after Maureen McLaughlin, All Nippon Airways
Brian Solis of Salesforce discusses why people now more than ever want to establish real connections with companies and organizations
Brian Solis, Salesforce’s global innovation evangelist, is unambiguous when it comes to how the coronavirus will change the way brands and organizations present themselves to the public. “If this pandemic shows us anything, now is the time to add a few new pillars to the brand to make it more humane,” Solis said.
Although his role at Salesforce—focusing on digital anthropology, digital transformation, innovation, and customer experience—is relatively new, Solis has spent most of his career studying and predicting the impact of emerging technologies on business and society. He is also a keen observer of the intersection between marketing and consumer behavior. His most recent book Lifescale explores how to successfully navigate life in the ruthless world of digital interference.
Getting their messages to resonate with consumers—rather than distracting them—is one of the biggest challenges facing consumer brands today. Their future may depend on it. Solis and ANA Magazine discussed the digital transformation the company is facing now, how the pandemic will fundamentally change marketing, and what the new normal will look like.
Q: Has the way consumers expect to interact with brands changed due to the pandemic?
People want to establish a real connection with the brand. This is why for the past 20 years, I have been working with organizations and asking them: “What does it mean to be a meaningful brand in the digital age?”
I don’t know if traditional brands have realized that, in Marshall McLuhan’s famous saying, “The medium is information.” You have to reimagine the brand for the digital world because it is presented in a different way. I believe that if this pandemic shows us anything, now is the time to add a few new pillars to the brand to make it more humane.
I often talk about this in experience design: What experience does your brand create? What is this experience like? Use the experience style guide to supplement your brand style guide.
Q: What should brands do now to help them take the lead in digital transformation?
When social media was born, this was an opportunity. As a business and organization, we have obtained a platform through which we can humanize-humanize our information, humanize our brand, humanize our employees-and interact with customers and interests around the world Stakeholders build a larger community with a lower level and more vitality. Instead, social media has led to the emergence of marketing roles, these roles are more to attract followers and show the brand’s stage image.
The opportunity is to show that the brand may be the human side. Few companies understand this, and few companies understand the value of these roles within the organization. Today, 14 years later, we are still uncertain about the value of individuals to individual marketing. We still send emails to people in almost the same way. We can now use artificial intelligence and machine learning platforms. They did not expand humanity, but expanded the previous generation of broadcast-oriented marketing. There is still a lot to learn.
I think one of the brands that set a good example today is Steak-umm. This may be one of the most authentic brands at the moment. It is a steak slice, but it represents something.
Q: Should marketers continue to retain the data they collected before the pandemic, or is this environment so different that marketers must re-evaluate what they think they know about audience behavior?
Over the years, we have learned that e-commerce is on the rise, but when everyone is placed in place for refuge, a sudden overnight shift has taken place. This is important because it implies that consumers are shocked by the system and have no choice but to buy mobile devices first and then desktop computers. As a result, consumers began to create new models and behaviors.
If you think about this psychology, it takes an average of 66 days for a person to adopt a new behavior and become automatic.You can infer that because we have been sheltering in situ for longer than some places, you will see this in the next 36 months [e-commerce] Behavior becomes more specific.
I named this new generation “N generation” because it is not organized by age like the millennial generation. It was organized by a pandemic that changed the behavior of the world. Any data you had before March 1st should be ignored. The behavior after shelter-in-place is what we want to start researching, because it shows the emergence of a new customer, a digital and mobile-first customer.
This goes back to the main thread of humanity in the discussion: the customer has not fully evolved. This is not just about how they use the device; it is about how the pandemic has changed their identity as a person. It is very likely that consumers will pay more attention to their money; they will pay more attention to the things that are important to them.
This is why we see incredible creativity on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, because people are more deliberate about what they do, say, and express because they have time to do it. I think this will reshape people’s positions and what their status means to them. I think these things will reset the brand and the content of brand creation, sales and marketing.
Question: How does the N generation integrate with traditional intergenerational marketing, or does it no longer matter?
It depends on the organization. For marketing, what is really important now is to work with data science in some way to eliminate prejudice and let the data reveal who the current customer is and who the customer is becoming. You must also show how locating customers psychologically rather than demographically will generate returns now or over time, thereby transforming marketing from a cost center to an investment.
When we entered the pandemic, we did talk about centennials, millennials, baby boomers, and Gen X, but this is just basic marketing. Anyone can stereotype a generation, but what is your message? Who do you really want to contact? What does that person represent, and what are their wishes when they attach their personal brand to your brand?
When you recognize these things, you can connect with a 16-year-old, a 26-year-old, and a 36-year-old. This is why the idea of the Nth generation forces companies to use data to look at common sets of behaviors. It becomes bigger than intergenerational marketing, and it becomes more meaningful.
Q: From a marketing perspective, what do you hope will become part of the “next normal” of development in the coming months and years?
New and unusual will define the next 36 months, good or bad. Because it is new and unusual, there is no script on how we should survive and develop.I think behind [business leaders’] In my mind, there is an assumption that things will return to their original state.
For example, I have the illusion that it is summer, I go to my favorite restaurant, sit outside and have a glass of wine. This is a good image, but in fact, until there is some kind of treatment-not even a vaccine, but a certain kind of treatment-otherwise the crowdedness of the restaurant may decrease and the service will look a bit poor. Masks and gloves are strange, and the handling of food and beverages will be unique. So I don’t even allow myself to enjoy that kind of visual experience, because I haven’t experienced it yet. But this will be very different from what I know.
Q: What is the main difference between the digital-first marketing strategy that brands must adopt today and the traditional/digital hybrid strategy that people used a few months ago?
I want to say that this is driven by customers, because brands have studied their behaviors and preferences and have really developed a participation strategy to better meet the expectations of today’s customers. But the honest answer is that marketers need to shake the system before realizing that customers are digital first.
Digitization is not only a mechanism for participation, nor is it a channel for transmitting information. There is a person on the other side of the screen, and this pandemic shows that humans are not responding well to marketing messages. Humans want real participation.
What we saw in the first few weeks of the pandemic was the use of digital sharing for marketing [the company’s] Coronavirus empathy, or communication during “these uncertain times.” Ultimately, I think this exercise shows that digital marketers need to be more humane and empathetic when participating, and to use digital as a way of more personalization when people are actually looking for that kind of sanity, that kind of empathy. s method. , The kind of participation, the kind of meaning, and the whole world is in a state of chaos.
Q: Is the digital first strategy really just considering the real people on the other end of the digital connection?
Exactly. When it comes to leaving marketing messages behind, the first wave is the wave before the COVID. The second wave is emails and marketing messages from “these uncertain times”. Taking it a step further, marketers realized, “Wow, I think we really have to think about what we are going to send next, because now is a different era and people are looking for meaningful participation.”
