Analysis Trust this message Marketing is an organisations nerve centre, and is best suited to understanding what messages work best and when. An integrated and consistent communications strategy should extend across channels and cover short-term considerations, as well as longer-term business goals. But with competing pressures from ongoing, complex and developing realworld situations, marketers must be ready to meet the challenge of being the businesss brain, fast and at any time Words: catherine turner I ts the reviews that hit the headlines: the FTSE 100 company that puts its multimillion-pound creative advertising account up for tender. Less is said about the nuts and bolts of modern marketing and the importance of brand consistency, or about the importance of strategic coherence over and above short-term considerations. Todays brands cant be static, inflexible and rigid. They need depth, malleability and variety, and building in the scope to be agile is crucial. Modern brands often have multiple products and services, too; they need to cross boundaries of categories, countries, cultures and consumer groups, and engage a variety of stakeholders with different messages and experiences at different times, in different places and across different media. The importance of building brands and customer experience has never been more vital for the bottom line and shareholder value, according to the WPP BrandZTop 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2018report. Released by Kantar Millward Brown in May, the report found that the top 100 global brands set a record this year, increasing in value by 21 per cent, to US$4.4tn. It also confirmed the positive effect of building brands over the long term, the importance of delivering consistent customer experience for growth, and customer experience as an even more important driver of differentiation. WPPs David Roth says: Weve seen the biggest ever rise in brand value this year, driven by growth across all categories. Both new and established players have seen the payoff in being bold and adopting a long-term outlook towards brand building. Little wonder that many in the C-suite believe marketing to be an organisations nerve centre. As Will Weeks, social media and content manager at youth travel brand Contiki, says: We connect with every department. I cant think of a single team that doesnt work with marketing, as we either impact or rely on others for everything we do no-one exists in a silo. However, marketers must beware of over-emphasising the importance of consistency alone, suggests Giles Lury, director at consultancy The Value Engineers. It may have been consistent with the one product, one brand world of the mad men of the 1950s, but the world has changed since then and so has marketing and communication. A modern brand is like an organic entity, constantly growing and changing: products and services are added; pricing and distribution change; communications are developed and shared; new customers buy into the brand while others may be tempted away; the workforce changes. External pressures As marketers more than ever face competing pressures from ongoing and developing real-world situations, how can they plan for such scenarios and make them work in practice? Blackett Ditchburn, strategy director of independent Fearlessly Frank, advises: The starting point should be heavily influenced by knowing where your customer is going to be in the marketplace. How are you going to get to where they are? Think from the beginning where your customers are going to be buying this and how you can design innovations around that. That, more than simply media choices, should come before you even look at the communications message or ritzy ad campaign, he adds. Lury suggests marketers should think about how they communicate with different audiences by looking at themselves: What do you say to your boss, your partner, your children, friends and strangers? How do you talk in person, in emails, on Snapchat? You change the tone, the style but youre still you. Weeks agrees: A marketers role is to think about the audience, but we often fall into the trap of ignoring how our work plays out across the business and the multitude of touchpoints a customer could have. The brand with an audience of 18 to 35-year-olds (now 100 per cent Gen Y and Z) spends its cash below the line predominantly, but understands the importance of a coherent short- and long-term outlook. For instance, despite living in the world of digital as a travel company, print brochures still form a significant part of the marketing mix for Contiki. We have a high price-point product and a long path to purchase, so while shortterm activity helps us to sell to those who are looking, its our long-term strategies that have grown the brand, says Weeks. LOral is said to be experimenting with a new marketing model for its mens grooming brand Baxter of California one that puts marketing at the heart of its expansion plans. Rather than being managed independently and reporting into the chief executive, responsibility for the brand which was founded in 1965 and acquired by LOral in 2013 has been given to LOral USAs chief marketer. The learnings from running a digital-first, direct-to-consumer brand have, apparently, been taken to the group. Digital natives It should come as no surprise, according to Jamie Kenny, founding partner of marketing technology company Byte. He sees digital native businesses such as clients ASOS and Spotify as leading the charge to meet customers where they are, be that online or in real life. It is in their DNA whereas many long-established brands are only starting their digital transformation journey and what that means for them and their customers. Think, too, of how digital-only businesses, such as price-comparison and bingo sites, built empires on SEO, and banner sites have become brands with significant above-the-line, long-term branding budgets. That said, Kenny has noticed how brands are increasingly looking at new channels to reach their customers for example, chatbots and augmented reality (AR). Clients are more confident to push into new areas, such as Facebook Messenger chatbots, he says. Contiki is one such brand. In January, it created a chatbot on the Facebook Messenger platform offering Why one size doesnt a personalised experience that suggests trips relevant fit all to the users travel interests and motivations. Tiki combined our social messaging and product education it was a bot to help you choose a travel style, but it used a super-cheeky tone of voice, memes and gifs to make it funny, relatable and shareable, explains Weeks. Tiki was our first foray into artificial intelligence and we made a conscious decision to make it irreverent and self aware, which I think is key to success with bots. The BrandZ report suggests increasing use of data-driven, intelligence-led technologies such as artificial intelligence and AR alongside creative marketing approaches has allowed many brands to build a more in-depth understanding of their customers. This has helped them deliver convenience, personalised content and exceptional brand experiences. It must be done in a brand-appropriate way, says Kenny, citing a recent Philadelphia Cheese chatbot: Who wants to talk to cheese? But as people increasingly look to social media channels for real-time updates and information, it offers a huge opportunity for brands to quash criticism and grow. Limits of consistency Many longestablished brands are only starting their digital transformation journey Jamie Kenny, founding partner, Byte One thing brands shouldnt do, but too often do, is take an agreed above-the-line message and attempt to shoehorn it across channels, even as circumstances change. It is not a one-size-fits-all world, and that is especially true when planning for a nimble and agile approach, says Kenny. Social is where you can adapt and make changes at speed, if necessary. Payments platform Visa might be considering that right now. In June, Visa Europe suffered an IT crash that led to many Britons being without access to their money for hours yet its brand campaign (about making payments fast and easy) continued to run on TV and elsewhere. The brand might not have been able to stop the TV ads from rolling, but could it have been more agile and responded to the situation via its other marketing channels? As one Twitter user wryly noted: Visa running adverts right now about their effortless and reliable service is a ballsy move. Fearlessly Frank founder Wayne Guthrie says such incidents demonstrate how brands must think differently about this always-on age how to act, react, and think about how it might evolve. There are certain expectations from living in a digital world that you have to meet as a business, especially if you are listening in on social, he says. We are only in the clumsy, childs fleeting first steps [of digital] and brands need to play in that space. In a 2017 survey, 81 per cent of consumers indicated that their expectations for digital customer service are higher today than they were a year ago, according to Conversocial, a company that helps businesses deliver digital customer service channels. A poor digital customer service experience would prompt 57 per cent of respondents to stop doing business with a brand. Clearly, connectivity has ushered in a new generation of customers who expect more and expect it fast. The proliferation of digital channels and mobile devices has given consumers and brands greater access to real-time interaction, and fundamentally changed the way brands can service their customers, said Conversocial in The State of Digital Care in 2018 report. Are marketers equipped for this digital challenge? CIMs study, The Challenges and Opportunities Facing Marketers in 2017, found that improving the performance of digital channels remained a priority for 52 per cent of respondents. Nearly half of marketers (49 per cent) reported that they did not feel they were getting the most from social. There is still much work to be done. Ultimately, as Lury maintains, a brand should not be thought of as a static or consistent concept, but one that attains and maintains some coherency, despite having porous boundaries. Indeed, he continues: Marketing needs to embrace this new thinking. We all need to learn how to manage multiplicity not strive for a bland consistency, but an ever-evolving brand coherency. cim.co.uk/exchange The speed read Marketing is arguably the nerve centre of each organisation Often, long-term strategies grow the brand Creative uses of AI have allowed brands to learn from customers Adapting your message for each platform is crucia Customers now expect better digital customer service