10 Innovation & Brand Building Insights from the 2020 CMO Gathering

On the quest to help marketers and researchers decode innovation and brand building, I have the fortune of interviewing inspiring CMOs and insight leaders.

If there is one conference that I recommend to any marketer trying to become a better innovator and brand builder, it is the Cult Gathering of Brands in Banff.

Here are the top brand building insights we “gathered” while spending time with these incredibly inspiring CMOs...

Insight #1. Be obsessive about improving your consumers’ lives.

In a world that is constantly chasing growth, it is easier to lose sight of your consumers than you might think.

I really like how Brent Baldwin, Head of Brand Marketing of The Harlem Globetrotters, framed the importance of this when he said:

“The Definition of Brand Insanity is not giving your customers what they want and wondering why you are failing.”

Chris Kneeland, Founder of The Gathering, quoted Peter Drucker to remind us that “all companies exist to service a consumer”.

He reminded us that products are means to an end and what matters most in today’s hyper-competitive world is improving the lives of your consumers.

Insight #2. To understand your consumers, you need to listen to and observe them.

Almost every CMO we spoke to highly praised the importance of consumer insights.

In fact, Alex Bodman, VP and Global Executive Creative Director at Spotify, referred to the importance of consumer insights using Spotify’s own tagline of “keep listening”.

Chris Kneeland, having hand selected all of the CMOs in attendance, said that the most successful insight leaders were “paying the tuition needed to get smart about their insights” and Jane Hwang, Vice President, Fruity Confections & Skittles and Brand Director on Skittles, said that marketers need to “take it to the streets more often”.

The world of consumer insights is quickly changing and CMOs recognize the importance of leveraging new and innovative approaches to understand their consumers.

They want to go beyond simply asking consumers how they feel about their brands and instead want to dig deeper into consumer behaviors by directly observing how consumers engage with their brands.

Insight #3. Remember that consumers are human.

Chris Kneeland shared a statistic from Oracle that showed that 82% of consumers say that they have been disappointed by a brand in the last year.

He followed that up by sharing a study from Havas suggesting that 77% of global brands could disappear and nobody would care.

So, as marketers and insight leaders, how can we overcome this?

I had the pleasure of having a quick espresso with Brian Killingsworth, Chief Marketing Officer of the Vegas Golden Knights, and asked him what advice he had for up and coming marketers.

He said that his best piece of advice comes down to remembering that consumers are human.

You need to find ways to add value to their lives beyond your products, so that you create a more meaningful connection.

Brian added that you should think about how you are going to add value to consumers’ families given that consumers are time pressed yet need stronger connections with the people they love.

In addition to improving consumers’ lives, you also need to take cues from what is going on at a societal level.

Rachel Ferdinando, SVP and CMO of Frito-Lay North America, emphasized the importance of being authentic when you connect with consumers and to meet them where they are from a cultural standpoint.

She emphasized the importance of being on top of current culture and urged marketers not to become “cultural tourists”.

Listening to these two CMOs, reinforced Peter Drucker's sage advice that the consumer rarely buys what the company think it's selling.

Insight #4. Become fluent in emotions.

A brand is a promise. A brand is an emotional connection with consumers.

So, as a marketer, you need to think about how you are making consumers feel.

Allyn Bailey, Talent Acquisition Transformation Manager at Intel, suggested that if you’re not focused on how you make consumers feel, your brand is transactional and won’t survive in the face of disruption.

Chris from the Gathering likened the old adage of “Don't tell me that you're funny, just tell me a joke” to the importance of linking emotions to marketing by suggesting that you shouldn’t tell consumers that they're important, but instead just make them feel that way.

He shared the story of how Fanatics empathized with the emotions their consumers felt when they bought a jersey and their favorite players got traded.

The marketers created a new program to exchange that jersey for a new favorite player or their old favorite players’ new team. This program has driven significant positive associations towards the brand.

Over an espresso, I asked Jane Hwang from Mars (Skittles) about the importance of emotions to brand building. She said that with all the excitement around data and technology, there is a risk of organizations underestimating the power of creativity, such as a big bold idea brought to life with emotion.

Jane described how challenging it is to find the right type of emotion when you are trying to create an ad that breaks through and is memorable, especially when humour is involved. She explained that you don’t want ads to be flat, but also don’t want to over do it.

Jane worked with her team on Skittles to create a framework that protects the brand from developing ads that are culturally offensive, too gross, too cute, or completely out of bounds.

To build a successful brand, you need to start by thinking about how you want to make consumers feel.

Insight #5. Make sure your brand stands for something meaningful.

The key to overcoming consumer brand apathy is determining what your brand stands for.

Chris Heck, the President of the Philadelphia 76ers, started a re-brand of his sports organization by first figuring out what the 76ers brand stand for – history, quality, and authenticity – and only then moving to figure out other brand aspects, like its brand identity and brand assets.

Brian Killingsworth, CMO of the Vegas Golden Knights, also shared that his brand stands for very specific values and associations. The brand wants to be bold, innovative, and inspiring, while balancing that with being valiant and humble.

Brian explained that there is an inherent value to having, knowing, and measuring the emotional associations your brand stands for. It acts as a decision-making filter for marketers and helps drive consistency for the brand.

Diane Pelkey, Senior Vice President, Global Communications, Entertainment and Experiential Marketing at Under Armour, shared that there is value in being clear on what you stand for, as it acts as a “north star” when your brand faces adversity.

Choosing a brand purpose is no easy task, but living it consistently is equally as challenging, yet critical to your brand’s success.

Doug Atkin, Former Head of Community at Airbnb, suggested that the only thing worse than not having a brand purpose is not living up to the one that you have communicated to consumers.

Insight #6. Be consistently distinctive.

In today’s disruptive and hyper-competitive world, it is key to be distinct.

Examples from the Gathering included Skittles and its colors, Doritos and its product shape, and the Harlem Globetrotters and their iconic song.

Each of these brands became iconic, by consistently building and reinforcing memory structures for their most valuable and distinctive assets.

Being consistent with your brand may feel like common sense, but with the pulls of constantly changing marketers working with several different agencies, it is too easy to unintentionally bring your brand to life inconsistently.

Perhaps the best advice on being consistently distinctive came from Rachel Ferdinando, SVP and CMO of Frito-Lay North America, when she said, “If you’re iconic, act like it”.

In one of the top marketing campaigns of the past year, the Doritos team dropped their tagline and logo and relied on the strength of their distinctive triangle shape in their, ‘Another Level’ campaign, appealing to Gen Z.

This campaign is a powerful example of what happens when you build and reinforce memory structures that appeal to a wide variety of senses.

It allowed Doritos to have the flexibility to rely less on its logo and brand name.

Insight #7. Being consistently distinctive does not have to be boring.

The Harlem Globetrotters have executed their brand consistently for decades and the value of this is demonstrated as their fans don’t obsess about single players, but instead recognize the brand’s visual cues or hear their distinctive audio track and swarm the live experiential events.

This is an excellent example of how a brand can be consistently distinctive, yet not boring.

Another example of this comes from the Vegas Golden Knights. Their CMO, Brian, explained that he is constantly challenging the status quo, trying to put a “Vegas spin on things”, while trying to create a consistent experience for their consumers.

Ultimately, when you have built up enough equity and memory structures by being consistently distinctive, it provides opportunities to get creative with your brand.

In addition to the Doritos ‘Another Level’ campaign example, another great example of creating brand flexibility by leveraging years of being consistent is the Skittles special Pride packaging.

Skittles was able to rely on other distinctive cues, while removing the color from its product and packaging in a special edition launch for Pride in London.

Jane from Skittles explained that “as you move into the future, you have to think about what jewels you have from the past, but also need to evaluate what will also be relevant to future.”

Insight #8. To innovate, you need to take some risks.

Given the importance that innovation plays in brand building, we asked Jane from Mars to share her best advice on innovation.

She started by sharing the importance of having the right mindset towards innovation.

She suggested that you and your brand need to adopt an attitude of fearless authenticity by knowing what you stand for and moving towards it.

Jane also shared the importance leaders play in enabling innovation. She suggested that you need to relentlessly help your team remove the ingrained fear of failure.

She went on to explain that it is important to remind your team that every decision has a variety of potential outcomes, with several positive and negative consequences.

Each of those consequences has varying probabilities of occurring. You need to remember that the worst-case scenario can occur, but still move forward because you believe the potential reward outweighs that risk.

The path to innovation requires new ideas, and not all of those ideas are going to work out.

As a leader you need to encourage your teams to own the risks and rewards of taking chances.

Insight #9. Move from content to conversations.

With 82% of Gen Z consumers skipping ads as quickly as possible, according to the AdReaction study by Millward Brown, we may want to reconsider content and advertising.

Carlos Gill, Bestselling Author of the book The End of Marketing, spoke about the impact of technology on brand building and suggested that we may want to revisit our communications.

He said that “content isn't king, community is” and suggested that we should place more emphasis on having conversations with our consumers rather than just thinking about what content we want to place.

Douglas from AirBnB explained how creating community is the best way to enable your consumers to express their views and Brent from the Globetrotters stated that “good brands tell their story well, but great brands build such a connection that their consumers tell their story even better”.

When asked about how to best communicate your brand’s values, Chris Heck, the President of the Philadelphia 76ers, suggested that you should let your fans talk about it and stay out of the way. This is clearly relevant beyond the world of sports.

Insight #10. Brand building is a long game.

Several of the CMOs we met reinforced that in order to build healthy and distinctive brands, you need to be long-term focused.

Rachel from Frito-Lay reminded us that you need to “build equity for the long run” and Allyn from Intel explained that to “build a strong brand, you need to be consistent, dedicated, and patient.”

One way of ensuring that your brand is consistent without being repetitive is to uncover what emotions you want your consumers to feel about your brand and use that as your guide.

This allows your agencies to have the flexibility they need in creating content that will gain attention, while ensuring that your consumers feel consistency when they are engaging across different touch points.

The key is to ensure that you are aligning your team and agency partners on what it is you want consumers to feel and holding them accountable to that.

Building an emotional connection with consumers takes a long time.

Coincidentally, so does building a strong, distinctive brand.

In closing

As usual, the Cult Gathering of Brands has provided its attendees with some very powerful brand building lessons.

You could argue that many of them are “common sense”, but the reality is that many marketers change brands every 18 months.

The best way for these marketers to be recognized is to do something new or different. As such, we lose site of timeless branding principles such as being empathetic, distinctive, and consistent.

There is also a lot of inherent tension in brand building – being culturally relevant in a personalized way, being distinctive without being repetitive or boring, and listening to consumers, but also taking risks and doing something different.

And this is what makes marketing, brand building, and innovation such a beautiful mix of art and science.

Until we gather again, remember that brilliant brand building takes time, patience, and courage, and as Ryan Gill, co-founder of the Gathering and keynote speaker said, “Even when you’re at a cross-roads in your career or with your brand, just remember to say yes. Yes, I can trust myself and the plan I’ve set for my brand.”