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A Brand On a Mission

Wednesday, April 24th, 2013
A brand on a mission
Back in 2002, when we worked with the Dove brand team to create the Real Beauty strategy, we were thrilled to have found a positioning strategy that was built on a very rich consumer insight, and facilitated Dove’s entry into more beauty-centric categories (e.g. face, hair) in a way that was differentiated and compelling to the target audience.
While the position was “sold in” as a big and powerful idea, we had very little inkling at the time that we had created the kernel of a “mission”.
Driven in large part by a very courageous brand team and a very ambitious content strategy (including use of traditional media), Dove has become what we would call a “mission-based brand,” keeping company with brands like Method and Ben & Jerry’s.  Mission-based brands are generally built from the inside out. They decide who they are and what they will be. This is also what makes the Dove case so amazing, as the “inside” of the brand is actually a huge CPG company, unlike most of our other mission-based brand examples.
WOULD PUT VISUAL OF PRINT AD WITH WOMAN WITH FRECKLES
A mission will inspire and attract consumers, or it won’t – but it doesn’t change to meet the whims of the marketplace.  The insight that underlies the Real Beauty strategy is based on a woman’s desire to be her most beautiful self – accepting of flaws and all – rather than the perfected ideal of marketplace beauty.  If you look around – other beauty brands, magazines, TV shows – you can see that the Dove insight isn’t necessarily indicative of the beauty zeitgeist overall.  Especially in 2002, before others hopped on the “I’m beautiful as I am” bandwagon.
WOULD ALSO PUT VISUAL OF “AVERAGE” WOMEN IN THEIR BRAS
As a mission based brand, Dove was selling a transformational idea to the marketplace. Mission-based brands often make a unique and important cultural contribution. Dove’s current “Sketches,” blowing up all over social (and traditional) media, is reigniting the conversation around self-acceptance and self-appreciation that Dove started with their original “Real Beauty” campaign.

Importantly, mission-based based brands aren’t just in it for the good of the world, it’s still about making money and building their brands. They operationalize their mission and harness it as a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Their mission is often their most sustainable competitive advantage.

This idea of sustainability is important. Missions aren’t “this year’s ad campaign.” The deeper your competitive differentiation sits within your business, the more real it is to your audience and the more difficult it is for your competitors to emulate. As a marketing idea that wasn’t really grounded in a product experience, “Real Beauty” could have been copied. But, once it became a mission within Unilever it became harder to emulate. Once it became accepted as a mission by the audience, attacking it became even more difficult.
Missions aren’t for the faint of heart, but we suggest you go through the exercise, even if it’s just academic. If you were to put your brand on a mission, what would that mission be?

Back in 2002, when we worked with the Dove brand team to create the Real Beauty strategy, we were thrilled to have found a positioning strategy that was built on a very rich consumer insight, and facilitated Dove’s entry into more beauty-centric categories (e.g. face, hair) in a way that was differentiated and compelling to the target audience.

While the position was “sold in” as a big and powerful idea, we had very little inkling at the time that we had created the kernel of a “mission”.

Driven in large part by a very courageous brand team and a very ambitious content strategy (including use of traditional media), Dove has become what we would call a “mission-based brand,” keeping company with brands like Method and Ben & Jerry’s.  Mission-based brands are generally built from the inside out. They decide who they are and what they will be. This is also what makes the Dove case so amazing, as the “inside” of the brand is actually a huge CPG company, unlike most of our other mission-based brand examples.

freckles

A mission will inspire and attract consumers, or it won’t – but it doesn’t change to meet the whims of the marketplace.  The insight that underlies the Real Beauty strategy is based on a woman’s desire to be her most beautiful self – accepting of flaws and all – rather than the perfected ideal of marketplace beauty.  If you look around – other beauty brands, magazines, TV shows – you can see that the Dove insight isn’t necessarily indicative of the beauty zeitgeist overall.  Especially in 2002, before others hopped on the “I’m beautiful as I am” bandwagon.

realwomen

As a mission based brand, Dove was selling a transformational idea to the marketplace. Mission-based brands often make a unique and important cultural contribution. Dove’s current “Sketches,” blowing up all over social (and traditional) media, is reigniting the conversation around self-acceptance and self-appreciation that Dove started with their original “Real Beauty” campaign.

Importantly, mission-based based brands aren’t just in it for the good of the world, it’s still about making money and building their brands. They operationalize their mission and harness it as a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Their mission is often their most sustainable competitive advantage.

This idea of sustainability is important. Missions aren’t “this year’s ad campaign.” The deeper your competitive differentiation sits within your business, the more real it is to your audience and the more difficult it is for your competitors to emulate. As a marketing idea that wasn’t really grounded in a product experience, “Real Beauty” could have been copied. But, once it became a mission within Unilever it became harder to emulate. Once it became accepted as a mission by the audience, attacking it became even more difficult.

Missions aren’t for the faint of heart, but we suggest you go through the exercise, even if it’s just academic. If you were to put your brand on a mission, what would that mission be?

Sara Schor, Sterling Strategy

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Content Strategy: Feeding the Beast

Wednesday, April 17th, 2013

In a recent post (that began with our anticipation for the start of Mad Men season 6, which by the way, was as good as we wanted it to be), we talked about the importance of going beyond the “click” (or “Like”) to develop brand stories that create authentic engagement with customers.

There is no longer (if there ever was) a linear path between awareness, acquisition, loyalty, and retention.  With our access to information, all of these decisions and actions are happening in real-time, so we need to keep customers (and potential customers) engaged all the time.

The brands that best go “beyond first click” have done more than good social media. They have changed the core of how they approach marketing. They plan and execute a content strategy – thinking like creators, rather than like advertisers. They are creating content that builds a single brand story, across all platforms, in the real and digital worlds, in a way that appears seamless to the consumer.

Those that are braving this new approach have had a lot to overcome.  In our last post we noted the organizational challenges.  But building a content strategy is also challenging for how marketers think about their business.   Advertising goes in campaigns, and there are planning and review and revision and execution times.  Content doesn’t – content is 24/7, a relentless beast that needs to be fed consistently.

To feed the beast, marketers have to live with imperfection and uncertainty more than ever before.  They need to be making new, relevant and interesting content all the time, every day, related to what their brand stands for, and what their brand is doing.  When faced with creating content, we all wonder what to say, and how to make sure what we’re creating is good enough. The real challenge with a content strategy isn’t so much that the beast needs to be fed, it’s more about overcoming the fear of our ability to create, uncertainty about what works, and doubt about whether anyone is listening. The cool part about this new world of content strategy is that we have the opportunity to see over time what people find compelling, what breaks through and what might actually motivate customers to act.

There are FIVE THINGS to think about when cooking up food for the beast:

1.) You are making content so people will not only engage with it but share it, and that means it has to have value for them – so make it FOR them rather than ABOUT you.

A great example is the latest from the Dove Real Beauty campaign:



2.) Variety is more important than consistency – you never know what will get people’s attention.

3.) Some of the most engaging content is not professionally produced – the bar is high for what’s compelling, but lower than you think for how it’s made.

4.) Creating something quickly that reflects/comments/plays off of current events can make your brand relevant, even when a connection isn’t obvious.

5.) And most importantly, don’t try to do everything yourself – the best case scenario is to involve your customers in creating content about your brand, and then finding ways (and confidence) to use what they create.

The book on best practices in content strategy is being written right now by brands that are brave enough to open their minds to what and where great content can come from.  One of the best examples of content strategy as marketing strategy is coming from GoPro.  Yes, they create cameras – a product that lends itself to storytelling a bit easier to content than foot cream or socks.  But they recognize how valuable content is, whether they create it or their customers do.  Instead of shying away from that “non-premium user-generated stuff”, they encouraged it.   They are engaging their customers to participate in building the story of the brand, which is therefore building their brand authentically based on how customers use their products (rather than a set of proof points and details, like we might see in an ad campaign).

The content beast is here, and here to stay as one of the primary ways to authentically connect with your customers, cut through the noise and go beyond the “click”.  It’s up to you to decide if your brand is willing to feed the beast, even if it requires an approach to marketing that is a little scary, and a little uncomfortable. What can you do in 2013 to build the story of your brand through content that will engage your customer, rather than simply trying to persuade them through advertising?

Deirdre Davi, Sterling Strategy

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The Shock and Awe of Reality

Tuesday, April 2nd, 2013

Since graduating college in 1991, I’ve had the privilege to live and work in two amazing US cities – New York and San Francisco. Both of these cities are great places to live and to visit, but the experience of life there isn’t even close to being representative of the rest of the country  - and importantly, of the people you as a marketer want to use your brand.

Let’s start with some facts – which continue to shock and awe many marketers:

-The average household income is $50,054 (SF Gate via US Census Bureau, 2011 data)
-The average  family savings account balance is $3,800; 25% of families have no savings at all (statisticbrain.com via IRS and Federal Reserve)
-The median age for marriage is 26.6 among women, 28.6 for men (About.com via US Census Bureau, 2012 data)
-The average age for women to have their first baby is 25.1 (Babycenter.com via CDC, 2008 data)The average household income is $50,054 (SF Gate via US Census Bureau, 2011 data)

-The average household income is $50,054 (SF Gate via US Census Bureau, 2011 data)

-The average  family savings account balance is $3,800; 25% of families have no savings at all (statisticbrain.com via IRS and Federal Reserve)

-The median age for marriage is 26.6 among women, 28.6 for men (About.com via US Census Bureau, 2012 data)

-The average age for women to have their first baby is 25.1 (Babycenter.com via CDC, 2008 data)

One of my favorite stories of shock and awe happened when I was an Account Executive at an advertising agency in NYC.  The president of my client’s division – company not to be named, but the product was canned pasta – decided that their “new & improved” canned pasta should sell for 50¢ more than the current product, and that we should explore how to talk to consumers about the increase in quality and price. We were in Charlotte, doing research with their target audience – lower-income families.  A woman whose profile stated that her family of 5 lived on an income of $15,000-$19,999 looked the moderator squarely in the eye and said (I’m paraphrasing here, as the conversation happened in 1996): “you tell that rich president of your company that while he’s in his big office in the big city, I’m trying to feed my family.  And just because your price goes up 50¢ doesn’t mean I get another 50¢ in my grocery budget. It just means I will have to buy less food.”

Shock.

I had a similar experience as a moderator, just a few years ago.  I was doing research with people who use pre-paid debit cards, focusing on single mothers who make less than $25,000 per year.  We sometimes do a “lottery” where all respondents who get to the facility 10 minutes before group start time have a chance to win another $50 on top of their incentive.  As I walked out of the room to get final questions from the backroom, one woman asked “do you know who won the lottery?” and I said I’d find out. When I came back in, I casually mentioned that oh yeah, Jacquie had won the lottery. Jacquie, a single-mom working at Wal-Mart, began to cry  – and the other women in the room hugged and congratulated her for the win.

Awe.

And recently, working on a project for a TV network, there was absolute silence in the room when listening to the tape of an ethno where a 42 year-old mom from outside Atlanta talked about being ready for her youngest to go off to college. Shock and Awe – because everyone in the room was either waiting to have kids or had kids in diapers or kindergarten.

These are the moments that can define you as a brand strategist, marketer or researcher.  Do you really understand and empathize with your audience – their challenges, joys, stresses? Do you know how they use their money, their time, what they value? Can you have compassion for their difficult realities? It really is so easy to think about the world through a very fortunate (and often hard earned), but less relevant, lens.  So, what to do to avoid the troublesome “shock and awe”? A few thoughts:

  1. Be armed with the facts – not big sweeping numbers that belittle reality (e.g. $50,000+), but a real and thoughtful overview of what your consumers’ lives are like
  2. Talk to your consumers – lots of them – in their real life environments, as often as you can
  3. Do research outside your comfort zone – instead of LA and NY, consider Sacramento and Baltimore (and keep in mind, Chicago does not represent the entire middle of the country)
  4. Never ever make a decision based on what you, your family or your friends might like (unless the category/product skews to people of your socio-economic level)
  5. Ensure that the senior decision makers are engaged with #1-4

At the end of the day, for most brands, the “real people” who live outside of the major business centers can make or break your business.  Avoid the shock and awe (in your financials) by really getting to know them.

Sara Schor, Sterling Strategy

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Beyond First Clicks

Wednesday, March 27th, 2013

The new season of Mad Men starts soon, where we get to see Don, Peggy and the team once again tell consumers a brand story via advertising (in print, and perhaps even on TV!) that they expect will influence behavior.

But like secretaries and 3 martini lunches, we in brand marketing know that those days are long gone.  We want more that just a captive listening audience. We want “engagement.” Any one who has responsibility for growing a brand needs to not just get potential customers to see their messages, but for them to “engage” with their product or brand.  And marketers are actively tapping into digital media to make this happen.  But we sense that it’s time to reconsider how we think about “engagement”.

In the early days of digital marketing, it was all about the click, and businesses were grown from tracking that all-powerful click.  Even more recently, marketers are defining engagement as the number of “Likes” a brand can get on Facebook.   But really, it’s still just a click, and like many clicks, there is no “there” there after the Like.   Do I know any more about a brand when I click or Like?   Am I more likely to buy or use that brand?  Do I care more about that brand than I did before? The answer to these questions is an unenthusiastic maybe.

likemeanswhat

Just like many of us need more than one coffee date to bond with another person, we need more than one click or Like to commit to a brand.  As marketers, we need to tell (and build) a brand story over time.

Of course one way to have these ongoing interactions is through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest, all of which bring customers and brands closer.  But smart marketers have always known that commitment is a journey, not a click.  I think the marketing community at large is just starting to come around to the idea that we simply can’t think about marketing as digital and traditional, because that first response (the impression, the click, or the Like) isn’t enough – we need to look beyond that response.  It’s about creating content that builds a brand’s story across all platforms, in the real world and the digital world.

This of course is a blinding glimpse of the obvious – but is surprisingly difficult to execute in the real world.  Why? Because doing it involves marketers across all different functions who just aren’t used to playing well with each other.   Building a compelling and cohesive cross-platform content strategy is organizationally challenged – different platforms, different lead times, different agencies, different approval processes.  It’s hard but it’s critical to get right.  And it means marketers can’t think in media or platform silos (TV, radio, banner, video, ….) but have to think of how to create engagement across platforms – exactly how their customers interact with the world.

One example we most admire right now comes from an unlikely source – packaged goods.  We recently spoke with the brand manager of Reynolds (yup, the aluminum foil) in a marketer discussion and were impressed by how fully he has embraced the potential of engagement.  He’s not thinking about how to explain why one food-wrapping foil is better than another – instead, he is working to tell his brand story through the food that Reynolds wraps, and the role it plays in sharing meals, family time, great events, and fun.   Reynolds is telling the story of their brand in a way that their customers will want to follow over time.  They are creating real engagement – with a product that is anything but what we’d traditionally think of as engaging.

The brands that don’t get it will still talk at us, and do it in a disjointed way. One group will talk to the brand agency about the big TV idea, another will plan the digital campaign, another will do something in “social media”, and the PR team might even get in on the action. They are creating a lot of impressions (and even those clicks), but not engagement.  What can you do in 2013 to plan and activate a cross-platform approach that will truly create engagement?

Deirdre Davi, Sterling Strategy


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Get Into Their Heads

Tuesday, March 5th, 2013

intheirheadsNo matter how old you are, you’re bound to have had a moment where age wasn’t in your favor. A reference you didn’t recognize, a word you didn’t know- it happens. And when it happens with family or friends, it’s pretty easy to move on. But when age-based disconnects get between your brand and your audience, it’s a trickier beast. There’s much more at stake than improperly used slang: your brand risks irrelevance.

Age is much more than a number: It affects your mentality, knowledge and beliefs. So when you’re planning for a group outside your own age set, you need to really dig into that group’s thoughts and behaviors. Otherwise, you might develop products they don’t want (even if they need them), ads they don’t care about (even if they’re slickly produced) and promotions they don’t like (even if they involve big prizes). Here are a couple of examples to help you see just how much age matters:

Example 1: Behavior Let’s think about personal finance for a minute. Try to remember how you approached money when you were 16. Did you have the same beliefs and practices you do today? I’d guess that the answer is a resounding “no!” When you were 16, you probably had much less money, poor financial literacy and less of a motivation to save your dollars. Quiz time: Should a bank speak to 16 year-olds like it speaks to 40 year-olds? Absolutely not.

Example 2: Perspective This time, think about what you eat. Do you have the same eating habits as your grandpa? I doubt it. He grew up in a different era that had different conceptions of what was “healthy” and what was “normal.” Your own habits have been shaped by the place you were raised and whatever nutrition principles were floating around at the time. And now your quiz: Should a 50-something year-old executive plan snack products for 20-somethings without bothering to research her target? No way.

The problem of generational gaps isn’t unique to marketing, of course. Think about college professors: on a daily basis, they have to relate complex topics to an audience that is distanced in age and expertise. Back in 1998, some professors at Beloit College who felt out of touch created the The Mindset List, a yearly publication about the experiences and beliefs of incoming freshmen. The list’s entries don’t seem too monumental on their own; for example, an entry on this year’s list says that incoming freshmen don’t remember tan M&Ms. But as you scroll through the 75 entries, the sum of the list’s parts begins to resonate.  You get a picture of  the world these students were raised in and the sorts of experiences that have shaped their minds. Taken line by the line, the list provides a chuckle. But taken as a whole, the list helps you step out of your own frame of reference, and into the students’.

Which is exactly what we try to do when we talk to consumers: We want to get inside their heads. We want to understand what shapes their lives and how they see the world around them. We want to know what feeds into their beliefs and how that dictates their behaviors. We root our work in consumer insight because it’s just so darn important to know where your audience is coming from. After all: Who wants their brand’s main attribute to be “out of touch?”

Felicia Baskin, Strategist

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Lululemon: The Ultimate Badging Brand

Thursday, February 28th, 2013

I’m a moderately enthusiastic yoga enthusiast, which at times feels like a requirement of an SF resident.  I used to go to classes in the Haight, I occasionally frequent a studio in the Mission, and my “home base” studio is in the Marina.  For the sake of simplification, let’s characterize these neighborhoods by noting that they are home to, respectively, hippies, hipsters, and future Stepford Wives.   So…they’re different.

But despite the differing levels of body art, dreadlocks, and jewelry on display, the presence of Lululemon attire holds constant across these different environments.

There must be dozens of brands that produce reasonably stylish, functional, well-made yoga clothing – and there’s a pretty good chunk of them providing it at price parity to Lulu. So why then, do all these women (and a growing population of men), who differ so greatly in their attitudes and styles, all gravitate toward the same brand?

Because while other brands may make a great yoga product, only Lulu sells a product that serves as a badge* of dedication and commitment to the “yoga lifestyle”.   Put on Lululemon gear, and you’re proclaiming to your fellow yogis (and world at large), “I’m serious about yoga and all that it stands for.”

How do they do this?  I see a few key ingredients in crafting a badge brand:

1. A well-defined brand “muse”: At Sterling, we define a “muse” as the “single person you come to work for – the person you want your brand and the outside world to believe the brand is built for.”  Lulu builds its brand for the true yoga devotee:  an individual who practices yoga daily and balances her practice with a “portfolio” of fitness activities, but more importantly, a woman who embodies the teachings of yoga not just physically but spiritually.  In everything Lulu does, you can see her shining through – you can tell that she inspires each decision the brand makes.  And in doing so, they not only catch her – but all the other women and men out there who aspire to be like her.

sunsalutation

2. Prove focus in your product: Aside from some pieces designed for cross-training (running, cycling, dance), Lulu’s product line and store experience are devoted to the practice of yoga.  It doesn’t just pay lip service to a tight, focused position – it delivers an experience and product set that backs it up.

lulumats

3. Tap into macro trends: While Lululemon may be eating, sleeping, and breathing yoga, the brand recognizes that it’s also in the business of fashion.  Lulu has an outstanding awareness of macro fashion and style trends, and it does a great job of translating them into performance wear.  The clothing stays ahead of the curve relative to other performance apparel brands in silhouettes, textures and fabrics, color palettes, detailing.

4. Build out a values-based experience: Getting the product right is important.  But a badge brand transcends the product, building an experience online and offline that speaks to the values and beliefs of its target. In Lululemon’s case, it’s about holistic health and well-being, positive energy.  To that end, the company posts its “manifesto,” which encompasses these values, on its bags and throughout its store.  It hires individuals that embody these values and convey them in-store.  Stores offer free yoga classes.  Stores are actively involved philanthropically with like-minded causes in their local communities.

communityny

Because this phenomenon fascinates me, here are some other interesting badge brands to consider:

-Harley Davidson (the free spirit lifestyle)

-PBR (the hipster lifestyle)

-Chubbies (the frat boy lifestyle)

-Bonobos (and the grown up frat boy lifestyle)

But Lululemon, in my humble opinion, has truly cracked the code.  So it’s unsurprising to me to see so many others on-board with the brand when I’m out and about.  Putting aside my own very narrow purview of the brand’s success, though, allow me to call out Lulu’s (LULU) stock performance across the past 5 years:

lulustockchart

The company has been increasing sales at an average annual rate of 40% since its inception.  Pretty sweet.  A sign, I’d say, that their brand positioning and approach is working for them.

So the end game advice:  take a step back from your brand.  Think about your “muse” and how usage of your product or service connects to her lifestyle, her values, who she is.  Reframe and reground in that broader context.  And then, my personal suggestion, would be to build a forward-looking position for your brand using the “form” inspired by Lulu’s approach.

*Side note:  Status brands like Luis Vuitton are also deemed “badge” brands.  But…other than proclaiming, “I’m rich”, they don’t showcase a lifestyle – so they don’t fit the definition of a badge brand that I’m addressing.

Sara Linderman, Strategist

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Sterling Buzz…

Friday, January 18th, 2013

Austin’s book gets another great review!

brand4letter

“Whether the reader accepts or condemns McGhie’s contention that the model of one-way persuasion is obsolete, the heightened significance of customer word-of-mouth reaction, or its electronic counterpart, seems unassailable. The customer, not the marketer, controls the brand in the brave new world of viral marketing.”

Check out the full review on Publishers Weekly here.

Read all about Austin’s book, Brand is a Four Letter Word and pick it up here.

–

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Friends with Money : Grounding in the Affluent Consumer

Friday, January 11th, 2013

Thanks to our obsession with celebrity culture, we’re quick to scroll through our mental rolodex and arrive on a portrait of an Hermes-toting, Prada-wearing, private-jet flying individual as the role model for “our affluent consumer” – living leisurely, perhaps born into wealth, spending heavily and conspicuously, flashing black cards.

When you actually talk to affluents (and we at Sterling have a lot of those conversations), you start to reveal a very different profile when it comes to affluent consumers’ consumption behaviors and lifestyle – which have some valuable implications for brands that are trying to make greater inroads with this segment.

1. They worked hard for their money:  Let’s briefly acknowledge how the “affluent” population shapes up, by the numbers.

20% of US HHs make $100K+ per annum
5% make $167+
1.5% make 250K+
1% make 350K+

Most affluents aren’t falling into uppermost stratospheres.  They grew up in middle class families.  And they arrived at their station through hard work, dedication, and perseverance.

BostonPrivate

Those that work this hard expect that those around them will work equally as hard – and this holds true with what they expect out of brands.  They’re looking for brands to do more than the baseline, to provide out-of-the-ordinary experiences. Check out the lengths the Boston Private Bank & Trust are willing to go to for their customers.  This is an extreme example, but it illustrates how personal and unexpected touches go a long way in building a relationship with the affluent consumer.

2. Time is the greatest luxury:  When you look at where the wealthy are spending their money, it’s not all being chucked after luxury goods.  The biggest luxury, in consideration of their work ethics (and hours), is time.  So they indulge more heavily in vacations (on average, they take over 5 leisure trips per year, spending over $35K) and services (50%+ use housecleaning, lawn maintenance, accounts, or some combination thereof) – outsourcing the grudge work of life to get more time back.

amazon

So, in thinking about service or product delivery to the affluent, a brand should focus as much on the delivery as the service or product itself.   I think about Amazon – which a recent AdAge article noted as a preferred brand among affluents.  Amazon delivers an extraordinary range of products, often, free (and fast) shipping, easy returns, and an interface designed to make purchasing extremely quick and seamless.  So the consumer can spend less time shopping.  Think about what your brand can do to make service/product acquisition more efficient – because this is a consumer that will be especially appreciative of your efforts.

3. Money doesn’t actually burn holes in pockets:  Affluents are super value conscious (there’s a reason they’ve accumulated wealth…).  Over 50% seek out sales or wait for sales to shop; 45% shop with coupons.  Sure, they may have a lot in the bank, but they’d prefer to keep it that way.

costco

One brand that gets this?  Costco, which tops the list of “favorite” shopping destinations of affluents (over more predictably “wealthy” brands like Neiman Marcus).  Costco doesn’t offer a highly luxurious shopping environment, and it sells expensive, big-ticket items alongside massive boxes of cereal.  But it stocks high-quality products at great prices, providing its members significant value.   Brands seeking to get in with the affluent are wise to draw on Costco’s wisdom and consider ways to enhance the price/value equation.

4. Under the radar:  89% of affluents don’t want those around them to know that they’re wealthy.  Now, some of this is likely due to personal protection of their wealth.  But the other theme we hear is a belief in “stealth wealth” – they don’t mind having money, but they like to keep it under the radar.  They’re modest and have a fear of coming off as ostentatious or snobbish.

audiSo when it comes to imagery, communications, messaging, naming, etc. – brands may want to hinge on substance over flash.  Personally, I think about how this plays out in the auto industry:  a lot of mainstay luxury brands flash prestige.  But Audi seems to take a slightly quieter path, focusing heavily on engineering and performance, positioning itself as the more demure luxury car.  And it’s been working: 2011 and 2012 showed record sales growth for the auto brand.

Clearly, affluent consumers are living better.  I mean, having an Audi isn’t slumming it, and a typical consumer doesn’t expect a bank employee to drop by his house to deliver travelers checks. It’s a higher bar. But brands that succeed with affluents recognize their subtleties, understand what really matters versus drawing easy (and often erroneous) conclusions about what they want and need.  Put in the effort to tap these insights and set your brand up to win at this lucrative game.

Sara Linderman, Strategist

Sources:  2009 U.S. Census; The Influence of Affluence; The New Elite; 2008 Mendelsohn Affluent Survey

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A Reflection on Consumer Realities

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013

menwomen

I think it’s fair to assume that no one thinks we’re still living in the 1950s, with legions of aproned (an apron over a dress, worn with pearls) housewives whiling their days away baking bread and vacuuming until their husbands return home for sit-down dinners complete with icy cold martinis and roasts (although, that dinner sounds nice…).

Certainly, we’re all worldly and current, and we get that gender roles have blurred dramatically, that family structures are ever-evolving, that pigeonholing men and women into age-old stereotyped roles is silly.

So then…please explain:  Why do cleaning ads still feature women 99.9% of the time?  And why are they cleaning during the daylight hours, wearing button downs and donning coiffed hair, before retiring on the porch to enjoy a cup of tea?  Why do electronics ads assume that only men care about gadgets (and that they have to sheepishly hide their purchases from their spouses)?  And, speaking of spouses, why do family-related ads still only show the wife+husband+2.5 kids family?

There could be one of two things going on here:  Either we’re not as worldly or current as we think we are; Or we simply refuse to acknowledge the facts.  I think it’s a combination of the two.  Regardless, through our minimal adjustments in the way we speak to our consumers, we’re growing increasingly distant from our audience’s reality, and at some point it’s going to erode the efficacy of our messaging (especially given the growing ability, and propensity, to tune that messaging out).

So if I may, let me recap some cold, hard facts about what’s up with the American family structure.

1.) The thought on marriage has become “Maybe later,”or even just “Maybe.”

marriagegraph

2.) Moms are taking on the Dad roles:

- Only 16% of American households contain a breadwinner husband
- 74% of women participate in the workforce
- 40% of women make more than their husbands

3.) Dads are taking on the Mom roles:

- 70% of dads manage the grocery shopping (compared to only 32% of their fathers)
- 70% of dads help clean (compared to only 10% of their dads)
- 32% of dads are the regular caretaker (23% growth in the past 8 years)

Statistics and facts are certainly no substitute for actually getting to know one’s audience on a personal and holistic level.  They are, at the end of the day, nothing more than a starting point.  But it seems to me that despite all that we think we know, and as sophisticated as we think we may be when it comes to the consumer, it’s easy to fall back on stereotypes in the absence of really getting to know who they are and what they’re about.

This is my plea for brands everywhere to start digging in, start getting familiar with the roles that their consumers play in and what their worlds look like.  Forming that base of knowledge and painting that rich picture is the beginning of something beautiful – the ability to develop a truly informed and ultimately more rewarding relationship with the consumer, versus a flat bond based on tired, outdated assumptions.

Sara Linderman, Strategist

Sources:  The New York Times; Pew Research; US Census Bureau, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Edleman and Parenting Group

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Social Media…Pretty Much Like Real Life (a series)

Friday, October 12th, 2012

Part III:  The Inverse

My previous musings noted that successful performances in the social media space hinge on playing by the rules of offline social dynamics.

But a few weeks back I read an article in the New York Times (For College Students, Social Media Tops the Bar Scene) that for me really crystallized just how dramatically social media is actually reshaping offline social life, especially in younger generations.  (It also offers stale and obvious commentary on college drinking habits – not steering you toward the article for that side of its content…)

I’d site two notable shifts.  The first – we’re so much better informed.  I’m not talking about the quick-paced, socially-linked news cycle (which is huge, but not a point I’m running with) – I’m talking about how we can choose to know what our friends and family members literally around the world are doing at any given moment – and make choices about what we want to do and where we want to go based on that information.  As noted in the NYT article, we don’t need to “waste our time” going to a bar at an off time or with an off-crowd.

Another shift:  social media cross-pollinates ideas so fast, which means we’re more exposed to and aware of EVERYTHING – news, fashion, food, travel, etc.  I think this has a beautiful and oft-ignored upside of making us more worldly, more sophisticated and generally more open to experimenting and trying new things.  We enthusiastically seek out, and easily stumble upon, new drinks, flavors, experiences, destinations  – that we can then excitedly share back with our social communities online.

There are also learnings for the marketer shrouded in these shifts.

Knowing that our consumer is using social media to shape where she goes and when – how can we influence that behavior to our advantage? I’m thinking of events and opportunities offered in short, finite windows of time that create excitement and energy and ultimately movement and action from consumers.  Flash sales, secret/hidden events, unique dining or drinking opportunities.  Stuff that’s cool enough to drive the participant to encourage her friends to come join in the fun.

Can we challenge ourselves to be more daring and creative when it comes to what we offer our consumer?  And can we become richer sources of ideas and inspiration for them so they’re compelled to continue experimenting, and sharing their triumphs out with their networks – and rewarding them for doing so?  And in the reverse, can we do a better job of tapping them for ideas?

I’m certainly not the first to note that what this all adds up to is a continually savvier and more demanding consumer – which could be kind of a pain in the…neck.  But if we can embrace this era and adapt to it, I think it opens the door to have a lot more fun with the consumer, and do a lot more sharing and collaborating. 

Sara Linderman, Strategist

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