Grafik captured the spirit of our clubs. The rebrand and new website are allowing us to create a stronger, more personal experience for them.”

Health clubs have come a long way since the days of a warehouse space with rows of machines. They have matured in their settings—and their marketing. For the Merritt Clubs rebrand, Grafik leveraged member surveys, market research, and online analytics to inform user experience personas that cover the entire gamut of potential members, both in the city of Baltimore and surrounding counties. The new identity underscores Merritt Clubs’ brand personality and family-friendly clubs and the new website experience makes it easy to quickly surface relevant classes and activities for each persona, and targeted offers are tested continually to achieve the best response from visitors.

“Merritt Clubs is a great example of what a true rebrand looks like. When work is grounded in research and strategy, the final product is an authentic, timeless, and effective foundation that supports business and drives tangible results,” said Lance Wain, President and CEO of Grafik. “We are a proud partner of the Merritt Companies and are elated to share in this award with Merritt Clubs.”

New Merritt Clubs Brand Driving Record Results
The new Merritt Clubs brand debuted January 2017 and year-over-year lead growth is up 39%; website visitors up 37%; page views up 28%. With this increased engagement, the average cost per lead and per sale have decreased dramatically, and marketing has gone from influencing just 13% of overall sales to 41% of overall sales. With member engagement and club visits up as well, the future looks bright for record renewals, as utilization is an indicator of likely membership renewal.

Rebrand Part of a Larger Strategic Branding Initiative for Merritt Companies
The rebranding of Merritt Clubs was part of a broader strategic branding initiative for Merritt Companies which included Merritt Properties and Merritt Construction Services. From customer service and ethics, to empowering employees to make decisions in the best interest of customers, Merritt Construction Services, Merritt Properties, and Merritt Clubs share a singular vision to build long term relationships with their customers, delivering beyond what they expect, or the industry demands.

While the three companies have a clear connection in terms of services, the overall look and feel didn’t adequately communicate that singular vision. To address this challenge, Grafik established a framework and brand architecture for a more consistent marketing of their three individual companies. This created a cohesive corporate identity, including a bold new logo system tying all the brands together.

About Merritt Clubs:
Merritt Clubs currently has more than 37,000 members who enjoy 24-hour access to locations in downtown Baltimore and the surrounding suburbs. Each location offers individual and group fitness programs including personal trainers, world-class Les Mills programs, weight facilities as well as specific amenities designed to meet the needs of the local community. Three locations feature state-of-the-art swimming facilities, and offer classes through the Michael Phelps Swim School.

About REBRAND 100®:
REBRAND recognizes the impact of strategy and creative efforts by noting standout improvements to website performance, return on marketing investment, and sales attribution. The REBRAND 100 Global awards are juried by a multidisciplinary panel of prominent, international experts. Other notable REBRAND 100 Global award winners include national and global brands such as Seimens, SAP, McAfee, Grant Thornton, Hawaiian Airlines, and AT&T. For more information, click here.

Check out the full story of our successful partnership with Merritt Clubs here!

We live in an age where technology has transformed the way we approach marketing. With more access to data than ever before, digital tools are becoming increasingly robust. Marketers are now armed with an immense amount of information that allows them to target the right person, at the right time, in the most efficient way possible. But marketers who focus intently on the delivery method can often lose sight of what matters most: your brand’s voice.

While digital has dramatically changed how we market brands and where we spend our marketing dollars, the core principles of creating your message haven’t. It’s still important to go through a discovery phase to identify who you’re targeting, what’s relevant to them, and how your brand will stand out. Great creative has the power to transform businesses, inspire customers, and make people pay attention in a noisy world. So why do marketers sometimes place more focus on the medium versus the message?

The danger in that is the risk your brand faces in losing itself in a sea of sameness. And, from an investment of resources perspective, having the medium dictate your strategy and message puts the control of your brand’s voice in the hands of a platform you don’t really own. That’s scary, and here’s why:

Mediums change. They rise and they fall, or they transform so much they’re barely the same one you knew when they launched (would you have clicked on one of the world’s first banner ads?) Many of us have witnessed the demise of once popular platforms (looking at you, Vine), and are watching the costs of advertising increase on channels we’d grown to love (thanks, Facebook). It’s made marketers reconsider where they spend their dollars, change strategy, and in some cases, lose the ability to advertise on entire channels that have become too expensive or even obsolete. Who knew that Vine, once the apple of every digital marketer’s eye, would die on the vine?

Now, it’s not to say that the medium doesn’t matter any more or is any less important. Some brands like Spotify have even leveraged the power of data to create clever, OOH ad campaigns. Marketers should simply be viewing digital, and any other channel, as just that: another delivery vehicle for your message. Granted, there are certainly strategies where a message is built for a specific medium, but your campaign still begins with the creative and what your brand has to say, not where it says it.

Striking the right balance between technology and creative is hard, and marketers have incredible access to data and innovative digital tools. Investing in and staying on top of them is a must to thrive. Just don’t get caught up in chasing what’s new and shiny without thinking about what your brand is saying first.

“Ok, Google,” say “Hi” to Alexa and “Hey” to Siri. No matter how you say it and which platform you’re accustomed to speaking to, the bottom line is tech is making a big splash in at-home convenience as builders such as Van Metre Homes and EYA design homes with built-in technology packages that create an always on environment.

Gone are the days of getting off the couch to turn your lights on or preheat the oven. Remember when you had to guess who that big-eyed bobblehead was outside your front-door as you peered into a tiny peep-hole? Now we see the person drive up to the garage while digital voices alert us that someone has entered the premises; as they walk to the door we broadcast a greeting through our smartphone’s doorbell video app.

It may seem a bit scary that your new home can practically read your mind, prepare your meals, and tuck you in at night, but there are a lot of advantages to smart home automation features. Cost and energy savings, convenience, and control are just the start.

What’s really driving home automation technology is safety and home security–in other words, peace of mind. A new mom or dad can check on their little one thanks to smart cameras and other technologies. If you can’t remember whether you closed the garage after you left, you can verify remotely with an app. Automated lighting is the new scarecrow for would-be bulgars. You can set your smart locks to turn on your smart lighting when you unlock the front door. With home automation technology, you can know what’s happening inside and outside of your house at all times–very smart indeed.

The market for one-off devices to make homes safer and more secure has grown steadily; it only makes sense that major real estate developers are integrating smart home automation into the construction process. Consumers are willing to pay a premium for these modern day conveniences–by 2020 the global smart home market is forecast at more than $40 billion. With smart home automation products on the rise, here’s a glance at some of the top tech trends that developers are starting to include in thoughtfully designed homes and communities.

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Watch a child playing alone with dolls or action figures, and in almost all cases you’ll hear a very lively discussion, with many different voices used and personas assumed. Are we hardwired to talk to non-sentient objects? Can it be as satisfying to interact with a chatbot as a human? If all you want is a fast, accurate answer – of course.

A HubSpot survey tells us that as long as they can get help quickly and easily, 40% of consumers don’t care whether a chatbot or a person answers their customer service questions. Gartner predicts that by 2020, the average person will have more conversations with bots than with their spouse (I think this stat is more revealing on the state of marriages than the use of augmented intelligence). Is this the end of world as we know it (cue Michael Stipe), or a golden age of convenience?

What, if anything, are we giving up when we interact with AI rather than a person? Or is that even the right question to be asking?

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away—actually, it only feels that way. In truth, it was at UC Irvine just before the dawn of personal computers. The computer science department needed an English graduate student to grade papers for a class called “Ethics in Computer Science.” There was no coding, no labs, the required reading was Joseph Weizenbaum’s Computer Science and Human Reason, and I was the grad student.

Considered by many the father of artificial intelligence, Weizenbaum had created ELIZA, a natural language processing program that mimicked Rogerian therapy. He named it for the flower seller in Pygmalion (perhaps better known as My Fair Lady). Reduced to its basics, a Rogerian therapist lets the patient arrive at his or her own conclusion by restating what they are told (“How are you feeling today?” “I’m a little blue.” “So, you’re unhappy?”). In his book, Weizenbaum recounts the time his secretary at MIT asked him to leave the room while she “spoke” with ELIZA. Even with full knowledge that ELIZA was a program, Weizenbaum’s secretary was having a personal and powerful interaction. And she was simply typing! Now that we talk to machines, the connection is much more intimate.

The CS students were to write papers on the difference between decision-making as a purely computational exercise and the uniquely human qualities that lead to choice (whether these are truly unique is the subject of a much larger discussion). I dutifully graded their papers, marked one a “C” that probably deserved a “D” and received an office hour visit from that student. He wanted a better grade. I went over all the flaws in logic, all the grammatical mistakes, what he could do to re-write it for a better grade.

“English doesn’t matter,” he said. “Coding will rule the world.”

“People will always speak to each other,” I said.

I think we were both right.

What we choose to hand over to machines

I do not know my own son’s phone number because I have never dialed it. It’s been programmed in my phone forever. While likely typical today, this still strikes me as strange. But handing over certain brain functions (mostly data storage) has been going on a long time.

A few thousand years ago, Homer (if there was a Homer) was never read—he was heard. Rhapsodes (yes, it’s the root of the word rhapsody) roamed the countryside and recited, or more accurately, sang the Iliad and the Odyssey from memory, as well as other histories of the Trojan War that are lost to us. Let me repeat that: from memory. These rhapsodes were not freaks of nature. Indeed, cultures without a written language studied in more modern times also share the recitation of long and complex oral histories.

Do we, in a sense, voluntarily relinquish certain brain functions to technologies: tablets, scrolls, books, recordings, integrated circuits? And can the adoption of these technologies lead to a re-wiring of our brains? Does this freedom from mundane tasks allow us to be more creative? Is brainpower a zero-sum game? A Forbes article titled AI By The Numbers cites this stat from PwC: 34% of business executives say that the time freed up from using digital assistants allows them to focus on deep thinking and creating.

From the same Forbes piece, we get this stat from Business Insider: 48% of consumers worldwide said they preferred a chatbot that solved their issue over a chatbot that had a personality.

Remember Clippy?

No one needs to design personality into our assistants; the user naturally supplies it. For years, we’ve called our cars “he” or “she.” Anthropomorphism is common and is even cited as a sign of social intelligence.

Of course, with any sea change there is dislocation. Again, from Business Insider:
“Twenty-nine percent of customer service positions in the US could be automated through chatbots and other tech, according to Public Tableau. We estimate this translates to $23 billion in savings from annual salaries, which does not even factor in additional workforce costs like health insurance.”

When I see the words savings in annual salaries I also see men and women at the unemployment office. Yes, in the long run, freedom from menial work means opportunity for more rewarding work and greater responsibility. And as we go from “augmented intelligence” to “autonomous intelligence,” the tasks that can be given to machines continues to grow. Now that programs can “see,” what other jobs will be ceded to computer vision? The London Police initiated a specialized unit called the “Super-Recognizers” just two years ago, comprised of people with an uncanny ability to recognize faces. I think a face-off between them and Google’s AutoML AI system would be a better show than Ken Jennings versus IBM’s Watson on Jeopardy was.

All of which brings me back to ethics. As we rush to commercialize advances in AI, I was surprised to learn there is an organization called the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society, Partnership on AI for short. It’s founding partners are Amazon, Apple, Google, DeepMind, Facebook, IBM and Microsoft. Other partners include the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, McKinsey, and Accenture. Interesting bedfellows. They were “established to study and formulate best practices on AI technologies, to advance the public’s understanding of AI, and to serve as an open platform for discussion and engagement about AI and its influences on people and society.” I know I’m now sleeping better. Alexa, wake me when it’s over.

Last Spring, I praised Spotify for their witty, data-driven billboard ads. Their clever out-of-home (OOH) creative aligned the weirdness of 2017 with the equally weird streaming habits of its users. Being one my favorite campaigns, I was elated to find out that they chose to extend the campaign with a sequel focusing on a more optimistic view of the year to come.

This year’s billboards present tongue-in-cheek New Year’s resolutions (called “2018 Goals” to give the postings a longer life past New Year’s Day) based on obscure and hilarious, streaming data. They also added street-level, classic carnival-like cutouts to the mix, encouraging folks to take and share photos online.

Spotify not only uses their aggregate data to reveal quirky or obsessive listening habits to the public, they provide each subscriber a personalized playlist for the past year and an interactive website. To entice users to interact with and share these websites, Spotify utilized quizzes to test the user’s own listening habits (i.e. “Do you really know who your top artist of the year was?”).

I live for this yearly tradition. I’m a Spotify fiend (as evidenced by my 44 straight days’ worth of streaming) and can’t wait to see how many minutes I racked up at the end of the year. I’m even more eager to see the strange streaming habits of my fellow Spotify addicts and how they translate to Spotify’s next OOH campaign. This kind of slicing and dicing of datasets my inner nerd on fire, and gets Spotify tons of free press from users sharing their stats while simultaneously making a personalized connection that very few monster corporations are able to execute. It’s a perfect example of a company correctly aligning its brand with a data-driven campaign.

As celebratory and wonderful as the Spotify campaign is, fellow technology giant Netflix’s attempt to use what they know about their audience was clumsy and alienating. They did a fine job of mining some unusual habits, but used it to be downright snide and nasty.

Rather than overtly copy Spotify with a billboard ad with a positive punch line, Netflix chose a social media push to tweet, and unfortunately, “troll” its users.

Here’s the tweet:

The fact that 53 people watched A Christmas Prince, a Netflix original production, 18 days in a row is certainly an outlier piece of data prime for promotion. The tweet did indeed go viral, but the backlash was brutal:

Rather than celebrating the unique streaming habits of its users, as Spotify did, Netflix ridiculed them. “Who hurt you?” comes across as judgmental and condescending, rather than praising their users’ uniqueness. I love free press and viral content as much as the next digital marketer, but not all press is good press and I’d argue that aggravating your consumer base not only impacts your bottom line, but can dilute your brand, too.

With consumers increasingly sensitive to the amount of personal data being collected, companies must be more careful than ever. If a company is willing to give their audience a peek behind the curtain and show even a breadcrumb of the mountain of data they’re housing, they must do so with a sound strategy that maps back to their brand. Consider the Netflix tweet in light of their brand, a brand with huge equity expertly mapped by Gretel in a recent re-brand.

Netflix established itself as a global innovator that connects people with stories and thought-provoking content—creating an addiction to binge watching “what’s next.” I love this branding, but it does not align with a trolling personality on Twitter.

This is not to say that trolling is never successful. Wendy’s is known for going viral on Twitter by trolling its users; Denny’s Tumblr is celebrated for its sarcastic personality—this works for both companies because they’re playful, quirky brands in the fast food industry. However, when your go-to video streaming company starts to roast you for your choices, it just doesn’t feel right. Global innovators shouldn’t troll you, they should revolutionize industries, and this misalignment of brand and social presence was the catalyst for the campaign failure.

It’s not enough to have a “trendy” strategy—companies must have the right strategy for their brand. Data-driven campaigns are a strong way to connect with a vast user base, and quirky social media personalities are prime for viral reach, but it is critical to make sure your campaign aligns with your company’s north star. As former Disney CEO Michael Eisner said, “A brand is a living entity. It is enriched or undermined cumulatively over time, the product of a thousand small gestures.”

Make sure each and every gesture you execute—whether a global ad campaign or a single tweet—aligns with and enriches your brand, and never bite the hand that pays your monthly premium.

Regardless of what industry you’re competing in, digital transformation (DX) will be driven by the increasing global adoption of conversational UIs and mobile, digital and connected devices. Forrester predicts that “digital transformation will dominate business strategy in 2018.” According to research firm International Data Corporation, worldwide spending on DX technologies exceeded $1.2 trillion over the past year, and they’re forecasting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.9 percent in 2018. This enormous spend on DX is driven by several factors, including global smartphone adoption, use of conversational UIs, growth in consumer (and enterprise) use of connected devices, and the democratization of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.

As mentioned, the growth of mobile smartphone adoption and usage will be a driver behind many DX initiatives in the coming year. A recent Comscore report states that more than 50 percent of searches are on mobile and 90 percent of mobile media time is spent in applications—not to mention the ‘mobile only’ share of the total digital audience in the United States grew from 10 percent to 12 percent between May 2016 and 2017. While two percent sounds small, its a staggering number of users—and this trend will only increase. According to Facebook, 91 percent of Facebook usage and 80 percent of their advertising revenue is on mobile. Research firm eMarketer forecasts mobile ad spend to reach 74.4 percent of total digital ad spend in 2018. These changes in consumer behaviors, advertising formats, and mobile media will drive the need for innovation in 2018.

As consumer expectations and behaviors evolve around how brands connect via digital devices—in particular the internet of things (IoT), mobile, and social channels—brands need to keep pace. Major brands fighting for market share are making big bets on innovation around these key categories—and will certainly increase their investments in the year to come. This trend will separate market leaders from laggards in an increasingly ‘always on’ digital economy where the demand for high levels of personalization and instant gratification are key to customer loyalty and maintaining share of wallet. Let’s look at a few of the opportunities for DX transformation that will likely dominate C-suite and boardroom agendas in 2018.

Engaging Consumers in an Always-On Economy  
Consumers are more digitally savvy and engaged than ever before. Research from eMarketer and Statista’s Digital Market Outlook reveal 227 million smartphone and 172 million tablet users in the United States today. On average, Americans spend north of 200 minutes per day accessing the internet on a smartphone, and today 81 percent use a smartphone or tablet device while watching television or streaming digital video. Recent studies on advertising saturation and digital device usage indicate the average consumer receives between 4,000 and 10,000 brand messages per day, depending on their volume of media consumption, and that they switch between screens up to 21 times per hour. Clearly, consumer attention is divided across different screens and multitasking—making the fight for consumer attention tougher than ever for brands today.

Given that in the digital age brands are ‘always on,’ marketers need to leverage marketing technology to engage digital-savvy consumers—specifically marketing clouds. These enable the creation of strong brand relationships with consumers through personalization and the delivery of the best possible customer experiences. Identifying, selecting, and implementing the right marketing cloud is a complex undertaking—and there are more choices today than ever before. Consider this, each year since 2011, Scott Brinker of ChiefMarTec has published a graphic illustrating the Marketing Technology Landscape. In 2011, the graphic had 150 companies spanning a few segments; by 2017, there were nearly 5,000 companies listed. While there are only a few dozen true ‘marketing clouds,’ most brands have a robust portfolio of marketing technology solutions—and integration is essential for success.

While chief marketing officers today face a number of challenges, engaging consumers in an always-on, hyper competitive economy is perhaps the most challenging.

In fact, Forrester’s “Predictions 2018: The CMO Bar Rises with More Pressure For Growth—Customer Obsession Disrupts Any Remaining CMO Complacency,” paints a do-or-die picture for CMOs lagging behind when it comes to the application of martech to drive better consumer experiences. The report states that “2018 will force many companies to take decisive action; while the economy is still growing and employment is healthy, the fate of companies has never been more uncertain.”  

Additionally, the Forrester report claimed “a full 30 percent of companies will fail to meet rising user expectations for customer experience, and another 20 percent will not properly adapt to the changing digital market. As a result, those firms will be acquired, or begin to perish.” If you’re sitting in the C-suite or Boardroom at any company that is falling behind,  the implementation of the right martech stack should be top of mind.

Leveraging Bots and Chatbot’s as Force Multipliers for Brand Engagement
There is no denying that the use of conversational UIs will increase exponentially in the years to come. Chatbots, human-assisted support technologies, voice controlled search assistants and connected devices for the home and office, will be the new norm.

TechCrunch recently stated that “chatbots have suddenly become the biggest thing in tech. They unlock the ability to provide personalized, interactive communication akin to talking to a human customer service or sales rep, but at scale for much cheaper than call centers.”

With chatbot development platforms offered by major players such as Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, companies like Lyft, 1-800-Flowers, Fandango, and Whole Foods are implementing them too.  

The 2018 forecast for chatbot development to support sales and customer service is significant. A recent report from Gartner projects that, by 2021, more than 50 percent of enterprises will be spending more per annum on bots and chat bot creations than traditional mobile app developments. Although human-assisted live chat has been table stakes for years, the use of software and human-assisted support chat is forecasted to increase in 2018 due to recent advancements such as segmentation and automation rules that trigger messages on site, in-app, or through email via platforms such as Intercom, Helpcrunch and Drift. Companies like Ancestry.com, Expensify, and Trunk Club are already leveraging advanced software and human-assisted support chat solutions in sales and service.

These platforms not only support sales and service, but can also support sales and audience engagement making them ideal additions for both B2C and B2B mobile applications. As the cost of implementing feature-rich software and human-assisted support chat applications continues to dramatically decrease, expect an uptick in their use as DX in the enterprise accelerates. As Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple continue to find new ways to integrate the technology into a vast array of consumer experiences—including applications for the Internet of things—you’ll see companies building both B2C and B2B applications that leverage voice controlled search assistance.

With robust developer programs, open access to APIs, and unlimited opportunities to leverage voice control for interacting with applications and connected devices, companies will be exploring how to leverage these to create connected customer experiences—the possibilities are limitless. According to eMarketer, 45 million voice-assisted devices are now in use in the U.S., and that number will rise to 67 million by 2019. Given the relatively low cost of IoT application development using kits from Google, Intel, Microsoft, and other players, it’s anticipated that many organizations will commence R&D projects in 2018.

While the technology that powers these engaging brand experiences is rapidly evolving, simplifying application development and driving down the cost of research and development—the complexity of delivering brand-relevant, differentiated, and valuable experiences will remain a challenge for C-suite executives and Board members for years to come.

Transform or Face Irrelevance
There are several areas of opportunity for brands to transform the way they do business using technology today—create products, deliver services, engage audiences, and deliver experiences. It’s not just about specific technologies like marketing clouds, or chatbots, or any other application—in 2018 C-suite executives and Boards need to focus on how to create and deliver uniquely differentiated and valuable customer experiences at every interaction and touchpoint. Getting DX right isn’t a factor of how much you spend or how quickly you spend it, but rather ensuring that the initiatives will deliver the right value to all of the key stakeholders—whether that means increasing competitiveness, reducing operating costs, driving higher levels of customer satisfaction, increasing the customer lifetime value, or creating new streams of revenue.

Fact is, there are too many emerging and disruptive new technologies today to cover all of them in a single post—the few areas of opportunity that I’ve highlighted here are simply those I feel will not only engender significant investment, but also have the ability to be game-changers for those brands that take advantage of them. Take a close look at the trends in your industry, take advantage of smart third-party research, conduct your own research, and engage your customers, partners, and employees to find the biggest areas of opportunity for DX within your organization—then make the big bets that will allow you to leapfrog competitors and achieve your strategic goals and objectives. For brands that sit on the sidelines in 2018 and don’t make big bets: good luck remaining relevant.

A brand, most simply, is your company’s identity. More poetically, a brand is defined by where you’ve been and where you’re going. It is ever evolving, constantly under threat, and formed by every interaction. It is what the public thinks you are, what you think you are, and who you aspire to be. A brand is your promise to the people.

The difference between a company and a brand is sometimes semantics, but in today’s rapid-fire economy of mergers, acquisitions, divestments, and consolidations, brand plays an ever increasing role in defining and shaping the expectations a consumer has of your company’s products and services.

A brand you know and trust makes purchasing decisions easy and worry-free. It’s like a trusted friend you know you can depend on. But now think about how many people you trust: probably not many, and it’s likely there are also quite a few instances where you lost trust in someone. Building trust with consumers requires consistency, honesty, communication, and sometimes even a bit of personality. To bring all of those elements together, branding needs to tell a story.

Think back to a positive or negative experience you had with a company. How did your experience shape your perception of that brand? It may have reinforced the trust you had in the brand or even caused you to swear off their products for the rest of your life. Stories shape what your brand is and what it stands for. Telling these stories in a way that is relevant, interesting, and engaging offers a glimpse at what a customer’s own story could look like and reinforces the stories that your customers already have. But while stories are fundamental in defining your brand, there’s a lot they can’t do on their own. That is where your visual identity comes in.

The visual appearance of your brand is usually the first impression. In a split second, opinions begin to form. Do I know this company? Does it look like a company I would buy from? Do they take pride in who they are? Do I trust them? Do I want to know more about them?

When most people think of a brand, they think of a logo. Some logos are so iconic and timeless that they stay virtually the same forever, while others are constantly evolving or even living. Good logos share a few similar traits–they’re unique, memorable, simple, and relevant. And while a logo is one of the most vital and obvious representations of a brand, it is far from the only one. A brand’s visual identity is also defined by its typography, colors, textures, patterns, and use of photography.

The first impression is important, but so is every other impression. Since someone’s perception of a brand is shaped every time they encounter it, the visual identity needs to be consistently applied across the board whether it’s a website, social media profile, advertisement, email signature, or even your office. Consistency is king, so don’t let sloppy implementation of your visual identity tarnish your brand.

While visual identity takes all the glory, the unsung hero is messaging. In essence, it’s the way a brand talks about itself, both internally and externally to the public. What’s said (and not said) is just as important to a brand identity as a consistent and beautiful visual identity. Messaging shows that your brand identity is more than skin deep.

All messaging needs to be built on a solid foundation. This foundation helps your messaging resonate and ring true in the hearts and minds of your audience. And at the core of this foundation is the positioning that defines who your brand is, what you stand for, and how you set yourself apart from the competition. Above all else, this statement and the rest of the messaging foundation should not be created in a bubble. It’s great that you think you’re the most revolutionary company of the 21st century, but will everyone else believe it? If not, you need to consider how to get everyone from point A to point B because it’s an uphill battle trying to gain trust when no one believes you. Great brands evolve over time, all you need to do is guide people along the journey.

Your brand is more than a logo and a catchphrase. It’s your strongest asset, your reputation, and your identity. Give it the love and attention that it needs.

Virtual reality (VR) may seem like our future, but it’s been our past—covertly—for much longer than most realize. Technically, we can trace the roots of VR to the invention of stereoscopic photos and viewers in 1838.

Until recently, the discussion of VR was limited to the gaming community and movie industry. Although the technology of VR has advanced at a rapid pace, it wasn’t until 2016 when Google massively promoted a low-cost cardboard headset for smartphones that awareness and utilization of VR technology took off.

In residential real estate, product presentation is the home sellers’ primary concern, especially among new luxury home builders. What sells is experience of the product. The mentality has been: until a potential buyer comes to your sales trailer or model home, you have not presented—nor have they truly experienced—the breadth of your fine product. Yet today, most new home buyers today start their search online. Anyone stepping into a sales trailer or model home is likely to already have seen many homes on different builders’ websites. So the question is: why would they choose to physically visit your model out of the many seen online? The gap of getting potential buyers to come to a home seller’s doorstep is potentially large. However, with the explosion of VR technology, this gap can be made much smaller. And cost is no longer a barrier. Putting together a simple phone app (with a cardboard headset) doesn’t cost as much as many think—Google wouldn’t have pushed for it otherwise.

While many homebuilders and agents still think in 2-D when it comes to floorplans, the younger generation of home buyers have been conditioned by games, movies, and entertainment to think in 3-D. Floorplans should no longer be limited to flat drawings. Translating traditional floorplans into interactive VR renderings is the way to move forward in new home sales. Companies such as Bricks & Goggles, Virtual Xperience, CommonFloor Retina, and Floored do an amazing job of bringing future spaces to life. The products may be viewed through a variety of platforms, such as smartphone, Google Cardboard, Oculus Rift, and desktop computer to give potential buyers a rich, walkthrough experience of homes yet to be built.

Services like roOomy and iStaging bring empty model homes to life—fully furnished—with scalable 3-D modeling and rendering, allowing customers to see the full potential of the product. Virtual staging and augmented reality technologies enable homebuyers to see move-in-ready homes with thousands of dollars of décor—that homebuilders do not have to buy.

360° video with 3-D walkthroughs present model homes in an engaging way. Last year, Facebook launched Facebook 360, which gave users the ability to capture and share 360° photos through their phone. 360° video pushes this concept further and leverages augmented reality technology to make an impression on homebuyers. Companies such as Start VR and Matterport (which some of our clients are already using) are making this type of quality service affordable. Consider adding a personable host or narrator to your tour video to make a memorable presentation, like this 360° video tour of Conan O’Brien’s office or micro-flat (USD $500,000) in Hong Kong.

Virtual technologies have become a concrete reality in the real estate industry. Homebuilders and home sellers must embrace what augmented reality offers to improve their customers’ experience of their brand.

At a time when civil discourse feels more divided than ever, an unprecedented number of brands are putting their stake in the ground for various social issues. Research shows that 84% of Americans believe businesses have a responsibility to bring social change on important issues (eMarketer), making it explicitly clear that today’s businesses must stay in lockstep with the current social climate or risk missing the mark with current and future customers.

“Woke” brands make sure that their values and mission serve as a compass for business and marketing decisions. #WokeBrands unapologetically declare what their brands stand for and allow their values to drive campaigns, not vice-versa. Aside from creating a more consistent, human and authentic brand message, this approach also often pays off in the form of fierce customer loyalty and brand ambassadorship.

Here’s a look at a few brands that have earned (or failed to earn) Woke status as of late:

Brand 1: Pepsi – NOT WOKE

Case in point–the now infamous Pepsi Kendall Jenner commercial fiasco. See Pepsi Zero: The Taste-Free Ad With No Fans. A sad attempt to bond with protesters and members of current political and social movements like #BlackLivesMatter, Occupy Wall Street, and the Fight For 15; Pepsi left much to be desired and created a PR nightmare instead.

It is not enough to simply mimic feelings or situations of social movements. If a brand is going to connect itself to a social movement, it needs to do so in an authentic way, taking a stand in support of a side. Pepsi created a campaign hoping to broadly embody certain values without actually taking a stand for anything. Not woke.

Brand 2: Oreo – WOKE

Oreo has been a strong advocate for the LGBT community and a vocal supporter of marriage equality on social media.
This “Pride” image was posted to Facebook as part of a series reflecting current events using images of Oreo cookies and milk to celebrate the brand’s 100th birthday. “As a company, Kraft Foods has a proud history of celebrating diversity and inclusiveness. We feel the Oreo ad is a fun reflection of our values,” Basil Maglaris, a spokeswoman for Oreo’s parent company Kraft Foods, stated.

Oreo and Kraft didn’t deem the advertisement “controversial”—instead, they emphasized that this ad was a “reflection of their values,” whether it pleased everybody or not. Woke.

Brand 3: Ben & Jerry’s – WOKE

Ben and Jerry’s has unapologetically supported the #BlackLivesMatter movement through a series of social media and blog posts as well as the Women’s March on Washington and the climate change movement that tips the social justice scales for the funky ice cream maker. They are overt in asking people to join them in the movements, mirroring the urgency and seriousness of the movements themselves.

Yes, they’ve experienced some backlash, but they didn’t back down because they knew the campaigns embodied their values and what they believed in as a company. They’ve also gained new customers for life and an overwhelming increase in brand awareness in the process of following their own moral compass. From marriage equality to climate change, and now with #BLM, there’s absolutely no confusion about where this progressive company stands. Woke.

Brand 4: Banana Republic – WOKE

Almost immediately after the Supreme Court overturned Proposition 8 as unconstitutional, Banana Republic launched its #BRLove4All campaign. Banana Republic invited everyone to celebrate the historic decision, each other, and love by posting photos with significant others–whether they be same or opposite sex. Those that used the hashtag #BRLove4All had the chance to be outfitted by Banana Republic for their nuptials or other special occasion. The retailer posted the contest entries to its Facebook page and showcased its diverse consumer community in a photo gallery. This campaign was a win due to its timeliness—launching as history was made—and its celebration of diverse consumers—rather than its product. Woke.

By humanizing their brands, taking a position that aligns with their stated core values, and starting organic conversations around current events and news, woke companies are able to meet their consumers where they are and make them feel okay about spending dollars with them.

Of course, there’s a fine line. But instead of ignoring current events, brands should employ relevant content marketing strategies to engage audiences in authentic ways. People want the companies they support to be ethical, sustainable, and on the right side of history. To do so, companies must define their brands’ values and mission and refresh them often as they begin to feel outdated, non-inclusive, or even offensive to certain populations.

Through keeping a pulse on social movements and allowing their own values, mission, and pillars to direct campaigns, brands create an opportunity to bond with core consumers as well as lend a hand in leading change.