The voice of customers today is loud and clear and, above all, public. These are no longer just consumers, but specific individuals with their own needs and emotions. They share their experiences and assessments, express personal views and compare them with others.
The ability of the brand to quickly (and adequately!) Responsiveness has a profound effect on the way it is perceived. This, in turn, directly affects which companies gain importance. Surely you associate brands like Tripadvisor — their basic strategy is precisely the fight for the voice of the consumer. Do you already understand the dependency?
How to control it?
The old eaters, consistently ranked in the influential list of Interbrand's 100 leading global brands, do not focus on their products, but on how they affect our daily lives.
Apple has made life easier for its customers by introducing not only the iPod and iPhone, but also by developing revolutionary new services around them — iTunes and the App Store: it's the pleasure of listening to your favorite music anywhere.
The Google brand is rooted in the hugely popular search and information sorting service: it's the satisfaction of easily accessing knowledge and saving time.
And Coca-Cola? He continues to use his brand power to create closer ties with people: every Christmas is a red truck with Santa Claus giving away branded drinks as a gift.
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Today it is no longer important to “want more”, but to “be something more”.
Show the customer that you understand them, and with your brand they can be a better version of themselves
More than ever, customers are looking for brands whose values they can consider their own. They want to support companies with a specific identity, character and moral backbone on issues that are directly related to their fields. Most Millennials (83%) say it's important for brands to align with their personal beliefs. The market goes one step further — the same group of respondents believes that CEOs should be open about the social issues they care about.
Today, those brands that know how to increasingly weave into the lives of their customers and help them change for the better are also powerful. But in order to join this noble group and create bonds with your customers, you must first and foremost define who YOU are in black and white.
This is what branding is for — it makes a product or organization not just one commodity among many identical ones, but a promise to establish a unique relationship based on shared values.
Branding causes an emotional resonance in our minds, and it is through feelings and intuition that we make choices. Only later do we justify (or rather justify) them with logical arguments... If you are curious about this topic, be sure to see my previous article “Product is not everything — why do you need branding?”
Show off on the Internet!
It is not America's discovery that customers have the most contact with the brand on the Internet. It is both a place of shared dialogue, interaction and a new kind of experience and a chance to show your true identity.
Gaining customer loyalty previously meant spending on advertising every time the same recipient was supposed to make a purchase. Now leading brands are making deeper connections and making the customer feel important in this relationship. In turn, these personalized experiences lead to increased loyalty... and a more profitable business.
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The survival of a brand depends on understanding and adapting to the needs and desires of your community. Designers Yasushi Kusume and Neil Gridley (who have helped lead the design and brand management of companies such as Philips, Electrolux and Tesco, and are also authors of the book “Brand Romance”), compare the process of brand collapse to the slow erosion of cliffs — sometimes you don't notice what happens until the cliff begins to fall into the sea.
Meet your customers — and change for them before the market changes you!
