How leading brands are creating fanatical followings and ludicrous loyalty by doing things differently. This presentation will teach you:
- The single biggest marketing mistake CMO's and marketing directors are making.
- The four critical things every brand needs to figure out, ASAP!
- Why creating a cult following has nothing to do with buying ads.
1. ENLIGHTENMENT SERIES
Understanding the New
Customer Journey
How leading brands are creating fanatical followings
and ludicrous loyalty.
Chris Kneeland
CEO, Cult Collective
2. Chris Kneeland
CEO, Cult Collective
chris@cult.ca
@CultIdeas
I graduated with Master’s degree in marketing
communications from Northwestern University and worked
client-side at John Deere and The Home Depot prior to
selling my soul to join an ad agency (Rapp) in Dallas, Texas.
In 2010, I moved to Calgary to run Watermark Advertising
Design. Then, in September 2012, I resigned to join a Cult.
3. Paradigm
Shift
A paradigm shift is a fundamental change in our assumptions.
Imagine the impact on society when people learned that their fundamental belief
about the planet they lived on was wrong.
4. Paradigm
Shift
This paradigm shift destroyed the notion that the earth was flat and sent a shock
wave across a host of institutions that resulted in many exciting endeavours that led
to the discovery of new lands, new people and new fortunes.
5. Paradigm
Shift
There is another common paradigm that most marketers believe that is equally as
false as the world being flat.
14. 1Advertising has one goal:
Reach consumers when they can most
influence their decisions.
4 Moments
That Matter
15. 1Advertising has one goal:
Reach consumers when they can most
influence their decisions.
4 Moments
That Matter
Here is the first truth: There are really only 4 moments that really matter.
16. 1Advertising has one goal:
Reach consumers when they can most
influence their decisions.
4 Moments
That Matter
Instead of the 7 steps outlined in the traditional purchase funnel, a team of Harvard
researchers have confirmed we should divert all our energy to 4 critical tasks.
34. 2Customer’s outreach to brands is more
important than brands outreach to
customers
Pull vs.
Push
35. 2Customer’s outreach to brands is more
important than brands outreach to
customers
Pull vs.
Push
If we accept this new paradigm, we need to radically reconsider the Evaluation
phase. The original model was heavily focused on Awareness and trying to fill the
funnel with prospects. Under that scenario most marketing effort goes into targeted
media buying - that’s why McDonalds buys radio during the lunch hour, retailers
spend 50% of their budgets in Nov & December for holiday shopping, youth brands
clamour to buy ads on programs like American Idol because they know their
audiences will be watching.
36. 2Customer’s outreach to brands is more
important than brands outreach to
customers
Pull vs.
Push
But in this new paradigm, marketing it’s less about trying to guess when your
audience is ready to buy and more about being there and over-delivering when they
reach out to you. It more inbound than outbound. Its about always being on – 24/7
in a pull vs. push environment – and having amazing content to convert shoppers
when they come to check you out.
48. 3Cult brands cater to active loyalists
and let them tell their story to
prospects
Advocacy
vs.
Acquisition
49. 3Cult brands cater to active loyalists
and let them tell their story to
prospects
Advocacy
vs.
Acquisition
The goal of every marketer should be advocacy, not just acquisition. Any business
can get customers, but great brands attract cult-like followings. Cult-like brands
understand that the ownership experience is so vital that they prioritize retention and
referral over prospecting and mass advertising.
50. 3Cult brands cater to active loyalists
and let them tell their story to
prospects
Advocacy
vs.
Acquisition
The original purchase funnel didn’t even mention word of mouth or post-purchase
behavior, yet that is 25% of Harvard’s new model. An Engagement Agency helps
brands cater to active loyalists by helping them tell your story to prospects, and we
also understand that great customer experiences require so much more than great
marketing communications.
58. Pepsi tried this with their Pepsi Refresh initiative. They shifted $20MM from
advertising that was earmarked to pay for Super Bowl commercials, and instead
invested it in various community outreach programs.
59. Pepsi backed all sorts of philanthropic activities that their customers said were
important to them. Overall the campaign received tremendous buzz and the Refresh
website reportedly received over 8 billion page views. But overall the marketing
community gave it mixed reviews.
60. We applaud Pepsi for trying something different, but they made two mistakes.
First, while 20 million dollars sounds like a lot of money to most of us, that’s a
rounding error for their total advertising and promotional budget. The Refresh
campaign did not receive the kind of ‘all in’ investment that brands like Patagonia or
Under Armour do with their cult-like marketing efforts.
61. Secondly, the Pepsi Refresh Project wasn’t very authentic. It was something Pepsi
did, but it wasn’t who they are. When a brand like LuluLemon does something
related to health and fitness it seems normal, but then Sears tries it, it seems forced
and fake. You need to be true to who who really are, and shine a spotlight on what
you really stands for.
62. 4Don’t pay for impressions.
Make an impression.
Owned
Brand
Assets
63. 4Don’t pay for impressions.
Make an impression.
Owned
Brand
Assets
The majority of ad budgets today go towards buying eyeballs. Brands want to get in
front of as many of their target audience as often as possible. But cult-like brands are
more interested in making an impression than buying impressions. For them there is
a demonstrable shift from paid media to owned media.
68. Mobile
Mobile marketing is exploding. Smart phones are being adopted at an
unprecedented pace. 43 Americans just switched to a smart phone in the time it
took you to read this slide. By this time next year nearly half of the entire population
will be using smart phones.
69. Their adoption is huge, but so is their capability. Smart phones are going to be
bigger game changers for marketers than the TV or personal computer was. These
devices allow for all the multi-media capabilities of those other devices, such as
audio and video and dynamic content delivery, but better yet they are with us all the
time. That makes them the holy grail of marketing tools.
70. And luckily for marketers consumers are using their phones for research and
shopping like never before. In particular, phones are critical search tools for real time
information, so not only should our websites be mobile friendly, but we may even
start to see qualifying questions like, “Are you shopping right now?” so we can better
capitalize on people literally living in the moment. And our phones are becoming
portable cash registers because people aren’t just browsing but buying exclusively
through their mobile device.
71.
72. Corporations are scrambling to keep up with consumer demand for mobile friendly
content. When Forbes asked corporate executives what technologies will have the
most revolutionary change on their business, the #1 answer was mobile applications.
So that begs the question: What should you be doing to capitalize on mobile apps?
In my opinion, three specific strategies seem to be emerging.
86. Video
Most people have seen K-Mart’s ‘Ship My Pants’ ad on YouTube. In just a couple
weeks, it received over 16MM views and has sparked a conversation about K-Mart
that is nothing short of remarkable.
87. Video
Consider that I’m here today talking with top marketing executives from across North
American discussing innovative marketing strategies and I’m using K-Mart as an
example. Their last big idea was in 1965 when they introduced the blue light special.
But they shocked the world with 30 seconds of dirty humour in a YouTube video and
got us all wondering if K-Mart is now cool.
88. The reality is YouTube is the biggest video content publisher in the universe, ever.
More video is uploaded to YouTube in a month than all the major networks have
produced in the last 60 years combined. Your customers are flocking to YouTube,
and other online video players like it, by the millions.
89. Also interesting to note is over half a million videos are uplaoded to Facebook each
day, about a third of which are low quality video shot from mobile devices. People
don’t care as much about the production quality. They’re more interested in recency
and having something cool to watch. Online video is quickly becoming consumers’
preferred means of digesting content.
93. Social
Most people realize by now that social media has permanently changed consumer
behavior, but most brands are still struggling with figuring out what do in social
spaces.
94. Social
I think e-Marketer is onto something when their survey regarding how to improve
loyalty programs revealed that 64% of respondents said they want better social
media engagement. To me, Facebook isn’t a media outlet for buying banner ads.
Rather, it’s the 21st century’s version of a loyalty program.
95. Social
Instead of the plastic cards we all carry in our wallets to earn points when we shop,
loyalty programs of the future will leverage fans and friends in an online community
where membership has meaningful privileges.
96. But eMarketer’s survey also revealed something very interesting. On the left is a list of
things which marketers say are the most effective tactics happening within social
media. Stuff like blogs, whitepapers, video, etc.
97. On the right is a list of things marketers say are the most difficult to do, which
includes the exact same things – blogs, whitepapers, videos. Most businesses
haven’t invested sufficient resources to figure this out. We’re still too busy doing
traditional marketing instead of shifting more resources and freeing up bandwidth
and dollars to get good at learning new tricks of the trade.
98. And we need to have some patience. We can try one thing and declare it a success
or failure and move on. These are new muscles marketers are learning to flex and we
need time to let them develop.
102. Experiential
“Stores
must
become
more
theatrical,
more
immersive,
and
more
of
a
life
experience
rather
than
simply
a
place
to
get
something.
As
much
as
they
are
selling
products
they
will
be
selling
a
good
=me,
a
lifestyle.”
-‐
Best
Retail
Brands
Report;
2013
103. Experiential
“Stores
must
become
more
theatrical,
more
immersive,
and
more
of
a
life
experience
rather
than
simply
a
place
to
get
something.
As
much
as
they
are
selling
products
they
will
be
selling
a
good
=me,
a
lifestyle.”
-‐
Best
Retail
Brands
Report;
2013
There is so much being written about and discussed regarding social media, let me
move on and discuss one last area that I don’t think get as much love and attention
as it should by brand. I refer to this area as Experiential, meaning how do we create
better branded experiences beyond just using our products?
104. Experiential
“Stores
must
become
more
theatrical,
more
immersive,
and
more
of
a
life
experience
rather
than
simply
a
place
to
get
something.
As
much
as
they
are
selling
products
they
will
be
selling
a
good
=me,
a
lifestyle.”
-‐
Best
Retail
Brands
Report;
2013
For the past several years the idea of re-inventing retail spaces has been very
popular. As stores complete more and more with online shopping, the consensus
seems to be to make the store shopping experience more experiential.
105. Experiential
“Stores
must
become
more
theatrical,
more
immersive,
and
more
of
a
life
experience
rather
than
simply
a
place
to
get
something.
As
much
as
they
are
selling
products
they
will
be
selling
a
good
=me,
a
lifestyle.”
-‐
Best
Retail
Brands
Report;
2013
The new news here is that it’s not just your store environment, it’s your entire
marketing mix. People want more show and less tell.