New Year Resolutions for Brands: Empathy, Hyper-curation, and Asking How, not What

“In a world of endless options, countless brands, and an unrelenting thirst for data, sometimes the greatest gift a brand can give its customer is not everything, but one thing – showing us how well they know us and keeping us coming back for more.” – Lauren Kelly, senior strategist at Interbrand

In 2023, will you be the brand that bombards customers with endless lists of offerings or will you study their pain points with empathy (1), narrow down your offerings, and actually focus on providing them with what they really need??

The latter, if done strategically and meticulously, will lead you to an increase in brand loyalty and lessen the effects of decision fatigue in the lives of your customers (2). It’s a win-win situation. In the end, showing that you honestly know your customers is what makes you a true experience disruptor (3).?

In a Fraught World, Empathy Is the Most Critical Factor for Marketing Success

Allen Adamson from Metaforce reflects upon marketing’s role in driving positive change and building a sustainable future:

“It seems like forever that we’ve been able to use the words ‘business as usual’ without eye-rolling irony. The unique challenges of the last two years, from a global pandemic to heightened awareness of racial inequality, the war in Ukraine to rising inflation and the roller-coaster financial markets, not to mention the increasing urgency of the climate crisis, have created the perfect storm of anxiety for consumers and, likewise, for marketers trying to navigate the fraught conditions.?

This situation set the stage for the remarks made by the four marketing luminaries inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame, produced by the AMA New York, on May 3rd. Being recognized for the ‘outstanding contributions to the field of marketing,’ the 2022 honorees were Marc Pritchard, chief brand officer of Procter & Gamble, Ann Mukherjee, CEO of Pernod Ricard, North America, Bozoma Saint John, former global CMO of Netflix and Antonio Lucio, former CEO of Facebook, Visa, and HP.?

Their acceptance speeches, focused on marketing’s role in driving positive change and building a sustainable future, made clear how much the way we live and work over these past couple of years has changed – in ways we never could have imagined. More specifically, given the challenges of our times, all addressed what this means for marketers. While each honoree’s career path has been as different as the industries in which they served, all shared the belief that now, more than ever, there is one factor above all that is critical for marketing success. Not coincidently it was this factor, as well, that was critical in their own success; there is nothing more important than the value of human connection and empathy.?

Relative to organizational success, these four honorees emphasized that, today, consumers are looking for brands that they can relate to on an emotional level, that understand them, that share their values, and that they can feel good about. They underscored that attaining customer loyalty means being able to create a bond that is built on attributes that go beyond a simple product performance benefit. The fact that product differentiation between brands is shrinking only reinforces the critical need to connect with consumers on a level deeper than product functionality.”

Dear Brands, Give Me Less, Take Longer, and Charge More

Lauren Kelly explains why brands should embrace hyper-curation:

“If you are feeling the effects of decision fatigue, you certainly are not alone. 50% of streamers report feeling overwhelmed (Nielsen, 2022) which is perhaps one of the reasons why Netflix lost $150B of shareholder value in just 12 months. It’s not just content, but physical goods too – 47.3% of clothing shoppers find the level of choice available at retailers to be overwhelming (GlobalData 2019).

Where once we wanted it all, fast and cheap, the last few years have given us a moment to re-evaluate, suddenly we want less, we want simple, we want brands to do a better job of curating our experiences.

Curation used to be the realm of luxury. It was about brands being ruthless in who they sold to and what they sold to them. Curation was defined by exclusivity. To do this well required clarity of brand and a willingness to own a point of view.?

Now, thanks to data, curation is being democratized creating a whole new approach.?

New world curation starts at a brand level. Start by asking, what should we say no to? Then marry brand intent to deep customer insight to deliver less quantity but better quality.

Of course, selling less feels risky, but it can also be the key to unlocking growth. When businesses become more discerning with what they offer, we are happy to pay a premium. That’s because we recognise that we aren’t just buying the product, we are buying the perspective. That’s something we can’t get elsewhere, and so hyper-curation provides a true competitive edge, one competitors can’t copy.

How can you embrace hyper-curation??

1. Get back to your brand’s DNA and be ruthless in deciding what you DON’T do, as much as what you do.
2. Get to know your customers, not just by harvesting passive data but by asking active questions.?
3. Unite steps one and two, make the experience equal parts insightful and effortless to present pure quality, not quantity, to your customer.”

Asking “How” Not “What” Is the Driving Force Behind Today’s Most Successful Businesses

Diving deeper into hyper-curation, Allen Adamson explains what being an experience disruptor means:?

“People do just want easy. And convenient. And more efficient. And, maybe, just more enjoyable when taking on the activities of daily life. And, guess what? They’re getting it. Over the past few years, asking ‘how,’ not ‘what,’ has become the driving force behind more and more of today’s most successful businesses. Smart thinkers and innovators are transforming everyday experiences, rethinking how we do the stuff we do every day. They’re getting us to change out our old ways, long-standing behaviors, for new and never imagined better ways. And because experience differentiation is harder to replicate than product differentiation, this group is gaining incredible and sustainable market advantage. Yes, Bob, among them is someone who looked at how we make purchase decisions when faced with a vast array of seemingly indistinguishable products and services.

Wirecutter offers a ‘shortcut’ to comparison shopping

Much as Apple has earned shortcut brand status, so too has Wirecutter, a product review site that literally cuts to the chase relative to its major competitor Consumer Reports. Founded in 2011 by Brian Lam, a technology journalist and former editor of Gawker Media’s technology site Gizmodo, it was sold to The New York Times Company in 2016. The site focuses on writing detailed guides to different categories of consumer products, but recommends just one or two of the best items in the category, thus alleviating both time-consuming analysis and stressful analysis paralysis. It differs from Consumer Reports by its explicit recommendations of top picks, its younger readership (of which I am not, but do appreciate given the early adopter status of the demographic), and its acceptance of vendor-supplied test units. The Wirecutter effect is described as a phenomenon ‘in which recommendations become so popular they sell out.’

As I said, today, a growing number of success stories are being written by those who are solving consumer problems not by making something new, or even creating new tech to do something, but by changing the experience of what people do every day. They are taking what we already do – ride, shop, invest, dine, travel, you name it – and transforming it in some relevantly different way. They are seeing and seizing opportunities for competitive market advantage through experience disruption. They’re jumping on opportunities to upend business models and gaining consumer loyalty, as a result.”?

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