A practical approach to better dialogue
“Facts don’t care about your feelings” is a popular meme attributed to Ben Shapiro, the American writer, political commentator, and self-described member of the Intellectual Dark Web: an emerging cadre of new media public intellectuals. For some, he is a fearless speaker of truth. For others, he’s a regressive provocateur. It depends on one’s sensibilities.
And that’s the starting point for this blog. When Ben lays out an argument he often says that he genuinely doesn’t care how others may feel about it. I think it’s fair to say that (in the public sphere at least) he elevates rational thought above all else: an idea that seems alien to many people.
In the workplace too, there are people like Ben. There are people who are the polar opposite of Ben. And there are people who sit somewhere in between. But an indisputable truth is that, in any enterprise, it’s people who drive outcomes. And people are motivated in different ways: some more by facts and some more by feelings. So it’s self-evident that adopting a more agile approach to people-motivating skills can deliver better outcomes.
Most people want to be heard and understood. As a leader at the sharp-end of delivering results in a complex organisation, it can be tough to find the time to dialogue effectively. Or often enough. Especially with people who are not like you. I get that. But however busy you are, it’s worth creating some extra time for some other people (and you know already which people I’m talking about in your sphere).
Here are a few dots that I’ve connected over the course of my life, and my career as an executive coach and adult educator; some of them may be helpful to you.
1. Seek first to understand, then to be understood1
This is a concept that has echoed throughout the ages of mankind. The central idea being that most people talk too much, and don’t listen enough.
2. Take some time to let the tale unfold
If you give a person 30 minutes of uninterrupted time to speak, you will learn a lot about them. Listen actively, don’t judge, ask clarifying questions, but let them speak. Eventually you will hear something along the lines of: “…which doesn’t seem right to me”. That’s a breakthrough moment which will reveal something intimate, and very important.
3. Tell me more about that
Stick with curiosity in that moment. Your own thoughts and feelings about the things that don’t seem right are irrelevant. Did anybody ask you to agree yet?! You’ll recognise this moment when you notice the words “Yes, but” about to come out of your mouth. Swallow those words! Simply say: “Tell me more about that.” And continue to listen actively.
4. Simplify, Clarify
When it’s an appropriate time to speak, here’s a good way to begin: “If I understand you correctly, what is important to you is X, Y, Z. Am I right?”. And if you are not right, do like it says on the shampoo bottle: rinse and repeat.
5. Read your vital signs
At this point you will have broadly heard one of three things: a) “that’s not fair”, b) “that’s not accurate”, c) “that’s not actionable”. This is a potential danger zone; a moment when your own interpretation of the ‘stuff’ could cause you to feel triggered. Pay attention to your ‘gut’. That Fight or Flight or Freeze feeling is invaluable data. High performance people know how to bring that data into dialogue.
6. May I share?
People with strong dialogue skills will take this moment to ask permission to share. Describe the ways in which your own thoughts and feelings diverge from those that you have heard and understood from the other person. But this isn’t an opportunity to dismiss what you have heard, or to use your ‘senior power’ (if you have any). You are merely asking for the same listening courtesy to be extended to you.
7. Where are we now?
By this time you should each have a better understanding of what makes the other one ‘tick’, and where your differences lie. Spend some time to clearly articulate the ‘gaps’ that exist between your respective thoughts/feelings, without judging or criticising them. Treat them as a phenomenon; your individual realities are not the same. It can be helpful to imagine this bundle of differences as a fish on the table between you. It’s not you, it’s not him/her. It’s a fish that you have co-created.
8. What are WE going to do about this?
We don’t often get to choose our clients or colleagues, and differences are bound to arise. But if you have gotten this far it’s fair to assume that you care about your relationship with this person, and vice versa. But you need to clean and gut that fish2, or it will begin to stink and decompose!
Occasionally I have heard people say: “This isn’t personal, it’s purely business.” And that’s actually a very well-intentioned thought. But it ignores a reality that, for some people, business is entirely about the personal. A subtle, but powerful alternative could begin something like this: “I really value my relationship with you. How can we move forward in a way that preserves that, and still achieves a good business outcome?”
If you put the above steps into practice, I guarantee that you will take much of the heat or awkwardness out of your difficult conversations. You may easily, naturally, create a better dialogue towards a better outcome. And if you need some practice with the techniques, or are interested in a workshop for your team, get in touch with Dramatic Difference. Our dynamic theatre-led learning style has helped many clients to build high performance teams through effective dialogue.
Reposted with permission from Dramatic Difference (www.dramdiff.com) (more…)
Breaking: Bad News!
Delivering bad news is tough in any business. Whether it’s having to tell your vendors that you can no longer retain their services or informing an employee that he is being made redundant, or shutting down a project, often the “messenger” tasked with delivering the final blow would go to great lengths to delay or avoid the situation due to fear of confrontation, turning a bad situation into an even worse one.
Let’s face it – nobody wants to hear bad news. Disappointment, frustration and even anger come to mind. It’s certainly no mean feat when it comes to reconciling and managing orders from upper management with the interests of employees, vendors and clients.
So how can we avoid shooting the messenger? We share some tips on how you can deliver bad news (someone’s got to do it!) with grace and tact.
Be Prepared
Make sure that you’re familiar with every piece of information before speaking to your target recipient (employee, colleague, client). More specifically, you need to understand the reasons why, who are the parties involved, and any other considerations in the lead up to the final decision. Don’t hesitate to ask for more information before delivering the bad news.
Time and Place
When you deliver bad news, be sure to do it in a private setting and at a time when he can hear the bad news. If it’s not urgent, don’t approach the person at a stressful time in the middle of a project. Be mindful of the setting, and switch off your phone and email alerts – avoid interruptions at all cost to put the person at ease.
Create a Buffer
Before communicating any bad news, always start with a buffer to reduce the shock or pain. An effective buffer helps the recipient to keep reading or listening, and essentially provides a smooth transition to the bad news proper.
- State the best news first
- Compliment the recipient
- Thank the recipient for his past contributions
- Listen to what the recipient has to say (shared viewpoint)
- State key facts of the case
- Express empathy (show concern)
Be Direct
People are more receptive to listening and accepting bad news when it’s delivered thoughtfully, sincerely and confidently. Body language is key. Make sure your body language conveys the right message in the right way and is in line with what you’re saying. Some examples of non-verbal cues include avoiding eye contact and fidgeting. These are sure to send the wrong signals. Also, do not sugarcoat and beat around the bush. Be direct and tactful, and most of all be kind.
No Time for Jokes
When bad news is being delivered, be considerate of the recipient’s feelings. Do not joke around as this may come across as being rude and insincere. While you may want to lighten the mood and reduce the impact of the news, always be respectful and sensitive.
Explain the Why’s
Research shows that people are more willing to accept bad news if they believe the decision-making process was reasonable. Therefore, provide them with ample reasons as to why the bad news is necessary and give them details about the decision-making process.
Show you Care
After delivering the news and explaining all the necessary information, give the individual some space to absorb the information and be ready to listen to his concerns. Ask him how he’s feeling. Do your best to be understanding and answer any questions as best as possible.
Moving Forward
When closing, do it in a way that promotes goodwill and helps the individual or team move forward. You should provide your support and let them know you’re there for them. Instead of focusing on the “can’ts”, focus on the “cans”. Go a step further and suggest a compromise or alternative option based on what the individual wanted in the first place.
Posted by Chloe Tan, CorpMedia
Real-Time Marketing: Make or Break?
Imagine a world without marketing. Brands would cease to exist, and the economy would probably collapse in no time. The world would be completely different.
Businesses today all speak marketing.
It’s all about developing brand awareness and utilizing different marketing channels to disseminate information to the public. With the advent of the Internet, digital marketing has shaped the marketing world greatly.
But real-time marketing is the new game changer.
What truly sets it apart from the rest is that it is opportunistic – marketers seize the opportunity to generate content that ties the brand to the latest trending topic of relevance, ensuring that it is not only pertinent, but felicitous too.
The tastes and preferences of consumers constantly change as well. The marketing industry is obsessed with the now, and consumers these days seek instant gratification, placing pressure on brands to be more forthcoming and transparent than they have ever been.
As real-time marketing continues to grow, brands are also keeping up with the trends by engaging the public with shareable, bite-sized content.
Leveraging the love for cheese fries amongst consumers, McDonald’s stepped up their French fries game with the launch of its Cheesy Loaded Fries just last December. Featuring its all-time favourite golden and crisp fries, topped with chicken bacon bits and drenched with nacho cheese and sour cream sauce, this limited edition side had garnered much hype.
But, alas, dissatisfaction overwhelmed fry lovers who flocked to various chain outlets with great anticipation for the Cheesy Loaded Fries, and when the dish did not resemble anything as advertised, they vented their cheese-deprived anger on the fast food chain’s Facebook page.
While McDonald’s expressed sincerity and was swift in responding to the complaints regarding the disparity between the advertised Cheesy Loaded Fries and its actual presentation, their efforts were evidently not adequate to satisfy cheesed off customers!
Oops. Shots fired.
Instead of Cheesy Loaded Fries, all they got was Fully Loaded Disappointment… perhaps, with a miserable drizzle of cheese?
In light of this big hoo-ha, KFC Singapore cleverly turned the tables around as they identified this situation as a marketing opportunity and jumped on it to produce a timely and relevant piece of content, gaining both acknowledgement and commendation from the public.
KFC simultaneously introduced its new, improved cheese fries as “the real deal” using the hashtag #KFCRealCheeseFries. Indeed, what a timely post to remind Singaporeans why they love KFC’s cheese fries!
Now that’s what you call real-time marketing.
Social media real-time marketing can make or break a brand. For KFC, it evidently made the brand, but it was clearly the contrary for McDonald’s. Another case in point: Cheerios.
When music legend Prince passed away in April 2016, Cheerios responded by tweeting a purple “Rest in peace” sign, replacing the dot above the letter ‘i’ with a cheerio, and tagging the tweet with the hashtag #prince.
What started out purely as an innocent condolence message over the loss of an iconic musical legend in Minnesota on the part of Cheerios turned out to be a seemingly exploitative marketing gimmick in the eyes of the public, especially Twitter users.
Compared to McDonald’s and Cheerios’ fiasco, KFC proved how real-time marketing, when used brilliantly and appropriately, can make the brand.
Here’s why their strategy worked:
- Timeliness
Consumers today care less for slow and disconnected experiences. Quick response time is a crucial factor they look out for in a brand. Brands should be able to respond to customers appropriately, by creating the right content that appeals to the right people, at the right time, and appropriately.
- Relevance
Context is equally important as content. Lacking in either one will not make the strategy work. In real-time marketing, brands often fail when they force themselves into conversations or trends that they have unfortunately little or no relevance in. What’s vital is to ensure your brand can be tied to what’s happening, with sensitivity and transparency. Failing which brands risk the wrath of the social media army!
Posted by Shermaine Sim, CorpMedia.
Hello 2018
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
We’ve just entered a brand new year! Helloooooooo 2018!
For some, the new year will be about honing and refining, building on current successes to perform even better. For others, it’s about developing new ways of working together, and stepping into new opportunities. This is all just so exciting!
In 2018, we dare you to:
- Dream Big. Step out of your comfort zone. Consider the breadth of your market and your potential, so you can see all the opportunities.
- Be Open to Change. Even the best laid plans have sell-by dates. Begin your planning early. Anticipate change. Conduct periodic reviews and decide how you’re going to handle it with your team.
- Stay Relevant. As technology and search engines change, so do strategies marketers use to engage with customers. If you aren’t staying on top of the newest trends in content marketing, your brand will be left behind, and your business will become irrelevant.
GONE are the days of the detailed, step-by-step, multi-year action plans. The pace of demographic, technological, and business model is changing too fast for any planner to predict that far into the future. It’s time to rethink and reframe your strategic planning. Literally, this means ‘out with the old, and in with the new.’
Effective strategy needs consistent discipline, not an annual intervention; it must be embedded in the day-to-day rhythm of organizational life.
Change is in the air. Breathe deep and take it all in. Let’s make 2018 a year to remember!
From all of us here at CorpMedia, here’s wishing you and yours a very happy and successful year ahead.
Posted by Irene Gomez, CIO, CorpMedia
The Rise of the Influencers
Just last year, Instagram hit an incredible milestone of 600 million users. Combined with the recent launch of Instagram Live and the wildly successful Promoted Posts in 2013, Instagram’s strategic focus on Influencer Marketing is making waves in the world of digital marketing.
Over the past three years, Google Trends observed a steady decline in print advertising. Within the same period, influencer marketing has steadily grown in popularity and is quickly narrowing the gap with video advertising. To date, AdWeek reports that 94% of marketers believe in the strategic effectiveness of influencer marketing, with most spending between USD25,000 and USD50,000 for an influencer campaign.
Why?
The Rise of AdBlock
In December of 2016, Apple released the iOS 9 for its chain of devices. With the new software came the added support for AdBlock – a program to block banner advertisements on websites and social media platforms alike. In the same year, Digital News reported that 47% of online consumers used ad-blocks. What was once a program solely used by experts in the field had now become mainstream, throwing marketers into a frenzy of re-evaluating their monetizing and advertising strategies.
Growing Immune to Traditional Advertisements
Traditional marketing strategies have also spiralled downward in terms of actual effectiveness. In the past, brands paid an average of USD5 million for a 30-second commercial between breaks of primetime telecasts. Today however, consumers are rarely glued to the screens of their TVs, with only 14% remembering the last ad they saw, reports Leverage Marketing.
Rethinking and Realigning Content
Navigating through these changing tides of marketing, brands recognize the need to adopt strategies that incorporate their products into popular content that is being consumed on social media. In this day and age, it’s all about “integrating a customer’s attention organically with a product or a service” and fortunately for most brands, influencer marketing offers the solution to all their problems.
Word-of-Mouth 2.0
In 2015, a study by Nielsen revealed that 84% of consumers perceived recommendations from friends and families as the most trustworthy factor in their purchasing decisions. Influencer marketing similarly uses the age-old Word-of-Mouth strategy, except that recommendations extend beyond people within our social circles to include influencers – key individuals on social media who are recognized as experts within their specific fields.
To put it simply: “People listen to the people they trust, and the people they trust are relatable people”.
Traditional celebrities are removed from their audiences. Whether on stage or on movie screens, celebrities present carefully constructed caricatures from behind glass walls. Therefore, many idolize and admire them from afar, but very rarely are celebrities relatable to the average Joe.
Comparatively, influencers appear to present themselves as they are, making them more approachable, relatable, and trustworthy. Before selling a product, brands in the modern market are selling trust.
Strategic Marketing
From garnering higher click rates to conversions, it may be tempting to jump on the bandwagon of influencer marketing. But before you do, here are some tips:
- Understand Your Audience
If you are operating in a niche market, working with the most popular influencers may not be your best bet. Instead, look for experts in your field to garner a higher level of engagement as a result of hyper-targeting loyal audiences. - Allow Room for Personal Creativity
Influencers have amassed large followings because of their unique content and voice. Dictating and limiting them excessively results in just another “advertisement.” Listen to them because they know their audience better. - Fostering Long-term Relationships
From an audience’s perspective, it becomes harder to believe someone who switches teams regularly than someone who frequently posts about the same brand. When done well, audiences are less likely to see it as product placement, and more of the influencer’s personal brand.
Posted by Roselynda Afandi, CorpMedia
Activism – The New ‘Sex’ that Sells
It’s out with sex and in with activism; marketing and branding specialists alike have dubbed 2017 as the year that “activism comes of age”.
Following a series of polarizing elections and debates, it’s clear that the world is now more divided than ever. Demonstrations, protests, and marches fill our streets and dominate the conversations on our social media feeds – there simply is no avoiding the topic of activism. Fuelled by millennials – who see themselves as active agents of social change – this wave of social activism has set off new ripples in the marketing world.
It’s gone beyond supporting a cause – audiences are now demanding that everyone else does the same. And while this may present a risk of alienating segments of their consumers, brands are beginning to dip their toes into politics. The potential virality of brand activism in the era of social media marketing has helped brands gain more exposure, attract new customers and cement old loyalties. In most cases, the benefits far outweigh the harm.
No longer excused from sidestepping conversations about pertinent socio-political issues, it does little good for a brand to remain sitting on the fence. Take Uber for instance. Earlier this year, the company suffered a major setback after the hashtag #DeleteUber trended worldwide on Twitter. Close to 200,000 users deleted or deactivated their accounts within minutes, following allegations that the company was endorsing Trump’s controversial immigration policies by remaining neutral during protests. Meanwhile, in announcing its $1 million donation to the American Civil Liberties Union, Lyft (Uber’s competitor) received high praise for its denunciation of Trump’s outrageous executive order. By the thousands, angry consumers began switching their allegiance to Lyft and within hours, the company saw a drastic expansion of its user base – exceeding the numbers of Uber for the first time.
Riddled by heightened emotions and drastic political changes, consumers want to be more involved – associating themselves only with brands that share the same ideologies and values. Consumers are making their voices heard with their wallets: every purchase is a political statement. Thus, explaining the biggest rise in brand activism observed in the history of marketing and advertising. But riding this wave seems a lot easier said than done. While brands like Heineken and Dove have successfully crafted campaigns around the importance of unity and feminism respectively, others like Pepsi have completely missed the mark.
Heralded as “The Great Pepsi Shakeup” the three minute Ad was quickly pulled following the global #boycottPepsi on Twitter. Commentators on social media were understandably aggrieved – accusing Pepsi of appropriating imagery from the real protests and completely undermining the dangers and frustrations of these group of people. In attempting to resonate with the millennials, Pepsi completely neglected the most important aspect of brand activism: sincerity. Attempting to “join the conversation” (as preached) without discussing real issues, portrays the brand as opportunistic and more detrimentally, offensive.
Following this fiasco, Heineken, on the other hand, made a political statement of their own with a video titled “Worlds Apart: An Experiment.” Six strangers, each with diametrically opposed socio-political views were paired and encouraged to foster an understanding and open friendship despite their differences. Where Pepsi enraged, Heineken pulled at the heartstrings of its viewers. In this, there are two key differences:
(a) Heineken’s Ad discussed real controversial issues concerning transgender rights, climate change, and feminism while Pepsi adopted a more generic claim for unity and peace – whilst appropriating the imagery of real protests.
(b) Heineken proposed an actual, practical solution of encouraging discourse and fostering understanding despite our differences, instead of portraying themselves as the miraculous solution to all problems.
Gone are the days where sex was enough to sell. In the advent of progressive political changes, consumers and audiences alike have become more politically engaged, often interacting on social media where reputations are made or lost within a matter of minutes – aka the age of the millennials. Ultimately, as much as consumers love thought-provoking ads that tackle the real-world issues we face today, brands should always remind themselves that sincerity and authenticity should underlie all efforts geared towards harnessing the power of brand activism.
Posted by Roselynda Afandi, CorpMedia
How Was It For You?
In Shelagh Stephenson’s Olivier-award winning dark comedy, The Memory of Water, three sisters reunite to bid farewell to their recently departed mother. As adults, it is evident that their present lives have not lived up to expectations. That’s how life goes. But these girls can’t even agree on their shared past. And that’s how memory goes.
A common estimate used by psychologists suggests that a single ‘moment’ can last up to 3 seconds. So we experience about 20,000 separate moments each day, and about 500 million of them if we live to be age 70. Professor Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and psychologist suggests that the vast majority of these moments simply vanish: poof – gone. And the memories we are left with can be very different from our experiences!
He distinguishes between what he calls the Experiencing Self and the Remembering Self. One of his favourite illustrations of this dichotomy is a story about a music lover, listening to a rare vinyl recording of a symphony. For 20 minutes, he got to experience some of the most sublime music of his life. Then, right near the end, there was a scratch on the record, a loud squeak, and he angrily declared: “It spoilt the whole thing!” But did it? He had enjoyed 20 minutes of lovely music, many moments. But that single negative moment coloured his memory of the entire thing. That’s what he committed to memory. What a shame.
What we now know is that, of the very many moments we experience in life, we are selective about which ones we commit to memory. And, for significant moments, we never simply record the facts. There’s always an emotional component – a feeling – that gets attached to the memory of that moment, and the two parts are not easily separated.
We all know people who lean towards a ‘glass is half empty’ philosophy of life. So is this merely a phenomenon that affects the pessimists among us? Probably not. Scientists believe that we are hard-wired to actively seek out, and remember, the negative. It is thought to be an evolutionary adaptation that enhances our ability to survive. Which I imagine was very useful in the jungle (“Yikes! A tiger, big teeth, scary, avoid in future!”) but occasionally frustrating for us in the modern world. For how does a ‘ruined’ memory of music impact the survival of the species? It doesn’t. But our hard-wired cognitive processes can’t automatically distinguish between the two.
Naturally, we also store and recall good memories. Things that nurture us, or feel pleasurable, are worth repeating if we get the chance, for they can also help our survival. For example, last week I was offered a piece of soda bread in a restaurant. It looked and tasted exactly like my granny’s bread, and I vividly remembered a warm kitchen and the smell of her apron as she hugged me close, more than 40 years ago.
That the girls in our play recall their shared experiences quite differently should come as no surprise. The emotional component of those moments was quite different for each of them, as our audience discovers along the way. One of the key reasons that the practice of mindfulness is so popular today, is the discovery that we can ‘hack’ our minds. By consciously marrying a neutral, or less negative, emotion to an immediate unpleasant experience we can influence our future mental states. Literally, we can write happier endings. It’s fascinating stuff.
In the 1960s Ellie Greenwich was a prolific songwriter, responsible for dozens of classic hits from The Girl Group era. Vi, the girls’ mother in our play, would certainly have sung along to these tunes as she got ‘dolled up’ to go out to the dance hall. One of Ellie’s lesser-known songs laments the heartache of having loved, and lost. The aching end lyric goes like this: “I wish I never saw the sun shine. I wish I’d never saw the sun shine. Cos if I never saw sunshine baby then…maybe… I wouldn’t mind the rain.”
As theatre makers it’s our job to know the breadth of human possibilities, and the depths of our individual character’s possibilities. We work with what the author gives us, and we can’t rewrite the ending. But by holding up a mirror to life, we believe that great theatre can help an audience to rewrite their own script, and maybe learn to love a little rain.
Written by Sean Worrall, an Ensemble Member of Wag the Dog Theatre.
The Memory of Water will play at Drama Centre Black Box, 100 Victoria Street, Singapore from 30 June to 9 July. Tickets are $35, available at SISTIC.
Gen Z: The Voice of a New Generation
Humans have long corralled themselves into generational categories with the belief that one’s social, economic time-period and environment will effectively shape them into individuals with similar interests and behavior. Baby Boomers were conceived in the muddled post-World War II canvas and groomed into nonconforming liberals whilst Generation Xers alternated between their divorced parents’ homes apathetically. Online marketers in recent years have shortsightedly been clamouring for the attention of Millennials, aka Generation Y, who represent the highest proportion of online spending compared to any other cohort. As pioneers of the most disruptive invention of all, the Internet, they were the ones who molded it, and in return, it ultimately molded them.
With the spotlight trained on the founders, many have missed the opportunity that lies in the hands of the next generation, the same smartwatch clad hands dexterously juggling a tablet and a mobile phone while taking a selfie. When companies started recruiting 19 year olds as the foremost experts on this outspoken generation, we know that we are witnessing the dawn of a new age. Gen Y slowly incorporated the web into their lifestyles, but Generation Z (Gen Z) was born, fully submerged into the assimilation of notifications. Eighty-one percent of these aptly named “digital natives” are on social media at least three hours a day, making success more contingent on competent digital marketing than ever.
Gen Z are rapidly becoming a critical audience for marketers and brands to understand. Even if they aren’t your target group at the moment, they soon will be. In a couple of years, nearly 4 in 10 consumers will be from Gen Z, and their purchasing power will rise exponentially over the next 5 to 7 years as they grow to be the single largest group of consumers worldwide. They are forming their spending habits now which can influence their habits into adulthood. Appealing to this group can have a huge impact in a company’s long-term customer retention and brand loyalty.
So what does it take to really capture the attention of Generation Z? Let’s take a closer look.
Snap, Swipe, Share
Gen Z thrives on the edge of fast communications. Six second Vines, 140 character tweets, emojis and Snapchats – tapped once and gone into the ether. For brands, this means creating bite-sized, visual content that Gen Z can quickly digest and process. The more bite-sized pieces of information you can get to Gen Z, the further along their path to purchase you can push yourself.
The one thing Gen Z appreciates more than succinct communications is curating their own content. As a form of self-expression, these individuals enjoy taking charge and personalising their own content. Additionally, brands that utilise or acknowledge these consumer creations portray themselves as active listeners and genuinely caring about their customer’s wants.
Purchasing Power
Gen Z may not have a lot of its own money (yet), but this doesn’t necessarily mean they lack purchasing power. According to brand strategy firm, Sparks and Honey, the average upwardly mobile Gen Z receives an allowance of $16.90 per week, which collectively adds up to $44 billion a year. In addition to pocket money, they exert considerable influence on household purchases and family spending compared to previous generations.
What this means is that marketers need different approaches to gain the attention of the Gen Z. In the past, most ad dollars were spent on TV, radio stations, and newspapers. But to reach Gen Z, companies will need to spend more to create videos and other content that provides useful information, entertains, and otherwise impresses them enough that they share with families, friends, and followers.
Making CSR the Norm
“An Inconvenient Truth” opened the eyes of unsuspecting Millennials but Generation Z grew up in an already unstable world of conflict. Fuelled by current events, they seek to create value and social change for the world through the products they purchase. This group places a higher priority on the quality of a product and how environmentally friendly it is rather than being blindly loyal to a brand. As most Gen Z research products and services prior to purchase, they become privy to the company’s practices, history, and reputation.
After too many lapses in safety and accounting, businesses must now prove themselves by being transparent and relatable. One way is to allow real customers themselves to create content, feedback, and reviews as a means of advertising the company authentically. Following in the footsteps of TOMS Shoes, businesses must start incorporating a social aspect to their business whether it be employee community service or through the triple bottom line approach in order to penetrate these increasingly knowledgeable and ethical customers.
Embrace Diversity
Gen Z is expected to be the most racially diverse generation. While Millennials in their own right are a pretty diverse group, Gen Z will view the increasing diversity in a more positive light. With more friends from different ethnic backgrounds than older generations, brands will have to amp up their multicultural marketing strategies to make their brands relevant to a wider range of ethnic groups.
Gen Z are growing up in a post-9/11 world and in a global economic recession, resulting in a demographic that is very socially conscious. They will expect nothing less from brands. Brands that can form a connection with this diverse group will have the most success. To do this, brands will have to incorporate various, yet consistent, messages that highlight diversity across a variety of platforms.
Point to Note: Gen Z’s everyday lives blend seamlessly with their lives on social channels, and many of their defining characteristics stem from this continuity. Marketers will have to try harder than ever to interact authentically with this generation of consumers, but if they do, they’ll be rewarded by an audience that loves engaging with brands and championing their products.
Posted by Arwika Ussahatanon, Corporate Media
Start the Conversation and Get Going!
People are talking about your brand. Are you listening?
Social media has taken over our lives!!! That’s right, everyday millions of conversations take place over social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Skype, forums, etc. These conversations are not just happening with friends and families but are also influencing companies. Social media interaction continues to rise as more people use it in both their personal and professional lives, and brands are responding by continually looking for new and innovative ways to engage with them.
All these conversations comprise pools of data, but “listening to the talk” can be challenging. How can companies make sense of this endless data to determine how and where to listen, identify what consumers are talking about, classify the types of content they are posting, and understand the behaviours they are engaging in?
Brand loyalty, customer engagement, qualified traffic and backlinks are not easy to come by. To get more, you need to give more. When it comes to social media, success comes from listening to your consumers, and providing them with the content they need, at the right time, and at the right place.
Embrace Technology
Those who don’t or have yet to embrace digital technology risk falling behind the needs of their customers. They also risk falling behind in the international marketplace where brands are rapidly ramping up their digital spend. Today’s consumers are digital, mobile, and tech-savvy. They are empowering themselves instead of allowing brands to dictate to them. Leading digital brands like Facebook and Google are redefining the market by creating new benchmarks for customer experience and personalization – so much so that customers today expect personalized services that address their immediate needs.
In short, unless brands can integrate digitally across channels and services, i.e. website, marketing, IT, sales, etc., they will not meet the rising expectations around the customers’ experience. To drive the integration of channels and deliver a seamless, coherent experience at every touch point demands that senior executives (CEOs, CTOs, CIOs, CMOs) get involved – to rally all the departments (marketing, IT, call centres, sales) to execute a digital strategy that reorients the whole business around the needs of the customer.
Mapping Strategy with Good Data
The next wave of marketing is all about providing a one-to-one customer journey for each customer – with highly contextual and personalized marketing messages. It is important to understand the interconnectivity between various platforms and the roles that the different parts of the business play in the customers’ journey. By tapping into data from a range of different touch points and systems, we can understand and shape the customers’ journey to achieve maximum engagement, conversions, and ultimately brand loyalty. By capturing customer data at every touch point – from mobile phones and websites, to call centres and membership programs, we will be able to get a 360° view of our relationship with each customer.
Key Points to Remember:
- Provoking real conversations between your brand and target consumer begins with an understanding of your audience’s desires, online behaviours and their perception of your brand.
- Listening to what your audience and industry has to say allows us to craft and apply a unique, authoritative voice to content that establishes trust and invites consumer engagement with your brand.
- Identifying trends, shared issues, and gaps in online coverage drives the creative process while ensuring you deliver content that adds and not distract from the conversation.
- Social media moves at the speed of light. For brands that can keep up with sharing content, exchanging ideas, and actively engaging in real-time conversations, the rewards are tremendous.
Posted by Irene Gomez, CIO, CorpMedia
Why Marketing is Emotional
There’s been a lot of talk within B2B marketing circles about the importance of putting emotion at front of mind when creating marketing content.
One of the powers of social media is that it allows you to be yourself or anything else for that matter.
The euphoria of having a platform where your voice can be heard or you can be seen, creates a completely different person to what everyone sees or supposedly knows “offline.” It’s also a ‘space’ where as a marketer, you can display some emotion, even if this is in a virtual environment.
There is plenty of scientific evidence to show that you engage the best with people when you connect with them on an emotional level. It’s not necessarily about high drama or hypersensitivity. It’s about finding a connection, identifying a common ground, spotting a leveler and using that to form the foundation on which marketing conversations, marketing communications, and marketing engagement can be built.
So, what’s the marketing magic that happens when you get in touch with your emotions?
- You create content that’s meaningful and not abstract
- You make a lasting impression, and your content is bound to be remembered
- You expand your creative vision
- You churn out relevant stuff that’s reusable
- You start to feel, and pick up what’s going on around you
- You awaken from a sense of dullness, boredom and slumber
- You identify your own value and pour it out to others
- Content creation becomes a hobby and not a chore
- You develop a personality and your image flows through every word, sentence, paragraph, campaign etc.
- You stop hiding and reveal who you are.
To sum it up, marketing is a thought process, and if you are ready to revolutionize your marketing, then get emotional.
Post by 4CM, a member of the Evoke PR Network.
