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Tag: Advertising

Generation Z: A New Generation With New Challenges for Brands

Posted on by Saja Chodosh

Gen Z, Already?

For the past several years the spotlight has been on one generation: yes, millennials – the most studied and arguably the most sought after (or talked about) generation by brands and businesses to date. We, for one, have discussed: what brands they love, where they put their money, where they put their loyalty, why where they work matters, if all the “millennial advertising” hype is even worth it… Now, it seems the focus is shifting. The internet, advertisers, and marketers today are starting to pay a little more attention to those millennials’ younger siblings: Gen Z.

There are three major narratives floating about Gen Z:

1) The generation is just an exaggerated version of millennials: more distrustful, more digital, and more diverse.

2) Gen Z is not like millennials at all. They spend less, collaborate less, and care less about brand names.

3) Some combination of the latter. So, what is it?

Who Is Gen Z and Why Even Pay Attention?

When you dive deep into the available research and stream of news articles making claims about who Gen Z is and isn’t, it’s hard to make out fact from fiction. When it comes down to it, we just don’t know enough – yet. The studies ask too few people in too few areas at too few ages to make any kind of definite conclusions.

What we do know for sure is this: Gen Z is still young and developing. The oldest of the Gen Z generation is just about to enter the workforce – that means late teens/early 20s. Gen Z grew up during the Occupy Wall Street Movement. They were young when 9/11 happened. They don’t remember life without the internet or social media. Now, they are a generation of about 70 million – the most diverse and multicultural of any generation before – and everyone is paying attention.

New Spotlight: Generation Z

As a branding agency, we are excited to keep up-to-date on this emerging generation. Based on what we know and the current research out there, here’s what we can predict about Gen Z.

Experiences Aren’t Forever

We’ve talked a lot about building resonant brand experiences. However, Gen Z might be demanding a different type of experience than generations before. This is a generation who lives on SnapChat. And what differentiates SnapChat from other social media platforms? SnapChat’s entire identity is based on its impermanence. The photos disappear. And it doesn’t stop at SnapChat. Other platforms like Whisper and Secret are among the most popular with Gen Z – both of which offer the value of privacy within the guise of being “social apps.”

Our guess why? In a world of information-overload and constant availability, fleeting experiences feel unique and special. Brands that embrace the ephemeral might find new success with this generation – think experiential events, mixed medium, VR …experiences that allow individuals to shape them. This is exciting for brands who must step up with creative, innovative, fresh, and brief but lasting ways into this generation’s heart.

An Entrepreneurial and Innovative Spirit

Gen Z seems to be a notably independent generation. A recent HBR study found that ¼ of Gen Z students display interest in starting their own business. And according to Gallup, 8/10 kids want to be their own boss, and 4/10 want to start their own business. In fact, 70% of teens are already their own boss – self-employed and making money by teaching piano or selling clothes on YouTube – showing an increase from generations before.

This means businesses and brands are going to have to work hard to keep up. Innovation is even more of an expectation. Companies who want to attract young talent are going to have to work hard to tailor jobs that allow Gen Z to create, innovate, and disrupt.

Dreams With A Price Tag

Initial studies have shown one big difference between millennials and Gen Z: Gen Z cares more about money. According to a Lincoln Financial Group study, around 60% of them already have a savings account and 71% say they really want to focus on saving in the future. Many articles note that this generation worries more about college debt.

Two interesting examples of brands who are catching on to this thrifty nature are Spirit Airlines (a budget airline) and Stayful (an app for competitive boutique hotel rates). Both brands pride themselves on transparency and value – in short, you get what you pay for. And both have found immense success with targeting this emerging generation.

It’s not necessarily that Gen Z is scared to spend, they just want to make sure what they are buying is worth it. This means brands who are transparent about value should find success with this younger generation as well. We also expect brands who are able to offer and demystify financial planning tools will thrive with this generation.

Brand Is A Given. It’s What You Do With It.

What’s most interesting about Gen Z for brands today is the generation’s general mistrust of them. Especially the big ones. Claims aren’t enough for this generation. Neither are ads. They always look closer – because they can. The technology and the resources to dive deeper are right there. What’s the culture really like? Is it inclusive? What are the work conditions? How does their CEO behave?

Like millennials, authenticity and transparency are values that sit at the heart of this. That’s why we see this generation trusting individuals more than institutions. That’s why this generation cares about what’s in the news surrounding the brands they buy from. And that’s why just sticking a logo on a clothing line is not going to cut it (not that it did before).

Brands who want to succeed today have to work even harder to build their brand from the inside out. Invest in the culture and the leadership that will drive you in the right direction. Adapt more transparent practices. Figure out new ways to personalize. Don’t just rely on a logo (Gen Z isn’t interested in being a walking advertisement). Say what you stand for and let people experience your brand in a different way – in their way. Recruit and retain talent that exhibits the creativity to do so. As Gen Z evolves and comes into view, we believe brands have a big opportunity to do the same.

Keep posted for more about this emerging generation and more.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy and design agency.

Marketing Strategy That Fuels Growth

Posted on by Carol Emert

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More than ever, CMOs are being looked to as the primary growth drivers of their companies. But what if you seem to be doing everything right and growth is still falling short? You have a strong brand strategy in place, a good sales team, and your marketing strategy is being executed on time and on budget. What then?

Chances are good that, if you’re experiencing a disconnect like this, the problem lies in the connection between your brand and your target audience. You may be reaching them. But how successfully are you really connecting with them?

How can you identify the problem? And what can you do to nurture your target audience while giving your sales team the support they need to drive growth?

Marketing Strategy That Drives Growth

At Emotive Brand, we find that the diagnosis for this condition virtually always comes from the outside.

The area where insiders typically have the least insight is the hearts and minds of their target audiences, which are so easily obscured behind the company’s own view of where its value lies. Companies often also find it challenging to stay on top of new developments in communications when their core competencies lie elsewhere.

Cue your agency. It’s the agency’s job to:

  • Understand your brand, products, and services in a new and exciting way, through the eyes of the people who can make it grow.
  • Use customer, marketplace, brand, and contextual insights to define strategic shifts that will win them over.
  • Create the right message and present it creatively to get their attention and rekindle the connection.
  • Identify existing and emerging channels that will best support your message and resonate with your audiences.
  • Tie it all together in a marketing strategy that drives growth.

Rebooting Advertising and Marketing Strategy

We’ve been working with a Silicon Valley client whose technology is so smart it inspires us. This company has been in business 15 years. It has a crack product that’s unique in the market. The product should be selling itself.

But there’s a problem: the company has under-marketed both its brand and its product. Its sales are lackluster. We identified five primary marketing challenges:

  • Marketplace perceptions hadn’t kept up with the company, so potential customers had outdated ideas that needed to be overcome before they would even pay attention.
  • Its advertising and marketing communications were telling an old story that didn’t communicate the product differentiators and reinforced outdated perceptions.
  • Its communications style was out of date and disconnected from both the brand truths and its audiences.
  • The client was spending ad dollars against a broad target rather than an audience aligned to its sales target, wasting precious marketing dollars.

We dug into this project to understand the marketplace, the product, and the brand through the eyes of our client’s target audiences. And we transformed its marketing strategy with some fundamental shifts.

Aligning Marketing Strategy with Sales

First, we used creative and surprising ways to talk about the product in advertising. Solidly rooted in meaningful customer insights and up-to-date product truths, the creative is doing a great job at grabbing the attention of sales prospects. Fresh and resonant messaging and design are replacing apathy with interest and engagement.

We also employed account-based marketing (ABM), replacing the client’s broad advertising strategy with a personalized approach. We’re targeting the sales team’s hottest prospects, in the places where they are most likely to engage.

This more resonant, tailored messaging is reinvigorating the company’s sales as well as its brand, making it relevant again and helping nurture prospects who might have ignored a more general message.

If you need fresh ideas for connecting with your sales prospects instead of merely reaching them, Emotive Brand would like to connect with you.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy and design agency.

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The Right Ad, Just When you Need It: Talking “Moment Marketing” with Randy Wootton

Posted on by Sara Gaviser Leslie

Randy Wootton and Moment Marketing 

Continuing our Emotive Brand expert series, we’re interviewing past and present Emotive Brand clients to discover what they do better than anybody else – and how that expertise can be used to embolden your brand today.

In this post, we speak with Randy Wootton, former CEO of Rocket Fuel, a past Emotive Brand client whose positioning project resulted in a major acquisition for the company. In this interview, we talk about the evolution of marketing and advertising today and why brands poised for success are focusing in on what Randy calls “Moment Marketing.”

Below, we discuss his book in-progress and hear what he has to say about one-to-one marketing, audience segmentation, AI, and the future of advertising. Could advertising ever be truly helpful for consumers? Even welcome? Randy says it’s possible. Read his interview below:

Tell me about your book-in-progress, Moment Marketing?

First, let me clarify what I mean by “moment”. When I use that term, people often think about big moments in their lives: the groundbreaking discovery, a wedding proposal, or solution to a difficult problem. But 99% of moments are banal. Moment marketing means you reach the right person at the right time, at the right place, in context.

Last weekend, for instance, I sat on my couch and watched the Raiders with my 11-year-old son. He played a Disney game on his phone. I checked email. It was a perfect opportunity for Disney – or a similar advertiser – to create a wraparound experience. If they could push an ad to me for a 20% discount on my next trip while also placing an ad in my son’s game, chances are the advertising would be a lot more effective than a Disney billboard I pass on the way to work.

If we’re targeting individuals, is that the end of audience segmentation?

I think it is. Segments can be helpful but they also limit you. Think about one of the popular segments: soccer moms. Marketers make many assumptions about this group and target based on age, gender, and location. But segments don’t capture the robustness of individuals. They don’t describe individuals; they don’t tell you that one mom has other kids who do baseball and guitar but hate soccer.

When you track individuals’ actions, interactions with brands, and purchases and then target them one-on-one, you can be much more precise. What’s even better than that, though, is engaging them at the right time, in the moment.  

You have said that consumers could eventually welcome advertising. Really?

Think about Amazon today. When you look for a book, they suggest other titles you might enjoy as well as reviews of those books. When you get this data at the right time, in context, it improves your experience. Consumers aren’t opposed to advertising, they are opposed to bad advertising!

In a world of Moment Marketing, what will stop advertisers from hounding me with ads for the pair of shoes I didn’t buy?

Online advertising today is disruptive and interruptive. Moment marketing requires companies ingest lots of data in near real time and take action in less than 20 milliseconds. That’s where AI comes in. You need insight engines to mine all of this data or you’ll get overwhelmed and drive your customers and prospects crazy. AI can help us discern the relevant data and then deliver advertising at the right time, in context.

Do you think marketers are ready for AI?

Right now, we are still in early innings of understanding the possibility of data. Think about when people first rode in cars. It probably seemed very dangerous. People named cars “horseless carriages” because the only way they could conceive of the future was through lens of the past. We are going to see computers make decisions more and more often. Marketers will have to surrender control and trust results. Otherwise, they’ll stand in the way of progress – and higher conversion.

How does this affect non-digital commerce? Brick-and-mortar stores?

It will be the end of those flimsy circulars we get in the mail, for sure. I see marketers getting really good at combining offline and online. Holiday shopping, for example, will be defined by mobile. When I go Toys R Us to shop for Christmas presents, that’s when I want to know about the hottest toys and receive a discount coupon.

The opportunity to stitch online and offline together through predictive marketing is radical. When marketers understand individuals and context, they create more meaningful experiences. Companies that successfully do this will differentiate themselves in the market and, ultimately, capture more than their fair share of revenue.

Stay tuned for what both Randy and Emotive Brand do next.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy and design agency.

Does Brand Strategy Translate Into Advertising?

Posted on by Paige Lansing Valle

Brand Strategy is the Foundation for Advertising

One of the misconceptions about brand strategy and advertising is that they are disconnected. As a result, many brands create ads that are off-strategy because they don’t use their brand strategy as a guide. But brand strategy is the foundation for advertising.

At Emotive Brand, the most rewarding part of developing a brand strategy with clients is when we see the strategy come to life. A B2B brand strategy inspires powerful website messaging. An employer brand turns into a rock solid manifesto. A B2C brand strategy translates into a compelling advertisement campaign.

In the end, strategy gives businesses the infrastructure it needs to be successful with internal and external marketing. But successfully turning a strategy into an outward facing campaign isn’t easy. It takes gumption, and not all organizations are agile enough to quickly translate and execute their new brand strategy. In order to succeed, you have to be savvy, confident, and agile as a brand. And, you have to committed to your strategy.

Magoosh: A Case Study

When Magoosh, a longtime client, approached us about helping produce a HULU commercial, we didn’t hesitate. Magoosh is a model client. They not only developed a powerful brand strategy, but have stuck to it with great success. As a result, their business has had tremendous growth this year, solidifying their already strong reputation and foothold with the competition.

The goals of the commercial were straightforward: drive brand awareness forward and test HULU as an advertising platform. However, developing concept and creative for a commercial is not usually a quick process. Filming and editing can be laborious, and Magoosh had a very quick turnaround deadline. They wanted to roll-out the commercial in time to capture their peak sales season: about a month away. The real and apparent challenge was time.

That’s where the importance of a solid brand strategy became paramount. Because Magoosh had a very clear idea of its target audience, its key messages, its look and feel, voice, and story, the impossible deadline wasn’t nearly as daunting as it might normally be. In fact, having these strategic elements in place already was key to their future success.

Staying True to the Brand

 Advertisements that have the foundation of a strong strategy help the brand ring true at every touchpoint. To stay true to the brand and develop a story that felt authentic, we didn’t have to look far for talent. Magoosh had a team of spirited, confident, positive (and good looking) people on deck who were more than willing to help.

These people truly believed in the brand, and as a result, pulling together a cast of employees and real Magoosh students who could speak to the product was easy. Online test prep really does change the lives of the people who use it. For some this means making dream schools realities. For others it means exceeding score expectations or overcoming personal challenges. Because of the nature of the brand, positive testimonials were abundant. And featuring people who believe in the brand helped make the commercial that much more compelling. Their energy and passion was tangible.

The Best Advertising Connects People to People

It’s no question that human brands are winning. In an age of increasing digitization and consumers who see hundreds of ads a day, brands have to truly connect with the people who matter to their business. People will always seek brands that help them succeed. Brands that help to enrich or improve lives have the strongest and most powerful stories to tell. For Magoosh, creating a compelling ad meant connecting ‘Magooshers’ (as we nicknamed their staff and customers) to the people they help. The ad’s story used ‘Magooshers’ to speak directly to the needs of customers – flexibility, convenience, and results – in an emotive way, bringing the heart of their brand to life.

Consistency is King

Even amidst the common challenge of time, translating a brand strategy into advertising should be seamless if all the pieces (voice, look and feel, messaging) are in place. And developing an ad that connects people to people is made easier when the product really does impact people’s lives in a powerful way. The trick is to tell an authentic and compelling story that rings true across all points of engagement. Advertising is never a one-off. So develop an advertising campaign that pushes the strategy across multiple touch points. The message will become stronger. Awareness will heighten and your modes of measuring traction will increase. With a solid brand strategy in place, your advertising campaign is ready to roll.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy agency.