Belongingexperiences’s Weblog

Defining the MeaningThe term “Belonging Experiences” was born out of twenty-five years working on some of the world’s leading consumer packaged goods, service providers, and retail brands. Through this unique vantage point, it became quite clear to me that the next decade will see a significant shift in how consumers interact with package goods, retail and service brands. The term clearly captures the essence of this change, articulated through the combination of two emotional words.The “Experience” is at one end of the spectrum, identified by its physical characteristics, such as the décor, atmosphere, setting and tangible offerings that predominantly deal with the senses. This lays the foundation for giving permission to foster a transaction, leading to a relationship of trust. At the other end of the spectrum, “Belonging” is a powerful consumer need that is illustrated by the shift of power gradually occurring in the marketplace, and the way leading marketers are leveraging a systematic approach to sharing this control with consumers in order to answer their need for empowerment and a strong sense of collaboration. The combination of these two dimensions provides a unique catalyst for consumers to collaborate, get engaged, and become advocates for your brand. The net benefit is a brand momentum that goes far beyond conventional marketing efforts and financial investments in maintaining brand loyalty.Seeing Around the CornerI believe that marketers are nearing a new decade where the only constant is change at lightning speed, and the only reality is a market that is becoming blurred and fragmented. The challenge for marketers is daunting: How do I create strong brand loyalty when there is so much competition for customers’ attention and needs? How do I ensure that my offering is relevant and meaningful when the shift of power is migrating to consumers, and the approach I take to reach them ever changing?Which factors are now influencing how consumers connect with brands and how marketers can best leverage key trends in ensuring that their products and services are on the preferred list are the underlying issues that this report will take into consideration. More importantly, our point of view explores the next opportunity that marketers of products and services need to consider when developing their marketing initiatives.We hope that the following pages will allow you to “see around the corner” in order to identify opportunities that the market has yet to capitalize on, while gaining a further understanding of what is driving the need for change.The Brand Experience ContinuumThe next decade, I believe, will bring about a major shift in how marketers create value and brand loyalty within a hyper competitive, ever-confusing market-place. In order to better understand what opportunities are just around the corner, it is important to understand how the market has evolved in the past two decades.Decade of Emotional BrandingIf we look back, the 1990s was the decade of emotional branding, and organizations embarked on identifying an optimum brand position in consumers’ minds that went far beyond functional benefits. This shift was created out of an understanding that consumers’ lifestyle needs were evolving, and marketers had to shift their communication from a rational perspective to encompass new emotional values that were lifestyle-driven in order to effectively market to them.Marketers had come to understand that the way brands connected with consumers on the emotional level had a significant impact on brand loyalty and intent to purchase. The rise of mass affluence driven by increased discretionary dollars and the need for style popularized by design-centric shows evolved as a means to embody this new trend, which continues today to play an important role in how consumers perceive brands.Decade of the Experiential BrandIn the decade that followed, the rise of the Internet as both an alternative channel of distribution for marketers as well as a medium to share and spread information forced a lot of marketers to rethink their strategies to better leverage the need for consumer knowledge and social networking.The Internet, as highlighted in the national best seller The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas L. Friedman. He suggests the world is “flat” in the sense that globalization has levelled the competitive playing fields between industrial and emerging market countries.The Internet is one of the key factors in this environment of change as organizations leverage the same technology, irrespective of distances, to accomplish similar tasks.If the 1990s was the decade of emotional positioning, the current decade is an era of experiential branding. Consumer need state research and ethnography allow us to clearly understand that a brand is part of a greater lifestyle experience, which lives well before and well after the purchase of the product.Marketers are now challenged to not only create a physical brand experience, but also virtual versions as part of the ever-growing Internet community.Rear View GazingThe issues with the approach of the past two decades stem from the fact that they are viewed using language and methodologies from the past, while consumers are evolving much more quickly and with less predictability.Whereas twenty years ago, the definition of target market was based on demographics and psychographics, these criteria are no longer effective at capturing the opportunities in the marketplace.We are no longer a group of statistics driven by our age, the neighbourhood we live in, or the type of work we do. The Internet has demonstrated that the marketplace, and humanity at large, is much more complex.Decade of BelongingWe are nearing a new decade where the thought process for how we created experiential brands will need to evolve into creating “Belonging Experiences” which form part of how we view the brands as a mirror of our lifestyle values, and address a heightened need of belonging as part of a community of like-minded citizens. A new way of thinking needs to emerge in order to fully leverage the clicks and mortar industries, where the importance of being a viable channel to the customer while providing value is currently not clear.Social Networks, a Growing CommunitySocial networks such as Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn did not exist ten years ago, and now account for more readership than some of the best magazine publications. Facebook users, for example, have grown by nearly 300% to 18.5 million since last July. Half of those users log in every day, making Facebook about eight times better read than the New York Times. There are more than one billion photos on the Facebook site, and the numbers continue to grow.Virtual NetworksThese virtual social networks have allowed consumers to have their five minutes of fame on a global basis while creating a platform to effectively communicate disdain and anger in response to the conduct and claims of organizations willing to respond through their social networks, in demonstrating that they are in a position of control. This has forced organizations to rethink their core values and to ensure transparency in how they approach the market and operate their businesses.Importance of PlaceHowever, one could believe that with the growth of these networks, the need to have a “branded space” is becoming less important. The reality is very different, since consumers are looking for physical spaces to entertain them places that offer uniqueness, discovery, trying out, hanging out, empathy, and even transformation. However what is changing is the core essence of what defines a “space”.Being SpacesThe Trendwatching list of the top ten trends in 2007 has identified “Being Spaces” public spaces that are there to facilitate out-of-home, out-of-office activities like watching movies, reading books, meeting friends and colleagues, and so on.Although we believe that the trend will continue for “Being Spaces” based on consumers’ need to network and to be identified as individuals, we believe that these spaces will evolve to “Belonging Experiences” that not only provide a platform to connect with friends, but also become part of a community of like-minded individuals that seek to not only share their stories and experiences, but also provide advice, understanding, and help to the greater community as part of an engaged relationship. New Levels of IntimacyIn his new book Living Brands, Raymond A. Nadeau identified that consumers now demand far more personal contact from highly emotionalized, living brands. He identifies that marketers will need to develop new levels of personal intimacy between brands and their customers. A recent study conducted by the STW Communications Group supports this premise, with 81% of those surveyed believing that the feeling of belonging to a community was important, and 71% believing close communities were lacking in today’s society. This need is driving the growth of buying locally and supporting neighbourhood initiatives.Brands such as Starbucks, Second Cup, and Barnes & Noble continue to demonstrate that brand loyalty is not about selling a better product, but creating a consumer physical experience that answers a deep-rooted human need for belonging and acknowledgment. Ray Oldenburg is an urban sociologist from Florida who writes about the importance of informal public gathering places. Third PlacesIn his book The Great Good Place, Oldenburg demonstrates why these gathering places are essential to community and public life. He argues that bars, coffee shops, general stores, and other “third places” (in contrast to the first and second places of home and work), are central to local democracy and community vitality. By exploring how these places work and what roles they serve, Oldenburg offers peacemaking tools and insight for individuals and communities everywhere that are applicable to organizations wanting to build strong branded communities.The opportunity for organizations is to gain understanding of these important factors in creating communities, and apply this learning to how their physical presence can play a key role in forming engaged communities that support their products or services.