After all, doesn’t it make sense considering the steep investments in R&D, processes, better ingredients, superior formulation skills and novel manufacturing design? Thus, the theory goes, once the world is made aware of this better tech, consumers will in turn respond by beating a path to the shelf or showroom and reward the hard work and high-quality commitment with ever increasing sales.

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Better mousetrap marketing has been a foundational paradigm of go-to-market thinking since the dawn of the mass media era in the early 1950s.

Are You Always Reaching For Product ‘Betterness’?

The rinse-and-repeat environment that fosters this way of operating is woven into the institutional fabric of many brands and businesses.

Consider the regional potato chip brand that believes to beat the big guys they must be better by meticulously sourcing an improved strain of potatoes. They carefully curate a blend of frying oils to impart taste and texture without any greasy residue. In-house chefs work to test and combine the highest quality spices and flavoring ingredients for dusting the chips to assure the perfect taste notes. Their manufacturing technologists perfect a frying process to achieve the right texture and crunch. Surely this level of quality commitment and superior craftsmanship forms the foundation of a compelling story to capture the hearts and minds of chip lovers?

What if this isn’t the reason why your brand will be successful? What if the incredible investment of time, talent, quality and infrastructure is actually table stakes to your victory?

Facts Don’t Change Minds

The brand that gets closest to the consumer wins. That means embracing your customers’ humanity.

It also means acknowledging that consumers are feeling creatures who think and not thinking creatures who feel. Facts and features serve to feed our need for confirmation bias after purchase that we’ve made the right decision. The experience with your product is rewarded by its performance because you’ve labored to produce the very best product. However, when it comes to effective outreach communication — that’s something else entirely.

Heartfelt Connection

Moving as close to the consumer as possible means putting your brand in league with them on their journey. It’s forging an emotional connection founded on trust and integrity, where the consumer understands and wants to join your brand mission and its deeper meaning. Ultimately, they see via your integrity and actions you have their best interests at heart.

Your ability to form a relationship with consumers is not based on the stats and specs of your product formulation. Relevant brand engagement operates on a higher plane of context, much like the heartfelt bonds that form between people we care about.

Sound Strategy: Different Beats Better

Uniqueness and differentiation comprise the basis of beneficial strategy, not being better. This is a zero-sum and unwinnable game of one-upmanship that operates to commoditize your business.

When you know emotion rather than analytical arguments form the basis of successful communication, how will that change your messaging approach? It’s a given that you must never dilute your quality commitments. However, when it comes to brand communication, the most effective outreach is based on emotional drivers, not specsmanship.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by Robert Wheatley, CEO of Chicago-based Emergent, The Healthy Living Agency.

At The Blake Project, we help clients worldwide, in all stages of development, define and articulate what makes them competitive and valuable. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

This week’s thought: Business is inherently aspirational.

Harvard marketing guru Ted Levitt made his mark with a number of pithy ideas about the role of marketing and the purpose of business, all of which rested on the foundational insight that brands solve problems. In his first book, The Marketing Mode (1969)—a long-neglected book that should be required reading for every modern marketer—Levitt noted that a “customer’s purchasing activities” should be understood as “problem-solving activities.” Eleven years later he turned this insight into one of his classic aphorisms, to wit: “Products are problem-solving tools.”

From that insight, it is a small step to the asseveration for which Levitt is probably best known. Which is that people don’t want quarter-inch drill bits—they want quarter-inch holes. People buy solutions not products. People buy benefits not features. People have problems and they buy brands to solve these problems.

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If brands don’t solve problems, brands have no value and thus no reason for being. Solving problems is the purpose of business. Everything about marketing follows from that.

Maybe this seems too obvious to repeat. But it wasn’t so obvious that Levitt felt it unnecessary to say time and again. Nor is it so obvious that we wouldn’t benefit from a reminder today.

The best ads lean hard into aspiration. A personal favorite is Apple’s “Think Different” campaign. I’m not alone—this campaign won many awards, spawned a cult following and still finds its way into Apple materials. The ad celebrates genius with a free-verse poem voiced over black-and-white images of famously pioneering people—the misfits, rebels and square pegs who changed things and “push[ed] the human race forward.” These “crazy ones” are the geniuses whose spirit, verve and influence changed our lives for the better. Apple celebrates it, and in doing so, allies its brand with the height of aspiration.

Aspiration is true of all brands, not just Apple, though Apple modeled it best with “Think Different.” All brands offer something better, something to aspire to. A better product. A better lifestyle. A better self-image. A better value. Always better; never worse. Brands may fall short on delivering something better, but the goal is always aspirational.

Marketing succeeds by making aspiration persuasive. Or as Ted Levitt put it in another of his famous phrases, by getting and keeping a customer. Which begins with a better solution. This sort of forward-looking view is integral to business.

Business stands apart as intrinsically forward-looking and aspirational. All too often, politics gets stuck in the mud of retrenchment, reversals, slurs and slights. Many religious sects are more about iniquity and negation than uplift and exultation. There is plenty of elation to be found in sports and entertainment, but no shortage of dark shadows either. Looking up can be found in every arena, but only for business is it the very keystone of engagement and success.

This is why controversy is bad for business. Politicians can win with divide-and-conquer. They just need one more vote. Brands get big only by selling to everyone. Brands must be universally appealing and inspiring. Alienating customers is not in keeping with being aspirational.

This is also why marketers tend to follow trends rather than lead trends. Brands follow what people want and need—the problems people have. It’s not aspirational to deliver something people don’t want, need or even know about. This is not to say that brands shouldn’t raise people’s horizons with new ways of thinking. Only that brands aren’t about creating problems; brands are about solving problems.

Levitt’s contention that business is about getting and keeping customers echoed legendary management thinker Peter Drucker who said the same thing in his 1954 book, The Practice of Management—another book that should be on every marketer’s reading list. With ‘creating customers’ first and foremost, Drucker argued that only two functions are “basic”—marketing and innovation. “All the rest,” he wrote, “are costs.”

You don’t have to read between the lines to see that Drucker was saying that business is inherently aspirational. The truly forward-looking functions are marketing and innovation, and thus only these two functions are basic or essential. Because only these functions grow value.

Maybe the most important thing I’ve learned about marketing over the years is that marketing is the steward of aspiration, which is the essence of problem-solving and thus the heart and soul of business. Yet, many of the senior management leaders I’ve known and worked with relegate marketing to a position of secondary importance. I guess marketers don’t sell themselves as well as they should, but it’s also true that lots of companies succeed in spite of themselves. Because business is inherently aspirational.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider By Walker Smith, Chief Knowledge Officer, Brand & Marketing at Kantar

The Blake Project Helps Brands In All Stages Of Development Gain An Emotional Advantage, A Distinctive Advantage And A Connective Advantage

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In a book on the cusp of the new century, maverick Coke CMO Sergio Zyman announced the end of marketing as we know it. The primary focus on creativity would give way to a primary focus on sales, he said. But since then, we’ve rediscovered the primary place of creativity in driving sales.

Which is precisely why, in his pandemic-era book, social media maven Carlos Gil declared the end of sterile digital marketing based on clicks and views and the need for more human connections. Yet, digital marches on, and along the way, has invented ways of humanizing engagement.

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Even more than the end of marketing, there have repeated declarations of a marketing revolution at hand. From Robert Keith, ex of Pillsbury. From Kevin Clancy, ex of Yankelovich and Copernicus. From Michael Ray, ex of Stanford. From the one-to-one gurus, Don Peppers and Martha Rogers. From the dot-com era Cluetrain Manifesto. From old media like Newsweek and from new media proselytizers like CES. Just to mention a few.

Despite all this sound and fury, the core ideas of marketing have endured unchanged. No end. No revolution. But maybe it’s different this time with AI. So, with a bit of trepidation and all the obligatory caveats, let me offer some thought-starters about AI as the end of marketing.

1. AI For Consumers

Some clarification first about what I have in mind when I’m talking about AI. Not what marketers are doing with AI, which is largely efficiency related. It is all about improving existing processes, channels and conversion.

AI for consumers will also be used for efficiency. But it will have the effect of removing people from marketing and shopping. Stripped down, the consumer journey moves from consideration to evaluation to purchasing to usage, and then back again. When AI mainstreams as a consumer tool to handle each of these steps (including things like biometric monitoring during usage), the consumer is inherently less involved.

AI will not be a complete substitute for consumers in every category or every decision, but AI will be used regularly as an assistive tool. As AI matures and improves, more and more people will use it to save time and reduce risks. That will make AI the consumer. As I have preached since 2013, marketing in a future of smart technologies is “advertising to algorithms.” Which means an end to marketing as we understand it.

2. AI Means An End To Consumer-Centric Marketing

This is a foundational concept in marketing. But it is derivative. Marketing is consumer-centric only by task, not by definition. That task is changing.

To paraphrase the late Harvard marketing guru Ted Levitt, consumers don’t buy products, they buy solutions. And thus, Levitt says, companies are in the problem-solving business. That’s the corporate purpose. The purpose of marketing derives from that.

Traditionally, marketing has put consumers at the center because, historically, consumers did everything—watched ads, visited stores, made decisions, assessed experiences, etc. But as consumers use AI for much or all of their shopping and usage, AI will be the driving force at every point of contact.

Marketing will have to target AI in order to support the broader business purpose of solving people’s problems. Meaning that marketing will have to shift from consumer-centricity to AI-centricity. A business must continue to be consumer-centric, but in support of that, marketing will have to put AI at the center.

Marketing will have to influence AI to influence consumers. Which means that marketing will have to figure out what persuades AI rather than what persuades consumers. Consumers will always be the end users, but to get solutions into the hands of consumers, marketing will have to be AI-centric.

3. AI Means An End To Segmentation

Part of AI’s promise is an enhanced ability to customize offerings and communications. This is an age-old marketing ambition, so we should take a show-me approach to this. But the ability of AI to process information is exponentially better than before, so the possibility of true, real-time personalization is finally on the table.

If AI can realize the promise of customization, then segmentation will be beside the point. We often forget that segmentation has always been understood as a stand-in for personalized products and advertising—the best we could do for now on the road to customization. Segments are a halfway step of customization. Not perfect, but at least a group of like-minded customers who share an affinity for a particular message or feature that is less well-liked by people who are not part of that segment.

The narrower and more focused the segment, the better. Although with greater specificity, cost considerations eventually come into play as a limiting factor. But if AI can facilitate affordable personalization at scale, then it means an end to segmentation.

4. AI Will Put Loyalty Back Into The Marketing Vocabulary

The debate about loyalty versus penetration as the better way to grow has settled out on penetration as the thing to do.

Penetration is a leaky bucket idea. Customers come in but eventually leak out and thus must be won back again with penetration strategies. The bucket is best kept full with more water at the top, not with less water out the bottom.

Loyalty is an idea about plugging the holes in the leaky bucket. But well-researched experience has found that loyalty strategies can’t do this well enough to keep the bucket full. Only more water works, not plugging holes.

If AI succeeds at personalization, though, loyalty will need to be reconsidered. Even more than that, in many categories, AI will be used simply to reorder. Brand choices will be repeated by AI rather than randomly made or concurrently influenced at point-of-sale. Thus, AI will maintain brand consistency. Penetration theories presume that consumers are somewhat (if not largely) indifferent to brands, which means that AI-enforced consistency will be just as acceptable to consumers as today’s inconsistency.

In fact, some tech-driven applications rely on consumers prespecifying preferred brands in advance. Then the AI app keeps repeating those preferences over and over. This would completely bypass the kind of loyalty-eroding, point-of-sale randomness that makes penetration strategies better than loyalty strategies. AI will put loyalty back into the marketing conversation.

5. AI Will Make Many Service Businesses Scalable

The knock on service businesses is scalability. Because service growth entails hiring more people. A single person cannot be made infinitely productive, and thus a bigger service business always grows with roughly equivalent costs, not with shrinking costs.

AI changes this equation because many AI applications can mimic the things that people do. Chatbots are one example. Financial advice is another. Annual medical check-ups are another. Psychological counseling is yet another. Future homes built with sensors that feed data into AI systems may not require a service visit to check on the HVAC or figure out a flickering light. Same for cars.

While service businesses will never be scalable like a digital business, AI will change the economics, thereby opening up service opportunities. Brands will be able to roll out services and experiences more affordably as a value-add. Follow-up care and consultation could be automated and made available.

Scalable services will enable more of the marketing for brands to be embedded in the experience of service and usage. This will be particularly important with AI in-between brands and consumers during the shopping experience.

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6. AI Will Make Mass Media More Important

My final thought is not so much the end of marketing as back to the future. It is to note that as consumers delegate more to AI, marketers will not only have to advertise to algorithms. They will have to figure out how to get around algorithms as well.

AI will optimize the match of brands and preferences. Advertising to algorithms is about the match. Getting around algorithms is about preferences. If preferences remain unchanged, then marketers will be captive to AI. But if marketers can change preferences, AI will have to change the match it makes.

It is easy for consumers to delegate digital media to AI, but harder to do for mass media. That’s how marketers can tell stories to change minds. As marketers have always done.

Focusing solely on performance at every touchpoint will eventually hand marketing over entirely to AI. Which is not bad per se. But it locks in the status quo. It is stagnant and reductive, not transformative. It reduces everything to efficiency. Again, not bad in and of itself. Just not imaginative and thus an end to marketing rather than a new beginning.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider By Walker Smith, Chief Knowledge Officer, Brand & Marketing at Kantar

The Blake Project Helps Brands In All Stages Of Development Gain An Emotional Advantage, A Distinctive Advantage And A Connective Advantage

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

This article is part of Branding Strategy Insider’s newsletter. You can sign up here to get thought pieces like this sent to your inbox.

The FTC is concerned about the scope of the grocery market that Kroger together with Albertsons would control post-merger. The Wall Street Journal says the trial held in an Oregon court will conclude on Tuesday, September 24, 2024. There are other trials on the dockets in other states.

The FTC’s grocery market definition should make marketers nuts.

Based on marketing and branding principles, the FTC does not appear to be taking into account what exactly is a consumer market. One can think: How does the FTC create definitions? Does the FTC ask consumers? Where are the customer-generated data for the definitions? Is the FTC deciding on the competitive set? The FTC had a similar issue with Amazon over Amazon’s owning the “online market.” But, online is a channel, not a market. Online is where or how a product or service is distributed.

From a marketing and branding perspective, the FTC argument about what is the grocery market does not reflect how consumers think and shop and create competitive sets. The FTC describes the grocery market as “a place where consumers can do one-stop shopping for groceries and provide tens of thousands of unique items.”

It seems from reporting in the business press that the FTC does not appear to reflect or include in the arguments how consumers decide where to shop for groceries. Why does this matter? Because a market is a want. Decades ago, Harvard professor Ted Levitt posited that people do not want drills. People want holes. People want the benefits of the drill. The market is for holes.

A market is not a product category. There is no lip gloss market; there is no mascara market. But, there are wants for attractiveness, for youthfulness, for status and for elegance. A market is a want. If there is no want, there is no market. There is no such thing as the automotive market.  Nor is there such a thing as the cola market or the pet food market. There is no such thing as the granola bar market. There is a market for portable, quick and easy-to-eat nutrition. There is a market for an afternoon pick-me-up. There is a market for a healthy, attractive and fit body. There is a need for portable, hand-held protein before or after strenuous activities. There is a need for a non-messy, vitamin-enriched gym-bag food.

A market is not a geography. There is no such thing as the French market, the Japanese market, the Italian market, the Common Market.  Geographies are where markets exist. Geographies are how you organize to deliver a brand promise to the market.

A market is people with a want. If it is a global want, there is a global market. If it is a growing want, it is a growing market.  If some people in Italy and some people in France and some people in Australia share the same want, then they are in the same market. It just happens that they live in different places. If there is no want, there is no market.

A market is not a distribution channel. A distribution channel is how you reach the market, not the definition of the market. There is no such thing as the warehouse store market or the department store market or the grocery store market. Brands are not specifically designed for channels. Companies design brands for people, people with a want.

Brands may choose a particular way in which they deliver their experiences. For example, a brand may choose to be online only, such as Blue Apron. Or a brand may choose to be a brick-and-mortar brand such as Publix. Or a brand may create a combination of online and brick-and-mortar, such as Walmart or Target or Warby-Parker.

Consumers want the ease of choice when it comes to how brands are bought and delivered. However, it is the brand with its benefits that drives consumer purchases. Once a person decides on the brand, then the “channel” is chosen. For example, if you want a high quality store brand you might shop at Kroger. You might shop at Walmart. You might want to shop at Whole Foods. You might want to shop at Aldi. All sell high quality store brands. If you believe that 365 is aa great store brand, you will shop at Whole Foods, in store or online.

Looking at markets in terms of channels or geography affects how business looks at its data, how business looks at its business and how business is managed.  If a teenager in Paris has the same want as a teenager in New York or in Tokyo, then these teenagers are in the same market no matter how the brand is organized or delivered. But, if two teenagers living next door to each other in Paris have different wants, then these teenagers are in different markets. So, online Shein offers youth clothing that are globally appealing, satisfying the consumer want for stylish, inexpensive, fast fashion. It is doubtful that a global teen considers Shein’s benefit as being an online mall. Being online is wonderful. But, online is a distribution channel for wanted items.

Furthermore, customers define the competitive set. Marketers do not define the competitive set. Neither does the FTC. It would appear from the press that the arguments before the Oregon court use FTC-generated competition for Kroger and Albertsons. Many companies compute market share based on geographies and categories and channels and price points. Category share, geography share, channel share, price point share are not market share. Category share, geography share, channel share, price point share reflect what the manufacturer desires, not what the customer desires.  There is no market share unless there is market-generated competition. And, competition comes from the customer’s perceptions.

The what-is-a-market discussion is not an academic issue. Look at the automotive business. Car companies see markets as product types. Car companies see potential “conquests” as wanting an SUV or a truck, for example. But, in reality, the driver is looking for a vehicle that can carry four people and lots of stuff but looks attractive and feels luxurious on the inside;  a vehicle that will not erode your self-image when you drive up to a fancy restaurant. A potential buyer may see a Buick cross-over and a Cadillac Escalade in the same competitive set.

How people shop for food has altered remarkably. The FTC is using a very traditional, out-of-date definition. Not only is the FTC definition not reflective of modern food shopping but the FTC definition does not take into account the role that “occasion” plays in creating a “market.” Decades ago, research showed that the beer someone drinks at home with friends is not the same brand of beer the same individual orders at a restaurant with co-workers. And, when that individual is at an arena for a sporting event, the beer brand will also be different from what is consumed at home or in a restaurant. Context is critical.

A grocery store might be seen as a local shopping venue where a customer could carry a tote bag of items home. And, a place where the items are customized to the needs of the store’s neighborhood. A grocery might be a corner bodega. Customers may see Aldi and Trader Joe’s in the same competitive set as both stores are own-brand stores. Or, Costco and Trader Joe’s might be seen as stores that surprise you with limited-supply items. Needs drive a market.

A market is a specific group of people who share common needs in a common context. Product categories, channels, and price categories are not market segments.

The Wall Street Journal states that the FTC definition of a grocery is “narrow.” From the customer’s standpoint, it is their need that drives their selection of a “grocery” venue. And, this consumer need may have a narrow competitive set of stores or a broad competitive set of stores.

Brands are promises of expected relevant, differentiated, trustworthy experiences. Kroger and Albertson are brands. Kroger and Albertsons deliver expected relevant, differentiated, trustworthy experiences. The Kroger and Albertsons arguments should be about the want that these stores individually and together satisfy.

Kroger and Albertsons and the FTC are confusing market with marketplace. These two constructs are different. Language is important. But, so is the understanding at the basis of this anti-trust court fight. If market is the issue, then it would make sense to recast the arguments into the actual customer understanding of the grocery market based on actual customer wants.

Bloomberg correctly asks: “What’s a Grocery Store?” The FTC should understand that there is no “grocery market.” A market is specific people with specific needs in specific occasions.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Joan Kiddon, Author of The Paradox Planet: Creating Brand Experiences For The Age Of I

At The Blake Project, we help clients worldwide, in all stages of development, define or redefine and articulate what makes them competitive at critical moments of change, including defining a vision that propels their businesses and brands forward. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

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Remarkably the century old thinking that underpins the funnel was first developed in 1896 by E. St. Elmo Lewis, owner of a Philadelphia-based ad agency, who published the first theory on “consumer path to purchase” he called AIDA – short for Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. By 1924 this concept had morphed into what we now refer to as the Purchase Funnel. Yes, there have been a few modifications along the way to accommodate digital and social media channels, but the basic view of awareness as the golden goal has traveled with the adjustments, until now.

The Funnel Is Dead, Long Live The Funnel…

The fundamental weaknesses of the funnel model have been exposed, as follows:

• It is grounded in transactional thinking that positions consumers as walking wallets
• It fails to address the dynamics of how real brand relationships are built
• Assumes that consumers will behave in a linear fashion on the road to purchase

It’s fair to say that the focus of brand marketing work and investment has leaned heavily on top of funnel activity, frustrated somewhat by the demise of mass media, the splintering of consumer attention across channels and their uncanny newfound ability to avoid it all. Of note, tactical sophistication here in digital media eyeball aggregation isn’t helped by inherent strategic weakness.

Here’s the truth as we now know it. Consumers – especially Gen Z and Millennials – no longer operate in linear fashion. For one, the purchase isn’t the end game, rather it is the starting point. Consumption is now an infinite loop of inspiration, exploration, community participation and advocacy.

• Old brand World: defined by conventional advertising, digital or analog
• New Brand World: defined by content, events, experiences and fandom 

What Are You Risking If You Continue To Be An Awareness Chaser?

• Declining Relevance: your brand and business are seen as exploitive, possibly manipulative and transactional.
• Lacking Authenticity: your brand expresses promotional hype over user help in a world now longing for trust and deeper meaning from the brands consumers care about.

Incidentally, this is why Emergent exists. We focus on new world approaches that are grounded in culture and the latest consumer insight. Today, when consumers buy a product, they are actually buying a story and not a stock keeping unit (sku).

Edelman Trust Barometer Sheds Light On The Shift

Edelman’s latest trust report revealed a remarkable change in behavior that has significant implications to sound brand building strategy. People have a strong cognitive bias for post-purchase rationalization. In fact, we also know that 95% of the time, consumers are driven by their efforts to avoid making a bad decision, or to experience disappointment.

Edelman’s research confirms where the action is: 50% of consumers now conduct the vast majority of their brand research AFTER purchase and not before. What’s more, 78% are looking for credible proof and validation that they made the right decision. Turns out post purchase is when people are most open to brand engagement.

You Might Be Wondering What’s Behind This Change…

1. The systematic dilution of trust and belief based in part on the absence of any prevailing brand value system, higher purpose or real, obvious evidence of same.
2. The precipitous rise of vulnerability, uneasiness over a perceived lack of personal control authored by political, social and environmental stresses.
3. Too many brands think all they have to do is invoke the word trust in their marketing and they are automatically, well, trusted. Not so. Trust is earned not acquired. Always deeds more than words.

Right below the surface people look for safety and security in the midst of accelerating experiences sponsored by uncontrollable events around them. This manifests as a desire for deeper meaning, purpose and trust – now at an all-time premium. Call it heightened expectations for visible, demonstrable, easy-to-see brand values and a courageous point of view.

So How Does It Work Now?

Consumer pre-purchase research leans into the influence of brand social communities where they uncover member reviews, experiences and hopefully advocacy. Thus, the strongest predictor of a thriving social strategy is the rate at which members connect with each other vs. the brand’s self-promoting posts. It just makes sense – people believe and respect the voices of their peers before they accept assertions claimed by brands.

Brand Marketing Is Now About Cultural Influence

The great news – consumers in a post-purchase focused world are primed for engagement. No need to wrestle them to the ground with look-at-me overreach. Here’s directional advice on best practices.

1. Trust creation: you should be conveying and demonstrating your brand purpose, mission and identity beyond the product on offer. Brand actions, reinforced through communication and education, helps you earn trust.
2. You’re working to confirm: competence, ethics, values and relevance to your consumer based on their identity and aspirations, which you endeavor to help enable.
3. You deploy: credible and trusted voices in the form of “people like me” (via User Generated Content), scientists and academic experts, brand tech experts and employees.

It’s exciting to know that following purchase 79% of consumers engage in branded content, will participate in brand activities and want to connect on your social platforms. Your brand marketing should be operating to help feed and encourage this behavior. Trusted brands are repurchased, they secure loyalty and encourage evangelism.

So here we are, 128 years since the introduction of the funnel; welcome to the age of post-funnel marketing.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by Robert Wheatley, CEO of Chicago-based Emergent, The Healthy Living Agency.

At The Blake Project, we help clients worldwide, in all stages of development, define and articulate what makes them competitive and valuable.  Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers