Report Heart of the modern world In our technologically powered world, new marketing opportunities seem to emerge at an ever faster rate, and while some tech trends and buzzwords of the past year will continue to dominate the marketing agenda in 2019, some will no doubt be superseded. Meanwhile, wider social factors might come into play and, beneath the technology, it is perhaps time for a human story to reassert its significance. Words: Martin Bewick I magine a city. Its the morning rush hour. The roads hum with the noise of hybrid, electric and hydrogen buses, and fleets of branded, hired bicycles. Lily is 33, a fundraising manager at a small charity. She carries her reusable cup of vegan oatmeal latte into the office a new, shared workspace in an old Victorian building. At her desk, she logs into her teams WhatsApp group to see what meetings shes been called into and if the after-work yoga session is on. Harry has messaged; hes working from a caf where hes having a meeting. At lunch, Lily watches a comedy on her smartphone. In the afternoon, her team assesses the creative brief for an out-of-home video campaign. Later, back in her rented studio flat, she orders a Wagamama via Deliveroo, swipes for a while across a dating site, buys a new jacket, reseals another jacket in its returns bag to take to the drop-off point tomorrow, and researches a trip to Italy via Instagram. She ends the evening chatting on Snapchat with her youngest sister, 24, who thinks Lily is ancient. No-one goes to Italy these days, she says; she wants to go cycling in Rwanda the next big thing. All in all, its been a typical day. But is marketing really taking notice? Remember the human story The audience isnt stupid, and is aware of when a social media post is paid for Dom McGregor, co-founder, Social Chain Social Chain works with influencers to drive engagement All of the above is imagined, but for many marketers and consumers alike it will feel familiar. Its a day in the life where tomorrows trends are here already: sustainability in infrastructure; on-the-go e-commerce; new trends in food and drink; multichannel entertainment; the latest communications technology for social peer groups and work colleagues all jostling for space and prominence in the course of 24 hours. To that list of trends, marketers might also add geolocation technology and its impact on digital out-of-home advertising or in-store promotions, plus voice search, chatbots, programmatic advertising and influencer marketing. The list is endless and its all powered by data and technology. Beyond the numbers and stories of constant innovation, however, is it time for marketers to remember that they must connect with and engage with human hearts and minds if they are to deliver business advantage? Is it time to remember that Lily isnt just a persona for a marketing strategy... shes real? Consumers are human beingsendowed with a conscience, freedom and creativity, writes Anne-Laure Fouch, marketing and customer experience manager at global digital transformation business SQLI. Subjectivity plays a major role in forming their opinionsand reactions... and they are proud of this, fully accepting their complexity. Beyond marketing, the company as a whole can reshape itself through the lens of human relationships, to design and adapt its products, services, customer relationship programmes, and so on, to be more focused on value, emotion, sincerity and authenticity. The speed read Millennials and Generation Z are not one-size-fits-all demographics Young consumers like technology, but only if it works for them Human brands that demonstrate authenticity are better liked Good design is imperative, whatever the engagement platform used Employee engagement can help to build consumer trust Connecting with the new consumer Connecting with the real hearts and minds of consumers is at the forefront of thinking for Dom McGregor, co-founder at socialfirst, millennial marketing agency Social Chain, and COO at its sister company, Media Chain. He outlines how many brands have jumped on new tech and new channels to fish where the fish are, and meet millennials in their own stomping grounds, and yet how they often also miss the nuances of behaviour and personal motivations that power younger consumers behaviour. As a case in point, McGregor cites a recent influencer campaign. It was a big story in the news that sums up where marketing has been going, he says, of the Listerine influencer ad that went viral in early September. The paid-for content was an Instagram post from Scarlett Dixon, which showed the Instagrammer sitting on a bed, surrounded by heart-shaped balloons and a blanket with a picture of herself on it. Her supposed breakfast consisted of strawberries and tortilla wraps masquerading as pancakes. On her bedside table was a bottle of Listerine, and the hashtags for the image included Listerines own campaign hashtag #BringOutTheBold. The image went viral and gained criticism across social media some of it nasty and intimidating. In her defence, Dixon responded: My feed isnt a place of reality. Marketers might know this, but for consumers it begs the question, if its not real, what is it? Whats happening here? The question is about what value it adds for the brand, says McGregor. Its not showcasing what the brand is or what the product does. The audience isnt stupid, and is aware of when a social media post is paid for. If they think a brand is trying to trick them, it will get a negative backlash. Brands need to be authentic and produce content that adds value to the consumers life. No one size fits all McGregor, who is 25, launched Social Chain in 2014 it had turnover of 4m within two years. He says the Listerine ad is one of many instances of established brand marketing forgetting that millennials and Generation Z consumers are real people, with real and complex feelings. What they arent, he says, is an easily, broadly quantifiable demographic or a quick win. People often say that online audiences, and especially young ones, have a shorter attention span but, really, its that they have a quicker understanding of whether a piece of content What younger consumers is right or wrong. We see thousands of ads and brand communications a day. Ill listen to a podcast for an want from brands hour if its engaging me, but Ill scroll straight past a video if I dont want to watch it. Marketing needs to be more savvy about what content it places there. Millennials and Gen Z are passionate about topics such as mental health, equality and diversity, global warming and plastics, and this might be because the world weve grown up in is shrouded in negativity. Eighteen-year-olds today, born in 2000, were only eight when the financial crisis hit. Then weve had terrorism and wars, added to financial pressures and, of course, Brexit that have together created a bleak outlook on the world. Now, they want to make a change to the world theyve been brought up in, and technology has been their gateway to that world. Instagram, for example, was launched when they were 10. Theres no fooling them through traditional media streams, and theyre not very tolerant of being lied to. McGregor points to recent research from Media Chain Social Chains publishing group which shows that younger consumers, while they have learned to be frugal, are also willing to pay more for products that are true to their values. Seventy per cent of people would stop buying a product if it wasnt ethical in an area they cared about, he says. The research also shows that 51 per cent of young people make a purchase with a view to posting about it online. At one end of the spectrum its about being savvy and getting things cheap with discount codes with little loyalty to brands and, on the other, its about generating real brand loyalty through standing for something. Designing a quiet revolution When it comes to reaching and engaging consumers in a tech-led world, McGregors bugbear is content. For Mark Curtis, CCO and co-founder ofFjord, the innovation and design hub of Accenture Interactive, its design. He argues that while science, technology, engineering and mathematics the socalled STEM subjects have been the focus of recent education initiatives in the UK, creative talent is often overlooked, with major consequences for marketing. So much of the world we navigate is now digital, or mediated by digital, he says, and it puts a large focus on a small rectangle of glass. As a result, weve seen a massive acceleration in demand for design. Voice-led devices such as Echo are shifting this to a degree, but the trend remains that where once you walked into a bank to discuss a mortgage now its often the case that your experience of a bank is through an app. So one of the challenges for marketing is to find the right people to create good design and, as a businessperson, I need to know where future talent is going to come from. Fjord now works with local colleges and design schools, and has invested heavily in its in-house learning programme, to ensure it is constantly enhancing its skills, and to create supply chains of future talent. This refocusing on design can be seen across sectors. It was telecommunications companies initially, and retail is at the forefront, but banks have also taken up the challenge of design and usability as a way of helping customers engage with their products and services especially in light of new challengers in the market, such as Monzo. Healthcare and facilities companies are also responding to the challenge. Even government has invested in it. If you look at the UK governments online services, youll see that while it might not be beautiful the design is very effective. Its a quiet revolution in the usability of services. Millennial attendees at a Social Chain event Leading with creativity If that still sounds like tech talk, Curtis is quick to underline how human experience is at the heart of any good design. When you face a challenge of improving a product or service or inventing a new one you can gather a lot of data about whats happening, he says, but it doesnt always tell you why its happening. To find out why, you need human insights and to talk to people to find out whats happening on the ground. For example, we did a piece of research with a supermarket chain and observed that shoppers were often hunched over their trolleys as they left the store, closely checking their bills. We didnt know what was happening, but when we talked to them we discovered the customers didnt trust that the store had definitely implemented the two-for-one offers they had claimed. The insight was that they hadnt built up levels of trust; the creative leap was to know what to do with that insight and work out how we could change things. Creativity needs a curious mind to find the right observations to generate change. It takes a creative leap to drive out the insights you need to act on. For Curtis, creativity is the major concept here: Creativity is about bringing things together that didnt naturally belong together before, he says. The composer Stravinsky wasnt using new notes when he wrote The Rite of Spring in 1913, but he put them together in such a new way and there was a riot when it premiered in Paris. Today, its recognised as a classic. It changed things. I still dont see computers being able to make this creative leap. We live in a world where technology drives a lot of what happens, but you need people to take those creative leaps and to listen to peoples real experiences if you are to make the best use of the technology at your disposal. For Lily, the persona outlined at the beginning of this article, its not about all the technology she uses through the day, its about whether the solutions it provides are useful and, perhaps more importantly, how it makes her feel. cim.co.uk/exchange Creativity is about bringing things together that didnt naturally belong together before Mark Curtis, CCO and co-founder, Fjord