Fifty-five percent of Prosumer respondents to Euro RSCG’s Future of the Corporate Brand study said they prefer to do business with companies and brands that have a distinct personality. More than nine in ten agreed that, to be successful, corporations of the future will need to show a more “human” face (meaning they must care about people and take a more active role in community and social causes).
Count me among them.
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| Tags: accountability, Andrew Benett, Ann O'Reilly, Arnold, Bob The Fish, brand engagement, brand pesonality, Bud Groover, Cavas Gobhai, consumption, CSR, culture, customer service, discounts, Euro RSCG, freebies, Future of the Corporate Brand, Greg Welch, holiday shopping, humanized brand, Johnnie Boden, Mark Twain, Mini Boden, New Consumer, Recession, reputation, Retail, values 
Post a Comment | 3 Comments | in Branding, Corporate/Brand Leadership, Marketing, New Consumer, Prosumers, Purposeful Pleasure, Recession, Shopping, Uncategorized, Value, Values
When the global financial crisis knocked the world back on its collective heels, everything went blank for a while. But after the immediate crisis dissipated, many retail banks and other financial service companies hastily returned to “marketing as usual”—with communications filled with jingles, jokes, and happy bankers and customers. It’s as if the whole thing never happened and everything is peachy again!
The crisis has had a huge impact on how people feel about banks and governments, but many of the former seem blind to this impact and deaf to what customers really want: actions that prove they have learned the lessons of the crisis. How can trust in banks ever be restored to pre-crisis levels if financial institutions ignore the real changes that the crisis produced?
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| Tags: accountability, advertising, affective trust, austerity, banking, bonuses, brand communications, BRIC, bubble economy, climate change, cognitive trust, collapse, crash, crisis, Cultural Pessimism, customer service, economics, Euro RSCG, Euro RSCG London, financial crisis, financial services, KPMG, New Consumer, obesity, Oliver Bennett, Recession, reputation, retail banks, Russ Lidstone, Tea Party, terrorism, trust, values Post a Comment | 2 Comments | in Branding, Corporate/Brand Leadership, Marketing, New Consumer, Recession, Responsibility, Uncategorized, Values
By Rachel Botsman
Engaging with your members is key to building your brand community.
We are now entering the next generation of turbo-charged collaborative brands being forged by the likes of Etsy, Zopa, Zipcar, Airbnb and thredUp. The rules, motivations and dynamics when managing these types of brands are very different from what it took to build a brand even a decade ago. It takes a community, not a campaign, to create a collaborative brand. Here are ten things to consider when building a collaborative brand.
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| Tags: Airbnb, brand advocates, brand evangelists, collaboration, collaborative consumption, community, CSR, culture, customer service, Etsy, finance, lending, New Consumer, Rachel Botsman, reputation, Roo Rogers, social brand, Threadless, thredUp, values, Zipcar, Zopa Post a Comment | 1 Comment | in Branding, Community, Corporate/Brand Leadership, Marketing, New Consumer, Prosumers, Purposeful Pleasure, Social Media, Uncategorized, Values
Adapted from KNOW: The Future of Travel, available to employees and clients across the Euro RSCG Worldwide network.
While overconsumption was the common practice prior to the economic downturn, we are now seeing a countervailing trend of mindful consumption that is changing how people define value and what they seek—and increasingly expect—in their brand experiences. Where once “more was more,” now different perspectives on luxury and service are emerging, with interesting implications for the travel and tourism category.
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| Tags: adventure travel, backpacking, Baxpax Downtown, boutique, brand experience, branding, Centre Ecologique Ilemena, conscious consumption, culture, customer service, Daddy Long Legs, design, eco-tourism, Euro RSCG, fashion, flashpacking, food, green, hostels, hotels, luxury, marketing, mindful consumption, mindfulness, New Consumer, organic, provenance, Rabih Hage, rough luxe, Rygerfiord, Sustainability, tourism, Travel, United Kingdom, values Post a Comment | in Eco-Consciousness, New Consumer, Purposeful Pleasure, Social Media, Sustainability, Travel, Uncategorized, Value, Values
Giapo is a gelato store in Auckland, New Zealand, run by Gianpaolo Grazioli, a young Italian man. I haven’t been there personally but those who have describe it as “a lovemark . . . dripping with mystery, sensuality, and intimacy” and its products as “the only thing you need in life.” For today though, we’re going to put the in-store ambience to the side and try to forget about how tasty the gelato is. As much as Grazioli is brilliant on these fronts, what he really excels at is building and maintaining relationships.
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| Tags: Ben Phillips, ConnectNow, conscious consumption, consumer consciousness, consumers, consumption, customer service, Euro RSCG, Euro RSCG Sydney, Facebook, food, Gary Vaynerchuk, gelato, Gianpaolo Grazioli, Giapo, green, mindful consumption, New Consumer, provenance, Recession, reputation, Retail, simplicity movement, social networking, sourcing, Sustainability, Twitter, values, Walmart Post a Comment | 5 Comments | in Community, Consumerism, New Consumer, Purposeful Pleasure, Recession, Shopping, Social Media, Sustainability, Uncategorized, Values
Adapted from KNOW: The Future of Value, available to employees and clients across the Euro RSCG Worldwide network.
For some time now, Euro RSCG has studied the shift toward “experiential retail,” looking at such phenomena as the theme-restaurant trend of the 1990s, the increase in in-store diversions, pop-up retail, and multisensory store design. The “value experience” the New Consumer now seeks is different in that it has less to do with sensory stimulation than with making the very best choices. Done right, the purchase experience satisfies two need states: hunting (the need for discovery—“Look what I found!”) and gathering (the need for selectivity and trust—“This is a purchase I feel good about”).
Satisfying the Hunter
In 2009, Euro RSCG fielded a quantitative study in the United States, United Kingdom, and France (n=500). More than two-thirds of respondents to the Future of Value survey admitted to being consumed with getting the best deal possible. Evidence of that mindset can be seen in the aggressive shopping practices taking hold online and in the increased visits to such bargain bastions as tag sales and secondhand stores.
Significantly, the appeal of the “hunt” is not just about cost savings. Human psychology tells us that real value is not found, it is discovered. Active value hunters don’t want “something for nothing”; they want to feel they have earned something not available to the average shopper. They enjoy the process and take pride in the effort they expend to get the best deal.
This hunting instinct has important implications for product promotion. First and foremost, the experience must offer opportunity for interactivity. This can be as simple as requiring shoppers to register for promotional codes or as complicated as creating an ambassador-type program that rewards the most active evangelists with prizes and other incentives. Exclusivity also conveys value: People want to think they are getting a deal available only to those who have made an effort to pursue it. Marketers are catering to this desire with such promotions as “private” and “members only” sales, which convey a sense of exclusivity even when all that’s required to qualify is an e-mail signup or prior purchase.
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The New Consumers are savvier and more demanding and have a whole lot more power, but not every company and industry seems to get that. Lately I’ve been encountering more and more gestures that feel downright anti-consumer. The worst offenders include, unsurprisingly, the airlines. Anyone who has been on a plane in the past decade knows that flying isn’t what it used to be, but recently it seems like it’s turned into nothing less than a race to the bottom: Which carrier can alienate its customers the most? How can they make the experience even more miserable? Who can treat passengers the worst?
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