Behind the talk – Brand building in times of hyper personalisation

It was a jaw dropping moment, when I heard a customer executive at an Adobe event asking the question why content should be seen as business critical. Was that really an honest question?

For me, content is the word that I read, the voice in my ear and the picture in my mind. It is what drives my heart with emotions and convinces my rational mind. And content is the answer that I give. Content is the carrier of negotiations and agreements. Without content, no business will ever exist!

There is no question that the mentioned business decision maker knows very well how communication is the key parts of doing business. Maybe even more than I do. But what stroke me was, that the connection “content equals communication” hasn’t been established. Mutual, bi-directional communication. Speaking, listening, reacting. For him, it meant no more than how the brand message was provided to the customer: broadcasted, one-directional, made to be absorbed, not to be reacted to.

This was one of the moments, that drove the topic of the recent episode “Branding in times of hyper-personalisation” of the Adobe Automotive Dialogues: Driving CX. I wanted to discuss this with someone with extensive experience in running a global brand to understand this position better. And I got the opportunity. Building a brand is ?one of the most important and if you will challenging tasks” is how Dr Dieter Zetsche , former chairman of the board and CEO of Daimler AG, opened our dialogue.

Here I will reflect my thoughts around our talk and give more context.

Marketing Mindsets

My observation is, that we face different mindsets. ?

The belief in the powerhouse of branding, where brands are supposed to trigger the emotions of people and influence their decisions. If done right, the effect is amazing: in the moment of sales, people are not making an active decision anymore, it already has been made unconsciously. Through visibility and precise cognitive communication of brand values, a person built out strong beliefs about the superiority of a brand. The brand image builds loyalty and influences her behavior.

The followership of performance achievements. Through testing communication and funnel steps are improved constantly. To achieve this, customer target groups are established and treated differently. This personalization results is measured in KPIs, specific to the improvement step and attributed to the overall business outcome. The result is a constantly evolving process that, over time, improves customer ability to take action and improves top and bottom line results.

Precision of Brand Images

Now, neither side wrong, are they? But they are an expression of different competencies and responsibilities. My question is: shouldn’t they learn from each other? Merge the best of both worlds? Shouldn’t there be something like personalization across the whole value chain, including branding? Can we personalize a brand image at all?

Let me give you one example from the automotive industry: Ola K?llenius , current CEO of Mercedes-Benz AG , announced to set a higher focus on luxury again. I had a discussion this with a friend of mine. Both of us may fall into typical targeting groups for Mercedes Benz that may be used in media. Age, HNE, tech affinity, and more. But there is something that is different:

• He defines modern luxury with comfort and (horse) power and prefers classic cars and combustor engines.
• I feel appealed by understatement and sustainability, looking for alternative energy adoption.

We both have different values. Values that partly are even contradicting.

Let’s be more precise now: Ola announced that Mercedes Benz’ next chapter will be “sustainable modern luxury”. In his keynote he described many things, that are very much matching my set of values. But when I see Mercedes Benz advertising (e.g. for the recent announcement of the subscription based power boost), visit the Mercedes-Benz passenger cars website today or have conversations with a dealer, there is nothing about all this. The communication that is visible to me is rather appealing to this friend of mine with his opposing values.

My own customer experience is very mixed.

I fully agree to Dr. Zetsche, when he stated in our conversation that “your customer base has different demand. But you can’t be everything to everybody”. But here, we have a gap between company strategy and company communication. Why is that the case?

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Experience Mindset

In short the idea of a brand image is based on shared values between the company and the target group. The example makes me think about two things

1. As Dr. Zetsche stated, consistency is key. “Pick your space. Be authentic, be credible. Represent yourself in the most consistent way.”. The strategy announcement is very authentic in my opinion, and it is credible. But the messaging to the customer didn’t change, even if the strategy is already 2 years old. Something seems to hold Mercedes Benz back.
2. I believe even more now that companies need to be able to communicate sub-values in branding. My friend and I, both clearly are in the main target group, have very different customer experiences. If “brand is the core and we need to sustain it” according to Dr Zetsche, the consequence is, that we need a second layer round the core to differentiate on a more granular level.

We want to be able to improve each customers experience, because the needs and values on a personal level are different. Even if in line with the overall company strategy, personal preference differentiation make or break a customer satisfaction and relationship.

Therefore, I want to encourage you to adopt an experience mindset. A mindset that acknowledges the differences of an individual within your target audience and then tailors any customer communication (be it marketing or service, sales or onboarding, etc) to the individual needs and preferences of each customer.

That means that great individual customer experiences are built on your ability to personalize your communication and offer making at scale.

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Business Value of Personalization at Scale

This can be achieved through techniques such as personalized communication, recommendations based on traits or past touchpoints or offers that are more tailored to the needs. Here are three business values that speak for personalizing content to improve customer experience on a personal level:

• Increased engagement: Personalized content is more likely to be relevant and interesting to the target audience, which can lead to increased engagement and interaction with the content.
• Improved loyalty: Personalization can also help to create a more seamless and tailored offer, which can be a sale or something simple like a helping hand, leading to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Enhanced brand reputation: a company can enhance its reputation as a thought leader or by delivering proof for superiority making it the first address for important topics

But it gets even more exiting! A recent Adobe study about the impact of different levels of personalisation in retail and travel showed tremendous differences.

Your core segments for personalization are reflecting your brand core, e.g the “modern luxury” for Mercedes Benz that addresses both, the friend of mine and me. The microsegment then will enable the second brand layer around the core: combustor vs EV, power vs understatement, etc. ?

Your ability to scale to this segmentation / differentiation level, will make the biggest different in the business result. Its not just increased, it is a 3x higher increase of revenue per visitor when you go that step.

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Business transformation increases the need for personalisation

In the Automotive sector, there is one additional driver that increases the need for personalised communication and offer making: the new business models, that are aiming to

• ?sustain business with improved technology
• provide answers to more individual needs for mobility
• increase the opportunities in after sales ?
• transform low margin one off revenues into high margin recurring revenues to improve the valuation at the stock markets.
• enter new business areas like entertainment (e.g. cooperations with Afeela, WayRay or holoride) and in car advertising (e.g. 4screens)
• etc.

This transformation adds immersive business opportunities, but also many new options for the customers. And with it the complexity for the customer decide – and complexity is a business killer!

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Personalisation is helping to overcome the paradox of choice

The paradox of choice refers to the idea that having too many options can lead to indecision, anxiety, and reduced satisfaction. When faced with a large number of options, people may find it difficult to make a decision because they feel overwhelmed by the number of possibilities. This can lead to "analysis paralysis," where people are unable to choose because they are unable to narrow down their options. The paradox of choice suggests that having fewer options can actually lead to greater satisfaction because it reduces the cognitive load and makes it easier for people to make a decision.

Personalization can help to overcome the paradox of choice by providing individuals with a more tailored and focused set of options. Instead of presenting a broad range of options that may be overwhelming, personalization can present a smaller, more targeted set of options that are more likely to be relevant and appealing to the individual. By narrowing down the options in this way, personalization can make it easier for people to make a decision and feel more confident in their choice.

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Content is business critical

Still remember the initial claim? The jaw dropping question if content is business critical? ?

Hell, yes, it is! It is the word that your customers read, the voice in their ears and the picture in their minds. It is what drives their hearts with emotions and convinces their rational minds.?It is what drives your business.

In todays time technology is no hurdle anymore to have the knowledge about the preferences of a customer. With the help of a Real-Time CDP, companies are empowered to leave the advertising boundaries for personalisation and merge information across the whole company in a GDPR compliant way. Companies are now able to speak with one voice across all departments and even subsidiaries (e.g. OEM and financial services) and reduce the marketing noise down to the best possible next action or offer for the customer and the company.

The real-time ability of such technologies enables you to switch gears from marketing broadcasting to really have a business conversation with your customers and react on their specifics immediately. Compare this idea to a conversation a human dealer would have with a customer. So the data / information aspect shouldn’t be a question anymore!

A larger problem, that now occurs are the gaps in the customers content supply chain. We are near to automated, AI powered content production, but we’re not here yet. If you want to be able to immediately give an answer to your customer to take them by the hand and lead them through your complex world of offerings and options, your answer needs to be prepared upfront.

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Secure your content supply chain

?A content supply chain is the process that brings together people, tools, and workstreams to effectively plan, create, manage, and deliver content. With

• The amount of products , already being large in all their variations and increasing through added products and services
• customers demanding more and better experiences at an increasingly faster pace
• the business motivation to differentiate customers on a more granular level to increase the customer lifetime value
• your business models expanding, adding more complexity
• you coverage of markets across the globe
• more channels to become important customer touchpoints (e.g. the in-car entertainment systems)
• and more creative media formats evolving, including Video, 3D or AR

you’ll need to get your content right at this moment rather than later. Just do the math and calculate the amount of assets you need to get it right.

At Adobe we are wrapping our heads around this and are able to boost your ability and bring your content supply chain to action. Key to our end-to-end content creation process is the pairing of?Adobe Workfront?and?Adobe Experience Manager Assets.?

Wrap up

Branding is on the test bench in times of hyper-personalization and the leading question is how automotive brands can balance the needs of different target groups with conflicting interests???

I discussed this with Dr Dieter Zetsche in our first instalment of our Automotive Dialogues: Driving CX Series. My aim was to learn more about the perspective such an experienced industry leader would take and provide you with unique insights by taking a look at exciting topics:?

?????????What is a “brand” today, what does it mean for an OEM?

?????????How can a brand still fulfil its purpose in a world that is more diverse ever??

?????????How can I surprise new target groups without diluting my brand message?

While listening to our dialogue, you will certainly see how my thoughts and questions are infused with a technological background. I considered the many insights I gained during my work with the major Automotive brands across Europe. So it was also a pleasure for me, to learn from someone, coming from a different angle. I hope you will enjoy this in the same way, than I did.

I’d like to invite you to watch the Episode 1 of Adobes Automotive Dialogues: Driving CX – Building brands in times of hyper-personalization, learn about my 3 take aways and continue the conversation with me or my Adobe colleagues to learn more about we can help you, to be setup for success. So please, get in touch!

Jan

Principal Automotive EMEA & Lead Digital Strategy Group Central Europe

Adobe