Attention is hard to capture these days, but the brands that are winning are focusing on connecting with consumers on an emotional and cultural level, said executives during the Brand Innovators London Summit. And of course, no voice matters more than the voices of communities.
“Peer-to-peer has completely transformed the importance of word-of- mouth,” said Karen Ehrlich, Vice President & General Manager at The Estée Lauder Companies UK & Ireland during the Brand Innovators Marketing Leadership Summit in London. “If we think about communities, they can build a brand or destroy a brand in seconds.”
From advertising to the in-store experience, CRM to customer service, when consumers are experiencing the brand in the different touch points, they are building their own narrative in that experience.
“When consumers can move from a transactional experience to a personal experience, if you are able to generate an experience that is positive, you are going to generate a memory,” said Ehrlich.
Estée Lauder recently hosted an event for influencers for a skincare product. At the event, each attendee had their skin assessed and then they received a facial with the treatment focused on hydration. A week later, a micro influencer that wasn’t part of the initial experience booked his own appointment and after he posted, they saw bookings skyrocket. “If you have a positive experience, you can see this ripple effect,” she added.
From left to right: Jay Wardle, President & General Manager, Corporate, Sojern; Sarah Firmston-Williams, Senior Brand Marketing Manager, Brand Lead International Markets, Expedia Group; Sean Moakley, Senior Data Acquisition Manager, Suntory Global Spirits
While data plays its part, brands that win don’t get lost in the wrong data points. Many marketers discussed the importance of balancing data versus what the actual consumer insight should be. For a big brand like Expedia that provides travel for consumers across the globe, it is important to look at it on a market level.
“There is no one consumer, we just have a global profile: people like to travel,” said Sarah Firmston-Williams, senior brand marketing manager, brand lead international markets at Expedia Group. “We have to take information data and we filter that through the local teams, because data is not necessarily giving us insight and it might even be misleading.”
She said it could be tempting to find a common trend and create a story but sometimes that would lead one to believe that people in Japan traveling with their families are the same as families in Mexico. “If you don’t work with a human person, you will make massive commercially sensitive mistakes,” said Firmston-Williams.
“Localization is so much more than language change, it has to speak to the consumer if you want commercially viable results,” she added.
For instance, when the brand launched its tagline, “The place you go to go places,” they had to evolve it in different markets to make sense within the culture. In France that translates into: “it’s time to go now.”
Shweta Harit, global senior vice president at De Beers Group is also focused on tailoring messaging across borders. As diamonds are not an everyday purchase, her role is to drive desire which can be done in different ways in different countries. “If I am trying to build penetration in India, then cricket is important,” she said, noting that diamonds are not as common in India, where most jewelry is gold versus in the U.S. in which 70 percent of fine jewelry includes diamonds. “It has to be native,” she added.
Even when the company works with influencers, it is different depending on the global location. For instance, in China, retail sales assistants play a key role and are hired as a “key opinion person” to come into the store to capture content. This wouldn’t work in India, she said, where buyers would not buy products worn by a sales assistant.
Occasion is another important factor for brands from Suntory to Reese’s. “For us it is not just who the consumers are, but what role our brand and products play in their lives,” said Sean Moakley, senior data acquisition manager at Suntory Global Spirits. “It is about the occasions.”
Suntory doesn’t own the interaction 95% of the time. Since they don’t own the moment, they spend a lot of time trying to connect the dots between the consumer and the purchase. “Maybe the moment of consumption is different than what we thought it was going to be,” said Moakley. “We have to listen and see what consumers are doing, if that is scraping data on socials or getting direct feedback or asking them at events.”
Suvit Yeung, head of marketing at UK & Europe at The Hershey Company, also spends a lot of time thinking about occasion marketing. The brand has even developed messaging around moments when consumers press pause on Netflix or Amazon based on data that most sweet treats are eaten in the evening, often when people are viewing content. The ad pause message read: “Press play if you want peanut butter.” “We got right at the heart of desire at the occasion,” said Yeung. “Screen time is a great opportunity for us.”
Reese’s also wanted to own Halloween in the UK so they hired the actor who did the voice of Ghostface for the “Scream for Reese’s” campaign. The confectionary brand created immersive pop-ups and haunted phone booths in London and hired the actor who played Ghostface from the Scream series to record creepy messages. They invited influencers to answer the calls and
“It wasn’t a one shot stunt,” said Yeung. “We treated it like an A/V shoot. We captured footage of people screaming and we turned it into a campaign.”
The effort generated 100 million views across the effort. The audio ads for Spotify earned a 10% resonance rate – a high metric for the channel. “KPIs are one thing but it is about being selective on the ones that you want to move the needle on that drives business results,” he added.
From left to right: Tom Skinner, Senior Director, Analytic Partners; Victoria Sjardin, Global VP of Media and Marketing Excellence, Petcare, Mars
Victoria Sjardin, global vice president of media and marketing excellence, petcare at Mars agrees that it is all about the right data, “the metrics that matter – those that drive business performance versus vanity metrics,” she explained.
“If you can’t track it, it doesn’t mean it is not real,” she said. “Sometimes you are not able to prove it.”
She said that marketers often prioritize short-term ROI over earned because you see the money coming in, but she warned there is a risk of losing long-term growth. “If you are always on a discount, what does that do for you for the value in a consumer’s mind?,” she asked. Sjardin said the metrics that matter to her are enterprise taxonomy, leading and lagging indicators, as well as structural governance.
Jobs site Indeed is looking to win minds and hearts and they have not lost sight of this when adapting new technology and AI. Eoin Murphy, senior marketing lead, brand & demand generation, EMEA & APAC at Indeed said that this lens remains core to executions. “It is about being consistent,” he said. “Are we showing up in the right way in terms of machines?…If you are leading with machines without emotional storytelling, you are building on sand.”
