6 Marketing Leaders Share Their Advice on Growing Brands in a Quickly Reopening World

Every two weeks I bring together a group of amazing marketing and insight leaders from the Brand Builders Community to discuss their most urgent business challenges.

This past week I met with six innovative marketing leaders to discuss how to grow brands in a quickly reopening world.

Here are the top 5 soundbites from this 30-minute conversation. If you would like more content on these topics, please leave a comment below or send me a message.

Top 5 Soundbites from "Preparing for a Reopened World"

1) Brands Cannot Afford Complacency Anymore

Prior to the pandemic, both marketers and consumers were sweeping a lot of business and social issues under the rug.

But then, as one of our think tank participants who leads brands in an impulse category said, "once the pandemic hit many marketers were rocked out of complacency". All of the sudden, organizations couldn't get away with having 25% of one person's job description focused on advancing their ecommerce strategy as we saw 10 years worth of ecommerce growth in less than a year.

More important, are the social issues that came to light during this time, which have driven an even deeper focus on purpose driven marketing, accompanied with a variety of changes to the way we conduct commerce.

2) A Greater Divide and Increasing Disparity

Wealth disparity between privileged and underprivileged consumers has become even more pronounced as the effects of the pandemic have not been felt equally.

Another think tank expert that remembered developing strategies to help grow beverage brands following the 2008 financial crisis said, "There is a great divide between the haves and have nots following the pandemic". Marketers will need to think about how to add value for two different types of consumers.

On one hand, many consumers will be very hard pressed to make ends meet coming out of the pandemic and will be scrutinizing price.

On the other hand, there is a whole other set of consumers that have saved a lot of money during the lock downs and have a lot of pent up energy for shopping, travelling, and investing in social causes.

Marketers need to find a way to appeal to two very different types of consumers on vary opposite ends of the financial spectrum.

3) The Bifurcation Between Ecomm and In-Store Experience

Shopping need states have also bifurcated as a result of the pandemic which means that shopper insight leaders need to figure out how to integrate two very different shopping environments.

On one hand, the expectation is that online shopping will need to improve upon the need for fast, easy, and convenient shopping, driven by lots of automatic, repeat purchases without too much conscious deliberation.

On the flipside, the future of in-store shopping will also need to improve on its ease and convenience as consumers don't want to spend as much time indoors. They key for in-store will be driving towards more immersive, and engaging experiences, perhaps using AR and VR technologies.

Retailers will need to demonstrate added value, convenience, and safety to balance potential perceived health risks consumers might feel from going into stores.

This is a huge opportunity for marketers to lead the way by taking more of a retail leadership position. For example, top marketers are already helping their retail partners think about the "shelf of the future" and experience driven in-store visits.

4) Justifying Value, Price Sensitivity, and the Value of Brands

While many consumers indulged in their most trusted brands during the onset of the pandemic, rising inflation and global uncertainty is making it harder for consumers to justify paying more for brands.

All six of our think tank participants said that they are all asking questions about price-pack architecture and also trying to find ways to demonstrate the added value of their brands.

One of the participants, a global marketer of packaged food brands suggested that "consumers are questioning the value a brand adds, especially when it is sometimes twice as much the price of private label, especially when they are making these purchases online".

When asked about their advice on how brands can prove their value, one participant, a leader of confectionary brands suggested that "if the next 24-36 months consists of rolling lock-downs followed by re-openings, brands will play a very important role in helping consumers make life a little more exciting by creating new experiences".

Another participant, a leader in foresight for oral care and home care brands suggested "we need to evolve the conversation from value to values as consumers are asking what your brand can do to reinforce their values" and a global leader of a quickly expanding vitamins and mineral supplement brand added "you need to measure the fully-loaded value equation as consumers know they can drive social change with their wallets, so purpose driven marketing has never been more important."

5) A Bigger Gap Between What People Say and They Actually Do

Perhaps the biggest opportunity for insight leaders to help their marketing stakeholders and retail customers is to bridge a widening gap between what people say they want to do and what they actually do.

The vitamin and mineral supplement marketing leader shared how health trends have exploded beyond immunity to include new need states of increasing energy, reducing stress, and improving sleep.

Yet several of the food and beverage marketing leaders shared that despite consumers speaking a great game about improving the health and well being, their habits didn't seem to follow suit and they are still favouring price over well being in some cases.

There is a lot of bifurcation happening. This includes tensions between ecomm vs. in-store experience, privileged consumers with pent up demand vs. underprivileged price sensitive shoppers, and value as a function of price vs. values as a function of social change.

The marketers that will come out ahead through the reopening are the ones that will find ways to get as close to their consumers as possible. Virtual shopping simulations are a safe and reliable way to do this at scale.

The key to growing brands in this complex and quickly changing world is to uncover insights that are able to go beyond what consumers say they want and decode the why behind what they are doing.

Final Thoughts

Each of the biweekly 30-minute think tanks we have run has uncovered fresh new insights, ideas, and inspiration for all of our participants. If you'd like to join one or would just like the outputs, let me know.

The biggest takeaway from this specific think tank has been how much the world is fragmenting into a variety of need states that ultimately makes it more challenging for marketers to manage through this complexity and uncertainty.

That said, life has become even more challenging for consumers than it has been in possibly 100 years, so if there has ever been a moment for marketers and brands to make the world a better place, it is now.