What this means is simple: brands must consider, absorb and reflect the real-world experiences and events around them. This requires brands to continually evolve and respond to the new normal through actions based on the values they stand for, promote and support.
Where can brands start?
Most global brands have a multitude of advertising and marketing campaigns that they recycle year after year. But that’s no longer the point of effective advertising and marketing. Instead, brands need to evaluate what their portfolio of offerings represents:
Does it reinforce or conflict with our brand values?
This can’t be an annual, quarterly, or even monthly exercise. It should be a teacher database daily effort to uncover actionable change opportunities to shift the way a brand goes to market.
Below are some quick tips and resources on how brands can make this happen.
Daily actions to uncover opportunities for change
- Continually evaluate brand image , collateral, communications, and core, internal and external objectives.
- Delete content that doesn’t reflect your brand well or has independent contractors become outdateddue to external events. (Yes, even if you’ve had that brand for a long time.)
- Listen to feedback from your consumers and employees.Digital media provides a wealth of raw, instant feedback as a timely indicator of how your brand is perceived. These insights are just a scroll or swipe away.
- Say what you mean.Act on what you say. Any brand can claim to live its values, but how are you putting them into practice? Using the current movement for racial justice as an example, the question is simple: allow people equal treatment and opportunities regardless of their race.
Step 2: use your brand resources
We live in a data-driven world. Use these resources to not only identify whatsapp filter who might buy your next product or offer, but also measure your brands’ progress to make actionable changes.
Do you maintain a balance of representative talent across your organization and within leadership roles?
Are you closing the gender, race and skill pay gap?
Are your products or offerings targeted to consumers appropriately?
Brands must use data to personalize experiences that deliver their offering to the right audiences.
According to an article by Women’s Wear Daily, brands that provided educational or financial resources in response to the Black Lives Matter movement saw a huge increase in engagement with consumers sharing and promoting their content.
This shift shows how word-of-mouth marketing can be as simple as a brand taking a stance on an issue that is important to its consumers.
And while it’s great for brands to take a stance, the work doesn’t end there.
Create the change
Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Over the past few weeks, many of us have experienced a multitude of emotions. Moments of pain, grief, anger, fear, and frustration have brought to the forefront issues and discussions that for too long have been compartmentalized, pushed aside, or avoided altogether.