It’s Time for Brands to Get Real: Three Ways to Create Real Value in Your Brand Experiences
What matters: We are in the midst of reevaluating our relationships with brands, their newfound responsibilities, our priorities, and how brands align ― or don’t align ― with them.
Consumers have become selective in brand choice, experience, relationship, and, ultimately, spend that aligns with what truly matters.
The value that brands have been responsible for creating has evolved significantly over the years. From their earliest days of distinguishing between products (or cattle), to status symbols, “badges,” anthropomorphizing (Joe Camel, anyone?), and eventually to representing a purpose that aligned with a customer’s personal values or the perception of driving change in the world, brand experiences have defined cultural moments and have underscored consumer movements. That is to say, people take their brands pretty seriously.
But brands are experiencing a meaningful shift in expectations yet again. One would think that a brand’s core responsibilities are delivering quality, satisfaction, and consistency (which, arguably, is still true), but that’s just not cutting it anymore. These responsibilities have become table stakes. Consumers are fickle and ever evolving in their own beliefs, values, and needs. There are several contributing factors at play.
“Brands are two things: promise and performance.”
The first is choice: with tens of thousands of new products being offered every year, consumers are overwhelmed with options, leading many to go with what’s most convenient or simply available. Secondly, with so many options, there are fewer and fewer differentiating factors in a sea of sameness where basic needs are met, effectively rendering products and services interchangeable. And of course, there’s the loss of trust, with countless examples of top-performing brands acting in bad faith and not delivering on the promises they have made, eroding the collective trust in all brands.
The pandemic exacerbated and heightened each of these factors, upending and shifting consumers’ expectations more rapidly and completely than at any other time in recent memory. This led to a reevaluation of our relationships with brands, their newfound responsibilities, and of course, our own priorities, and how brands align ― or don’t align ― with them. Suddenly, our expectations and relationships with brands became introspective, requiring an entirely new set of criteria where consumers have become selective in brand choice, experience, relationship, and, ultimately, spend that aligns with what truly matters.
Brand experiences now help us confirm how we see ourselves in the world, purposefully seeking ways that we can positively impact our communities and the environment.
So what does that mean for brands right now? It means creating real value.
It means delivering convenience and connection by meeting consumers where they are, digitally and physically. It means delivering quality-meets-sustainably-sourced products. It means keeping us and our environment safe and healthy. Most importantly, it means that we can trust the brand to do the right thing, to deliver on its promises, to walk the talk, and to be transparent and drive real change.
Below are three ways brands can create real value and drive long-term, sustained growth in today’s fast-evolving landscape.
YOUR BRAND’S VALUE FOUNDATION MUST BEGIN WITH YOUR EMPLOYEES
Embedding value into your brand experience doesn’t happen in a vacuum, nor is it one-way; it happens from the inside out. The emphasis on employee experience has only increased in the last two years ― from the start of the pandemic to the “great resignation,” talent wars, and hybrid working environments, employees are speaking up on their preferences, must-haves, and non-starters.
Employee engagement is critical because the connection between company success and engaged employees is direct, clear, and compelling. When employees are engaged, there is less turnover, greater productivity, enhanced innovation, and greater profit. In other words, happy employees help create happy customers. Take Chick-fil-A, for instance. Its emphasis on employee experience has led to the fast-food chain earning nearly double the per-store sales of its closest competitor, McDonald’s. In fact, according to Gallup, teams or business units that are highly engaged achieve a 10% increase in customer ratings and a 20% increase in sales; they suggest that engaged employees lead to 21% more profitability.
STRIVE FOR HUMAN-FIRST EXPERIENCES THAT TRULY CONNECT
Just as with employees, customer experience plays a vital role in our brand experiences. As brand owners, we must seek to understand how our audiences are feeling and what they need in terms of support and then proactively seek out and deliver human-first moments that go beyond a product or service.
First and foremost, human-first moments require offering transparency about the things your brand is doing right ― and even the mistakes you make ― which can go a long way in building trust with your customers. Patagonia does this by inviting consumers to explore its footprint and material traceability while bringing attention to the apparel industry’s sustainability issues.
Human-first also means building a real understanding of individual customers, not just treating them as segments or cohorts, and delivering experiences that set your brand apart. Easier said than done, as personalization is becoming more and more table stakes in consumers’ expectations. Getting it right requires implementing zero- and first-party data strategies that can deliver brand experiences that resonate. But personalization can be taken a step further, through early or always-on access to products or services, or exclusive experiences built around brand preferences. For example, the recent launch of Spotify Island in the Roblox universe allows listeners to explore virtual worlds, unlock exclusive content, and take part in interactive quests.
DATA AS A FUNDAMENTAL COMPONENT OF BRAND STEWARDSHIP
Beyond just personalization, however, the way brands leverage data needs to serve a higher purpose. There’s no question that data fuels today’s digital economy, but for brands, creating value through data requires creating a data culture, as well as putting the people you serve ― your customers and employees, and the brand’s relationship with them ― at the core of your business. How a brand utilizes data collected on its audiences can make or break the relationship and ultimately determine the value and success it has in the long run. When data is leveraged appropriately, it can powerfully improve the relationship and build a lasting, trusting, loyal relationship between your customers and your brand.
For example, a recent Deloitte survey found that among 7,500 consumers, there were four characteristics that form the basis of trust: humanity, transparency, reliability, and capability.
What’s more, for consumers, the role that data plays goes hand in hand with a brand’s ability ― and responsibility ― to use it in ways that create real value and meaning in their lives by:
Demonstrating empathy and kindness, in ways that show that you actively treat everyone fairly.
Openly and consistently sharing information, motives, and choices that align with the brand’s principles and values.
Providing quality products, services, and experiences that add value to the lives of your audiences.
Proving your willingness and commitment to consistently deliver on the brand’s promises and expectations.
Let’s face it, we’re living in a time of immense change and unpredictability, erosion of trust in governments and public institutions, and an incessant influx of information from all angles. More and more, people are turning to brands for a steady hand to help guide them through providing a meaningful anchor in their everyday lives in these tumultuous times. There have seldom been more opportunities than now for brands to step up and play an active role in consumers’ lives by creating real value ― not just for growth, but for good.
Andrea Zimmerman is Head of Brand Strategy at Salient Global.