Studies indicate that 66% of consumers, regardless of age, will purchase from a brand they feel is sustainable and trustworthy. The numbers are even higher once the Millennial cohort is isolated; at 73%. When companies and brands tailor their advertising with trustworthy information for their target customer, conversion rates are boosted 30%.
Demographics Are Everything
Baby Boomers, the generation born between 1946 and 1960, were once considered the largest generation to ever live. This generation, for decades, has been the foremost influence driving business’s marketing efforts and product lines. But, all that’s about to change.
In the next few decades, the largest transfer of wealth, over 30 trillion dollars, will take place—from Boomers to the Millennial generation and their little brothers and sisters; Generation Z. Demographics are everything, and the aging of the Boomers and the rise of Millennials and Gen Z is going to severely change the marketing and business landscape.
Millennials and their younger counterparts look at companies, brands, and businesses through an entirely different lens than Baby Boomers, and brands are starting to feel the pinch of their critical gaze.
The Millennial generation is far more risk-averse than their Boomer elders. Millennials are more likely to value experiences over things, and will spend their money accordingly. They are not investing in real estate, and are far less likely to buy a car new and on loan, or even own a car at all. Furthermore, this generation is more skeptical of brands than their predecessors.
Trust Is Visceral
While trust has always been an important metric and component driving customer buying decisions, with Millennials, trust is now a key component, not a peripheral, nebulous concept. For them, trust is visceral, and necessary. Despite their young age, this generation and the one behind it are jaded toward the business and advertising worlds.
It’s hardly surprising. While Boomers came of age during the post-war boom, when housing prices, relative to income, were still affordable across socio-economic status, for Millennials this is not the case. Furthermore, this generation witnessed and experienced the massive fallout of the housing crisis of 2008. Since then, this generation’s trust in institutions and brands and businesses was severely crippled and eroded. To earn Millennials coveted trust in the business world, brands are required to operate in a trustworthy, and sustainable fashion. And, brands who are perceived as civically responsible will be more likely to obtain those depreciating Millennial dollars in the coming years.
So, how can a brand appear trustworthy to younger consumers?
- History: By sharing the company history or brand’s personal story, offering social proof
- Accountability, i.e.: ‘money-back guarantees’ or offering free trials
- Affiliations: Proving authority through affiliation with other trustworthy brands in the sphere
- Relatability: Approaching from a sympathetic angle by understanding the customer’s pain points. Telling stories in an informal, casual tone
- Subtlety: Offer value first without requiring anything in return
Businesses will have to compete in this new generational ethos. Boomers will not be the largest holders of disposable income soon, and in order to stay competitive in the new market, brands that build trust with their customers will reign supreme.
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It was at a recent Dave Chappelle concert when it dawned on me the importance of disconnecting from the world. In between the profanities and lewd, vulgar, yet funny content, I found myself socializing and engaging with those around me more than usual. Was it because we shared a common emotion of laughter? Or the increased consumption of alcohol? NOPE! It was mostly due to the privacy and security precautions the venue took as part of the concert experience. (Really?!)
Before entering, each patron was asked to “lock” their phones in a sack, making them inaccessible until after the show. Part of this was to avoid anyone sharing the contents of the event. The other, which was not as overt, was to bring us back to a simpler time — a time when engaging and socializing with a human being was all we knew. A time when our eyes and ears were glued to a live event or conversation, rather than a screen in the palm of our hands. (Ahhh, the good old days!)
While some may think “down time” should be time spent being productive — I beg to differ. It should be time used to reconnect and recharge. I personally love when I am taking a flight somewhere and have to go into airplane mode. I am disconnected, and able to put my mind at ease for those few hours. I look at it as a reboot — an escape from the flood of information and content that invades my headspace almost every waking moment of the day.
Our brains already consume way too much information (11million bits per second to be accurate), and are more than likely overwhelmed and exhausted. Imagine a hamster on a wheel, at some point it’s little legs get tired and has to get off. Now imagine that hamster never getting off… that’s our brains. So it’s important to find ways to disconnect. If that means taking a walk outside, while leaving your phone at your desk, or just going into silent mode for a bit, I highly recommend it. You’ll find yourself and mind refreshed, making you a more productive and sharper you.
So let’s see if you can integrate this into your everyday. Try allotting 15min to your schedule for that walk, or going into silent mode (label it “Unavailable” on your shared calendars). See if you can make it a routine, and let us know how it’s working for you. I know from our side, it helps everyone here think clearer, which results in bigger ideas, better creative, and happier clients.
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A survey* was recently released with two startling statistics that revealed 42% of consumers found brands less trustworthy today, while 48% believed brands can have a positive impact on the world. Now those are two opposite sides of the spectrum if we ever saw one. But more importantly, how do we bridge this interesting divide?
After going through some thoughts about politics they touched on the most interesting path: Understanding the culture of your target consumer and effectively tapping into it remain key. So, building your brand and its identity around a cultural insight is paramount. Find it. Inspire and positively provoke your target with it. Then craft and design your creative campaign around it.
Lastly, be relentless in searching out these cultural insights. Remember, insights are not facts. They are something you discover about your brand or consumers that no one else can own. They belong to you. So say “NO” to the obvious. Reject the ordinary. And, initiate around the extraordinary. So who’s bridging this gap today, you ask? Here are a few off the top of our heads:
- Subaru — Recognition for LGBT campaign
- Tesla — Being forthright about their mistakes, and fixing them
- Chick-fil-A — Authentic and plain spoken
- Dove — Authenticity and respect through their “Love the skin you’re in” campaign
What Sparks Our Fire? Waking up everyday searching for insights that emotionally connect brands with consumers.
*The ‘Truth About America’ report from McCann
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To do this, we must think about our engagement strategy, and look for ways to immerse our audience in the brand, rather than simply sell it. We must tap into the emotional sensibilities, and bring their normal, everyday experience to life in a way that serves a bigger purpose — to create an unbreakable bond, that ultimately results in sales.
Here are some ways this is being done…
- Virtual Reality: Create a new world to experience your brand (Check out what Tom’s did)
- Augmented Reality: Bring the retail experience to life wherever you are (See how the IKEA Catalog enables you to place furniture in your space before you buy it)
- Bots: Brands becoming personal assistants (Casper gives you someone to talk to on those sleepless nights)
There are many partners out there specializing in these methods (Blippar, LSTNR, Moth+Flame). And if you want to proactively bring new, impactful ideas to your clients and consumers, we suggest you tap into them.
So don’t get stuck in the world of selling. It’s a one-dimensional way to drive engagement and conversions. Change your approach. Be multidimensional, it will serve you well.
What Sparks Our Fire: Taking the initiative to find new ways to turn simple ideas into ones that serve a bigger purpose.
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How do you turn a nebulous goal like “be more creative” into something tangible? Everyone has vague goals at one point or another, and they’re especially common in the creative marketing, branding and advertising industries. This week, Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson published a small tool on Harvard Business Review‘s website, designed to help you reach your nebulous goals in 4 steps.
The tool takes you through four rounds of questions that help you first name the goal, then define sub-goals and what actions will be taken (by whom, when, and where). In addition to this, the tool asks you to create an “if, then” plan, which, as Dr. Halvorson explains, “[humans are] neurologically wired to make”. Essentially, under the specific sub-goals and tasks that you need to complete, you are asked to write a sentence detailing “if x, then y”. By framing actions this way, we are working with our neurological inclinations to accomplish the tasks that comprise our larger, vaguer goals.
Check out the tool here, and see what ambiguous goals it can help you nail down.
What Sparks Our Fire: Turning goal setting into goal accomplishing
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This week marked the 12th annual Advertising Week New York conference– a week-long celebration and exploration of topics relevant to the advertising, branding, and marketing industries. After attending events throughout the week, we asked our President, Marc Sampogna, what his best experience was at this year’s AdWeek NY.
As Halloween approaches, discussing something “scary” is never more appropriate. At this years AdWeek NY, I experienced some interesting topics and conversations. All of which uncovered insights that I’m sure I’ll use at some point in my day-to-day. But one in particular really resonated with me, and that was with Seth Godin (sethgodin.com). Now, I’ve seen him speak a number of times, and have read some of his books, e.g., Purple Cow, All Marketers Tell (Lies) Stories, etc., but something about this talk hit me in a different way… a good way — in a way that gets lost in the world of marketing and creativity these days. He spoke about “fear”, and that if you, the agency/creative/strategist/
Why is it that we filter down our ideas, and dilute the creativity out of them just so they’ll do something average? Well, it’s, as Seth stated, because “average is what reaches 100 million people”. Average is mainstream. Average is a sure thing. Look, from a business perspective, I get it, we gotta sell tickets, put asses in the seats, move shit off shelves, etc. But for f#@ks sake who the hell wants to be “average”??!! I sure as hell don’t. I want to be scared. I want to be afraid. I want to take risks. I want to hold nothing back. Put myself out there and do things that make me uncomfortable. Because if it means that the ideas I put forth are genuine, and inspired from within, then whether it fails or not, I can move ahead knowing that I stayed true to what matters to me — not being average.
Love Times New Roman? Have a passion for Helvetica? Good news for designer geeks: You can now wear your favorite font as eyewear.
After the initial success of their first line, Wieden & Kennedy Tokyo and Oh My Glasses have collaborated to launch a new line of TYPE glasses, glasses inspired by different fonts, with names like Garamond and styles ranging from “Light” to “Bold”. Times New Roman is one of three new models that made their debut at a Tokyo pop-up shop last week.
Each pair of TYPE glasses are meant to reflect characteristics of their respective fonts, like lines, curves, and shapes. Each font also comes in “light,” “regular,” and “bold” to denote thickness of the frames.
“As the choice of typeface affects expression in written communication, subtle design differences in eyeglasses frames change the impression of the person who wears them,” Wieden & Kennedy Tokyo state on their website.
What Sparks Our Fire: Products that finds new ways to showcase beautiful elements of design.
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Vaccination has been a highly controversial topic in recent years, resulting in a slew of “Anti-Vaxxers” and the School Vaccination Law in California, which mandates that children that attend public school must be vaccinated.
British Columbia’s ImmunizeBC and agency Rethink Vancouver have teamed up to create a unique mailing campaign to promote vaccination, appropriately called “Viral”. The trailer for the campaign states that “Measles is one of the most contagious diseases on the planet, but as you know, it’s making a comeback.”
However, the kicker is the actual mailing campaign: when exposed to sunlight, the UV-responsive ink on the paper appears suddenly in a rash of bright red spots, reminiscent of–you guessed it–measles. The alarming card shows how fast measles can spread, and reminds recipients that “not vaccinating your children puts us all at risk”.
This comes after particularly alarming reports of measles spreading throughout the United States, including an outbreak at Disneyland, and reminds parents to vaccinate their children or risk them being a public health hazard.
What Sparks Our Fire: Ingenious campaigns that post important public health reminders
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Since its founding in 2005, YouTube has been home to a myriad of beauty bloggers who post tutorials and other how-to makeup videos. But in a powerful new campaign for Make Love Not Scars by Ogilvy & Mather, the woman giving the red lip tutorial looks a little different than the typical 20-something beauty blogger.
Reshma, whose face has been scarred and disfigured, is a spokesperson for the #EndAcidSale campaign, whose goal is to curb the number of acid attack victims in India by limiting the accessibility to acid (you can buy a liter of it in any drugstore in India for about $1.50).
According to a petition that Reshma asks viewers to sign (which has over 65,000 signatures), India has over 1,000 reported acid attack cases per year, of which 90% of the victims are female.
What Sparks Our Fire: Creative and powerful campaigns that capture attention and call for change.
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Minimum wage in the United States is recognized as a sign of financial instability, but it is rarely understood exactly how incredibly draining minimum wage labor actually is.
Blake Fall-Conroy, an artist who strives to create “socially-conscious” pieces, has conceptualized an ingenious way to demonstrate the frustrating, monotonous, and often demeaning plight of minimum-wage worker.
Fall-Conroy invented the “minimum wage machine,” a device with a hand-crank that the user turns continuously, and dispenses a penny every 4.5 seconds. An hour will earn you $8 in pennies, which until eight months ago was the minimum wage in the state of New York.
The artist hopes that the machine will help people understand the amount of work that goes into making just $8/hour, and perhaps inspire sympathy for those who work minimum-wage jobs or provoke change in legislation that will raise the minimum wage (the minimum wage in New York is now $8.75).
What Sparks Our Fire: Art that serves a purpose and sparks social awareness.
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