Are you transacting in culture?

I came across this question recently while researching trends that are shaping the retail industry, and find it to be relevant to the conversation about creating next-generation brand engagement in the evolving landscape of consumer mindsets.

Engaging people in strong, relationship-building ways requires delivering something much greater than can be achieved via traditional off-the-rack retailing strategies. Consider how to create experiences that invite customers to partake in something more than the goods and services that you are promoting. Think in terms of providing an opportunity to participate in a dynamic culture that you are cultivating. Before writing this idea off as esoteric, consider it in a more concrete context: the barbershop.

Vibrant barbershops have been cultivating opportunities to transact in culture for many generations, not simply as a place for a quick haircut, but rather as a marketplace for the elements of exceptional community and culture: a mixed-generation environment brimming with stories and jokes, plenty of folk news, advice on love and business (solicited or not), and recommendations for restaurants and services. While a haircut may be what brought you in, it was these seemingly innocuous moments of community social exchange that made going to the barbershop an indelible experience. These cultural transactions have resulted in loyal customers and peer-to-peer marketing. With this in mind, consider how you can also create the type of engaging cultural experience that would have customers coming back and spreading the word to their friends.

Here are a few great examples in Los Angeles to take cues from:

Guerilla Atelier is a stately warehouse of furniture, home décor and clothing. The space also hosts edgy exhibitions, recently showing a collection of lost Warhol portraits, and the visually breathtaking SBTRKT stroboscope. Founder Carl Louisville plays dual roles in equal parts, both gracious host and curator, warmly connecting and sharing the unique backstory that accompanies every piece in his store. There’s no way to walk out of this retail experience without feeling as if you’d had a unique cultural encounter.

Sonos Studio LA in the La Brea district features short-term exhibits, events and concerts that cross the bridge between retail, brand immersion, and art. Recently, artist Mileece installed Sonic Garden, an interactive exhibit of living plants, whose bioelectricity, when touched, is translated to sound and emitted through Sonos’ rich acoustic studio – an audiophile’s playground, and the perfect atmosphere in which to find the premium audio company’s full line of products.

The Venice flagship Tom’s is part shop, part café, and part interpretive experience where customers are immersed in Tom’s signature giver culture. A large map of the globe adorns the wall of an outdoor seating area that shows all the countries impacted by from Tom’s. The unique space connects likeminded customers to Tom’s brand of capitalism with a conscience.

Keeping your finger on the pulse of the evolving landscape of consumer mindsets is no small feat. By creating opportunities for your customers to transact in culture, you can take steps in the right direction towards building an experience that helps your customers connect with your brand in a way that resonates and leads them to come back again and again.

Do Mission-Centric Brands Still Matter?

Do people still care about mission-driven brands like Tom’s and Patagonia?

I think the trend has leveled out, but the intention and spirit of the movement is evolving into something better for both the economic and sociocultural landscapes.

According to the Census Bureau, 55% of the US population is younger than 35. I don’t think it’s fair to say that we know what young people care about, but the market is certainly at an inflection point. Empathy, evaluation and evolution are cost of entry for any brand that wants to out-motor legacy brands. If past performance is a company’s only goal post, there’s a great chance it will join the ranks of other ghosts which failed to keep up.

So, what are some components of competitive differentiation? I don’t have empirical data, but here are a few observations that stick out from my work with organizations across diverse industries, ranging from Google, Applebee’s, to the National Park Service.

1. People want products and experiences which provide a genuine life-enhancing benefit.

2. Building and maintaining customer trust is on trajectory to become the primary emotional and functional benefit.

3. As consumers become more socially connected, brand affinity becomes more susceptible to detriment.

4. Brands which foster a community and sense of belonging or status convert customers into loyal advocates.

5. Younger consumers’ shopping habits are much more intentional, thought out and researched thanks to connectivity.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to future-proofing a brand, but there are tools to approach innovation and human-centered design is one of them.

The process has 6 key steps towards arriving at a desired outcome. From framing the problem and gathering data, concepting a high volume of new ideas to prototype and test, to launching, evaluating, and adjusting — the design thinking behind the process utilizes research, evidence, ingenuity and intuition to create innovative ideas, products and brand positioning.

It’s not magic. With a little help, any team can learn how to employ the tools and exercises. Which is where brand strategists like me come in.

Building an Audience from Zero? A Brand Strategist's Approach

I received a great question in reference to my post, "3 Social Marketing Questions All CEOs and Founders Should Be Asking," and I thought I'd share it with you.  (If you don't know me, you can learn more here.)

Question:

Let's say a company is just starting out and has literally zero social media presence. What tips would you recommend to attract followers once the social media platforms get set up? (Instagram, Facebook and twitter).  I guess my question is how do you go from 0 followers to gaining thousands?

Answer:

I probably need to preface with a disclaimer that this is an extremely complex subject matter - surely there are a million strategies and opinions. I'll drop a few low hanging fruit suggestions that I give clients that are building out a social strategy, and am happy to dialogue further.

1.  Have a really clear understanding of your brand.

Big companies I work with spend - literally - millions of dollars on brand strategy. They conduct research and host focus groups with their target consumers. They expose people to different ways to talk about their brand, different imagery, different language, and measure which gets the best responses and then build those 'brand positionings' out.

The starting process is the same whether you're a Megacorp, or you're a local business: Start by asking the big questions like:

• What do we stand for, What do we believe in?

• Who do we idolize and turn to for inspiration?

• What are the functional benefits of our product or service?

• What are the emotional ties to those functional benefits?

The exercise is called emotional laddering - like peeling an onion, you want to be starting at the functional benefits of your brand and ending emotional ones.

Let's take bleach as an example: functionally, it disinfects surfaces.  It makes whites whiter.  It's not expensive, or remarkable.  But in an emotional laddering exercise, you probe for the why:

Why is important that bleach disinfects?  Because it makes my home free of germs. Why is it important to be free of germs?  Because I'm a mom and have small children to keep healthy. How do you feel when you think about keeping your kids healthy? I feel like a good mom.

JACKPOT!  Sure, you label your bleach as killing germs, brightening whites.  But you position it something like this:

Get the drift?  You want to get at the deep-down root emotional benefits, and focus on how those - especially in your social media starting-from-zero stage. What you're doing is creating a brand positioning that identities what makes you better, and what makes you different, than everyone else out there.

If you need some inspiration, consider popular brands and try to do the exercise for them.  Nike, Swiss Army, BMW, Apple, Google etc.

I know, probably not what you were expecting.  But I promise, if you do this work before you start blasting out social content, you are fast-tracking your buzz-building machine.

TWO: TIME TO DO SOME HOMEWORK!

Research social media personalities, brands and accounts that are flirting with the space that you're hoping to dive into: * Use your keywords / key brand terms to uncover high value hash tags * What are the adjacent hash tags that are being used? * What kinds of images are getting the most engagement? * Are the accounts serious? funny? sarcastic? witty? informative?

Imagine that if it was in real life, you'd be sneaking into competitors stores trying to snap pictures. You'd be looking at how their stores are laid out, how they're selling their brand in the store, what kind of imagery and signage and furniture they're using to convey their story. You want to be doing that kind of intelligence work to help inform the foundations for building out your brand.

THREE: Come to terms that this isn't going to happen overnight.

Building an audience is not easy. It requires a commitment, a discipline and a practice. It requires a certain panache and charisma. The difference between success and mediocrity is lies in the investment in time to creating compelling, original, useful, sexy content. If you post half assed content, you'll attract only your relatives and some of your friends.

But create exceptional content, and you'll grow fast. If you're lucky, you have skills to do this yourself. If you're like most, you know who to call to make you look good. * Get great photography going: Model your product on sexy men and women. Pay attention to lighting, depth of field, colors, etc. The accounts with a million followers: their images are fucking first rate, gallery-worthy. * Devil's in the copy: do not underestimate the power of copywriting. If you're not a good writer, farm it out to someone. You need to convey extraordinary amounts of richness in every. single. word., and it's a skill that is unique.

FOUR: CAST A WIDE NET

You're really talking about brand building, of which social media is one segment of. You want to be pushing out small nuggets of content across a wide variety in order to amplify your reach. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, snapchat, Google +, Fancy, Pinterest, tumblr, and your blog.

If you're not familiar, you need to read a primer on the idiosyncrasies of the various channels, and you need to figure out how to speak 'fluently' in each channel's language. For example, Snapchat [which is becoming a very important force to be reckoned with] is raw around the edges, fast and furious - but scores incredibly high in engagement impact. Instagram is like putting something up in a hipster art gallery: the lighting, the angle needs to be just perfect. And your hashtags are important. and your words are important.

You amplify all your brand building by leveraging the different channels. For example: write a blog post that pushes people to Instagram or Twitter. Tweet the blog link out. Cross post it on Medium. On Medium, link back to your website, and on your website collect an email for a weekly informative newsletter or some other value add in return for email signups.

Email marketing still has the highest conversion rates across most product categories, so you should be doing everything you can to get people signing up for your email list.

FIVE: Do interesting shit!

Want to know the fast way to attract people to your brand?  Intrigue and provoke them by doing cool stuff that makes them want to get to know you!  Build beautiful things, eat at amazing restaurants, create unique and useful guides, travel to incredible places.  The more compelling, the more beautiful - the faster you'll attract people.

That said, you have to be very strategic.  People don't want to see boring food, or every single team celebration.  Behind the scenes looks at the work you're doing is interesting.  Photo shoots, special events, trips for meetings or conferences - yes!  New products - yes!  Special promotions and discounts - yes!

Wrap it up

Hopefully you come away with a few nuggets to think on.  From here, it gets tactical and technical.  There are tools and software that can't alleviate pressure and make it easier on you.  There are important resources for analyzing and measuring your growth and engagement.  There are tricks for building interest, and for paying small amounts of money for shoutouts and promotions.  But start with these exercises, and then drop me a line and I can help you get connected to the right tools for your company.