
# Brands: wake up now or never wake up again

Erik Saelens, author

Published by Brandhome at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 Brandhome publishing 

# Endorsements

I am not a marketer, but a politician. What Erik's book tells us about new trends in marketing and the new developments marketing needs to follow can also be said about politics and democratic life. And with good reason: consumers are also citizens. And citizens want to trust their representatives, just as they want to trust brands. They need to believe in values. They need to be sure their government takes into account their personal concerns and wishes. They vote from time to time, but they also want to have a real dialogue with those who are in charge. Obviously big data is an opportunity for governments to know what the population is waiting for. It is also an opportunity to organize day-to-day contact with citizens, and thus to give democracy a new start. Erik may not have intended it, but his book is also about sociology and politics.  
**Claude Guéant,** **former Chief of Staff to President  Nicolas Sarkozy**

95% of this book is filled with buzzwords. Books on the end of brands, emerging markets, the mobile revolution and big bullshit (sorry big data) are normally greeted by a big yawn. Yet it's the 5% that makes it different. This book puts all these megatrends in perspective and provides any organization with a toolkit on how to tackle the future. But it's like the HelloFresh box: you still have to do the cooking yourself.  
**Frank de Moor, CEO & Chairman Executive Board, Q-Park**

Erik Saelens skilfully defines ten evolutions that are critically impacting how businesses, brands and marketers need to radically change their thinking; how we approach our customers and engage with them actively on many more levels in this highly digital, connective and socio-centric world. How we need to change the way we do business, the way we organize our companies, the way we embrace the enormous flood of data this new world generates every nanosecond, the way decision-makers need to reshape the regulatory framework we operate in... how we need to rethink our game play! I highly recommend that everyone, whatever his or her line of business, read these pages carefully. _Game Ov3r_ is a wake-up call, one no business or industry can afford to ignore.  
**Ari Epstein, CEO, Antwerp World Diamond Centre**

_Game Ov3r_ is a topographical map of the current global business environment as seen by a seasoned, global marketer. Large shifts in the macroeconomic environment are creating new challenges for brands and agencies. In the coming decade, a deep understanding of the forces driving globalization and these continuing transitions in business and governmental will be paramount to any successful marketer's ability to lead innovation in communication.  
**Mark T. Smith, Director Brand Synergy, Miami Ad School**

The system has won: we, the people, have become dissociated. All the people we are united in one body – customer, employee, shareholder, (future) retiree, voter, environmentalist, parent, lover – have their own goals. The world and technology have made these goals achievable at breakneck speed, at our fingertips, on our tablets and smartphones. Problem is: they don't always add up; often they run contrary to one another. How do you develop a branding strategy in this new age? How do you cope with a revolution that has only started? By being relevant, meaningful and authentic. _Game Ov3r_ offers brilliant insights and challenging thoughts on the matter. We are talking about piecing our humanity back together again. Because that's the name of the game. Survival.  
**Axel Miller, CEO, D'Ieteren**

This book is Erik's magnum opus. He writes in a fast-paced style, like there's no tomorrow, about the total revolution that marketing is experiencing in a tech-savvy, mobile, on-demand society in which customers are essentially data bundles you'd better understand, up close and personal, in order to gain their "brandship." Already for the last 15 years, Erik has been in constant bridging mode between marketing and technology. He even taught a techie like me to appreciate the process of setting up a brand, while he genuinely learned from me what fiber networks are all about. Now his "little book" convincingly demonstrates that all marketers should build these bridges with technology, as the world has fundamentally changed. You simply need to opt in, or join the dinosaurs on a beach somewhere in southern Europe. Erik wants to prevent your marketing crime before you commit it. I'm looking forward to his (virtual) world tour in which he explains his thinking personally to a wider audience, as I'm not sure he really believes we are all open-minded enough to see what's coming and to do what's right to change. Reading his book will make you smile, and it also will make you feel a wee bit uncomfortable – especially if you're European – but it will definitely make you think. That's Erik as we know him, this time on steroids.  
**Eric Kuisch, CTO, Vodafone**

If you feel threatened by the massive digital disruption going on around you, chances are you are a dinosaur on its way to extinction. Erik Saelens' _Game Ov3r_ is an urgent reminder for organizations, brands and corporations that they need to adapt to the new reality ... or risk extinction. This no-nonsense book is filled with clear examples and a strong message and is therefore a must-read. Nobody will be able to say they weren't warned...  
**Peter De Keyzer, Chief Economist, BNP Paribas Fortis**

Erik gives a lot of examples of how the world has gone topsy-turvy. He offers clear, honest insights: straight to the point. For some, this story will be upsetting (big is the new bad). At the same time he also gives us energy – energy that will help our companies catch the wave, adapt and get ready for the future. Our future. Disruption and change are not just trendy words – they are processes we will have to apply every minute of every day. Under high pressure, and with the expectation of immediacy. I can only give you one piece of advice: stay true to yourself. And enjoy the book!  
**Christophe Degrez, CEO, Eneco**

Erik Saelens' new book lets you go to extremes – in your head, as it were. As manager and marketer you are confronted with the omnipresent impact of technology on business. What's more, you realize all the more clearly that concepts like relevance, integrity and transparence are the essence of modern marketing – and by extension business in the modern world. In an age in which Shell, VW, banks and managers are doing the exact opposite, it's refreshing to receive new insights that are so characteristic of the present decade, yet so critical for the decades to come. In short: essential reading for all those who run businesses and want to make brands more meaningful and successful!  
**Jacques Kuyf, former CEO FDMediaGroep, CCO Stage Entertainment**

Ten valuable insights describe what's going on in the world from a marketer's point of view. But not your everyday marketer: Brandhome's Erik Saelens consolidates his insights into the branding game and challenges you to avoid _Game Ov3r_. Once-trusted approaches used by brands to reach consumers are under serious threat, if they haven't already been crushed. Competition is not about Move Ov3r – it's about survival. For many companies _Game Ov3r_ is already a fact. They are gone.  
**Rob Frohn, CFO, Cofra Holding AG**

The digital world's high-paced penetration of our lives cannot leave marketers indifferent to the changes taking place in business and everyday life. Branding will never be the same as we knew it, and if companies want to stay in the game, they need to embrace the changes dictated by innovations and technological development. _Game Ov3r_ is a critical piece on modern marketing in Europe and a sound guidebook to becoming a winner or staying a player by following the new rules of engagement.  
**Santiago Argelich, COO, VimpelCom Group**

_Game Ov3r_ isn't just another marketing book. It should be part of every marketer's library. Ten well-chosen insights describe the (r)evolution in brand marketing of the last decade: a new guide to the do's and don'ts of next-gen marketing. It's all about the new "hyper-informed and hyper-demanding" consumer able to impact any brand at any time anywhere! All about a world of extremes: 1 billion people connected at the same time via Facebook, trillions of data available and ... the right message to the right person for perfect intimacy!  
Never was marketing so exciting and challenging. A "bible" to have on hand at all times, just to check if you're doing the right thing!  
**Vincent Patrick,** **Chief Transformation Officer, Telenet**

In his signature "staccato style," Erik Saelens launches a dire warning to marketing players, in particular the dinosaurs among them. The time has come to embrace new realities and accept that power has shifted: global consumers now see eye-to-eye with market players. Armed with mobile devices, seconds away from connecting with their networks, digitally ranging from Delhi to Denver, consumers have reset the rules: _Game Ov3r_ proves that at least one player is ready for a brave new marketing world.  
**Thomas Lambert, Belgian Diplomat**

Saelens exposes the straightjacket in which we're trapped: we live according to the norms our businesses are driven by, dogmas like economies of scale, in which bigger is always better. But the world has reached its limits and customers are no longer drawn by the campaigns flooding the market; people are becoming less like consumers and more like human beings that live from inspiration and experience as long as they get the chance. _Game Ov3r_ lets me make the transition from fantasy to vision and reality thanks to a driving force that is based on passion, transparency and genuine ethical values – like the desire to do better every time. Erik makes us think, and he makes sure we can break free of the straightjacket even sooner, not by breaking the rules ... but simply by inventing new ones.  
**Gunter Pauli, founder Ecover, author The Blue Economy**

** **

The sequence of events leading to the financial crisis and the economic bloodshed that resulted are likely to be familiar to most. Yet deceiving the public with fictional relevance is a thing of the past. Brands that paid more for marketing used to be perceived as better quality because they ranked higher in search engines and other media. Nowadays the only valuable marketing currency is consumer-to-consumer sharing or recommendation. Brands in whatever shape or form will have to follow the rising tide of social media. The playing field is shifting in favor of the public's ideas. The biggest challenge for brands is finding ways to shape people's lives. It's about finding the courage to focus on what matters and getting acquainted with the new wave of technology-driven marketing. _Game Ov3r_ tells the story of how traditional marketing served its purpose and why it is now irrelevant. Take these insights and make sure this wasn't your last saved game!  
**Alec Van Noten, Digital Manager, Brandhome**

Erik is known for challenging himself and others to change how they look at the world. In his new book he does justice to this reputation. _Game Ov3r_ offers a view of marketing through his critical, realistic lens. His sharp pen addresses everything from the impact of technology on the brand/customer relationship to the power of emerging markets and the importance of "brandship" to keeping your brand up-to-date in this new era. A must-read for anyone who dares to step out of their comfort zone and face the reality of staying relevant.  
**Jef Pelkmans, Strategy Manager, Brandhome**

# Introduction: Brand marketing: rethink today or sink tomorrow

So here we are.

We are at a crossroads that we have tried to avoid but in fact it was a no-go from the start. Humanity has been slacking on all fronts. We have neglected large and important issues. We have turned away from trouble on our paths in order to seek fame and fortune. We have been kicking the can down the road, pushing problems out in front of us, silently hoping they would go away all by themselves.

They didn't of course. Like they would have. There is no such thing as an easy solution.

All kinds of problems have gathered at the crossroads we have reached. We find ourselves on a planet that is overstressed, overcrowded, overburdened, overexploited, overregulated. There is no more time to waste. No more time to sit and hope for the best. No more time to wait for some unseen force to make the nasty obstacles dissolve. It's _Game Ov3r_ for indecisiveness, and if we do not want to agree on that as people on this planet, it may well mean _Game Ov3r_ for all of us.

Wait. Hold on a minute.

Wasn't this supposed to be a book about brand marketing? What's all this about – all this gloomy pondering about a future that's obviously not too bright? Rest assured: yes, we are still on the same page. This is still about brand marketing. The simple truth is that this subject cannot be seen independently from what is happening right now. Brand marketing has to be seen in the context of the turmoil surrounding us now on all sides. We are experiencing a colossal shift in the way we think, work and live – and on a scale that will make the Industrial Revolution look like a tiny step forward for mankind.

The usual cliché, "we live in a changing world," does not even begin to do justice to what is happening right now. The lives we lead, in the Western world as much as in developing and emerging countries, are intertwined more than ever before. The whole planet is adrift on every conceivable front: economically, technologically, socially, demographically, geopolitically, financially, ecologically, morally. The times we have moved into influence every aspect of billions of lives, those of the affluent as well as those of the poor, those with jobs as well those without, those who have just retired as well as those who are being born every minute.

The digital and Internet technology we have been and are still creating at breakneck speed is one of the main reasons why marketers in particular find themselves confronted with a future that will have no mercy – no mercy at all – with the marketing and business models that a majority of marketing and brand professionals are still clinging to. Technology as a whole is disrupting traditional approaches to branding and marketing just as it is proving itself more capable of "thinking ahead" than human marketing minds. Even the best marketing minds on earth will have to get used to a new truth: what they can come up with after months of clever strategizing, is easily done faster and better by marketing software.

Brand marketing as we know it has reached the point where it is _Game Ov3r_ for companies that still trust their traditional mechanics to launch products, build new brands, grow fledgling brands into maturity, or that think they can duplicate all the old tricks developed for mature markets in new, emerging markets.

What we need is a total reset of the marketing brain. A complete overhaul of all the traditional thinking we had in the years when marketing was simple. Brand marketing will be a lot of things in the future but "like it used to be" will never be one of them. In this book I will guide you through 10 insights that best represent what we as marketers are faced with from now on. These insights are based on extensive talks with CEOs, marketing consultants, market research experts and strategic directors all around the world, in major markets as well as in developing and emerging markets.

Their input and thoughts are coupled with my own experience as an international speaker, professor and strategic director of Brandhome, the Antwerp-based marketing and creative agency I founded as a knowledge center back in 1995. In these capacities I have been working on both ends of marketing strategy: from watching plans take shape in the heads of marketing departments of globally active corporations to translating them into venerable creative communication efforts. It has given me the opportunity to see from up close how ineffective, inefficient and insufficient brand marketing as we know it has become. I want to thank everyone out there who has inspired me and who gave me the chance to become who I am today.

Brand marketing, together with brand marketers themselves, is being crushed between technological advancement of unprecedented speed and proportions and an astonishing shift in consumer behavior worldwide.

This is one problem can we can't keep kicking down the road. For brands worldwide the time has arrived to act today or perish tomorrow. It is time to start over. It is time to change our game.

Otherwise it's _Game Ov3r_.

**Erik O.W.A. SAELENS**  
founder & executive strategic director Brandhome

# Insight 1: Suddenly, we can do without brands

I am using the word "suddenly" here – but is it? Any marketing manager with a heartbeat must have seen this one coming. Still, I have talked to enough marketers and CEOs who were quite taken aback by figures from a yearly research into Meaningful Brands by Havas Media, as well as from a few other studies into the level of consumer trust in brands. Clearly, it was not exactly what they were expecting to see – let alone something they enjoyed hearing.

Meaningful Brands is an interesting take on the way consumers relate to brands. It is the first global analytic framework to connect human wellbeing with brands. The research is extensive, spanning 1,000 brands and 300,000 consumers in 34 countries worldwide. What it does is measure the impact of brand benefits on 12 areas of people's wellbeing – things like health, happiness, finance, relationships and community. In other words: What do brands contribute to the general quality of life?

Not too long ago people loved brands for the many ways they made life better, easier, more pleasurable, more fun, more worthwhile. Those were the days. Today, consumers are not as much in awe of brands and their performance as they once were. Their belief and trust in brands is certainly not as high as most marketers would have hoped after spending billions of dollars on building their beloved brands in recent decades.

To begin with, at the end of 2014, the trust people put in brands in our sophisticated, mature markets of Western Europe didn't make it beyond 31% – compared to 83% in Asia. It gets worse. According to consumers in Western Europe, a mere 7% of brands are actually contributing to their quality of life and their wellbeing. In Western Europe people seem to have lost their esteem for brands as the source of something more than just their brand propositions and products. Obviously, they are no longer perceived as truly meaningful to our lives. Skepticism has set in and is showing signs of staying put indefinitely.

Brandshare, another consumer study by Edelman, one of the biggest PR-agencies in the world, found that consumers want much, much more from brands than ever before. In effect, they want marketers to share their brands with them on a number of levels: dialogue, experience, goals, values, product, history. Edelman discovered a direct link between effective brand sharing and business value: the greatest business value comes from shared products and shared values. In other words: consumers no longer trust brands on face value alone – they increasingly want to be involved in whatever they are up to. They are looking for brands that recognize or even share their own beliefs.

"I want a brand to trust me before I trust it back" – that is what's going on here. Now, that is a new one. That takes the wind out of the sails of many brands, right there. Suddenly – there you have it – we have turned the corner: where before brands could focus all brand marketing on getting the right image into the minds of the right people, now they will literally have to start up a meaningful conversation with real human beings to show just how much they really, really care.

Does that sound like a humbling experience? In a way, it does indeed, but there are signs that trust in brands will not be won any other way from now on. Consumers have changed too rapidly this time, and too much. They have decided they don't care about brands that don't care about them – brands that don't mean anything to them. And those brands they can easily do without. And they will.

It's an amazing development after all this time of uninhibited and rather blind trust in brands. As consumers we have grown up with brands and what they represent. It's not like our grandparents' and great-grandparents' generations, who were the first to be introduced to branded products, and who came to understand that they were beacons of trust. Those were consistently good products that were either helpful in the kitchen, made life easier at home or in general helped you choose the best product for any need: What a wonderful thing a brand was!

While it lasted, this mutual understanding worked well for all parties involved: for marketers and companies on the one hand, and for us consumers on the other. It worked as long as consumers didn't have the means or the inclination to get in touch with brands or companies. The brands fed the cows: as harsh as that sounds, there is some truth in it. As consumers we let ourselves be spoon-fed all kinds of stuff, including the sunny promises around it. Now that we have the means to actively question exactly what we are fed and why, things have changed dramatically.

Some brands have changed, but Western consumers in particular have changed more and have changed faster. Brands can't keep up with their continually increasing demands for trust on a deeper level. A lot of brands have started to add some sort of social responsibility commitments on their websites, or have started non-profit projects or charity initiatives to show that they really, really do care about more than just profit. Other brands have quickly taken to expanding their helpdesks. Too little too fast, you might say. Nice tries, but most of them were the product of one-dimensional, reactive thinking ("let's put on our kind face and they will trust us again") and showed no signs of genuine interest in connecting with their consumers.

## New realization

What didn't help was the economic crisis that started raging around the world in 2008. As for its effect on consumer trust – not just in brands, but in our very future and that of our children – this crisis has been devastating. The crisis has made us frighteningly aware of our way of life and how easily that way of life can be distorted or even ended. We saw the Greek government, which had been cooking its books for years on an unprecedented scale, nearly drag us all back to the bleak 1930s. A state, a nation, conducting its business in a fraudulent way: Who or what can you trust after that?

We trusted banks and look what they did to us. We trusted political systems and leaders and found out that they were helpless, selfish and slow. But also we trusted growth to carry on forever, and its incredibly abrupt end shocked us most of all. And we reacted feet first: we started shopping differently than before. We went online for bargains and barters; we went for the lower shelves in supermarkets; we went for cheaper alternatives to branded products.

And lo and behold: we not only found those alternatives, we found out that they were more or less as good as the branded items we used to pay good money for. Shock, on both sides of the fence. From which it took consumers little time to recover. They have scratched a lot of trusted brand names off their household list, and these days they are still happily eating their supermarket's house-brand chips, drinking another, cheaper supermarket's fantasy-brand of beer, or buying their kid's T-shirts and sneakers at discounters they have learned to know and love as places of great value in more ways than one.

Reasonable value for money has become meaningful all on its own. When money is tight in any household, people's outlook on life strays beyond all those well-known brands that have now become unaffordable. So much for price elasticity: most A-brands are simply unable to lower their prices in order to stop the flood of customers leaving for cheaper alternatives. And so much for the elasticity of the brand itself: it is next to impossible for a leading brand to throw in a lesser version of a great product or start selling at a discount.

Leading brands, which have an image to lose, are at that point condemned to sitting still while getting shaved and hoping for the best. This kept them alive during other hard times, but now we have seen hard times that don't compare to those of days past. The loss of trust on nearly all fronts has worked as a catalyst on the drop in brand trust in any sector and in any category. Retail has been particularly hard hit: the wounds inflicted on department stores, fashion chains, electronics stores and supermarkets are deep, and still bleeding.

Take a look at the average European high street: count the empty or boarded-up windows – they tell the story visually. The real action is elsewhere: it's the Aldis and the Lidls, the Primarks and Actions and Zeemans where business is brisk. Aren't they brands then? Yes, but they are brands that never would have been "discovered" by consumers like those who are flocking to their stores now. Low-level brands, nondescript discounters, with nondescript items with fantasy brand names that can be grabbed right off a barely unpacked pallet. Do people mind? No, it's the other way around: they have found the courage to admit to themselves that the brands they used to buy didn't really make them a better person – only a poorer person.

## Pandora's box

Forced financially to look for alternatives to their trusted brands, consumers discovered that those alternatives were surprisingly acceptable for continuing to lead a satisfactory lifestyle. It made them aware that "less is more" is a good thing. It made them see that a lot of brands may not have been as necessary to their quality of life as those brands wanted them to believe. It made them think: How meaningful has this brand or that actually been for my life? Is it really such a terrible thing to replace Kellog's cornflakes with a Sainsbury's, Delhaize, Carrefour or Albert Heijn house brand? Does it really matter if this Ralph Lauren polo is in fact a €30 lookalike from the local market instead of the much more expensive real thing? If people don't spot the difference, is it worth triple the price to buy the real Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger or Fred Perry?

This is not the kind of consumer thinking you want to see as a brand marketer. This is one Pandora's box you want to see closed up tight. However, the bad news is that the box has now been opened and will probably never be closed ever again. The economic crisis has served as an eye-opener for an extremely large number of consumers that were severely hit, financially and psychologically, and the latter is as damaging as the lack of spending during the post-2008 years of crisis.

People feel cheated by what has happened – and that feeling is still there, simmering inside them. They feel cheated by bankers and politicians, who let them down and created the whole economic mess. They feel cheated by the companies to which they have been loyal, working there for many years only to be told they were no longer needed. They feel cheated by the economically harsh measures that slashed their pensions, their benefits, their scholarships and study allowances, their future prospects, their ability to buy a house and start a family. They feel cheated by life in general. They feel cheated and lied to, manipulated by forces greater than themselves, over which they have no control.

People have lost faith. People don't trust anything anymore. There is a great deal of resentment out there, and it affects brands too. It will affect them permanently from now on if they don't change their attitude and behavior towards consumers. Even generally trusted brands will have to shed the notion that the image they have built over the last decades will be enough to flourish – or survive – in the future.

## Meaningful moneymaking

The Meaningful Brands research showed that there is another reason to consider a shift in brand marketing strategy than "just" the fading trust in brands around the world. In fact it is the best reason of all: meaningful brands earn more money than brands that are perceived as contributing significantly to the consumer's quality of life. People are simply choosing more meaningful brands over other brands. The wallet share of meaningful brands is 46% larger, which is a number that should worry any brand marketer. Also, "being meaningful" has been shown to boost marketing KPIs (double those of lower scoring brands), brand perception, sales and brand loyalty, and allows for a higher price premium.

The more meaningful consumers consider a brand to be, the more they seem to be willing to pay for it. To make matters worse for less meaningful brands, this mechanism works in reverse for the brands that have lost the trust of potential buyers. Last but not least, meaningful brands outperform other brands on the stock market: they topped the STOXX 1800 index by 133% in 2014 and by 120% in 2013. Impressive? Personally I think this is little more than the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg. These developments don't constitute a hype, but they do form a trend that shows every sign of being with us for a long time to come.

The mere fact that people now admit to themselves that they can do without most of the brands they have taken for granted all these years is not something to be taken lightly. In fact it changes everything we know about brand marketing. Instead of the usual pattern of creating awareness, building an image and routinely chugging along to maintain and polish that image, brand marketers will have to start thinking from the ground up again. To begin with, image creation by traditional advertising can be left at the door, thank you very much. Authenticity, reputation, relevancy and meaning will be the drivers of new brand strategies. Community and conversation marketing will be at the forefront of attention for brand marketers if they are serious about establishing a bond with consumers. Connecting with people is what it's all about from now on.

But how does a brand become meaningful? What does meaningful mean? Isn't that different for everyone? The answer is that in a general sense, for most consumers, a brand is meaningful if it shows true respect for their particular interests as well as for society at large. A meaningful brand has a sensible and responsible mission to move society forward and is seriously interested in people's opinions about their lives and the way they feel brands should behave in the world. Just a brief example by way of illustration: to many sports fans, it didn't feel right that a FIFA-sponsoring brand like Adidas didn't really put pressure on Sepp Blatter to resign as president of an organization that, under his reign, had become riddled with corruption and shady deal making – with money, ironically, that sponsors like Adidas provided over the years. Adidas would have won a great deal of respect if it had torn up its contract in public the moment Sepp Blatter was reelected.

That only a few days later Sepp Blatter decided to step down after all was publicly cheered by most major FIFA sponsors, but for many of us that was too little too late; in general it was more like a disappointing display of "wait & see." And it is precisely the opposite of what brand marketing will need to be about in the coming years. Brands will have to let go of their self-interest and start listening to the concerns of all those consumers out there. Brand marketing cannot afford to be a one-way send, send, send affair anymore. This is an interactive online world, and as a brand you have to change "target audience sales driven strategies" into "meaningful conversation strategies."

Big brands will have to make themselves smaller in the sense that they will have to try to open up and make deeply meaningful efforts to become an interested and even friendly next-door neighbor, so to speak. As much as that may sound like a gross exaggeration, it most definitely is not. Today, consumers want brands – and companies, for that matter – to take responsibility for their position in society. And they want to feel that brands really mean it when they start taking actions that point in the direction of more responsible behavior or a more socially engaged attitude. It will not hurt brands assume the role of activist at a certain point, or let themselves be heard on issues that are important to society.

McDonald's, for instance, has been caught flat-footed by growing concerns about obesity in the world. True, they have tried to make amendments in the past by adding salads to their menu. But those were minimal measures, induced by a trend towards healthier living, and they did little more than put a slightly healthier face on the company's image. Ironically, McDonald's had been investing heavily in a successful chain of fast-food restaurants called Chipotle that was all about "food with integrity," as their mission statement claimed: they used organic ingredients and served more naturally raised meat than any other restaurant chain. Chipotle grew enormously under McDonald's wings until the latter divested in 2006, the year Chipotle went public (one of the most successful IPOs in six years).  
Chipotle focused on Mexican food, not burgers, but McDonald's still should have looked more closely at the reasons for its amazing success. Obviously, it had a lot to do with the growing appeal of organic, authentic, more honest food, plus the candid way Chipotle advocated its beliefs. People loved it, and there is a growing trend towards eating at similar, healthier food retailers. Why didn't McDonald's learn from that? Since they obviously didn't, now they find themselves challenged on their own turf by small but fast-growing organic US burger chains like Shake Shack and Elevation Burger.

These are two brands that have spotted the general hunger for better produce and ingredients, and have found a way to present fast-food from a healthy perspective. Two brands that have a philosophy they live by and stand by. Talk about meaningful – it's practically spelled out on the philosophy page of Elevation Burger's website: "We don't try to fool you with _meaningless marketing jargon_. The terms we use – organic, grass-fed, free-range and no-trans-fat – all have real _meaning_ that impacts your health, the planet, and the way our food tastes."

I'm not saying that burger chains like these will solve the problem of obesity in general and youth obesity in particular. But you have to start somewhere, and the most significant thing is that these brands are not alone. All over the world, more and more entrepreneurs have started up new food concepts and smoothie initiatives (take UK smoothie company Innocent, for example) that have one thing in common: improving the way people live. Their products are sincere. Their propositions are meaningful to many. Their concepts have been developed with the greater benefit of mankind – a healthier life – in mind. And they are being recognized for it.  
They have certainly understood what people are looking for at this moment in time. McDonald's has not – not really, anyway. McDonald's is a fast food chain where "meaning" still means cheap fast-food for the whole family. Of course, a nice family feeling is meaningful too, and so is inexpensive dining. But I don't think I need to tell you that there's a big difference here. Looking ahead to the ever-increasing demand for brands and companies that operate more responsibly, this difference may spell more bad weather on the way for McDonald's and its ilk.

# Insight 2: Big is the new bad

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. We all know the saying. That truth doesn't seem to scare corporations around the world, since consolidation does not show any signs of letting up. In every possible sector, companies are constantly on the lookout for take-over candidates and potentially useful partners to merge with for further growth. Economy of scale is still a forceful driver for most companies. The economy worldwide has not exactly taken off again after the ongoing crisis that started in 2008; the going is still slow and since organic growth is hard to come by, it makes sense to go for growth by merger or acquisition. Bigger is better after all, isn't it? More scale, more buying power, more cost cutting, more markets, more market share, more expansion, more customers, more turnover, more profit.

Yes ... and more organization. More management, more layers, more distance between top and floor, more time between decision-making and execution, more confusion, more mix-ups, more helpdesks, more barriers between client and services, more space between brand and customer. In corporation-land big is considered beautiful, but there are not that many large corporations that turn out to be really, really fast, innovative, likeable and successful. Even funnier – or sadder, depending on how you want to look at it – is that big companies that are successful, like Apple or Virgin, have mostly grown on their own steam instead of collecting take-over prey left and right. They have also succeeded in managing their expanding organization in such a way that they have not lost one bit of their power to do incredible things.

Apple is right up there at the very top of the list of companies with the highest market value in the world. Its workforce has grown to tens of thousands of employees around the world – but it still is just as fast and innovative as it has ever been. Even more important, Apple seems not to have lost touch with its customers – or, to put it more aptly in this case: its fans. Of all the troublesome, organizational side effects of growing into a very large company, the distance between company and customer is the one to watch out for most. After all, growth starts from continually getting more customers to continually buy more products – it's as simple as that. A company's expansion should be all about this simple equation, but even as we speak many large companies seem to have the ends and means all mixed up.

## Heavy-duty slowdown

The worst thing that can happen to an ever-expanding company is loss of speed – speed of decision-making, speed of innovation, speed of getting to market, speed of reaction to market change, speed of servicing customers. While the advantages of scale do result in pleasant figures on the cost side of the balance sheet, what's the use if you have to keep spending more and more on catching up on a through-the-line slowdown of operational behavior? More locations worldwide, more employees worldwide, more buying power worldwide is not what moves a company forward; it merely helps it keep its products fairly priced and its management bonuses intact. Read my lips: it's the customer, stupid. It is the customer and the prospective customer who will decide if and when a company will flourish or fail. And the bad news is that this world of ours has turned into a world where masses of consumers who have become increasingly fed up with outsized companies, companies that see them as numbers and – much worse – treat them like numbers.

It's not about being global anymore, it's about being personal. And for that you need disruptive thinking and the skills to do it: things are lacking in most big corporations and even in big brand marketing organizations.

This should worry large-scale companies a lot more than it seems to in my talks with CEOs and marketers with worldwide marketing responsibilities. At times I have the feeling that changes that have been developing outside their walls haven't quite made it inside the glass headquarters. Just getting through to the right guy and scheduling an appointment takes the tenacity of a foxhound. The layers of managers in all too many companies are bewildering, which alone tells me something about the sense of urgency – that there isn't any, or at least not as much as there should be. Understandable though it may be, excusable it isn't.

In this day and age companies should be quick and nimble, led by fast, data-driven decision-making and guided by modern inspirational CEOs and boards of directors, plus able to rely on a workforce that knows what the company stands for, where it is headed and why. This is not just a prerogative of small or midsized companies – it's not as if a large-scale brand or company couldn't behave similarly. Still, it seems a lot to ask from large organizations when you look at them from close at hand. It looks as if it would somehow be impossible to expand operations and scope and still focus on the need for speed.

Mature, big-brand companies are just too easily distracted from their ultimate goals – serving customers properly – and too eager to adopt a complacent mentality and way of operating. Where once a hands-on, get-up-and-go mentality led them to swift and admirable success, these companies gradually shifted their focus and slid in a mode that put too much emphasis on building influence and consensus. The mentality of "having arrived" took over. This in turn seeps down from top to bottom and infects the whole company, tugging at the reigns at all levels until slow decision-making, office politics, waiting on others to solve problems, defending personal and departmental territories, tugging at each other's budgets, and an endless mail- and meeting-culture has become the accepted way of doing things. Bureaucracy is every company's greatest enemy, but it is truly astounding to see how easily this enemy is winning its silent war. If anything, it should be kept out of any organization at all costs.

Bureaucracy slows down even the most dynamic brand organization, and the bottom line is that it lets in the smarter, the quicker, the more fleet of foot, the competition that is more innovative and fast moving. People can smell a large, sluggish company from a distance these days. Sending just one mail to a helpdesk and getting an automated response that says you will be contacted within a couple of days is about the same as hearing: "Sorry we are so slow, but we think you don't mind waiting." Calling toll-free for support and reaching an endless, automated menu to choose from tells you all you need to know: the company has clearly lost sight of the meaning of service. It amounts to saying "hey you – yeah, you with your problems – just go away!"

Anything, no matter how small, that forces a company to slow down the pace of its thinking and operating needs to be attacked relentlessly. Of all times in history, this is the worst time to be slow or to defend being slow as a good way of making thorough decisions. Brand loyalty is waning. Consumers talk to each other more frequently and faster than ever before. People demand that companies be there for them 24/7. The tolerance for excuses is nil. There is always a better price to be found on the Internet. Any product whatsoever can be discovered somewhere in the world. No one takes no for an answer – not any more.

"If you don't or won't please me, help me, service me, support me, value me – someone else will." That is today's story.

In the eyes of consumers "big" has become the equivalent of "distant." People today don't trust "big' anymore. People see "big" as something incomprehensible, something impregnable, something far-off, talking over their heads, manipulating markets and even lives. Large corporations are increasingly viewed as political (which is the worst association that can happen to any big brand or company, come to think of it). Big is suspect. It is one of the consequences of the whole drama of the economic crisis of 2008 and even before, when Enron made us miserably aware what big business was capable of. After that came the likes of Lehman and all the other banks that were so big they could not even be allowed to fail. Their disgrace is still damaging the lives of millions and millions of people and has caused a dramatic increase in distrust for anything and everything considered "big business." Which in turn has also changed the playing field for brand marketing, where trust is the one thing no brand can do without.

## Flatfooted elephant

In their book _Getting Bigger by Growing Smaller,_ Joel Shulman, a leading researcher on entrepreneurship, and Thomas T. Stallkamp, one of the world's most effective executives, talk about a new breakthrough business model called the Strategic Entrepreneurial Unit (SEU). In the book they show how to build new employee/entrepreneur-led startups within the corporation – entities that can take on new market opportunities and deliver startup-level growth. Although written for the American corporate situation, it makes for inspiring reading for large companies as well. Implementing smaller units within large organizations to enable continued, rapid growth beyond the predictable barriers of the corporate life cycle is without a doubt one way to bridge the wide gap between the expanded company and the customer.

It would be extremely silly – if not downright arrogant – to deny the feelings millions of people have towards big corporate institutions. One way or the other, it is essential to accept this as a truth that will hamper growth, not only in existing mature markets but also in emerging and developing markets. Trust is a universal human emotion, whether it extends to brands or companies. The tendency is here, and probably here to stay, that consumers are turning away from the big ones and embracing the small ones. Spawned by the economic crisis and a world that is simply becoming too complex and confusing for many, this tendency has hooked up with an already growing preference for the personal touch, the natural product, the authentic proposition, the human interaction, the relevant content – precisely those things you won't or can't get from big companies or big brand organizations.

Consumers are looking at small-scale brands and operations, or at least brands and operations that _feel_ small. It is not just because of the Internet and app technology that initiatives like Airbnb and Uber have enjoyed such success – or, at least, have become warmly welcomed brands. These brands appeal to people because they are totally devised around personal interest and emotions. Uber: making taxi-like transport more personal, private and friendly as well as simple and less expensive (i.e., more democratic). Airbnb: making vacations abroad more personal, homey and fun. Consumers are not dumb; they surely know that there is a lot more behind those apps than just people like them: there's a network, an organization, big investors even. The thing is: they don't really notice, not in the slightest, and they embrace these new opportunities wholeheartedly – after all, their demands are being met.

Uber and Airbnb feel close by, they feel like they are "one of us," they feel like services you can trust and they continue to build on that feeling. It is hardly surprising these new initiatives have encountered harsh comments and actions from existing players and parties (taxi companies, hotel chains and local governments, for example). These entities may have problems to solve, but it is clear that the general public – the consumers – have greeted the new brands in huge numbers, indeed as if they are some sort of Robin-Hood–like rebels who understand what people really want and even deserve. The opposition comes from traditional corners, and guess why? Because they have become too complacent, too traditional, too slow, too set in their ways and too uninspired to prevent those brands getting into the fray. And that goes for many, many other large, slow-grinding large organizations. Big organizations are getting caught flat-footed every day of the week.

They have treated the general public however they please, applying their own non-negotiable rules and regulations; they have stuck to unmovable price levels and inflexible behavior, ignoring the call for a more human touch and a more personal approach. They have expanded on what they already did and on what they already knew; they have shown themselves content with the status quo, lacking in any sense of urgency when it comes to innovation. They have distanced themselves from their customers and have missed important signals they really should have noticed, such as: "Hey, what we really want is something different." They haven't answered the call. They have, in other words, lost their relevance for a lot of people.

Now some new kids on the block have filled in the gaps and have shown the public their relevance for a better way of living. The big ones have been caught out; they're having trouble fighting the new contenders and they are struggling – and failing – to adapt their services to compete with them. Acting swiftly and decisively has proven too difficult for those old and peacefully vegetating elephants. They are this close to becoming dinosaurs if they don't change soon and start thinking differently. The old herd is thinning fast; their grass is being eaten out from under them by a hungry new species of techno-savvy innovators who have caught the wind of change, and who are flying past the withering giants of yesteryear. The pace of change is fast and furious. How to keep up is a question that is puzzling all sorts of big brand companies around the world.

## Struggling with disruption

One of the main reasons that large, globally active companies have a hard time keeping up is that they have a hard time developing a sound, enterprise-wide digital strategy. It is really astonishing to learn that many organizations don't have the skills to make that happen, according the Harvey Nash 2015 Survey. Digital innovation dominates IT, but many companies are struggling to manage it. This has been going on for several years already, but it is telling that the no. 1 most in-demand skill in business is the demand for big data analytic skills.

If my company or brand organization didn't have it, I would lie awake at night if I were a CEO or a CIO (Chief Information Officer), or a VP of marketing. Because digital disruption is today's tool for creating change in the form of new business models and bringing new products and services to market more efficiently than ever before. Digital disruption is the blanket term for change resulting from digital technologies that disrupt established business models. It opens up new frontiers, brings fresh ideas, puts companies on their toes, makes them fast where they are sluggish, gives them the edge needed to compete today and tomorrow. These things are essential to keeping up with the change that is taking place on the demand front (i.e., the consumer side).

The current rate of change in consumer behavior and consumer demand was first unleashed by Internet technology and has been flashing into the future thanks to app technology and all kinds of IT-driven developments. Big data has made its entrance, intelligent CMS platforms have entered the fold, customer knowledge and media behavior can now be tracked at such speeds that it has been necessary for legislators to propose new privacy laws. This is not a world you would want to live in without being able to come up with innovative new business models and innovative, breakthrough products. And yet, this is exactly what's been giving many large organizations a very large headache.

Failure comes not because of some new "threat," or because of some kind of disgraceful activity (as some "traditionals" like to call disrupters like Uber and Airbnb), but because corporate leadership chooses to let others innovate, rather than supporting a plan of out-innovating everyone else. Very few companies are willing to cannibalize their own business models – but the failure to do that just means that someone else will cannibalize it for you. Of course it's difficult to change business models on the fly. Not only do you have to make big bets on new things, you also have to keep the normal day-to-day business running while at the same time trying to undercut it with the new thing. It's why so many companies fail the innovator's dilemma test. The natural appeal of trying to keep the tired old business alive is somehow still too attractive to let go.

The technology shift is fundamentally different from any other the business world has experienced. The speed of technology is what drives IT and that speed will continue to accelerate. That's what small and midsized companies have over their large competitors: they are on the forefront of innovation, having started up and grown because of their advanced digital abilities; they are able to create more opportunities for themselves faster and better than their bigger rivals. On top of that, their innovative character is attracting the talent that the larger organizations now miss out on. The digital talent with all the right skillsets is flocking to where the innovation is, to where the future is already in motion – which it is not with the traditional big guys, however interesting they may look from the outside.

This is why large organizations are scrambling for outsourcers. About twice as many CIOs report that they are looking for outside expertise to supplement their in-house digital skills as there are CIOs that look to outsourcers as a way of cutting costs. The trend: in 2015, six out of seven CIOs will increase their outsourcing expenditure. Inside the organization they are also hiring and working closely with CDOs (Chief Digital Officers), up more than 10% from 2014. It is a clear sign that the digital era has not escaped the attention of the global players entirely, and that they acknowledge the growing importance of their digital staff. They should have seen this coming earlier, but they didn't, and some still don't. That exposes them to the threat of falling behind modern-day competitors in a future where speed of information and decision-making is of the essence.

## Old school, new realities

In many cases, marketing departments in particular are still lacking the knowledge and the means when it comes to applying big data or digital disruption to break through existing thought patterns. In 2014 McKinsey & Company reported on an ANA (Association of National Advertisers in the US) survey "Marketing's Moment: Leading the Disruption" among 374 client-side marketers.

Their report showed that marketing leaders are deeply concerned with the "three Cs of disruption": content (cited by 81 percent of respondents as a disruption), complexity (80 percent), and connected and empowered consumers (74 percent). Underlying these concerns is the pace of technology (77 percent). Simply put: they are afraid; they are very much afraid of these new world changes and how to deal with them.

Most of the marketers questioned continue to labor within frameworks that inhibit true transformation. Many of them agree that within the next three years they need to have clearly defined customer journeys to understand where they need to focus their marketing programs, but: only 50 percent have these capabilities today. And while two-thirds understand the marketing disruptions they are dealing with and are, at the very least, building that understanding into their strategy, only 13 percent have reached a point where they're taking action and achieving measurable impact. They are a long, long way from the position they should have been in already.

In fact, they are still working old-school style in a world of new realities. Their systems, processes, budgets and metrics are still largely designed around mass campaigns and promotions – decidedly traditional methods of broadcasting to customers. More broadly, the functions outside marketing's control, from finance to the contact center, are similarly locked into models built to manage and measure products and services, not to align with current customer dynamics. As a result, marketers' aspirations far outstrip their operations.

Addressing this deeper challenge requires a new disruption: a disruption of the marketing organization itself. Real change requires digging into the fundamental necessities of operations, processes and organization. It will mean getting a grip on fractured customer experience and realizing that companies will have to increase their ability to make data-informed decisions. It will mean really embracing the fact that "content is king," focusing on developing a formal content strategy, and setting up content supply chain management that involves the right kind of specialized content agencies and storytelling specialists.

It will mean making a disruptive way of thinking a durable part of the company's training and skills development programs. The top of the company has to be more involved this process as well, because most marketing managers today don't feel empowered enough to implement this scope of change themselves. Also, companies will have to bring in new talent – especially new talent with the right skills for addressing the new demands on customer experience, digital transformation and content management. And last but not least, companies will have to bridge the gap between those who acknowledge the current fragmentation of marketing and those who supply the budgets for enhancing the abilities of data-driven analysis and decision-making. There just can't be any decision-making without looking at incredible amounts of customer data any longer. We are already way beyond that point and companies need to acknowledge and address this all-important fact.

All this is a hell of a job, and chances are that a lot of even the best-known names in the Fortune 500 won't make it in time, and will no longer be with us in the near future.

In fact: count on it.

# Insight 3: Data always wins

One of the main reasons why many big brand names are bound for an uncertain future is not new; it is as old as mankind – because it _is_ mankind. It is us – all of us – with all our peculiarities, unpredictabilities, shortcomings, irrationalities, stupidities, emotions, hopes, ambitions and expectations. We ourselves are the only ones to blame for making the world behave as erratically as it does. Without us – well – what a dull life it would be. Because that's us too: we wouldn't want a predictable, boring, lackluster existence if we had to choose from a variety of ways to lead a life. So, never a dull moment on this planet.

Our whole being has always been such that we didn't care a lot about status quo. We have always been interested in change – if not to say obsessed by it. The range of things we have been inventing from the day we could walk is mind-bogglingly endless, and of course it continues to this very day without any sign that we are running out of steam or ideas. On the contrary: today, change is happening at an absolute breakneck speed, so much so that a great many of us fall victim to the barrage of changes that come popping up anywhere at any time. Because these are changes we are not sure how to handle. As human beings we have turned into consumers that are being spoiled by technological changes that allow us to shop for anything we want, at any time we want, without even having to leave home. Easy-peasy, isn't life great? Yes. And no, as we have found out that Internet technology also has some unexpected drawbacks.

This same highbrow state-of-the-art technology is making us uncomfortable because, if we're not careful – and even if we are – it potentially allows unseen outside parties to access our bank accounts and all kinds of private stuff on our computers and tablets. Furthermore, it allows not-so-unseen outside parties to know everything we do on the Internet: what we are looking at, what we like to buy, what we like to eat and drink, what we are telling our friends, what our friends are like, what kind of life we lead, what we do for a living, what music we listen to, what movies we watch, what kind of news we follow – in fact what kind of person we are. And if that's not unsettling enough, we are constantly bombarded by stuff that somehow has something to do with all these preferences of ours. What's that all about? Who is behind it? Who is selling our lives to whom? Is that allowed?

The truth is that we have entered an era in which everybody on the planet has become a bunch of data. Walking, talking, chatting, buying, spending, surfing, reading, socializing, working data: that's what most of today's world population already is, and in the near future even the most isolated regions on earth will have joined the data crowd. Now, the funny thing is that it's not just the modern online data-consumer who is feeling a little harassed these days. The guys chasing our data have problems of their own.

This new thing is not called big data for nothing. In fact it could easily be called giant data or mega data, as the amount of data out there for brand marketing departments to work with is downright baffling. You like numbers? Every day, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created, according to IBM. And the 1.8 zettabytes — that's 1.8 trillion gigabytes – are you still with me? — of information created last year will grow by a factor nine over the next five years. Good luck with that! As a consequence, many, many companies are indeed totally baffled by how to proceed. How to make good use of data for brand and business? How to interpret what big data is telling us as brand marketers? How to turn data into strategy? Does it make any sense to apply big data to strategic brand thinking in the first place? Do we really need to install digital whiz kids and data gobbling IT-programs in marketing departments right now? Shouldn't we just continue to trust our good old marketing knowledge and instincts, as we have done so successfully over the years?

Big data is creating a lot of confusion on either side of the marketing-consumer divide. The hard truth is that big data is changing our lives in a big way. It is not going to go away again. It will grow and grow and grow as a given for what drives thinking in any company that has something to sell. Because nothing will point brand marketers in the right direction as efficiently and effectively as the hearts and minds of this generation of consumers and the next (and the next and the next ...). Incredible as it sounds, everything that has ever been taught at marketing and business schools about brand marketing is, at the very least, up for total revision. It is certain that the current generation of marketing managers and CMOs have never been trained to base marketing strategies on big data analysis, nor have they been preparing for how to handle the deluge of data that this era is bringing about.

## Markie meets Techie

If that's not worrisome enough on its own, then there's the added fact that brand organizations are still slow if not absolutely hesitant to adapt to the data revolution in brand marketing. The chief information officer has yet to become a normal figure in boards of directors, let alone an obvious partner for a CMO to join in a close-knit team designed to make the data deluge work for their brand marketing and sales. Traditionally, top management at large companies are not easily influenced by warnings from marketing – such as, "we should really invest in digital, data-driven marketing and sales." Yeah, right. Investing 200 million in a new plant in China is easier to understand and more likely to be approved than 10 or 20 million in hiring digital marketing staff, setting up new IT-platforms for consumer data analysis, and implementing strategy development software.

"What? Why? Now?" If the top-level managers I have spoken to over the last year are to be believed, this is the general response from the boardrooms – if the subject warrants a response at all. The distance between the marketing work floor and the executive floor has grown too wide in many cases. In many ways, contact with the goings-on in the world outside the top floors of top businesses is not up to scratch, to put it mildly.

The view from the top floor is often too wide-angle to register changes that are now in motion and gaining speed. Boardrooms have a tendency to look towards distant horizons, and by doing so they lose touch with what is going on right in front of their noses with their own customers. Somehow it is news to them that, right at this very moment, a whole new industry is taking shape, formed around technologies aimed at storing, sorting, viewing and analyzing big data in order to generate new business insights. This should tell them something. New industries don't crop up out of nowhere, growing like crazy, if there isn't any money in it. Already, companies with colorful names like Cloudera, Tableau and Birst have generated billions of dollars of financing from investors who have seen big promise in big data. These companies are doing extremely well in helping other businesses manage their data, so they can sift through it all and use it to point them in the direction of the best opportunities to get much closer to their current customers, as well as open up new markets and discover new customers.

Big data marketing may well turn out to be one of the most revolutionary developments of our time. There are some who try to downplay its importance or who like to paint it as some sort of techno-bubble, a domain for techs and nerds and IT whiz kids. It is surprising to note how incredibly slow even large, reputable corporations have been to recognize what big data is really about and what it can do to grow their businesses. They ought to let themselves be convinced of the fact that if they don't integrate big data into their strategic marketing processes, they will find out soon enough that those who do will run them out of business. The use of data analysis will turn the whole idea behind marketing and sales strategizing upside down. There's no escaping it: marketers at big brand organizations will need to consider hooking up with "techies." Unless, as a business, you want to die in your sleep.

Marketers will have to agree on this – and quickly. Without the right tools, any chief marketing officer will run the risk of being fatally flooded by data coming from customer information, mobile commerce, search histories, social media use, mobile devices – and all that on top of the general research data that has already been swamping the average marketing desk for years. It is the main reason why modern marketers will need to work with a data analysts and data analytics tools to cope with the data stampede. And this is just the beginning.

Because there is also a difference between stupid data and smart data. First off, there is aggregated data: the stupid stuff. This is the limitless sea of information coming in wave after wave after wave. Facts by the zillion, numbers by the quintillion, all you ever wanted to know about the world in general and your market in particular, plus everything you really didn't. Just distilling all that down to a useful form may reveal something about consumer behavior in a market, but it would prove to be a gargantuan task for any brand organization. It would be like searching for specks of gold in the sand dunes of the Sahara.

Those specks of gold – that's what it's all about, of course. What you want at the end of the day is the contextual data, the smart stuff. What you want to work with are exactly those data that are relevant to your brand, your market, your customer and your potential customer. What you want – no: what you _need_ to know is what drives your customer towards brand loyalty and why. What you need to ask your data support people is where the biggest opportunities can be found for expanding brand loyalty or extending your brand portfolio to get closer to your customers. Inside this contextual data is hidden that highly valuable information about all kinds of social media conversations, topics, interests, brand popularity, trends, products – anything people talk about these days. What are they saying about your brand, your category, your market? What stories are they sharing with each other?

What you cannot do without in the coming years is data that show what your customers and potential customers have on their minds: how they feel about all kinds of issues in the world, in society, in their neighborhood, in their community of friends and family. Any morsel of information relating to your brand's being and personality is data you need to be looking for. Contextual data is a sardine swimming in an ocean of humongous proportions. That's what makes it so valuable: the right data will hand you the key to your consumer's heart and mind. That little nugget of data will give you the insights you need to create new ways of making your brand bond with customers and potential customers. Contextual data is as good as gold.

These are the big questions now: Where can you find this data and how can you find it? Who and what do you need to do it? The answer is that the new marketer will have to evolve into a seamless marketing-techie hybrid, or vice versa, a techno-marketer. Marketers will have to make data technology their own. Marketers can no longer wait patiently for time-consuming quantitative research into consumer habits ("Do you wash your car: A. every weekend; B. every fortnight; C. never"). The new marketer will have to have his smart data right in front of him at any given moment. Ready to play around with, ready to analyze it in depth with his data and tech-savvy marketing research people, ready to glean the insights he needs to get ahead with cleverly and accurately focused marketing campaigns.

Big data is a bad choice of words, really. Working with big data shouldn't mean working with a lot of data, it should mean: working with the data that will give you the big edge over other brands in your market. There is nothing as big as that.

## The new consumer

The industry prediction is that we will see exponential growth in data generation. By 2020 the data available in the world will have grown 44 times bigger than it is today. The average Internet-connected consumer goes through 35 gigabytes per day already, now, today. How do you think people will cope with this kind of information overload? And I'm not just talking about the poor marketers, I'm talking about the poor consumer. Well, it's pretty simple. He will filter more than ever before, faster than ever before. He will filter anything that comes his way that shouldn't have come his way in the first place. He will filter away every single message that his brain or his gut doesn't register as being relevant. He will filter away any kind of non-descript mass communication. He will delete, delete, delete, delete and delete again, at even higher speeds than ever before. Instead he will be paying attention to the brand messages that are really, truly meant for him personally. They will come to him at the time of his choosing, and through the channel he visits most, accurately aimed at him personally with his preferences in mind. The only things that can get through to the new modern day consumer will be what he really wants or needs. He won't let himself be harassed by brands who have not made a point of getting to know his preferences, tastes, interests, hobby', online and offline behavior, shopping habits – anything. If you don't want to get to know him through big data, he doesn't want to know you.

Big brand CMOs will have to embrace big data technology before it is too late. Small and midsized companies will have no problem with that. They are fresh and tech- and data-savvy and light on their feet. They will jump on the data train like flees on a dog and they will thrive: plenty of data for everyone to enjoy. They don't have to wait for distant boardrooms to finally finish pondering questions like "What is big data marketing" and "Why should we invest in that kind of stuff." They don't have big fat management cake layers to cut through, convince or manage. Small and midsized brands will catch on swiftly and easily and will cheer the day they hopped into bed with big data analysis as a means to get personal with all those consumers out there. They will have their data information experts hard at work and teamed up with their most ambitious marketing people before most big brands can say "big data."

It's all about leveraging big data to create a personal brand experience for customers. That's what it all comes down to, really. In the end you will want to create a meaningful dialogue between brand/company and consumer/customer. To create that dialogue you have to get to know that customer, not just by talking to her during qualitative research, but by seeing her in data on the screen in front of you. Marketing turns personal. It will not be enough to have demographics or customer knowledge on a basic profile level; every brand marketer will have to establish a deeper understanding of what is driving her brand's customers as well as her brand's potential customers. There is nothing wrong with a sound application of instinct and gut feeling, but the fact that marketing strategy will be extremely fact and data centered is an irreversible development. Customer knowledge can no longer be based on generic truths and assumptions; it needs to come out of extensive data analysis that has been handled in exactly the right way to realize modern-day marketing goals. Software programs have already made an entrance into the whole thought and solution process around marketing problems.

Only recently, 100 top marketing consultants around the world were invited to work on a solution for a marketing problem. At the same time, the same problem was fed into a special software program developed specifically for that purpose. The question was: Which of the two contestants would come up with the most reliable and efficient solution, the group of 100 consultants or the software program? It turned out to be no contest. The group of 100 marketers got it right after a total of 1,600 hours of dedicated work. The software program got it right – better than right, because the solution turned out to be far more reliable and efficient – in just 4.5 hours. It may not be conclusive evidence of a new dawn, but it would be a mistake to paint it as just some nerdy experiment. This is what the future of brand marketing is going to look like, whether you like it or not. It's us against algorithms.

Technology will rule brand marketing. Big data is the engine that will drive personalized customer experiences and this is exactly what tomorrow's marketers will have to keep in mind. Marketing is concerned with understanding people's motivations and using these insights to create a connection between brand and customer. To achieve this, brand marketing organizations will need skills in mathematics, statistics and computer data analysis as essential supplements to the traditionally more intuitive, market-research-based strategy process. Marketers won't need to understand technology; they will have to become it. They will have to learn to trust it, apply it, work with it, get a feel for it and give it a central, key role in their brand marketing business.

## Bringing the outside in

If a complicated marketing problem can be solved by a software program in a mere 4.5 hours while top marketing brains need 1,600, what does that mean for the organizations themselves? Should they still be the vast departments you see at big brand companies? Should they become even bigger by adding the new little armies of data analysis whiz kids we talked about earlier? Should they even make a radical choice in favor of the latter? Should they wave goodbye to all the traditional marketing soldiers who aren't really up to speed with the new reality of brand marketing?

The big problem is of course letting go of the whole idea of traditional marketing strategy and brand communication in the first place. That is a big mental step for a majority of big brand corporations. There is a whole category of large enterprises that would like to work with big data on an enormous scale. But they balk at the amount of money they would have to spend to implement the technology, plus hire the suitably skilled people, plus re-structure the organization. That kind of investment still seems too demanding at the moment. So there is a lot of window-shopping going on, in which enterprises engage big data consultancies to help them out. And there is no lack of the latter: as I mentioned earlier, big data support is big business, with a market was worth 3.2 billion dollars in 2010 and is estimated to have grown to a staggering 16.9 billion by the end of 2015. Big market, many competitors – and companies in search of big data partners often lack useful parameters or criteria for establishing which consultancy might be the right one for them.

Big data support is also at the stage you might call "work in progress." It has not yet matured; it has not reached the point at which one could say: "So this is how it's done, let's just find the one that does it best and for the best price." The wheel is still being invented, as it were. That makes it hard to choose one big data consultancy over another. The best question to ask, however, should be: "What partner would be best able to integrate with my brand marketing team, and would best understand how to solve our particular problems?" The main thing about the right big data support is that it serves up _specific_ data analysis. Most consultancies bring well-developed architecture and strong techno-tools to the table – but the best choice would be the one who also displays deep business knowledge and a good feel for your specific kind of brand and brand marketing. Big data is a lot about science, but it can't be all about science. You still need to know what to look for, and why. You need people who know what questions to ask and which answers to look out for. Every brand is unique (well, it should be) and working with big data should reflect that.

What's the best way to go? There is almost no other way than to be as open as you possibly can with your big data service provider. That's another item worrying many large companies, of course. On the one hand, it makes sense to grant access to actual data for your partner to be really effective. On the other hand, you don't want your valuable, confidential data just floating around out there, so you have to sort out a way to grant access securely. The best way to work with a data support provider is to work with them in a shared environment, bringing them inside the organization and working closely together. Inside-out-sourcing, I would call it. Bringing in the right partner from the outside.

It may feel scary for a while, but you could consider starting with a few pilot projects that would require enough big data support to see how things work out between the two of you while your organization gets a handle on the effectiveness of the outcome.

At least, that seems less risky than allowing a third party to commit to a huge chunk of big data work right from the start. Size isn't everything here. On the contrary, relatively small-scale, inside-out-sourcing has the advantage of gradually pushing the bar up, getting used to the idea of marketing brains and "techie" brains working in tandem to solve problems. It's a good way of smoothly stepping into the future and probably a better solution than hiring an outside party to work with your customer data. Customer data is too valuable to have fluttering around outside your organization and inside a third party. You just can't be too careful with the unique data around which virtually your whole business is centered. In this case it pays to keep an old Arab saying in mind: "I put all my trust in Allah, but I still tie up my camel."

# Insight 4: Europe, the dinosaur zone

It would be quite funny if it weren't such a sad truth. Since the creation of the Eurozone – an unavoidable chain of events – there has been a noticeable increase in the number of voices saying that we have created a bureaucratic monster. Not so much a healthy economic one (if only that were true) as a paper one. I came across a diagram that made me smile at first, but afterward left me with the sinking feeling that this monster called "Europe" is going to devour us all in the end.

In the diagram you see a short list of world-changing documents, each of which represented great steps forward for people at many different levels. Next to them: the number of words it took to make those documents clear and decisive. At the very bottom of the list someone has added the number of words in an EU directive on the sale of ... cabbage.

Pythagorean Theorem: 24 words  
Lord's Prayer: 66 words  
Archimedes' Principle: 67 words  
Christians' 10 Commandments: 179 words  
US Declaration of Independence: 1,300 words  
US Constitution (with amendments): 7,818 words  
EU directive on the sale of cabbage: 26,911 words

When you, too, have stopped smiling, consider what this list stands for and what it means for business leaders and entrepreneurs in the Eurozone. The whole idea behind Europe has been the creation of a single European market, where people and goods can circulate freely, making it easy to do business on an international scale using a single currency. So much for that theory. Fifteen years on, we can't even cross into other EU countries without getting hit by inexplicable roaming costs on our mobile phones. In Holland, the big beautiful mortgage market is comfortably divided between a tiny club of lenders – because there is no way a Dutch citizen could turn to, say, a German bank to finance a new house. Cultivators are told in great detail how to grow perfectly straight cucumbers. And so it goes. The least you can say about European regulators is that they seem to be creative in finding the most amazing stuff with which to pester companies.

At the same time, Europe has failed to keep all countries happy together, or to hold them in check in terms of keeping all aspects of the European bargains. France, for example, is one of those countries that are not exactly hopping to comply with rules set to stimulate growth in each individual country, which in turn should stimulate growth in the Eurozone as a whole. Where in other countries people suddenly find themselves faced with new and later retirement dates, the French can still receive their first pension check at the age of 55. France gets away with it time and time again, while other countries – usually smaller economies – are not so lucky, and get fined millions of euros for not implementing reforms in time. Meanwhile, Europe was handed a nasty surprise by Greece, when it was discovered that Greece was welcomed as an EU member on the basis of falsified and inflated economic figures. Technically they were already a failed state, but accidentally "forgot" to tell Europe – which was in the meantime too busy regulating the pint-glass measures in the UK to notice. This Greek drama has come about because of what can easily be called the biggest fraud in the history of mankind – for which no Greek official has yet to see the inside of a courtroom, by the way, although it has led to a European economic crisis and jeopardized the euro.

Europe is not a level playing field. Personally, I doubt if it is now or ever will be a playing field at all. Europe is a mixed bag of national cultures, habits and preferences that don't seem to come together. Europe has formed some sort of government that isn't truly democratic because its leaders aren't chosen by the public. There is a parliament of some 700 or 800 people surrounded by the thousands of translators needed to achieve some sort of communication between the members of parliament. It is a surreal paper circus that once a month is packed into a convoy of trucks and moved from Brussels to Strasbourg – only to repeat the process in Strasbourg when it's time to head back to Brussels. It is mind-blowing, the amount of money that is spent on not getting ahead.

And not getting ahead, that is what Europe is all about. It is a slow-moving political animal, with very little room on its back for anyone else but politicians to hitch a ride. For businesses, marketers, talented innovators and dynamic technological industries, Europe is not working. It is too occupied – if not to say obsessed – with finding new directives for businesses and citizens to comply with. Europe always manages to come up with a new rule that calls for mostly unnecessary environmental, health or administrative measures, forcing companies to invest in things they could use like a hole in the head. By doing this, Europe is actually preventing businesses from investing in activities that would help them expand and build better businesses, which would in turn employ more and more people. Money you have to spend to comply with all kinds of new rules is money you can't spend on innovation, growth and expansion – how hard is that to understand?

## Prisoners of rules

Are we still the free citizens we think we are? Living in Western democracies, people tend to agree, since in general we don't feel trapped or ruled over. However, the perception that we are still left to live our lives as freely as we want to is being undermined by a growing unease as we see two things happening at the same time: on the one hand, the European Union continues to expand ("Lithuania? Is that Europe?"), and on the other, that same European Union is incapable of reacting swiftly, strongly and decisively to political or economic developments. The bigger Europe becomes, the weaker it seems as a government – or, well, as some kind of government. In the eyes of the common man, Europe is an incomprehensible melee of politicians, institutions, committees, boards and lobby groups. We know only a few names – the ones we see floating by our television news on a more or less regular basis – so they must be the people who have something to say about Europe. The rest of are faceless, meaningless, pointless. A mass of unknowns who, however – and this we do know for a fact – are rewarded very generously indeed and tax-free. And some also think it's all right to sign up for a meeting in order to be entitled to compensation for attending – and then don't attend the meeting at all.

It is not just this petty behavior that hurts – the sting is even greater because it is exactly this faceless crowd that comes up with new plans to regulate this, that and anything else they can get their hands on. Taking care of their own while pestering the rest of us – normal citizens and businesses in Europe – now that stinks. Instead, they should be helping us to move forward, to create business and growth opportunities, to create jobs, to stimulate younger generations to start their own businesses and innovate the hell out of the rest of the world. But they are not. Not by a long shot. This is exactly why people don't show up for European elections and exactly what makes a mockery of the whole idea of Europe as a parliamentary democracy. It isn't a parliamentary democracy, whatever they may tell us from their bureaus in Brussels. They do what they like and we have even given up fighting them tooth and nail.

We have become prisoners of Europe, forced to accept any kind of rule that is imposed from above. Freedom has become an illusion; we are pretending to be free, but in truth we are not. We are walled in by rulebooks, and where normal prisons at some point stop thinking of measures to keep the prisoners in, this one erects new walls of rulebooks virtually every day of the week.

The most baffling aspect about it is that "Europe" was once set in motion to do exactly the opposite. It was a European ambition to free us from all kinds of barriers between states and national regulations that prevented people from doing business and thus to create one big beautiful market, to become a politically and economically influential player on the world stage. So much for that idea. What happened instead is that the liberalization of Europe has been translated into something else altogether: centralization, overregulation and standardization, harmonization of most economic activities and economic parameters. All made possible by radically shifting national competencies from individual member states to the European headquarters in Brussels. Where Europe once had its particular idea-generating diversity and non-uniformity, it now has an artificially homogenized, tasteless blend of slow decision-making. Citizens and businesses have been buried under a suffocating layer of bureaucratic blankets so thick and heavy that it pins all of us down underneath.

The worst possible thing has already happened. The overregulation that has come out of Brussels and is still coming at us doesn't allow rapid economic growth. It is an organic consequence of the European establishment's decision to play God. "We know best" – that's the spirit with which Brussels governs the rest of Europe. It is a stance that is particularly popular on the left side of any political arena, where politicians usually consider themselves extremely capable of knowing what people need and how it should be arranged. Protective directives and regulations are the commonplace results of that kind of thinking, which is still fascinated by the belief in a "made society." Although such beliefs have been tried all over the world by socialist governments and have subsequently failed to what might be termed success (I'm choosing my words politely here), it is once again visible in the choices that are made inside the political institutions in Brussels.

The entire European market economy as we know it prefers social policies and measures to economically productive entrepreneurial stimulus. Europe is more about social redistribution of income than about stimulating innovation, individual progress and business success. Europe has embraced deep concern for the wellbeing of the masses. That's fine as far as it goes, but instead of doing everything it can to stimulate company growth and expansion and help those masses get well-paying jobs, it has translated its concern for public welfare into overly protective measures to prevent anything from even remotely endangering the lives of its citizens. How can you seriously put a ban on – here it comes – children under the age of 7 blowing up balloons in the UK?

"You might say that small children have been blowing up balloons for generations, but not anymore, and they will be safer for it," said an official from the anti-balloon-blowing brigade in Brussels.

Of course there won't be any mum or dad who gives a hoot about this European ban; instead, it won't help the EU when it comes to a UK referendum on a "Brexit" from Europe. People remember such silly things, just like they also remember the silly suggestion of changing the measure of their classic pint glass. To the British, this was one of the clearest signs that getting into bed with Brussels was a bad idea after all. Apart from that, the whole balloon-blowing ban, for all its simplicity, reveals how risky this kind of European ruling can be for companies. In this case, British toy manufacturers got all hot under the collar about the new rules, which also included coloring books and anything played with by children under 14. According to them, the cost of new safety tests would drive up the price of Christmas presents. So here is an example of just one little, trumped-up regulation from Europe that hit a whole manufacturing industry in terms of overall profits. Not exactly the happy Toy Story anyone was hoping for.

## Killing innovation

A study by Open Europe earlier this year estimated that regulations introduced in the UK over the last decade have cost the British economy £148.2 billion. Of this amount, a staggering £36.7 billion, or 25%, stemmed from EU laws relating to employment, social security, or health and safety. Let those who can understand. The democratically chosen government of an autonomous country needs some £110 million to properly install laws and regulations needed to run a society – their society, not someone else's; their laws, not someone else's – proposed, discussed, brought to a vote, checked and applied, the way things go in any democratic country. Then along comes something called Europe, which descends on this country and says: "Hello, here are our rules for doing things; apply them over and above yours, will you?" And doing so will require an astonishing 25% more government spending.

Think about what the UK government could have been doing with those £36.7 billion had Europe not come across the Channel with this sea of rules and regulations – including that ban on balloon-blowing for children under 7. Think about all the money that could have been spent on innovation, on stimulating start-ups, on helping young families buy a house, entrepreneurs set up shop. Think about the amount of money companies in the UK could have been spending on growth, expansion, innovation and investment in ambitious new plans instead of on all kinds of costs to make sure their products, their workplace or their environmental behavior would comply with all these "foreign" EU rules.

That money was not spent on the economy, not on markets, not on productivity, not on growth, not on innovation – and in the meantime the competition in Asia and the US are striding away from UK companies, passing them by and leaving them behind in the dust.

Now, think about that in relation to all those other nations in Europe that make up the EU and have had to deal with the same regulatory demands from Brussels. Think of all the money that also could have gone into forward thinking instead of costs incurred in complying with EU regulations. It makes you wonder how much faster we could have been climbing out of the hole we fell into with the economic crisis. Europe has been lagging behind its economic rivals China, India and the US, and it has only recently (in 2015) begun to show some sort of revival. It is hard to see how Europe will get back on its feet – if at all.

In the Lisbon Strategy, European member states pledged to spend 3% of their gross national product on research and innovation. Do they? No, they don't. In the first place, they're too busy with their own national housekeeping: cutting spending like mad and paying through the nose to meet the expanding needs of the European bureaucracy. In many European countries, governments cross their fingers and look to the private sector for investments in science and innovation. As it turns out, companies are not all that enthusiastic about helping them out on that front. Why not? Because Europe has extremely complicated and expensive patent laws. If a small ban on balloon-blowing causes no end of pain to the UK toy industry, just imagine how patent laws can put a stop to any attempt to discover something that could change the world.

One consequence is that Europe is now the proud owner of a shortage of researchers – why opt for a career in research on a continent that obviously doesn't see the point of researching for innovation? To paint the picture more clearly: in China there already are more researchers than in the US, Europe and Japan combined. Guess where their progress is coming from? Clearly the Chinese government doesn't see why their businesses should have to suffer the costs of obligatory compliance with newly created regulations.

After the global financial crisis, the whole banking sector was turned upside down and more strictly regulated than ever before. Not an illogical reflex and in many ways a justifiable action, since financial greed on an unprecedented scale was indeed responsible for the outbreak of the crisis. The problem with the heavy-handed regulation measures – in Europe as well as in the US – is that they didn't only affect banks. They also hurt small and midsized businesses and start-ups. In Europe, an overload of regulation has proven a particular hindrance to most banks' ability to provide loans to small businesses, innovators and other ambitious drivers of economic growth.

Business loans are hard to come by for people with ideas, new products, exciting new technology, promising inventions or crucial research demands. In addition, the housing market has also been hard hit, and it has become very difficult for people to get an affordable mortgage. Ironically, interest rates on mortgages are at one of the lowest points in recent history. It is hardly fair, and it is far from wise. It depresses and disappoints people – not only as citizens but also as business people and entrepreneurs.

Innovation needs money like plants need water. As fast paced as digital and technological developments may be, the ideas that launch them still need time to be set in motion, worked on, tried and tried again before production time arrives and there's money to be made. Funding is essential to the ability to keep pushing forward and to acquire the time, the people, and the means to get to market and change the world. The truth is that Europe hasn't succeeded in creating the right atmosphere for growing a digital economy; it hasn't been able to create the general feeling that it will do anything to enable innovators to succeed. Not only is funding scarce, on top of that many of the old structures of European society are still in place; they may have been useful at times during the Industrial Revolution, but they're of little use for the digital revolution we sorely need now.

Many countries in the EU are dealing with a traditional workforce, education systems that don't prepare children for a future of digital innovation, social laws that prevent employers from reducing their workforce when market demand changes, and revenue policies that tax those who are successful. Entrepreneurs face hard times – not just in getting funded, but also in terms of forming new companies or trying to collaborate with academic and state institutions. Starting something new in Europe is an uphill battle – the bureaucratic, overregulated hill here being the size of the Mont Blanc. This cripples Europe as a potentially great economic force. There are Silicon Valleys all over the world, but not in Europe. Fact: Europe has yet to produce a multi-billion euro, game-changing company. How long before Europe gets its own Google, its own Apple, its own Uber, its own Alibaba, its own Facebook? Will we ever be able to facilitate people – entrepreneurs – to create and develop brands and companies like that?

The few digital, technological successes that arose from European soil and achieved worldwide recognition are Skype and Spotify. The fifteen most valuable Internet companies today have a combined market value of nearly $2.5 trillion. None of them are European. Eleven are from the US; the other four are Chinese. With the exception of Apple, all other companies on the list (an annual report on Internet trends by Kleiner Perkins partner Mary Meeker) were only founded after 1995. Precisely around that time, European governments actually did start pouring money into the kind of technological development that drove the digital and IT revolutions in the US and Asia. But it hasn't helped. Today, there are almost no winners from around here, while more and more of them keep coming our way from the US and Asia.

The problem is: Europe has a dinosaur culture. In Europe we don't like risk; we like security. We like what we have accomplished; we like our limited working hours; we like our guaranteed and paid vacations; we like our pleasant early retirement plans. This is the European way of life, very civilized. Hence, it is in our DNA to resist game-changing business models. It is not that anyone can do just about anything they want in the US or Asia. Disruptive entrepreneurs over there have met their share of bureaucratic and regulatory difficulties, but that pales in comparison to what they come up against in Europe. One of the best illustrations is the regulatory heat that has descended on sharing concepts like Uber, Airbnb and Lyft.

Sympathetic ideas, but suddenly they were derailing all kinds of traditional systems and established interests. So instead of being welcomed at the negotiating table to talk about how they could be integrated into Europe's existing structures, they were immediately forbidden in some countries, slapped on the wrist with restrictions in others, or even threatened physically: in France taxi drivers even set fire to anything resembling an Uber-driven vehicle. Welcome to Europe.

So what have we got here? Does Europe strike you as a land of opportunity? Is Europe making anyone chomp at the bit to go off and start something insanely innovative? Does Europe in any way resemble a big business dreamland, a start-up paradise? Europe's current leaders like to think so inside their heads, but in the heads of business leaders there is not much trust in Europe as a place for booking huge success. Nothing hinders ambition as much as excessive regulation. And if there is one department in which Europe is champion, it is the department of overregulation.

The consequence of all this is that no great companies will be born here. No worldwide brands will be developed here. There will not be enough economic growth to drive ideas developed here. Innovative, creative, ambitious entrepreneurial talent will still prefer the free-wheeling spirit of Silicon Valley or the dynamic markets of emerging economies over the stifling surroundings of stuffy old Europe. Creative and independent minds – but also existing businesses, small and large – need room to breathe. They are the ones who can and will create the new YouTubes, Facebooks, Googles, Ubers and who knows what else of tomorrow, and if they can't do it in Europe they will do this in the US or Asia or in some other emerging market.

Europe needs to cut the red tape, open all windows and let in some fresh air. As things stand now, brands and companies will die where they stand, like dinosaurs in a new European stone age.

# Insight 5: Image means nothing

Technology brands rule the Top 25 in Forbes list of The World's Most Valuable Brands. Numbers 1, 2 and 3 are technology brands: Apple, Microsoft, Google. Of the first 10 brands in the ranking, 6 are technology brands. Facebook – a technology brand that has only been with us since 2004 – ranks 10th.

We have seen the impact of technology – Internet technology in particular – on every area of our lives grow and grow, but what many of us didn't realize was that it would lead to a complete overhaul of how we look at brands. Before we could enter the digital world of Internet, brands had us eating out of the palm of their hand. In the 80s and 90s of the last century, we were practically gagging to be seen with, clad in and behind the wheel of "the right brands." What was right about these brands? Their great, big, shiny image. These brands were associated with success and coolness, lifestyle brands that showed the world who you were.

I usually like to describe those days as the "Nike era." Who didn't love Nike at that time? The brand was appreciated worldwide – or better yet, admired. Not just for its cool swoosh logo but because of its world-famous ads, featuring extremely likeable giants like Michael Jordan and later an array of brilliant soccer stars. Nike, as a brand, was a showpiece brand, seemingly doing all the right things at the right time. Its commercials were setting new standards of creativity, actually getting applauded in cinemas around the world. New commercials were announced in advance and were becoming media events. Its endorsement strategy worked wonders, making headlines just by letting the world know which new sports star had signed with Nike and how much money he or she would make. It was one of the first brands to see the value of brand experience and went on to amaze people by opening Nike stores.

Nike was the cool brand to wear. So much so that it was one of the few brands that at some point decided to work with just the iconic swoosh logo without the brand name attached: its image was that strong. At that time, Nike was at the very forefront of totally image driven business. Nike was not alone in that respect – we also remember brands like Pepsi Cola, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and Benetton that whipped up their image with striking advertising. It was in the last decades of the last century, when brand image was king – especially to marketers but also to consumers. Brands were the visible expression and representation of a particular time when the economy was booming; they mirrored the spirit of one great big party – in the Western world, anyway. There was a kind of exuberance in the air, a feeling that this was it: the sky was the limit and it would stay like this forever. Brands were into "marketing cool." Advertising agencies all over the world kept hammering the message home with brand and marketing managers: "Spend everything you have on developing a cool brand image – without that, nobody will even look at you."

And spend on image they did, in a big way, and on little else. It was around that time that Naomi Klein came out with her book _No Logo_ as a counterweight. As she saw it, brands were no longer created in factories – they were created in offices. Empty shells with a shiny exterior. Brands were no longer a reflection of quality but a reflection of what the marketing department and the ad agency wanted it to reflect. As she said: "We're not producing things, but images of things." Product and brand were separated; companies willing to spend tens of millions on creating and advertising the right image had their products produced in the Third World by inhumanly cheap labor. The book made headlines around the world and – irony is everywhere – propelled Naomi Klein to brand status herself.

I'm not saying she was right and I'm not a big fan of anti-globalization movements, multinational conspiracies and all that. But at this moment in time we have reached the point at which brand image is on its last legs as the all-important driver of sales and success. The shiny shells that once sold like hotcakes are now picked up like cans, examined from all angles, given a good, hard shake and questioned on the Internet. A changed society has been handed a powerful can opener and is using it with gusto. Only those who deliver what they say they will on the label are welcomed, purchased, cherished and recommended.

## The boomerang effect

Of course we have moved on from those purely image-driven days, only to establish that the empty shells of yore have been replaced by brands with unsustainable claims. Today's markets have become increasingly competitive and on top of that, companies and brands face a lot of pressure to deliver results faster than ever. Short-term growth is today's adage, and its first victim seems to be truth in advertising.

There is always some temptation to overstate a product advantage or brand promise. The need for sharply defined positioning and attractive propositions brings with it the risk of taking things too far, of creeping towards the very edge of credibility. In a heavily contested market, any edge over others is a good edge, so brands push themselves to go as far as they think they can in making their claims to fame. Marketing on the edge of the volcano, however, may lead to falling in and getting burned – badly. A steadily increasing number of companies and brands are being caught out with exaggerated promises – and yes, that is indeed meant as an understatement.

It's astonishing, for example, to see that even a large multinational company like Danone ended up the spotlight because of its well-known brand Activia. The company claimed that the nutritional benefits of the product were clinically and scientifically proven. It turned out they weren't – or rather, they couldn't make their case convincing enough. How do you explain that?

Something like this has nothing to do with mixed interpretation or misunderstanding or flawed copywriting. "Clinically tested and scientifically proven": a product either is or it isn't. A multinational like Danone must have plenty of in-house legal eagles, and most of the time these people prefer to stay on the safe side. At least one of them must have raised a red flag – obviously to no avail. Somewhere among the brand management of Activia, or at the leadership level of Danone, someone must have thought they could get away with it, or was at least willing to accept the risk of being found out. They paid the price: a group of consumers who felt deceived filed a lawsuit, and Danone had to pay up to $45 million in damages. They were forced to rethink and rewrite their earlier claims. Bottom line: although Danone must have had no real intention of being untruthful about its Activia claims, the fact remains that they agreed to take a risk. The mistake was serious enough to cause all kinds of fuss, bad publicity, financial damage and extra work to adjust the Activia proposition. It goes to show that brands, whether large or small, will have to pay more attention than ever to the statements they make and what they bring to market.

Sports brand New Balance went a little too far overboard when it claimed that a New Balance sneaker would help burn calories thanks to "hidden board technology." Buyers became plaintiffs when they discovered the sneaker increased their risk of injury but had no secret or wonderful technology whatsoever, and they sought $5 million in damages. A costly affair for a shoe that retailed for $100. Auto manufacturers Hyundai and Kia created their own little problem by overstating the horsepower in some of their cars by as much of 9.6% or more. California buyers were not pleased, and in the end the makers settled a class action lawsuit for an amount estimated to be between $75 million and $125 million.

You don't have to be a marketing or branding professional to see many, many more such "incidents" cropping up everywhere. All over the planet, brands large and small, international and local are running into trouble with claims they really shouldn't have made. Pushing the truth stops being sharp positioning when it starts becoming a lie. Once upon a time that wouldn't lead to anything more than unsatisfied customers, but in this day and age it comes back at you like a boomerang. A really bad customer experience – be it with a product or because of a service promised but not supplied – can be shared with an unheard of number of people, and it _will_ be shared: this is something you can count on. Bad publicity will run away with any untruthful claim, even so much as a rumor about an untruthful brand or product.

Dé Stoop, a once-legendary Dutch businessman and owner of an elevator manufacturing company, was known to have said, "Bad publicity is also free publicity, as long as they write about me or my business: fine by me." His business is no longer with us; maybe at some point bad press got the better of him after all. Did he have a point? In more romantic times than today, maybe he did. But not anymore. Now that people are technologically able to get to the bottom of things from the comfort of their living room sofa, bad publicity can do more damage than ever.

Technology has made it easy for any one of us to scrutinize anything at all. Search engines, forums with consumer reviews, consumer groups organizing themselves on the Internet, social media always ready to run rampant on anything remotely true or even halfway true about a company – all of it is shifting risk from the buyer back to the seller. The balance of power between brands and consumers was in favor of brands as long as they had the monopoly on the information supply. Whatever they said had to be taken as gospel: their ads, commercials and testimonials had the road to themselves, a one-way street to the waiting masses that could hardly escape the barrage of influence, bar switching off radio and television and boycotting newspapers.

Now technology has handed the power of information back to the consumer. Suddenly it isn't about brand image anymore, but about the reputation of the brand and the whole organization behind it. The Internet of things is being replaced by the Internet of consumers, and this has produced a reality to which many brands haven't managed to adjust. They'd better start learning quickly, however, because the connected world out there isn't waiting for anyone and it's taking no prisoners. Being found out about anything from false promises to hidden costs can quickly lead to public humiliation, and may even result in nasty, expensive courtroom appearances. Brands have become vulnerable, not just in terms of reputation but also in terms of financial liability.

## The empowered consumer

For many brands, it apparently takes a lot of getting used: this new reality of having to deal with consumers actually talking back or having something to say about them to their network of friends and followers. It must feel a lot like leaving the cozy brand offices and suddenly realizing you're naked in front of a crowd. What do you do now, what do you say, how do you behave? The brand's image is no longer a defense against scrutiny; obviously, people are staring right through the brand's image and straight into its heart and the company's reputation. So what have brands got there? What are they really made of? People want to know, and it is ill advised to take that lightly. Which is a problem, because a lot of brands are built on traditional business models that were never developed with an empowered consumer in mind.

Brands in general are built to make money – let's tell it like it is. Nothing to be ashamed about, but brands must be prepared for a lot more extra work in order to achieve the same levels of success they enjoyed when their brand image alone was, well, showing them the money. To make money now, a brand will have to adopt a whole new stance for dealing with the demand for transparency that has descended on brands and companies. Brand accountability is already one of the important issues to consider. From the ranks of consumers, all kinds of moral and ethical criteria have come into play over and above normal demands like quality, price, instant availability and service.

It's not just a matter of risking a brand's reputation by withholding information; it's also a matter of looking long and hard and critically at your brand to see if you can check all the boxes. Honesty and integrity will have to be included in the value set of any brand, large or small, high-end or low. Brands and companies will have to adapt to meet the public's approval at all times. One slip-up can be enough to set a brand back for a good long while, or even forever. Even major brands like Nike and Apple had to be very quick to react to publications that claimed their products (or part of their products) were assembled in grimy, dangerous, Third World facilities (by underage workers). Some publications were true, others were dubious or not entirely correct, but that didn't matter. The moment a brand has to react to this kind of allegation, some damage has already been done – not to the brand's image, but to the company itself. Which could easily translate into a downward spiral of slipping stock prices, decreased market value, less room to innovate, fewer exciting new products and flagging interest on the part of customers and consumers. A damaged reputation is bad enough emotionally, but for many brands and companies it can be directly connected to financial woes.

Brands cannot afford the bad publicity and there is only one way – a simple way, I might add – not to have to deal with it: don't take the risk. Don't risk anything that could bring such rumors about. Be transparent in all your dealings, from the way you produce your products to how much you pay your workers to what you do to minimize your environmental footprint. Quit hiding "clever" conditions in the fine print of your contracts: "your subscription will automatically be renewed and can only be ended by writing at least one month before the expiry date ..." Outrage is never far away and all it takes is one really angry guy to start a Facebook page against this kind of lawyer-induced greed. Empowerment: one word says it all.

## Beyond image

The new era we are entering now will later be remembered as a game changer in brand marketing. The walls around brands are coming down fast. Brands are coming to grips with the realization that traditional mass-media advertising is not effective anymore. The one-way information street is effectively closed down; people are running all over the place, darting into all kinds of alleys and side streets, hard to follow and even harder to find behind their little tablet and smartphone screens. They are through with looking in awe at a big brand's latest ads or at little brands' randomly distributed flyers on their doormat. If a brand wants their attention, it will have to resort to technology and start applying it to get into personal marketing, building relationships with people. If brands want to be as liked as much as they used to be just for having a nice image, they need to stop fussing over that image and start working on their reputation, their accessibility to consumers, their connection with customers and their love for loyal fans. They need to get to know the people they want to sell something. Not as a demographic, but as a person.

Think about what we are getting into. Already the first signs that we are on the brink of a cashless society have arrived. Contact-free payment by bankcard is just one new development, and paying by smartphone is already big in the Third World, where many people don't even have bank accounts, but they do have a smartphone. When will we have the last banknote in our hands? It may be more like twenty years than fifty, I should imagine. Why is this important for brands? Because this development also illustrates how extremely close brands and companies will be to their customers. The data that will arise from that development alone – purchasing by smartphone – could be immensely valuable for retailers and brands alike. Yes, privacy will be an issue that should be dealt with. But that will be resolved the minute brands prove they can behave themselves. Consumers have no problem with brands that don't stalk them relentlessly or aggressively, but instead use their data to inform them personally (!) about things they are really interested in. Respect given is respect returned. The brands that see this development coming should already think about how to connect emotionally with people on a one-on-one level and how they can use technology to get a real conversation going between brand and customer. The technology that has created a transparent world in which brands are vulnerable must somehow be turned around and made useful; it must enable brands to build trust and relationships with consumers.

Personal and community apps, for example, will play a big part in the new era of brand marketing. If there is anything that will support the last vestiges of what used to be called brand image, then it will be a brand's app. It is the technological replacement of the likeability ad agencies used to encourage brands to spend so much on. Tomorrow's likeability will be defined not by great advertising, but by the level of true interest a brand can bring to the app-using consumer. Practicality, relevant information, helpfulness, human contact, solutions that seem tailored to the individual customer's needs – this is what brand marketing will be about. "My friend brand X" is what we are heading for. The brand as handy, useful, next-door neighbor living in an app, always there when you need him (and never there when you don't want him to be), always coming up with a quick answer, a sensible solution or something else to help you out because he knows what you like.

Brand marketing made personal thanks to technological advances will result in other business models, aimed more than ever at increasing sales and profits by increasing loyalty, fandom and "ambassadorship" within a brand's own community of customers. People are already withdrawing from the high streets and retail floors to buy stuff. They are becoming a new breed of happy shoppers behind smart-TVs, which they no longer use primarily for watching TV. People are switching on their smart-TV to surf the Internet and order shoes from Zalando, music from Apple Music and lawnmowers from Bol.com.

It is quite telling that in the UK, the BBC will have to lay off 1,000 people as viewers are no longer willing to pay their TV-license anymore. They don't need to – they can stream online programs for free or watch on-demand films and series for a small fee on Netflix. This tells us two things: 1. Brands cannot continue to pour money into TV-advertising like they used to (and still do), because the time is near in which no one will be watching when brands expect them to; and 2. Brands will have to shift their budgets and their attention to a new premise: connection is transaction. They will have to get their heads out of "target audience brand research panel group reports" and embrace smart data application, concentrating on establishing genuine contact with real individuals with actual feelings and clear preferences.

## The voice of society

One of the intriguing outcomes of the Brandshare research by Edelman I mentioned earlier in this book is that 87% of people interviewed want a more meaningful relationship with brands. Opposing that number are the views that people currently have: 70% think brands are just self-centered and profit-hungry, and 66% find that the relationship between brands and customers is only one-sided. No more than 30% feel brands have a sincere commitment to people. It is plain to see that brands who really are serious about becoming relevant to people have their work cut out for them.

This is the legacy of the "brand image era." The best way to oblivion is to continue looking at your brand image as if it was the Koh-I-Noor. True, the great thing about brand image is that it does make a brand stand out from the crowd; it makes a brand recognizable and inflicts the right kind of associations on customers. The problem is that this will not be enough to win current consumers. The usual brand compounds of emotion and rationality have been getting company in the form of social engagement. Our modern, fast, and stressful society seems to have overstepped its need for growth and progress, driven by ever-bigger corporate conglomerates as well as overregulation by governments and institutions. It has made people grumpy and uneasy; it has them made feel like a paper cup in a large ocean, tossed about by unseen and unstoppable powers.

Instead of going with the flow, however, people have begun to turn against that tide en masse by looking around for new and meaningful issues to embrace. Sustainable energy, growing your own vegetables, authentic craftsmanship, the inner self and other forms of spirituality, an increasing sense of community: the subjects are as divers as the people themselves, but the tendency is clear. The overall feeling is that the world has gone mad and therefore it is high time that we find things that are still – or have again become – sincere, authentic, natural, interesting, relevant to our existence, durable, simple, educational, spiritual, earthy, meaningful. In other words, truly important to human beings. Which is exactly the question brands will have to consider: Are we really and truly important to human beings?

Brands will have to reach out with relevance to those they would like to reach out to. Unfolding the massive advertising umbrella won't get them anywhere – that's a solution from the past. They need to get their story straight about what makes them relevant, why people should be willing to believe in them and follow them with interest. The brand story, so often confused with the _advertising_ brand story, will need to show substance, authenticity and integrity – and all that on the right emotional level. Let no brand make the mistake of combining the same bright, shiny exterior image with a sporadic and forced show of social sponsoring. Being a brand in this world means offering the whole package; the brand box cannot be filled with images and emotions and other brand image goodies alone; also – and more importantly – it needs the "brand meaning of life."

Brands need a brand mission as much as any large corporation needs a corporate mission. Brands need to be able to explain why they are here, what they have to contribute to the world. Brands with little more than a merrily fluttering brand image flag on their rooftops can forget having a future. The future may still be there for them, but it won't be a bright one. People are sick and tired of brands' smoke and mirrors. They have had enough of that. People want interesting brands that mirror their own personal attitudes towards society. People want brands that are able to match their personal views with sincere actions, convictions and goals. People want brands that share their personal interests, worries, needs and demands. People want brands they can be proud of on a deep emotional level.

Brands don't have to go all mushy – there is no reason not to continue realizing solid sales goals and making money. The all-important thing is for brands to understand that they are looked upon differently and need to react accordingly. The way consumers are looking at brands today is like anglers fishing: they have a good look at what they haul from the water – and they only take home what they are proud to come home with, proud to show their friends and family. It's the special ones that survive, the brands with a real story and a growing reputation for being all they can be for people, planet and society.

Establishing such a reputation is a big task for any brand, because it's more than just an image. It takes conviction and the ability to stick to an authentic brand story on all fronts – meaning that anybody responsible for or associated with the brand needs to behave in accordance with the brand story. No loose ends, no slip-ups, no foul play, no ill-considered product claims. Brands that do not behave properly, in the broadest sense of the word, will lose their credibility in short order. Brands need story management along with the usual brand management, and they need the commitment of everyone involved in the entire brand organization to get it right. Not just for now and not a few years from now. Millions of people will be looking for and switching to brands that meet their personal views on life more than halfway, for brands that fit their lifestyle. As for the brands that don't? They will be the little fish, the ones that get thrown back into the pond to drown in sorrow.

# Insight 6: Emerging markets, the ALREADY big thing!

China has over 3,000 mostly local TV stations and a multitude of local newspapers, and they all are better watched and better read than any other national news medium. Try gaining a share of voice there as a multinational, globally marketed brand: don't forget to bring your wallet.

Challenging is an understatement when it comes to building a brand in emerging markets. To quote Frank Sinatra: "If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere." Still, emerging markets are impossible for Western brands to pass up, and the opportunities they offer are too promising to pass up. If there are places where double-digit growth is still a serious possibility – even after the emerging market dip of late – then it is in the once remote areas of the world.

There is quite literally a whole world to win for marketers, who would like to see themselves as the Marco Polos of the 21st century.

The surprising thing is, you may think the technological advances that have made travel, logistics, retail, distribution and above all communication easier all the time would have made for, well, already matured emerging markets. In other words, that those once barren, virtually local and regional markets outside the US and Western Europe would by now have become as congested as our Western markets.

However, it is only in the last 20 to 25 years that we have seen the development set in which has led to the now-common term "globalization." The Western world started exporting its brands and branding power to the "virgin" markets of the world, lured by the potentially tremendous profitability that seemed to be for the taking just by virtue of entering the market at all. Millions and millions of people there enjoyed an impressive rise in spending power, and they were practically hopping to spend their money on famous Western products and brands. Success is something to enjoy and show off with: a universal emotion, shared by consumers all over the world.

The impact of these developments on emerging markets has been enormous. This new consumer empowerment has led to a marketing environment that may not have grown into something equal to what it is in the West – at least, not everywhere, not yet – but many markets are quite close. We have seen the explosive growth of product choices and communication channels and even digital platforms in emerging markets. Locally founded brands and companies in emerging markets may have started late, and they may have come from far, but you must admire their will to grasp their opportunities quickly.

Haven't we all stood in awe as we watched a company and brand strangely named Alibaba, founded by a modest Chinese man, a former English teacher, realize one of the biggest IPOs in history? Who would have expected that several years ago?

It represents one of the most striking aspects of emerging markets: they are through emerging. Not just in China and India, where technology has been embraced in a very big way, but also in many parts of Africa and South America. What many of us in our part of the world have only recently come to realize is that emerging markets have not needed to do what we in the West took years to do. Over here, we have been busy developing technologies to improve anything from production techniques to logistics to communication networks to speedier distribution methods. Emerging markets were able to implement all that – either directly or as a version of their own – more or less at once. We did the work for them, you could say.

Emerging markets have skipped the maturing stage. They have been able to enter the fray in a whole new era entirely. They have had a short, steep learning curve and many markets, along with their companies and brands, have made the most of it. That being said, it sounds as if it would be quite easy for Western "mature world" brands and companies to step right into any emerging market and start building a profitable future. Technology in place, communications set up, media pretty much OK, so let's go – right? Not quite. Although progress is unmistakably taking place in emerging markets, they aren't called "emerging" for nothing. They're not just emerging in terms of any business or economic sense of the word. Rather, they are emerging from a cultural background that is wholly, totally and completely different from ours. Which adds an unexpected bump in the road for brands and brand building: people aren't looking at brands and products the way we do, nor are they buying them the way we assumed they would.

## A brand is ... what is a brand, anyway?

Go to many parts of Africa, go to Brazil, go to India, go to China – welcome to the world of consumer emotions like you've probably never experienced before. Even for experienced brand builders it feels like you just left business school and stepped right into a world that doesn't have a lot to do with what the books and professors have put into your head. Straight of the bat, your whole idea of what a brand means may get rattled, if not seriously shaken.

Our way of looking at brands in Western society, in mature markets, as marketers and as consumers, is nicely structured. We have been educated by brands. We have learned what brands mean or should mean, why brands are important to us. To all of us over here, brands are a sign of quality; brands are a guarantee for consistency; brands are a way of telling good products from bad.

Brands radiate integrity, a serious emotional promise of trust. All of this been ingrained in very the fiber of our being, as Western consumers, and in our thinking as marketers over the course of half a century. We have matured ourselves, just like our brands and just like the whole neat system of marketing, communication and distribution that goes with them. We behave accordingly, always keeping more or less in line with a brand's expectations and predictions. In general, there are not a lot of really amazing surprises when companies introduce a new brand into our mature markets. In this day and age it is getting harder in terms of marketing and communication – as we have established so far in this book – but it is still within the boundaries of predictability.

In emerging markets, things are a little bit different.

To begin with, the population of most emerging markets hasn't been trained as we have in how to buy a brand or a product. Don't forget that many people are in the early stages of earning decent wages, or have only just been promoted to middle-class existence – and middle-class in Nigeria still means something else than middle-class in Germany, the UK or Belgium. This is an emerging market paradox: the technology for engaging with consumers easily, deeply, and pretty much the way we are used to is already there, but consumers in emerging markets don't have the same level of experience with brands or products. Many people are first-time consumers. They are still looking to buy things like their first car, their first television, their first fridge, or their first package of diapers or tampons.

Their relative consumer virginity makes them more unpredictable, at least in Western market eyes. Their road to the buying decision is different from what we are used to, and different from what our traditional business models and marketing strategies are set up to handle. We have to deal with a whole different set of emotions and consumer behavior at one end, and we have to take a different view of branding, communication, media use and distribution at the other. In 2012, research conducted by McKinsey involving some 20,000 consumers on three continents took a closer look at the main differences between emerging market consumers and developed/mature market consumers. They came across 3 interesting and crucial differences that will define brand building in emerging markets for some time to come.

**A. More word of mouth marketing.** When a brand spreads the word, it's not exactly gospel for people in emerging markets. Instead, they place far greater trust in other people's opinions and endorsements – friends and family members especially – that anything else that might influence their decision to purchase just about anything, even simple food items. Around 70% of consumers in Asia and Africa have been known to base their decision to buy food brands on recommendations by relatives, compared to 30% or 40% in the UK or the US.  
They place a big premium on seeing friends and family own or use a product already, as this tells them whether or not the product is good, or whether it will give them trouble or fall apart too soon. There is still not enough confidence in brand names on products to just go out and buy and try like we do. Which makes sense: they may earn more money now, but not so much that they would spend it haphazardly just to try a product, and therefore running the risk that it would turn out to be a disappointing product.

Another reason they put so much more confidence in the opinion of friends and family is a geographical one: they generally live close to each other. Notwithstanding the digital possibilities that are already (getting) in place in many emerging markets, consumers prefer to trust word-of-mouth communication more than the opinions of strangers on television, Internet forums or consumer platforms. They are traditionally accustomed to finding what they need within their own community, be it practical help from friends, family and neighbors or their personal opinions about products and services. Chinese consumers found only 53% of online recommendations credible – a bleak number compared to the 95% who trusted recommendations from the circles of their close relatives.  
What it means for companies wanting to do business in emerging markets is that they have to start working on local marketing and communication instead of unfolding the usual nationwide targeting approach. It makes more sense to focus attention on a relatively small cluster of cities, or on a region, and to establish a substantial market share there first. Once they've built a good reputation there, word of mouth will do its work and experiences with the product or the brand will spill over fairly quickly into other parts of the country. It's a good way of keeping expenditures down while making relevant use of the market's culture. In India, this worked well for Proctor & Gamble and its Whisper brand of sanitary napkins. They targeted local communities by offering training and free samples to adolescent girls in schools, thus creating the word of mouth that enabled P&G to gradually expand the campaign to reach 2 million girls at 15,000 schools. You might call this an old-fashioned way of marketing, but obviously it was exactly the right way to go in this kind of market for this kind of product.

**B.** **Smaller sets of considered brands.** Reading this, many Western marketers would spontaneously (and logically) think: "OK then, first, let's throw as much money as possible into TV advertising." Because that's how we've been trained to think. In the first place, without a place among the evoked set of brands, you don't have a chance of being considered anytime soon. Distribution channels might even think twice about allowing your brand or product access to their shelves. So build awareness first and then we'll see about working our way to brand preference.  
True, this works in our matured markets – though increasingly that's much less so today. And up to a point, it does have its effects when you approach an emerging market in the same way.

However, I would recommend having a look at the local news first. Emerging markets are local markets, in a cultural sense. That is a large generalization, but the reality is that media-use – like word of mouth – is for a large part locally driven. Which in turn is one the reasons why emerging market consumers have a small evoked set of brands.

In China it is not unusual for consumers to have just three brands to which they are reasonably loyal, buying one of them 60% of the time. In mature markets there's an average of four, with a purchase rate of 30% to 40%. It's a matter of making the effort to get to know more about local or regional markets in emerging economies and coming to grips with media use there, plus finding the right message – that last part being particularly tricky. Testing messages should definitely be a standard part of the strategy – maybe even more than it is in matured markets. In emerging markets, the message needs to be tailored to suit local market preferences, which can differ greatly from perceived national (or general) interests.  
Acer China tested the nationwide message "Simplify my life" for its PC, but discovered they didn't get very far with it. A PC is a major purchase for Chinese consumers, so their main concern is usually durability. When Acer China did a rethink and started talking about reliability, they found they were able to gain much more trust, which spread quickly by word of mouth. As a result, their TV-advertising was also better received and more highly respected: a valuable asset in a culture where consumers are highly status-conscious and tend to prefer brands they perceive as leading. Acer China doubled its market share in less than two years.

**C. Longer in-store decision making.** Not trusting brand names immediately tends to make emerging market consumers want to know as much as they can about a product before deciding to purchase. In general, they are quite happy to visit a lot of stores to collect information, particularly when it comes to items with a larger price tag. When it comes to consumer electronics, for example, the road to the final decision could easily take two months and at least four store visits. Customers go all the way, testing products, interacting with sales reps and negotiating with retailers to get the best possible deal. So there is a lot of time and space for influencing the choice of emerging market consumers. In China – to keep coming back to a familiar example – people are twice as likely as people in the US to switch brand preference while still shopping for fast-moving consumer goods.  
At the same time, it's a tough battle to get onto the retail floor. The retail landscape is not as clean-cut as it is in European countries. Products can be sold through thousands of retail outlets of all sizes after going through as many as three layers of distributors. Most of the time, companies have nary a clue as to what goes on in the actual stores.

Emerging markets have a knack for chaotic sales processes, characterized by inconsistent merchandizing and packaging as well as local in-store promotions, all of which can harm advertising strategies that, on paper, looked very good indeed. Avoiding that kind of confusion in the retail and distribution chain is clearly something that needs careful attention before starting off in any emerging market. Knowing which outlets are the valuable and important, for example, is something that enables a company to implement tailored control systems, train sales teams, collaborate well with retailers, and implement some sort of IT-infrastructure to get a solid picture of how those stores are performing.

## Emerging woes

Emerging markets have already had their share of the worldwide economic crisis. The generous investments that went into them in the nineties were diminished and even halted when the crisis hit in 2008 and subsequently continued. It is another aspect of emerging markets that they are still vulnerable and not entirely stable as business environments. Strategically, it has generated caution among the leaders of large multinational companies, where blank checks for investing in emerging markets are no longer handed out so freely to country managers in Brazil or Asia. The big boom has shown a little bust, and a number of companies are still coming to terms with disappointing growth or painful losses. At the very least, there has been a slowdown – though not all companies suffered huge setbacks or had a hard time readjusting.

Consumer goods by companies like Coca-Cola, Unilever and Proctor & Gamble felt some tremors of the crisis in their emerging market operations, but little more more than a relatively gentle weakening and a few currency problems. More seriously hit were the cyclical and capital-intensive industries. Fiat-Chrysler, Volkswagen and Renault saw their profits tumble in emerging markets; Peugeot wrote off some $1.6 billion in assets in Russia and Latin America. Cisco saw its sales fall steeply in South America. Orders for large infrastructural projects from industrial corporations like ABB and Alstom were postponed or even cancelled in many emerging markets.

Worst off were companies with really unexpected and unprecedented hiccups in emerging markets on top of the general economic downturn. China coming down on corruption and the culture of gift-giving put a large dent in the sales figures of luxury brands like Remy Cointreau. In Russia, things are not what they were before the crisis. Not only because of the crisis itself, but also because of Putin's actions Crimea and Ukraine – the all time low point of which was the devastating shooting of a civilian plane. That disaster has led to stiff sanctions that have pulled down the Russian economy – and the spending power of many Russians with it. Are these problems typical for emerging markets? Yes and no. Setting up a business there and trying to build a brand involves a serious learning curve. It's not simply a matter of applying Western logic and marketing strategies in places like Vietnam or Nigeria or Colombia. You need to be prepared for erratic market behavior, sudden political changes, ethnic and cultural differences within one and the same market, a degree of illiteracy and a certain amount of mistrust aimed at foreign brands and companies trying to get in the front door.

But.

It is still worth it. Emerging markets are markets where solid growth can still happen, more so than in idea- and innovation-poor wastes of Europe. Big European companies make one third of their sales in the emerging markets, almost triple what they made in 1997. American companies get around one-fifth of their profits from emerging markets, and Japanese companies one-tenth. Many have already been there since colonial times, but most started pouring into developing countries when it became obvious that living standards there were improving, spending power was on the rise and – most importantly – business in the West stagnated. Expanding to the fast-growing BRIC countries was high on the agenda of almost every corporate board in large companies worldwide. Although not every venture has been a major success, all in all it was and still is sound business to be active in emerging markets. The short-term problems don't put an end to the long-term promise. Being there and staying there can lead to situations that are even more profitable than expected. Such is the character of emerging markets that your brand could suddenly become what it was not at home.

Japanese car manufacturer Suzuki had been nurturing a fairly sleepy Indian operation – only to see it quite unexpectedly grow into an important player in India, accounting for the biggest part of its market value there. Danish brewer Carlsberg took over a beer firm in St. Petersburg, Russia, and found out unexpectedly that people were starting to embrace Carlsberg as a "Russian player" as a result. Mandom, an 87-year-old Japanese brand, never though it would grow into a giant of the Indonesian male-cosmetics market. Emerging markets are that unpredictable. As our mature markets recover somewhat from the economic crisis, there will undoubtedly be some rethink exercises going on in the upper echelons of large corporations. While the first great waves of enthusiasm may have died down by now, there won't be a general retreat from emerging markets. The new growth in mature markets isn't that great at the moment, and although many companies have restructured and reorganized in the post-crisis years, our mature markets just don't have as much to offer to businesses and brands in the future as emerging markets.

The business environment in Europe especially lacks everything most emerging markets already have and will be improving in the middle and longer term. Over there you work in nimble markets, already technologically savvy, where you are able to move faster thanks to the lack of red tape and overregulation, and you will find a workforce that is highly motivated and increasingly better skilled, plus a young and dynamic population of consumers and an expanding middle-class. Emerging markets have progress to offer, while here in Europe we concern ourselves with unproductive political mayhem instead of working on a healthy business environment that will help get us going places again. In emerging markets the game is very much on for brands and businesses; in Europe, as it stands now, it's _Game Ov3r_.

# Insight 7: New demands on the demand economy

In the film _Minority Report_ , Tom Cruise plays a cop who can prevent crimes before they are committed. Even before people know they need to be rescued from getting killed, they get rescued. As science fiction it makes for an entertaining and exciting film. Could it ever become reality and is that day far off? I don't see why not. Look at it this way: it's probably the best possible on-demand service you can imagine. With the way on-demand development is happening all around us, I don't see why something like this wouldn't be on the cards.

After all, there are a lot of Henry Fords sprouting up out there, even as we speak. The car manufacturer became truly legendary because he had the bright idea of installing assembly lines and combining them with mass labor. It didn't just make building cars much cheaper and quicker – it changed society, as cars were no longer just a rich man's gadget but a means of transport within reasonable reach of the common man too. That was the early 20th century. Now, over a hundred years later, we see the same thing happening again, with approximately the same far-reaching effects on society, business and daily life. Today, however, it's no longer about car parts combined with fast assembly line workers. Today it's about that strange, abstract phenomenon we have come to know as "services" combined with phenomenal computing power, the result of which is an irresistible delivery speed.

All of a sudden you don't have to be rich or looking for an expensive taxi on a rainy street in order to go somewhere in a chauffeur-driven car: the Uber app on your smartphone will provide that for you, sir. You don't have to go to the cleaners: Handy will do that for you in a tap of the app. Instacart will keep your fridge stocked; SpoonRocket delivers excellent meals to your home. Netflix streams you a movie the very second you think, "I'd like to see a movie." iTunes sends you an e-book on your tablet; Amazon is very close to delivering anything the same a day; Zalando's tracking system is showing impatient women exactly where their new pair of heels is at this very moment and when it will arrive for trying on.

Our children's demands have now come true: "Mommy, I want this, I want that, I want wheeeee ..." – you must have done the same sort of whining once – I know I did. Now, though, it doesn't take whining for something to arrive on demand. If you want to spend your time on things other than the banal aspects of a human life, this is your era. We have arrived in the World of On-demand, where the motto is: "You want it fast, you want it now, and you'll get it: now." For some businesses it's their worst nightmare; for others, it's the portal to paradise. The hardest part seems to be thinking up something new that people would love to obtain right this minute, or – let's take something really late – early tomorrow morning.

After that it is a matter of organizing the logistics and the app to start the orders flowing. I'm oversimplifying, of course, but technologically there is no excuse not to get into an on-demand business. Everything has come together to form the perfect on-demand storm: faster technology, consumers that want stuff as soon as possible and the now universal addiction to apps, computers, tablets and smartphones.

If there is one change that is certain to exert a radical influence on the way we live in the world, it's the idea that we don't have to wait for anything anymore. The time for waiting is past – no, let me rephrase that: the time in which we _accepted_ having to wait is past. We have never liked to wait. The saying goes that "good things come to those who wait" – that's all well and good, but time is the most precious thing we have in our life on earth. We would like to spend it on things and activities we enjoy, not on things that prevent us from doing these things or activities we don't like. On the news we see a small robot car driving on Mars – so, as human beings we can do this, but we can't get a package from A to B in a week? Not acceptable. It has never been acceptable; it has always made people angry and impatient, but we put up with the "we do what we can, sir" attitude from companies. We just had to believe them, not knowing whether they were indeed doing their best or just didn't want to exert themselves trying to please us.

Now we see that, technologically speaking, that package could go from their A to our B in 24 hours, and we don't accept waiting for it anymore. And therein lies the biggest threat for businesses – if you even remotely think that you have time to adapt your services to the new reality of on-demand time, think again. Getting anything, anywhere, anytime, getting what I want, when I want and where I want it – that is the New Acceptable for consumers worldwide. That goes for products and packages, that goes for services rendered and that goes for answers given by customer support and helpdesks. Advanced technology has given us back that most precious of all items: time. Time we used to spend on senseless waiting.

## The new breed of business

On-demand service is not a luxury. It used to be, back when the rich had butlers and servants on hand to get them anything they wanted, pronto. From now on every business will have to be that butler to anybody, 24/7. Businesses will have to adapt to the whole idea that they have lost the power to serve clients their way. There is no way that a business takes "up to 4 working days" to get something delivered or done. Businesses can try, but they need to be prepared for competitors who think exactly like the clients they have gone into business for. The new breed of business will be fast as a whippet and smart as a fox in finding ways to deliver on-demand. Everything will be "Uberized," one way or the other.

At the moment many on-demand businesses are start-ups, set up by fiercely competitive entrepreneurs who are totally involved with app technology and logistically extremely savvy, often backed by generous business angels who have spotted the promise of new gold in on-demand companies. The small, flexible business is the new big business.

Even when some of them make it big in terms of growth, they don't get fat and lazy; instead they maintain their own on-demand sense of urgency, keeping their eye on the ball in order to stay on top of their game and ahead of the pack. It isn't hard to figure out why traditional big businesses, with their layered, slow organizations, are having trouble fighting off this kind of competition. Adapting to on-demand times is more a mentality shift than a technological shift. Technology you can buy. Technology you can implement in your business systems; you can turn around your logistical organization, you can re-organize and retrain your workforce, you can do anything that is necessary – quite easily, as a matter of fact. But the big question is: can you get everybody in the company in the right on-demand state of mind? Are you really, really, really up for that?

## Demand is always on

Being on-demand is a mindset. Without that mindset – and it has to be prevalent on every single level of a company – any attempt to compete with on-demand services will fail, and fail miserably. What's the point of doing everything right logistically when anyone trying to reach the helpdesk has to wait? "One moment, please ... Your call is important to us ... A representative will be with you shortly ..." Does that sound familiar? Shortly – that's not a word you want to say to the on-demand customer. They're done with "shortly." They want to be put through directly to someone who can actually help them, or they want to chat online with someone who can answer their questions. One survey, conducted by data collection provider ResearchNow and commissioned by TalkTo (the developer that came up with the business-centric TalkTo app) found that the average person will spend 43 days in his or her lifetime on hold with an automated customer service helpline.

That makes some 58% of the customers really angry, and 48% of the people questioned said they believed that calling any business is useless. There is always an extreme example to illustrate this and the all-time winner must be the Australian who in 2012 called Qantas airline to confirm a flight and waited 15 hours, 40 minutes, and 1 second before hanging up the phone – without having spoken to the right person. True or just a little true: the fact is that being put on hold when you call a customer service department is very much what people have taken for granted for a long time. Companies need to understand that this has to stop before they go to market with any product or service whatsoever. People want on-demand answers just as much as on-demand products and services.

Being an on-demand company needs to be in your blood, so to speak. Having lost the power to serve consumers on your terms is something you need to leave behind. There is no time to nurture damaged egos here. The consumer has the power and as a business you have to make sure you are with him, understand him and do the best you can to serve him each and every time he wants to be served. Businesses – especially the large, traditional ones – will have to think and move like shops that are always open. This will require new flexibility from any organization, from top to bottom, from app to delivery.

With technology being as advanced as it is, there is no risk in saying that traditional brands and businesses must shift gears quickly because the market is already being flooded with on-demand services offering start-ups. So much so that some people are questioning their ability to exist for long or are speculating about another dotcom bubble. There is, however, a big difference between the burst dotcom bubble and today's surge of on-demand apps and platforms. The dotcoms opened the doors to a bright new world called Internet, which in hindsight you could say was in fact "just" a whole new media, information and marketing channel. It says a lot about the sustainability of most dotcoms that the bubble burst because the revenues didn't quite come in as expected. As it turned out, most were little more than a website and an idea, but not a viable, profitable business.

Things are so much different now, because apps – the most significant bridge to the on-demand consumer – are not just user-friendly access points to all kinds of services and shopping possibilities, they are actually backed-up by completely functioning logistical supply chains and well-run, fast-moving businesses. Apps are great big welcoming front doors to organizations that are totally committed to the on-demand consumer. The dotcoms were Internet and channel driven, whereas the on-demand brands and businesses are truly consumer inspired. The brands and businesses that have sprouted up are showing us that they can find and keep an audience because they provide exactly what counts most today: "I want this and I want this now (please)."

We all know the "majors" Uber and Airbnb by now, but there is no limit to what you can set in motion as an on-demand service, as this niche example illustrates. It is called PRIV, an app that brings makeup and hair professionals, nail technicians, masseuses and personal trainers to New Yorkers' doors. It was launched as a platform for booking at-home beauty and wellness appointments, backed up by a well-organized team of people and a total focus on the high-end, on-demand service promised. Five months after the launch, they've experienced revenue growth of about 63% each month. Most importantly, approximately half of the clientele have made return appointments so far. There are clear signs that this is not just the next bubble set to burst or implode any time soon.

It is on-demand branding at its best as well as on-demand service at its best because of another distinctive aspect: it is a personal, individual _solution_. It is exactly in tune with the way we as consumers like to live our lives. In the on-demand economy, we are now able to pick whatever product, brand or service we want _at a specific moment of our choosing_ and order it in. Technology has finally made it that easy for us to have the world exactly as we want it at our fingertips.

Yet this on-demand economy goes much further than the occasional luxury. In the US you can click on Medicast's app, and a doctor will be knocking on your door within two hours. Want a lawyer or a consultant? Axiom will supply the former, Eden McCallum the latter. Other companies offer prizes to freelancers to solve R&D problems or come up with advertising ideas. And a growing number of agencies are delivering freelancers of all sorts, such as Freelancer.com and upwork, also in the US, which link up 9.3 million workers for hire with 3.7 million companies.

That last fact shows something else too: the on-demand economy is about calling on on-demand brainpower just as much as on on-demand Uber taxis. For some people this development spells the end of decent society as we have built it. Where are the jobs going? Well, they are going where the demand is. As communication and Internet technology have freed people from their rigid desks and cubicles, millions of people have decided to venture into the market as freelancers, hiring out competence of any sort. They are being joined by many more freelancers who are not so much freelance by virtue of their own free will, but because they have been laid off. This modern day workforce, this heaving sea of individual professionals, is actually speeding up the on-demand workforce economy as a whole. There are so many freelancers to choose from that their rates are under pressure, since only a few are so rare or specialized in what they do that they can get the high rates they ask for. Using an outsider for specific tasks has become cheaper over the years than employing people, an evolution that doesn't exactly favor the traditional, full-time employment way of doing things.

This is very much to the advantage of on-demand companies, which often function as middlemen: arranging connections, overseeing services and focusing on the quality of deliveries. Uber's business model actually centers on freelance help: the drivers only get paid when they work; they have to use their own car; they are responsible for their own pensions and health care – and so on. The risk that used to be carried by companies has been shifted onto the shoulders of the freelancer. We can do two things: complain about it but comply, or refuse to work that way and find a job. The latter is not really much of an option, since good-old full-time employment is gradually being abandoned.

Technology is largely responsible for these enormous shifts in the way we are leading are lives. It is important to consumers, but moreover to the people who would very much like to play a profitable part in these new on-demand times. The producers and providers of all our on-demand consumer needs plus the marketers and agencies involved in that process are scrambling to come to grips with this new problem. Marketing has never known a dull moment, but what brands, companies and marketers are confronted with now is a historic change in the whole process of getting to market. In the next 5 years, "go-to-market" will change more than it has in the last 50 years.

_A little side step, maybe_ , but still important enough to remark on: what goes for the business world, goes double for countries and their governments. The overregulation in the UK, Europe and the US is miles away from any on-demand aspect you can imagine. Governments lean on bureaucracy. That may be a burden from the past, but that doesn't mean it cannot at one time be reviewed radically and dramatically. It gets in the way of doing business and what is getting in the way of doing business is getting in the way of progress. In other parts of the world governments have gotten the message: in Dubai it takes just about 2 hours to start a business perfectly, all fair and square in paperwork, ready to go. Go anywhere in Europe and you'll be milling around for about 2 months waiting for stamps on papers you already had to work hard for to obtain and fill out. This shuffling paper contest you don't want to be the winner of, but in Europe especially old bureaucratic habits seem to have obtained holy status. Governments are still not seeing the value of paving the way for people with ideas and plans that could actually make a whole society move forward and thus add to its economy. That is silly and shortsighted. In an on-demand society there is no reason why governments should not be able to move as quickly as businesses can and do. The technology they use is just as available for governments - there is just no excuse to carry on as they do now.

The new era will be dominated by speed. The speed with which a product can be delivered to the front door, the speed with which a doctor can get to your bedside, the speed with which your fridge can be restocked, the speed with which you can deliver exactly the right staffers to a client. On-demand is about speed of delivery and the moment you want to get into that game, you will have to reshape everything, from the brand proposition to the supply chain. There is simply no question of getting into the market with an on-demand proposition when the workings of the organization behind it are still set to old school delivery times. Try as you might, there won't be any repeat customers. For traditional brand organizations and large, layered businesses, the key to transitioning into a consumer demand-driven company will be a fast supply chain that's smooth as silk.

Today's typical supply chain is agile, intelligent, transparent, and shorter than ever before. The managers responsible for it will have to come up with accurate demand forecasts to cope with the rising volatility in demand. In the on-demand economy, an average day for an Amazon-like online department store can change in seconds to become the hottest sales day in history when a great new product goes on sale, or when a group of people on Twitter start getting enthusiastic about a sales promotion. The global marketplace requires multi-country, multi-market capabilities to produce anywhere, sell everywhere and deliver all over. The traditional supply chain is slow, taking months for production and weeks to ship. That is no longer acceptable for brands and businesses that want to be competitive today.

Nowadays more and more companies are making new products every month and changing their styling every week: another consequence of the on-demand era is the demand for faster innovation, faster testing and faster manufacturing. On-demand businesses can't allow themselves to offer the same thing for too long; the online, on-demand consumer has turned into someone who is bored stiff if she doesn't see any change in an assortment soon or isn't prodded with something new that at regular intervals. To do this, companies need to shorten every possible part of decision-making, innovation, manufacturing, supply and delivery process. Speed is essential in helping companies cut down on inventory risks, improve consumer experience, resist market turbulence and keep up with the industry's rate of innovation. Products that fail to be delivered to consumers on time will quickly become obsolete.

## On-demand marketing

The rapidly changing landscape of our economy is literally a demanding place for marketers. The contradiction is striking: it makes sense to think things through, develop new products and plan strategic brand communication, but quite suddenly here is the need to do that in, what, half the time? If that much. This also calls for a different approach to the process of getting products and brands to market. For example, it is relevant to look at a different way of collecting all kinds of insights about a product through market research. Does it have to be as extensive as it normally is? Isn't it possible to use Internet forums and online consumer panels to test new products and even the marketing campaigns proposed for them? How psychological does market research have to be? The technology that brought us here must surely also be capable of helping out in the research department. But you have to be creative and willing to change the way research is done and data are gathered. The same goes for innovation. The last biggest change in the global marketplace has been the outsourcing of manufacturing from the West to emerging and developing countries, where anything from T-shirts to electronic gadgets to mobile phones can be produced more cheaply. That in itself has created a rather longish supply chain – the stuff has to come back to the West to be sold. The on-demand economy will put pressure on companies to shorten that weeks- or months-long supply chain further and further. A big challenge, to say the least. Mankind can do a lot, but large container ships still haven't turned into speedboats, that's for sure.

Here too technology is providing what may well be the next manufacturing revolution: 3D printing is already past the science-fiction stage. We are this close to 3D printing on an industrial scale; the speed with which it has been developing is staggering, and that's already saying a lot about what potential investors see in 3D printing. This might result in a turnaround, as 3D printing is a sophisticated production method and could therefore launch a whole new manufacturing industry in the Western parts of the world. Just think about it: the West may once again be able to have an industry that actually makes things. What a dramatic turn of events that would be. Of course, it would cut back the supply chain, and of course it would be an incredible plus in terms of speeding up on-demand possibilities even further. True, we're not quite there yet, but there is hardly any reason to think this development will be slowed down. In this world and this day and age, there are no limits to availability. Whatever people want, it will exist somewhere in the world and it will be delivered. Like Adidas says, impossible is nothing, and for the most part it's true. 3D printing will provide the tailor-made answer to every single product desire – even, as we have already seen, a body part. It is the very signature of the on-demand economy we see growing around us daily.

## The tech stretch

Traditional brands and companies will have a hard time making the transition because they have to change so many aspects of their thinking and operational processes. For tech brands, it will be like heaven just opened its doors. Tech brands have made stunning progress all on their own. They have changed from a _means_ to make things possible into _channels_ that make things possible and now they will change again into _solutions_ that make things possible. And while those solutions may sound surprising now, many of them are highly feasible. The stretch of tech brands is without a doubt organically wider than any other traditional brand or company.

Tech brands have had time to build an innovation-based reputation from the ground up, and many of them have met and solved lots of problems on the way. Most of them have evolved from great ideas to strong, reliable brands, proving every single day to millions of customers that they can deliver what they promise. Take that reputation and have a look at what it could mean for the stretch of tech brands. What other services, for example, might you accept and find believable coming from Google, Facebook, Uber or Dropbox? Let's say Google introduces Google Bank: Would that be too farfetched, or would it be an acceptable extension of a worldwide online tech brand capable of speeding up easy and reliable online payment around the world?

What about Amazon extending into a fast and reliable courier service – that doesn't sound too strange for a company that smoothly processes and distributes zillions of orders at once (Amazon currently advertises same-day deliveries in 14 cities in the US: How's that for an on-demand proposition?). PayPal: Why shouldn't they introduce an extremely reliable insurance company that compensates damages at breakneck speed, for instance? And somehow it seems to make sense that Facebook could extend into an online university, a Facebook educational community complete with Facebook campus? Education exactly like you want it, with whom you want it, from whom you want it – on-demand from your trusted friend Facebook. Another one to mull over: Dropbox extending to the off-line world, even, with storage facilities that can be shared by small groups of people. A very rough idea right now, but if you think about it, Dropbox as a brand may well have enough stretch to set up this kind of operation.

Technology is limitless in its capacity to become a solution instead of "just" a technological means to an end. Technology brands are so far ahead of traditional brands and businesses that it is not at all strange to wonder whether traditional brands will be able to keep up with these fast-moving, groundbreaking, on-demand-thinking, consumer-driven, user-friendly committed tech guys. Well, doesn't the last line say it all?

# Insight 8: If it's not mobile, it's not marketing

First, let's crunch some numbers. In 2015, more than 1 billion people worldwide will use a tablet, representing nearly 15% of the global population and more than double the number three years ago. By 2018, the number of tablet users in the world will reach 1.43 billion. In 2020 there will be 6 billion smartphones in the hands and pockets of the world's population. In 2014, total turnover in mobile marketing ran up to 400 billion dollars. In China some 25% of e-commerce was done from smartphones and tablets; some 30% of the traffic to websites of Chinese Internet stores originated on smartphones and tablets. In 2014, US mobile sales were up 76% compared to 2013. In the US, people also spend more time on their mobile devices than in front of the television: nearly 3 hours.

I could fill a whole chapter with figures like these without getting bored. The reason I won't is because while the numbers tell a great story, the story behind the story is what really counts. Because it is a story about yet another revolution that has been thrown our way. What it all comes down to is that brands and businesses are discovering that consumers now have the means to actively dodge any attempts to reach them. It's getting harder and harder to reach large numbers of people with the same proposition at once. People just won't sit still like they used to. Not literally, because the mobile phone has freed them from their physical homes and workplaces, and not figuratively either, because their fingers are constantly tapping away at their tablets, iPads and smartphones, taking their interest and attention elsewhere. They hop, skip and jump from site to site, from app to app, from one social medium to the next. Their attention span is getting shorter and shorter. They are seen in shopping centers and malls, heads bent over their phones, passing the windows of shops they used to visit, passing expensive billboards they used to look at – even sitting in front of their televisions ignoring the commercial breaks because they are busy with the "buy" button of a web shop.

It is mind-blowing to see how fast the mobile revolution has made the average consumer nearly 'unreachable' in a certain way. Practically overnight, catching someone has become vastly more complicated. And here we're just talking about reaching someone at some point; making her want to engage in some sort of conversation with you or turning the contact into a conversion is another matter altogether. This may well be one of the most dramatic effects of technology entering and changing ordinary lives. The rise of the smartphone in particular has freed mankind to do anywhere what he used to do glued to a desktop computer at home or at work. This has changed online behavior more than many marketers imagine. Think about how you used to act. Behind a desktop computer, you're in a fixed position, at rest, cup of coffee next to you, browsing calmly through the sites you like or discover, taking your time reading.

This is a completely different state of mind than the one you're in when you are going from A to B with your smartphone. Even while sitting down for a quick coffee somewhere, your focus will be more on mail, chat and social media than on sites where brands are waving about with all their banners and blogs. Your attention span is even shorter and since your time is probably more limited, you'll be more interested in a quick look at a funny film that was sent by a friend, or some other kind of entertainment – because who wants to be bothered by advertising on his coffee break, right? In addition to the things happening on your smartphone, there is the general hubbub around you, the clatter of the coffee shop, the noise of the traffic outside, and people walking past your table. Mentally speaking, the mobile experience is a different world when compared to the one desktop-laptop-online.

The tablet and iPad then – is that somewhere in the middle, in terms of focus and attention span? The larger size of the device does have its advantages, to start with. It makes it easier to browse, is easier on the eyes and also makes it easier to enjoy games, videos and other apps than the smallish smartphone. It is not surprising that the rise in mobile sales is in line with the rise of tablets as a mobile device in households. In September 2014, _The Guardian_ reported that in the UK alone, visits to retail websites had overtaken desktop traffic for the first time. Tablets and iPads accounted for 82% of online sales, smartphones for some 18%. The tablet has introduced people to shopping on their couch. More comfortable than sitting in front of a desktop, easier than squinting at a smartphone, and far more fun than slouching in front of the television. The tablet or iPad has become the second screen for many TV-shows, serving to connect with friends so that you can enjoy them together and comment on events on the television. But it also serves as an instant gateway to the mobile sites of those businesses and brands smart enough to make an offer that bridges the gap between the TV-screen and the iPad owner on the couch in front of it.

## Mobile frenzy

This mobile revolution is a worldwide phenomenon. The explosive rise in mobile communication is not just something that only we in our matured and technologically advanced markets can enjoy. Brazil, Russia, India and China are seeing the same kind of growth in mobile devices, and people in many other emerging and developing markets are embracing the chance to be as free as a bird with their phones or tablets. Interestingly enough, these countries are in fact skipping a whole step in their online development. They are not wasting their time on desktop computers. Instead, they are going straight to mobile. Traditionally the penetration of desktop computers has always been on the low side in those countries, because 1. There weren't that many people who could afford one; and 2. There has always been poor broadband availability. Today, as larger and larger numbers of people in those markets are able to spend more, they are not spending it on desktop or laptop computers but on mobile smartphones – and mobile shopping too.

Something that brands and businesses over there have discovered too, and quickly at that. In China mobile ad spending reached $7 billion, an increase of 600% in 2014 alone. And it doesn't look like the money going into mobile marketing is going to take a breather any time soon. This is what we're experiencing all over the world, because the way people are taking to mobile online content is forcing brands and businesses to make dramatic changes in their marketing mix. They will have to figure out how to use the technology that is virtually pulling their customers away from traditional channels. If they are ready for it, that is.

One scary bit of background information shows that 40% of marketers in the UK had to admit that they didn't have a clue what _programmatic media buying_ was. Why is that scary? Because marketers should already know that kind of stuff about mobile marketing, and if they don't, they're already lagging behind. Programmatic media buyingis one of the most efficient ways to reach target audiences on their mobile devices. It uses computer algorithms to buy ad space in real-time, which at least gives a degree of certainty that your ads will pop up at the right time in the right place in front of the eyes of the right prospect. Among the myriad possibilities of the online world, this is at least something to be happy about. Does it sound like techno-driven marketing? It does, but it's for your own good: get used to it and get used to it fast. For any serious marketer, this is not the time to keep signing off on media agency presentations that keep budgets locked into a mix of traditional channels instead of turning them loose on a mobile marketing mix. That kind of media planning still serves the needs of ad and media agencies, but not necessarily the needs of the marketer and his brand. In effect – I dare say – not at all. Adapt yourself and do it now. Because it will get more and more complex the coming years, with also the technology providers coming up with all new ways for users to block these new ways of mobile marketing. It's a constant battle for the mind, and for attention at the right moment, the right place, the right mindset, the right everything!

Mobile marketing has become fact of life at breakneck speed, but it needs to be ingrained in every brand's thinking even faster. After all, the opportunities that have come with the growth of mobile marketing are enormous. Consumers are quick learners and have taken new technologies – apps, paying by phone, banking by phone, to name a few – in their stride. Just a few years ago, who had ever heard of Zalando? Today Zalando is selling clothes and shoes online at a dazzling pace, with a turnover of 1.4 billion euros in the first half of 2015. People have quickly learned to appreciate the fun of shopping on their mobiles instead of in the bricks-and-mortar equivalent of retailers. Less hassle, less tiring and not as solitary as one would think: lots of women have a great time together on the sofa with their iPads, showing and comparing each other's favorite web shops, discussing the best deals, buying on the spot and toasting their purchases with a glass of wine. It's a different kind of shopping, but it is increasingly winning out over trips to crowded stores sweaty little fitting rooms. Trying on clothes is better done at home, and when that new dress disappoints, most women don't have any trouble sending the merchandise back.

## Up close and personal

The implications of the mobile revolution are that we are presently moving at speed towards something that has already been talked about for a while. In our marketers' wildest dreams we have been longing for the chance to get into a brand-to-person conversation, a one-on-one sales moment, as it were. We all know there is nothing more convincing than a personal talk about a brand, product, service or other kind of business activity. From the very first days of the traveling salesman with his suitcase full of samples, we have learned that once inside someone's door, the chance of a successful sale increases significantly. As human beings, we don't really like being pushed into something, but we do like to be charmed into something. We love personal attention and special treatment. We want to feel like it's all about us – and this is the main reason why the future of marketing is mobile.

The mobile phone, even more so than the tablet or iPad, has become an inextricable part of our lives. It is the one and only truly personal computer we all own. People who lose their mobile are understandably distraught, as their serious plans to make backups always seem to have stayed just that: plans. It's a big hassle to configure a new phone just like the one you lost, in part because of the unique, personal collection of apps you downloaded. The rise of the mobile device industry has gone hand in hand with a continuous stream of applications. Those colorful little icons, developed all over the world and know as apps, have already changed people's lives. Whatever your personal needs, desires and interests, there's an app for it somewhere and in many cases more than one. Show me your mobile phone and I will tell you who you are – there are hardly two people in the world that will have exactly the same apps on their phones, tablets or iPads. One's choice of apps is as personal as one's choice of clothing. The mix of apps on your mobile phone is as much a reflection of your personality as anything else that defines your lifestyle. If there is one thing to remember about mobile marketing, it is that yes, there is a mass of mobile users out there, but you have to forget thinking in terms of masses when it comes to marketing your brand or product to mobile users. This particular mass of mobile users is a mass of highly differentiated individuals. Which means that targeting them has taken on a whole new meaning.

Here comes technology to the rescue again. Technology as and enabler has not only given us the key to unlock the door of the mobile consumer, it will also help us to get up close and personal with whoever we like. Some brands and businesses crank out apps at top speed without knowing exactly why. The must-have feeling of the app as marketing tool has led to some overzealous app-making indeed.

In general, it would be a better idea to take a step back first and look at the fundamentals: do you actually know how and when and why your potential customers are using their mobile devices? What are they looking at? What are they browsing? What are they using, Android or iOS? Are they tapping on their smartphones more than their tablets, or is it the other way around? What are they after – are they information seekers or social media addicts? Readers or video fans? Are they browsers or buyers? What are they looking for in an app? And so on and so forth. Thorough analytics are very much needed to understand what is driving the mobile user, so make good use of technological data gathering and data analysis in cooperation with the brand's IT-department. Translate that data into a set of conclusions that can point you in the direction of the right decisions, such as: Should we be developing an app or would a mobile website suit us better?

For many in marketing communications, mobile marketing is still unchartered territory and rife with its own challenges and questions, so it becomes all the more important to get a grip on priorities. Marketing people will have to resist relying on gut feelings about past experiences, because with mobile marketing there are no past experiences. It does feel strange to focus on technologically based, data-driven decision-making first in order to create a realistic shot at personal marketing with your target audience. The discrepancy between "tech" and "person" is a strange one, but as marketers we have to set it aside and embrace the reality that "tech" is the surest way to reach a "person." No matter how enthusiastically a brand or business is about getting into mobile marketing, it is too risky to start building an app without the right basis. After all, apps are quite different from mobile versions of a website in the sense that people perceive them as offering a unique user experience, whereas a mobile website is more about the usual information supply, product comparison or lead generation that their big twin sister website offers too, only made to fit a smaller screen.

Apps are special doors to special places. The best apps show that they seem to _know_ what a particular kind of person likes. They always offer something that looks or feels as if it were made just for this or that person. A good app has that personal feeling to it, either because it offers a service that is exactly what a specific someone needs in his life, or because it presents an environment that fits in surprisingly well with someone's interests, work or hobbies. The great thing about an app is that it can function as a way for a brand or business to show that it _understands_ people and honestly tries to _support_ them in the life they lead. It is the brand's ultimate user-friendly backdoor to the heart of consumer, a way of engaging him and talking him into getting to know the brand and even interacting with the brand. As a means of reaching out to the mobile consumer, an app of your own can be very effective, but apps can also be used effectively as an advertising medium.

We tend to forget because Twitter has become so familiar, but Twitter is in fact nothing more (and nothing less) than an app. It is one of the most popular apps in the world, and for that reason alone it's already worth considering in-app advertising. The thing is, that's easier said than done. Have a look at any timeline on any average day and you will see brands and businesses passing by in Tweets that sound feeble or downright desperate. It seems difficult to adapt to Twitter culture when you are used to communicating on radio, TV, online bannering or even in print. The point of in-app advertising is that you have to believe in engaging people in a conversation with your brand. It is not a medium for sending messages, it is a medium that calls for interaction. That is can only be accomplished successfully when marketers are willing and able to create a topic that has relevance to the people they would like to meet.

Twitter is the ultimate mobile experience at work: most of the time rather shallow, a haven for bored people who like to shoot the breeze for a while, but seconds later it can turn into an engaged crowd picking up strange, funny, interesting or promising ideas, whether from a private person or a brand. Twitter is one of those apps everybody has on both her smartphone and her tablet or iPad, so when a brand does hit the spot, when it does succeed in connecting with people, the brand message or brand conversation can find itself in a list of trending topics quite soon. Social media apps are the places to be for brands that have developed their own app and aim to have it downloaded by the right people. The technology offers people almost immediate access to downloads. Getting them to do it: that's another story. This is where technology ends and creativity takes over. A new kind of creativity, that is: storytelling is better suited to the demands of social media communication, because it is centered on an engaging story, relevant to the social media crowd as well as the brand – storytelling can build bridges between brands and people better than a traditional advertising approach.

A good brand story finds common ground where brands and target audiences can meet and start interacting. Storytelling is extremely well suited to mobile marketing because it is one of the best ways for a brand to talk like a real person instead of a salesman. The latter role doesn't have to be disguised – people know better than that. But an interesting story is more welcoming, more open and friendly right from the start – and above all more respectful, which is a highly effective way of connecting with mobile consumers. It fits their social media experience, which is largely centered on looking for something interesting to share with friends and followers. And being mobile as they are, they are quite willing to do that quickly, finding new followers who in turn will share info about the brand with their followers, who share it with their followers, and so on.

In that sense, too, mobile marketing forces a turnaround in the way we think about marketing and media strategy. For brands, it is more about getting personal and behaving like a person, moving among the mobile crowd, talking like them and interacting with them. More than any other marketing operation, mobile marketing is a two-way street.

## Mobile understanding

In the coming years, the depth of personal relationships with a brand is what will define the worth of that brand. Does a brand have audiences of ad hoc buyers, or does it have a large and growing number of avid followers, fans and even ambassadors? Marketing as a whole will have to be focused on the ultimate goal of building a brand community. The bigger picture here is that this world has become too fragmented in terms of media and targeting channels to simply continue spreading global marketing campaigns like some brands are still doing. Even the biggest brand names on the planet will have to get their head around a way to make their brand the friendliest guy – or girl – on the horizon of their potential buyers. They will need to think hard about the best way to make mobile marketing work for precisely that purpose.

Because mobile marketing's very power lies in the valuable contact it can establish with individual people. Of all advantages, this is really the core of what should define all thinking in brand organizations when planning mobile marketing drives. Actually reaching out and touching people means a lot more than "targeting" a large, specific group of people. What is on offer is the ability to strike a chord with people you've never been able to get this close to before. What's there for the taking is the chance to start a relationship between your brand and a real live person out there with his mobile phone. For the male readers of this book: Remember the first line you came up with to start a conversation with a pretty girl? How you tried to come up with something original to say or something that would get her interested enough to want to know more about you? Mobile marketing will remind you very much of that moment and the importance of that first attempt to set things in motion.

Mobile marketing means micro-thinking instead of macro-talking. A relationship has to start somewhere, so the first time a brand comes knocking on mobile doors, it must be with courtesy, respect, attention, understanding and a message or offer that is relevant for that individual. Although technically speaking there's a lot of sending involved, the brand's first message will have to radiate a truly interested, involved willingness to receive an answer. The best way to underline that, to prove that you are honestly looking for a connection with someone, is to offer a small reward for a reply. Show people you are serious and you will be taken seriously. You will not succeed with a mobile scream like: "Congratulations, you may be the winner of 10,000 euros, click here!"

That's not mobile marketing, that's marketing on mobiles – something completely different, and although many businesses still try to work this way, they are finding out fast that this kind of approach falls on deaf ears. Worse, they burn their bridges right then and there with that consumer, forever. The mobile consumer is open to business but you will have to enter her life as nicely as you can. It may seem exaggerated to put it this way, but mobile marketing is more intimate than any other form of marketing activity. If you get it right – timing, relevance, wording, offer – people will be willing to respond. The whole point of mobile marketing is that it is literally _direct_ marketing. One tap on the phone and you are either gone or you've made contact that very second.

Brands always have to be prepared to think in terms of something-for-something when approaching mobile audiences. Spend the money you save on major media channels on the consumers that interest you. A research and marketing company from Boston successfully applied that thinking to create Western-style mobile marketing activities in large emerging markets. For instance, they devised a mobile research campaign in the Philippines for a large detergent brand. Whereas before, the brand's company would fly employees to Manila, rent Land Rovers, drive out into the country and conduct face-to-face surveys, Jana helped them send out text messages to Philippine women, saying: "Hello, do you want to answer five questions about laundry detergent? In exchange we will give you 100 pesos in airtime." That worked extremely well – people in emerging countries spend anywhere from 8% to 12% of a day's wage on mobile airtime. Therefore, a reward in costly airtime for the mobile phone met all the right requirements for use in mobile marketing: it showed a deep understanding of those people's lives, a flattering curiosity about their opinion and the offer was highly relevant to them. Jana is now working in some 55 emerging markets, using mobile marketing to bring brands closer to millions of consumers while enabling those consumers to lower the cost of using their mobile phones.

Naturally, there is a difference between emerging markets and mature markets when it comes to using mobile phones and other mobile devices. But when you think about it, the relevance and importance of mobile devices to people over there and people over here is pretty much the same. Mobile devices are universally dear to us human beings. They are our gateway to friends and family as well as to a world full of opportunities. For brands and companies that door will also open if they are willing and able to change their demeanor towards consumers, who can no longer be approached effectively by spreading traditional marketing campaigns on a massive scale, not even online. They need to be mobile in their heads as well as in their marketing behavior. They need to make their marketing truly mobile in each and every way, or else their marketing will stop being marketing.

# Insight 9: Go for brandship or become a very lonely brand

In 1979, flying in the United States became a free market. Deregulation made its entrance and transformed the airline business from a monitored public good into corporate America's newest free market. At that moment, an ad executive named Bill Bernbach was working for American Airlines, and for them Bernbach came up with a plan that would change the entire world of air travel forever. He suggested that American Airlines reward sporadic customers with free travel so they would become regular customers, or, as he called it: frequent flyers. Two years later, the first-ever frequent flyer program was born and the rest is history.

Bernbach would undoubtedly be a genius in the advertising industry today just as he was then. At that time, especially in the US, there was still a lot of shallow shouting on the part of many brands. Advertising that followed beaten paths, 99% of it consisting of uninspiring examples of how to get a great, healthy, beautiful life the American way. Bill Bernbach was one of the few people who turned his back on that and instead looked at what really made people tick – what made them interested in product A or brand B. He was convinced that a brand could, should and would become a friend to its customers. Not to everybody, but to groups of people who were touched by the brand in just such a way that they would be willing to develop a great feeling about it. His marketing scheme of frequent flyer rewards was born of that conviction, and the fact such programs still exist today shows just how right he was. Today's urgent need for brands to have a strong following as a condition of survival – let alone success – in the near and distant future, would have come as no surprise to him. He would have had his answers ready, unlike a great many marketers who therefore have to fear for their brand's attractiveness, their buyer's preferences – and their jobs.

## Community gold

Is the fact that people can now easily cluster together in all kinds of highly specific groups around subjects in which they share a common interest an advantage, or a threat? Some marketers are grinding their teeth about it on a daily basis, because they are losing their grip on the once so deftly defined target audience. People are all over the place, and they seem to enjoy evading random advertisers and their random advertising. The trouble you have to go to in order to reach them with marketing and media strategies that were highly effective up to now is rather annoying. Other marketers, however, have welcomed the new "escapees" from traditional advertising. Among them, even big brand names that were literally built on advertising have adapted quickly and are doing their best to make the most of people's longing to meet like-minded others somewhere on the Internet.

Nike, to name but one, has acted fast. They created a large following in recent decades on the basis of great advertising through traditional channels. Until a few years ago, you might have said that following was little more than a mental fan base. You knew Nike had a lot of enthusiastic fans worldwide, but did they have a place where they could get together and share their experiences with, or comments on Nike – let alone tell Nike directly how they feel? No – and then along came Facebook. Today, Nike's Facebook page has surpassed the 22 million "like" mark and serves as a central meeting place for all those Nike fans and loyalists. Thanks to that Facebook page alone, Nike knows it has a very large, very loyal fan base at its fingertips. They can get in touch with them and interact any time they like. That is extremely valuable, and Nike takes many steps to keep the interest and loyalty going by giving fans access to exclusive technical support, motivational tips, lots of photos and videos, and knowledge shared by top athletes. In return, the fans share their own comments, tips, preferences, concerns, needs and experiences with Nike. This is what community marketing can be, or rather: should be.

Belonging to a community is a fundamental human need. We may all have become individualistic, but the bottom line is that we don't want to be alone. We still want to share our own particular individualism with other individualists. You can get a tattoo that is as special and unique as you are – but hey, it's only a really great tattoo if you can share it with other tattoo fans, who can admire what you've done. No point in looking in the mirror every night to admire your own tattoo – What's the fun of that? Humans, by nature, have a strong sense of belonging. It's why we gathered in churches for ages, and in many parts of the world still do for the very same reason. It's why we join a club, become member of a political party or start one ourselves; it's why we walk through Paris with "I am Charlie" placards. We do that because we always want to feel supported by people like ourselves, to be surrounded by those who share the same convictions and beliefs. People who will be there for us the moment we need them or want them to.

The moment we are able to find like-minded people, we find it attractive to stick around and share our common ground. And yes, that common ground can be a brand or a company too. Brands and companies can also contribute to people's sense of belonging by building communities for their customers. The only condition is that they need to see and treat people as equals, not as consumers. They need to be serious about their relationship with them and talk to them as friends would talk to friends. They must be interested in them and interesting to them at the same time. "Love us and we'll love you back" – any brand wanting to start a brand community will have to keep this message in mind at all times. It is the key to effective community marketing, now made possible by Internet and communications technology.

## Engage and bond

I'm not telling you anything new by saying that it costs 6 or 7 times more to attract a customer than to keep an existing one. It is common knowledge in the marketing industry, and it is one of the reasons we have been seeing brands and companies invest a lot of effort in developing loyalty programs, customer reward programs, bonus cards, VIP brand experiences, and whatnot. If you happen to be an enthusiastic modern consumer, your wallet will undoubtedly be thick with all kinds of customer cards. That's all to the good – if the programs are done right, they can really help create a bond between brand and customer, company and client. However, most of these programs largely consist of messages sent from the companies involved to their preferred customers. There isn't a lot of interaction going on. Also, they were never developed with the intention of creating a community. The core goal of such programs has always been: Make the client feel so special that he or she won't go looking elsewhere in our product category.

The effectiveness of many such programs has worn off as people have simply become bored with being on the receiving end of letters (!), no-reply e-mail offers in their mailboxes, or an invitation to the next tennis tournament at which they found themselves being very special with 2,500 other special guests. In many cases, they were disappointed when customer reward programs devaluated their points systems, so that customers had to spend more for the same "gifts" on offer. And because there has been a veritable explosion of loyalty programs, this hasn't improved the "special" part of the equation. The worst aspect, however, is that most loyalty programs haven't been able to communicate genuine interest in the customer. They weren't devised for that, and they didn't shift gears when the trend towards online community forming set in.

The attraction of lively, interactive brand communities is strong and growing stronger by the day. People are discovering modern brands that have made a U-turn in their attitude towards them. These brands are literally opening up to them, inviting them to take part in their community of fans and enjoy themselves and share the experience. They are executing a new community marketing strategy in which the brand truly engages with its enthusiasts as well as existing customers in their own client base. Facebook groups, online message boards, Twitter accounts: these communities give members a place to make their needs known and give companies the opportunity to respond and make them feel important. Brands and companies that cultivate these communities carefully will be able to bond with their customers much, much faster than with any other kind of program they've ever used before. Online, it is so easy to create fresh initiatives for community members to respond to. People love being heard; they love being taken seriously and being asked for their opinion – especially if they are rewarded for doing so, but also if they receive something as simple as a really friendly "thank you for you opinion" note or e-mail.

Community marketing is actually the person-to-person marketing brands and companies have always been looking for. The technology that made people look away from their advertising now enables them to round their fans up again, and on a grand scale. Community marketing gives brands access to highly effective consumer research simply by asking for feedback on products, or inquiring about the lifestyle of their customers, or asking what new, innovative products the brand might consider offering. Both sides benefit. Companies get valuable information; customers feel valued and are more likely to get interested in the brand or even become more loyal to that brand.

One brand that has been using community marketing since long before it recognized as such is Kiehl's, a high-end, global beauty and body-care company. Kiehl's has been in business since 1851 and the brand has never, ever advertised to attract new customers. Instead, Kiehl's uses all kinds of aspects of community marketing: word-of-mouth promotion, active community involvement on the part of every employee, free product trials for community members, and a deep concern for customers' needs. It has won them a huge fan base of loyal customers, who are more than willing to try new products, tweet about them, send feedback to Kiehl's, and spend more – and more regularly – on Kiehl's products. Goodwill sounds like old school PR-jargon, but it is back on the cards as a valuable brand asset. Kiehl's has been able to collect heaps of goodwill, and in the current social media age that will keep them firmly established in the right place in the consumer's minds.

Modern consumers expect more than an impersonal, one-sided relationship with the products and services they use. It is one of the reasons many brands and business are getting into trouble with their helpdesks and customer support services. Even if they are not really awful on these fronts, people have grown incredibly impatient with service or interaction that is not up to scratch. They are really quick to complain to their friends on social media about time spent waiting, a complaint being denied or a product being slightly delayed, in full view of everybody else. Call it a spoiled attitude, but the fact remains: today, people anticipate a customer service base that is available to answer their questions and respond to their concerns at all levels – immediately. By implementing an effective community marketing strategy, organizations can give them just that. This works because it creates a space in which brands and companies enjoy more understanding on the consumer end. It pre-empts a lot of problems when customers learn to appreciate the fact that a brand really is doing all it possibly can to improve its products, services and support. Engaging in conversation with a community of customers is the best way for brands to shorten the distance between themselves and their customers, ensuring a more loyal customer base and a better overall reputation.

## Facilitate the conversation

Any and all organizations that value their reputation and seek repeat customers should be looking closely at implementing community marketing as part of their overall marketing strategy. It is either that or their customers will do it for them – and without them. The importance and reach of Internet forums of like-minded consumers is grossly underestimated. Be it little groups of influencers or large numbers of forum visitors, the point is that Internet technology has made it easy to find the right forum for any kind of interest and talk about brand experiences, share opinions about new products, exchange the latest on what a given brand is doing. As a brand manager you may not be aware of it, but you may have communities talking freely about your brand or business behind your back. Wouldn't it be a good idea to be part of the conversation and connect with these people? It would not just be a good idea – I would say it should be a great big "must" on the top of your marketing do-list. Get into the conversation, either organically or through some form of sponsorship.

Slipping into a group of customers or consumers that have already started their interaction about your particular type of market, product or brand may take some getting used to. It will probably be taking place on their own brand-oriented message boards or Facebook pages, through Twitter accounts and on other forums. Making yourself known is an organic way to join the party, as it were. Whether it turns out to be fun from the start depends a lot on the way people in that particular community are looking at your brand or products. Seeing people's comments flying back and forth may be a little confrontational. Still, it is a sincere form of involvement and it will pay off in all kinds of ways. It's a good way to monitor people's level of happiness with your brand. It's an opportunity to get directly in touch with individual customers and either pre-empt concerns or answer their questions. It even creates a new way to introduce upcoming events, innovations or products – as in, "You're the first to know." It's a smart way to make any community member feel privileged. All in all, it opens up an extra channel for storytelling and communication. It may take time to gain trust and build on it to expand the community, or turn its members into increasingly loyal customers by stimulating them to take more interest in more of your products and to spend more on them. But it will be very much worth your while, because you will be doing the building from the inside, from within a community of followers who were already there, more or less ready for your brand to approach them and strike up a relationship.

This organic way of community marketing conforms to the "will of the people," so to speak. For any human being, it's nice to be approached gradually – as a person, not as a number – by a brand or a business that says: "Tell me, you said something about our disappointing helpdesk: What was it? We would like to improve on that." Slipping into the conversation this way, a brand will have to take a modest stance and because of that, any suspicions about its commercial intentions will fade away quickly. As long as you are for real with the community, you will see the bond strengthening with surprising speed. You can also help the process along by forming your own brand community – for instance, by facilitating (i.e., sponsoring) a community platform where customers and interested people can get together and talk about your brand and products freely. The starting point is slightly different, because the brand pays for and actively sponsors a platform for discussions, comments and interaction with the brand. There will always be people who see this as an attempt to influence them directly and therefore stay away. Much depends on how a brand sets up the platform, what it does with it and how it behaves there. As long as it doesn't interfere unashamedly with conversations or try to sell anything openly, this kind of sponsorship will be readily accepted.

Both forms of community marketing, when executed seriously and loaded with inspiration, can mean a great deal to brands, particularly since technology is constantly finding new ways for people to connect and interact. Brands become clubs made up of people, fans or even ambassadors in their own markets and way beyond, all over the world. A huge following is a virtual goldmine for any brand, because it represents people who are already into the brand and what it stands for, and as a brand you have them right where you can find them, talk to them and help them enjoy your existing products, your new products and the whole brand experience.

And community marketing doesn't have to stay online. After all, a community consists of live people, so there are also offline ways to keep in touch with the brand community. Harley-Davidson, the iconic American motorcycle brand, saw the loyalty, passion and camaraderie displayed by Harley enthusiasts across the Internet and decided to develop it into a community. Over the past few decades, the Harley community has turned into a force to be reckoned with. It's the largest motorcycle club in the world with heavily-visited online forums – but also its own cafes, travel services, riding gear, new routes to explore together, and so on. Similarly, Starbucks Coffee launched their own mystarbucksidea.com, a website designed specifically for gathering and implementing customer ideas, some of which have led to much-appreciated, profitable additions to Starbucks Coffee outlets around the world.

## Work on "brandship"

Modern-day consumers are looking for the story in brands they can share with others and feel comfortable with. Community marketing will be at its most effective for brands aiming at the future generation of customers. They are the ones who are looking for what I like to describe as "brandship" – a feel for a brand that goes a lot further than the celebrated brand preference. Brandship stands for an emotional bond between fan and brand on a deeper level. Something that in this day and age does not have its origin in the brand's advertising, but in the brand's online social media presence, its behavior there, and its reputation in general. Brandship may become the closest thing to human friendship as we know it: the similarities being that brandship, like friendship, is very much a two-way street, where we can enjoy the things we share with each other but where we also are able to discuss things we are not so happy with in each other.

I'm fairly convinced that brands today should not be putting on a happy smiley face all the time. Brands need to realize that this is not the time to act like life is hunky-dory every second of the day. People know it isn't. The more a brand shows of its true self, the more it interacts, the more serious it is about developing a real relationship with its customers, and the more it will be free to disagree with them too. They must be prepared to stand their ground on certain issues that come up on social media, even if that means that some fans will have a different opinion. Don't be scared – be open and honest. It will only make the brand more human, more personal, more open and more likeable. The new generation of consumers, tech- and media-savvy, continually in conversation with people from all corners of the world about anything and everything – including brands – can take it. They're through with old-school brands treating them like children, always painting a pretty picture of life in general and their products in particular and imposing it from the top down in TV-ads or irritating online pop-up banners.

Community marketing is what they actually like, because they are used to being asked for their valued opinion by their friends and families, and they appreciate it when brands do the same. Brands that do it right will be able to initiate a brandship that will go a long way, even developing loyal customers into great advocates of the brand who will turn around and "sell" it to their network of friends, family and colleagues.

The equation is simple: brands cannot do without a social media manager, just like they cannot do without a relationship-driven marketing strategy and a community marketing strategy and a user-generated marketing strategy. It is the unavoidable consequence of everyone having stepped into this community of communities formerly known as the world. Technology has demolished communication barriers, and this has broadened consumer horizons to the extent that consumers don't rely on advertisements to help them decide whether to buy a product as much as they did in the past. People born between 1977 and 1994 say that product opinions posted online by strangers are sometimes more important than those of family and friends. Blogging influencers who have become "expert consumers" in a product category have a lot of clout. Their opinion is picked up fast and shared even faster, and is actually able to raise a new product rise to stardom or kill it before it even hits the market. In the US there are estimates that people who base their decision to buy or not to buy on opinions and reviews online wield about $200 billion in purchasing power. They will soon pass Baby Boomers as the largest consumer group in the nation – if they haven't already by the time this book leaves the printer.

A brand vainglorious enough to think that implementing relationship marketing with the goal of establishing a brandship base is too much effort for too little result: it will inevitably lose out to brands that do see the advantages. These last will smash brands that keep spending money on traditional advertising. They will outspend them by actually spending less: one of the great things about this new world of ours is that people are starting to love participating in bringing a brand to life. Brands that invite them to do so are happily collecting their stories, pictures, videos, ideas and comments – for free. Content is king and this king is hand delivered at the online doorstep of the brand that knows what drives today's consumers. For marketers this is a dream come true: inspiring the crowd for whom you are working to actually work for you. Unpaid endorsements on a continuing basis, and so easy to accomplish, really, if you are a brand that is willing to change tack and take your thinking from the past into the future.

The advent of Internet technologies – social media, recommendation sites, and content sharing tools – has set brands free to create their own following and a worldwide brandship with the people they need. This is a beautiful world, full of opportunities for brands and marketers who understand the value of brandship. For those who don't, it will soon be a very, very cold, very, very lonely world where they won't have anyone to turn to anymore.

# Insight 10: Start Over (or roll over)

Looking back at the nine previous insights in this book, I am aware that they merely scratch the surface of what awaits marketers the next few years. But writing is choosing, and I decided to follow the broad strokes so as not to divert attention from the bigger picture: the need to brace ourselves for the perfect technological storm that is rapidly advancing on brands worldwide. On every possible level, brands and businesses will be affected by the ongoing influence of technology on the relationship between themselves and consumers. The old securities offered by traditional market strategies are falling away one by one. The media landscape is becoming more fragmented with every passing day. Consumers in mature markets are avoiding advertising like the plague. The power to influence has gone from being the hands of brands to being in the hands of app-wielding communities of consumers. In emerging and developing markets, people are baffling brands and businesses with the speed at which they embrace mobile communications technology and the way they couple it with their own particular type of decision-making and lifestyle.

To make matters even gloomier, the world is not exactly recuperating from the economic downfall of the last years. Although some of the lost consumer confidence has returned to Western markets, there is still a lot of latent unease and uncertainty. It's a volatile world, with armed conflicts at the very borders of Europe, religious war in the Middle East, some bright and promising emerging markets that are suddenly in a lot of trouble (Brazil!), and a seriously faltering Chinese economy – the one driver of demand that was keeping the economic crisis in the rest of the world in check. On top of all that is technology, which is advancing so fast that it makes our heads spin. It brings us a constant stream of unsettling new developments that range from disrupters like Uber and airbnb to bitcoins and self-driving Google cars, from hacking as an almost daily occurrence to intelligent big-data exploration threatening our privacy.

And still this doesn't seem enough to get marketing decision-makers at even the world's bigger businesses to leave the perceived safe havens of traditional marketing, media and advertising strategies. Until now there has always been time for some kind of easy transition, so perhaps they are waiting for things to settle down. The bad news is: things won't settle down. It really and truly is game over for traditional thinking. Elvis has left the building. The music as we know it has stopped. Time to change your tune as a brand, as a business, as a CEO, as a board of directors, as a marketing executive, as a strategist, as a die-hard advertising creative, as a commercial producer.

## New crowd, new rules

As a marketer, you may well wish you were trying to get a start-up off the ground rather than leading your established brand through a transition. The era in which we find ourselves is practically made for start-up ventures. The little businesses are the ones that will be able to profit from everything technology has to offer, whether on their side or on the side of consumers. It is more than possible to get into a market without much more than a sound idea and a sharp eye for the new possibilities of marketing. To start a business and a brand, you don't need large media campaigns anymore. Technologically, any smart entrepreneur will be able to gather smart data, turn the knowledge around, and aim its proposition at exactly the right crowd – and maybe even ask that crowd to help fund its progress. Technologically, there is nothing to stop an enthusiastic bunch of guys from starting up a 3D-production line, offering to produce anything from special industrial components to tailor-made, high-end wedding dresses. Technologically, there is nothing to prevent someone from inventing her own new revolutionary Angry Bird app-game on her laptop and marketing it worldwide right from her own sofa. And so on.

Of course, I make it sound a little easier than it is in reality, but the opportunities that technology is opening up for businesses and brands are endless. You might say it has made the business world even more democratic. Great, big corporations no longer have a monopoly on the privilege of launching new brands or creating a whole new market. It can now be done by anyone with a bright idea, solid plan, a lot of willpower and the right technology. After all – and this is another catalyst of the new marketing economy – the business angels are always on the lookout. Private equity funds have taken a great leap into the future by backing up potentially profitable ideas, getting behind them with money and knowledge or rounding up other wealthy private investors. Small businesses are increasingly turning to crowdfunding to collect the investments they need to move forward. It is yet another sign that people are taking things into their own hands.

It makes sense, of course. At the moment, many small and medium businesses have given up knocking at bankers' doors – even when they have a good plan and some healthy years of experience behind them. They don't have the time or the inclination to wait a month or so to hear what the already expected – that their request for a business loan has been turned down. Crowdfunding is available, feasible and fast. Banks should be worried about the growing popularity of crowdfunding: in the Netherlands, for example, there is already one influential investor ready to start a crowdfunding business for mortgages. Facilitating private individuals to lend money to private homebuyers: it sounds great – like something that could take off and disrupt the next market. The Dutch housing market is huge, and until now dominated by three or four banks that have divided the market between them, easily safeguarding interest rates that are structurally higher that they should be.

The moment crowdfunding is capable of attracting serious attention from homebuyers may not put banks out of business, but there will definitely be trouble ahead. You reap what you sow.

This new era, then, is it just for start-ups and does it only spell doom and gloom for established brands? No, any brand can make the best of the changes that are taking place. But it will have to be quick and forceful in order to adapt. There is this assumption that in ten or twenty years time, a very large number of brands that are here today will not be around anymore. They wouldn't even be missed, as far as the average consumer is concerned. If that doesn't bring a sense of urgency to boardrooms and marketing departments, what will? The new order in marketing, brought on by technology and a radical shift in consumer attitudes and buying habits, will have to be accepted as a given.

There is no easy way to make the transition from traditional marketing strategy to strategies that will really be able to connect with the new demands on brand marketing. It could mean a total makeover of the marketing organization and a distinctively different approach to relationships with advertising and media agencies. It will need to embrace a more data-oriented outlook on marketing. It will entail a ruthless goodbye to mass-media image advertising in exchange for reputation-enhancing storytelling in various communities of customers, clients, influencers, consumers, fans and followers. It will force close cooperation between "markies" and "techies," the installation of specialized social media directors and managers, intense and regular talks between marketing people and smart data gatherers, and the integration of new, proprietary media like mobile apps into the marketing mix as communication tools.

All the new things that start-up marketers and start-up entrepreneurs already take in stride will have to be learned by established brands and businesses – and fast. Many of them have already fallen behind, been taken by surprise – and surpassed – by disruptive newcomers that have understood the new ways of the world's media-savvy consumer better than the more traditional business crowd. Swift and smart is winning over "slowly but surely." There is only one thing "surely" about "slowly," and that is extinction, sooner rather than later. This cannot be stressed enough. I meet so many top-level executives and so many of them nod politely as we talk about this, but most of the time I leave with the distinct feeling that there won't be any strategic or organizational any time soon.

In Europe especially the mood is more about holding back than moving forward – whereas on my trips to the Middle East and India, I encounter the unmistakable attitude of "no time to lose."

Over there, change and a sense of urgency are ever-present priorities in boardrooms as well as marketing departments. Is this because of the character of emerging or developing countries? The excitement of starting out and breaking new ground? The need to discover by doing? That may be a part of it, but it strikes me that, over there, I see a greater willingness to jump right in with new means and methods of marketing, when they could just as easily have started out by copying our traditional ways of thinking, marketing and communication.

## Start over

Start over is a tough call to make. The upside is that there is no need to do everything at once. Much of what is needed or advisable depends on the position of the brand or business in hand: emerging/developing, mature or competing? For some brands it will still make sense to stay with traditional advertising for a while longer – at least inn part – in order to make a controlled transition to more tech-driven, data-based community storytelling. For others, it may be sensible to switch their strategy completely and radically, particularly if they operate in fiercely contested markets where change is rapidly altering the rules of the marketing game. It is very much an individual decision for any brand or business, but whatever the decision made, it will have to be different from what has gone before.

**Start-ups and emerging brands** will have to focus on reaching out for funding and support. The really disruptive business ideas will have less trouble finding serious investors because they will undoubtedly be highly technological brands and businesses. The new high potentials will be tech companies; there is no other truth to be told. They will either be creating a whole new service for millions of consumers worldwide, or they will be eclipsing existing production or logistical methods using innovative, tech-driven solutions. They will offer newer, faster and better ways to shop, or they will provide new ways to communicate, do business, play games or help ourselves to medical advice anytime we like. Think of something and it will happen in the coming years, if it hasn't already and is on its way to market right this minute.

The advantage of today's emerging brands and businesses is that traditional thinking doesn't hold them back. They are most likely the product of a new breed of entrepreneurs or groups of people who have already been part of previous successful ventures and are now trying to make it on their own. They are most likely tech people, who already know how to make the most of technology and how to make it work for their particular business. They will not be traditional marketers and builders of complicated organizations, because they probably worked in lean and mean, fast and furious business environments before. They will surround themselves with fresh minds who more or less love working with data, who are extremely (social) media savvy and are just as eager to move fast, 24/7 if needed.

The motto at these kinds of operations will be to push forward as hard and as fast as one possibly can. Because they are very much aware that others like them are doing exactly the same thing, equally hard and equally fast. Working in a start-up or being behind an emerging brand that tries to change market standards is sprinting where it used to be walking. The next move is always around the corner, not a year later. If such a brand is not able to create a solid support base in a short period of time, it will lose momentum fast. Enthusiasm will fade, investors will withdraw, talent will look elsewhere. It is essential for the marketing strategy of a start-up or fledgling business to aim at really connecting with three kinds of people: potential financial backers, media outlets, and the primary online circles of relevant target audiences.

Ideally this process should take place long before the introduction of whatever there is to be introduced. The new kind of brands and businesses will have their **t** arget lists ready well in advance of their talks with investors or crowdfunding campaign. They will reach out to media outlets before they launch, to start a buzz, feed them exclusive news items, create excitement. They keep rallying their early backers to get a surge of support on the day of their launch. They will reach out to their potential customers and consumer base to bring them in on this new idea or product and stir up some social media conversation. The all-important goals: building affinity with their service or product and getting pre-orders. All this is possible now that the ability to capitalize a new idea has changed so dramatically, thanks to Internet technology and consumer power. Entrepreneurs now have the tools to effectively present their funding needs to a large audience and include every possible funding type in the same campaign. This is marketing today for businesses that need to spend every cent of funding on developing and perfecting their product or service. They can't afford to splash out on expensive marketing and advertising campaigns, not at this stage. They need to think person-to-person, as it were. They need to think interactive; they need to think about spreading the word to groups of individuals who will inspire other groups of people to participate and spread the word for them. It's about creating your own particular bubble and carefully inflating it, just hard enough so that it doesn't burst. A delicate task, done under a lot of pressure, so many bubbles won't make it in the end. But those who do usually exceed expectations by disrupting markets, upsetting traditional brands, pleasing their investors and enriching people's lives.

**The maturing brand** will want to change its focus from enlarging on its image to building a genuine community of followers, fans and ambassadors. That will take some reverse thinking on all kinds of fronts. Maturing brands, having survived their launch and having cornered an encouraging part of their market, are apt to build on an increasingly stronger media presence, trying continually to lift brand awareness and strengthen perception of the brand's image.

This used to be the way to go at a time when consumers still sat down, appreciated commercials and were willing to enjoy a nice promotional effort or two. Since they are not really doing that anymore, or at least not on such a massive scale, it doesn't make sense to continue the usual image-building song and dance in advertising. Apart from the waning interest consumers show in mass media advertising – making it more expensive and ineffective at the same time – this kind of approach is not in tune with the consumer's active pursuit of interesting brands, businesses, products and services. The passive consumer has turned into a consumer who quite purposefully seeks out those brands whose value lies not in the image it reflects but in the story behind it. These days, it's about the consumer looking for the right brand instead of brands looking for the right consumer. The twain _shall_ meet – but from now on, only on the condition that the brand changes its attitude towards marketing as well as towards its audience.

Marketing people need to meet up with tech people and try to see how smart, contextual data can bring their large, demographically defined target audiences back to modern-day proportions of reachable communities. It is necessary to accept that even matured brands will have to show more of themselves than they used to. Brand awareness and brand image – yes, those are still valuable goals, but they are not what will keep the matured brand alive in this day and age. The real brand story is becoming more and more essential. Where's the beef: that's the question consumers ask brands nowadays. What are you made of? What are you about? What is it that makes your products so indispensable to me? Why should I follow you? Why should I recommend you to my friends and family? Why should I like you on your Facebook page? What do I care? The hard truth is that brands can no longer pull a proposition out of thin air or spin it from a clever market strategy and build an image based on the result. People want concrete content. In fact they want content so badly that if a brand offers them the proper opportunity, they might even provide that content themselves. Which is exactly what brands that have been calmly maturing the traditional way will have to adapt to. They will have to convert from image-building strategies to content-marketing strategies in which the brand story is the leading factor on all fronts, and any kind of user-generated content is a valuable objective to be realized.

Content marketing actually appeared the moment the Internet started, but at that time online communities (they weren't even called that yet) were limited to simple, closed and moderated message boards. Now, there is a community boom in which content marketing is the answer to the demands of a new social age. The conversation has become a marketing tool that brands have to become familiar with. Social communities are the new target audiences, and they need to be found, selected and visited. Brands will have to get in on the conversation that is going on out there. Brands will have to listen carefully to what is being said and figure out new ways to participate and be accepted as worth the trouble of following or even getting into conversation with.

Social communities are content driven for the simple reason that people will always want something they can share. Communities overlap; they are interconnecting groups, always out to tell each other great new stories first, or share the feeling of a larger story together. Brands must look at their brand story as a source of endless input, stories and topics to be shared with all kinds of relevant communities. Finding common ground, feeding the fire of shared interest, growing a following that starts to like the brand more, inspiring them to spread the word – matured brands cannot do without any of these things. They can still run commercials, but those too should be different from what they used to be. The best thing that could happen is that the whole TV-strategy is geared towards supporting the brand story used to inspire social communities. On-demand television will be commonplace in just a few years and people will really quit following regulated broadcasts based on timetables and programming. That will put a stop to the effectiveness of commercial breaks – one more reason to make a brand's "video presence" (formerly known as a TV-commercial) work online more than offline. Focus attention on online films that reflect the brand story and can create new buzz, provide additional topics to share or attract new followers. Tomorrow's campaigns come to life by constantly engaging targeted social communities in conversation rather than broadcasting a message at them. Content that goes unshared is lonely advertising, not social marketing. One-way, image-driven advertising is dying. Mature brands may not like it, but better to get over it than to die with it.

**The competing brand** can be an emerging brand as well as a matured brand. In fact: What brand isn't a competing brand? So why make it seem like a specific category here? Again, the answer lies in the changed and changing behavior of consumers towards brands and media. As people discover that they are increasingly able to dodge regular brand advertising, brands will have to compete for their attention in radically new and different ways. Competing in the marketplace has always been a matter of impressive advertising campaigns, spectacular promotional activities, awesome sponsoring, cunning retailing and price setting and all kinds of other "blanket marketing." The usual stuff. Where out-spending the competition has been and still is quite common as a means of beating the competition senseless. Forget about that. Competing has a different meaning now; it will be increasingly based on social media and social community monitoring. Continuous data analysis will become crucial to seeing how a brand is doing amidst the competition. The important need-to-knows now are things like social media reach, genuine engagement, community sentiment. Social community monitoring hands you the data to see in what directions the conversations are going, what people's interests are spreading towards, and how you can make that work for your brand.

Finding the conversations that could give your brand a competitive edge is essential. What are other brands saying out there, and how are they doing in the communities that are relevant to your brand as well? What angle do they leave you to act on, and what aspect of your story might be perfect for countering their efforts and undermining their strengths so that your brand comes out on top? Are they hard selling and turning people away as a result? Step right in with new content, interesting topics and a campaign that is even more firmly based on genuine curiosity about those people's needs, on starting up a dialogue, and on your brand's understanding of the individual members of the community. Competing brands are competing as much with the fluid moods of interconnecting communities and their conversations as they are with their business adversaries. More than ever before, it is important to be on top of the conversation, so it is highly sensible for any brand to find or create tools for monitoring that conversation. Keep tabs on the competition as well as on what is said about your own brand and products. Competing now is done behind a marketing dashboard that can show you virtually, hour by hour, how your campaign is doing.

There will be no more "once a quarter" market research to see if your marketing efforts are on track. Even the offline activity of a brand's marketing campaign will show up on the virtual dashboard. Let's say for the sake of argument that you put out a promotional TV-commercial to attract new consumers: you will see its effects online, deep inside the social communities. See how the commercial lands, whether it is appreciated or laughed at, whether it generates interest, whether it is recommended and shared, whether it leads to sales, and so on. From now on, competing in the marketplace is competing on every possible level of (social) communication. Measuring a brand's performance against the competition is one of the advantages provided by smart data technology. It may not be appropriate for every brand organization to think about hiring a Social Data Scientist, like some big brands in the US are starting to do. However, the role of such a specialist will likely become an asset more than a luxury.

This world will probably see more (social) media channels pop up that will somehow have an effect on brands and brand stories. It will be too complex to follow what is happening in the ever expanding online media landscape; while at the same time, marketers will have to know what's happening out there in order to plan their next moves, adjust their strategy if necessary, and especially adjust them as fast as possible. In general, marketing specialists are not tech specialists, so there is a growing need for brand organizations to bring in the techies to sort out the right data to act on. I don't think brands can afford not to get into that, because competing in this particular world will demand every little bit of edge a marketer can find.

For brands starting out today, it may seem a little easier to get comfortable with marketing in this new era than it is for mature brands, because most of them are probable being founded by a younger, tech-savvy, media-savvy generation of marketers and entrepreneurs. However, for anyone involved in today's and tomorrow's marketing, the story is the same.

Comply very, very quickly with the new demands of the techno-social-community marketing world we see around us already. Start over as a brand organization both mentally and physically. Or roll over and never be heard from again.

# Epilogue: A new game of way-to, go-to, time-to & get-to market(ing)

On this over-regulated, over-transparent, over-stressed, over-burdened planet of ours, one could say things have gotten out of control. Suddenly, really quite suddenly, we have the feeling that we are running behind the facts all the time. Every day we wake up and reach for our iPads and smartphones; we see we have already missed "important" messages on our Facebook pages; we notice there are already a dozen e-mails waiting in our inbox; and turning to news sites, we discover yet another tech-development disrupting yet another market. For many people, waking up every morning is waking up to a mini-nightmare in which everyone and everything is calling on them to get their butts in gear and get a move on.

All of us have walked into a trap called technological advance. We were enjoying ourselves immensely while setting it up, but now it has given us a world moving with such exorbitant speed that at times we find it hard to breathe. Have we created a monster? For many we have, sad to say. Older generations are finding it hard to adapt to all that smartphone and tablet and app stuff. They are not exactly giving up – see them bravely trying to keep up with their iPads – but the general feeling is one of "I don't understand the world anymore."

Strangely, I've heard that line before in places where I least expected it: the boardroom of a not-so-small business. It came out spontaneously after I gave a presentation about the influence and impact of technology on brand marketing and consumer behavior. It was said with a smile, as if it were just a lighthearted, slightly ironic remark. But I could tell it came from a frightened mind. The man sitting there – late fifties, early sixties, head of the firm, respected CEO, MBAs left and right from all the right universities, successful at other corporations prior to this one – the moment he said it, I could tell he actually meant what he said.

Others around the table didn't exactly nod in agreement, but the way they smiled suggested that they, too, weren't entirely pleased by what they had just seen and heard. "Interesting," was the general feedback. Talk about understatement of the year. The presentation was all about how we are on the verge – if not already up to our necks in – a completely new reality that brands and business will have to deal with. This particular business had always been successful bringing home the message by traditional means, to the point that they were lamenting the continuous fall in newspaper circulation and the rising ineffectiveness of their direct marketing and loyalty programs. Online? Yes, of course they had been venturing into all that, because that was where those old newspaper readers now seemed to be congregating, according their media agency.

But the large marketing department was still manned by traditional marketers, who continued to make use of tried and true marketing strategies aimed at creating even more brand awareness and image, who still relied on the great big TV-ad umbrella to spread the word among the masses.

No wonder the message that their marketing would have to become technologically fueled or even _be_ technological was hard to grasp. Perhaps it's not so surprising that the very idea of merging their marketing people with mathematically savvy data scientists sent chills down their spines. Or the that the thought of leaving their trusted sending modus behind and getting into actual, interactive conversations with consumers was raising their eyebrows to new heights.

I understand them. And at the same time I don't.

What I understand is that it is hard to swallow, the idea that this time marketing is really and truly turning a corner, the likes of which have never been seen in the history of marketing. I understand that, as a business and especially as someone responsible for its success, it takes great effort to get your head around the fact that technology brands have propelled everything into a crazy orbit of new marketing demands. I understand the confusion about the fact that, tomorrow even, another totally disruptive techno-brand can upset a market that a company thought was secure, because it _had been theirs for years._

What I don't understand is that they are hesitant to acknowledge this new reality and seem even more reluctant to act on it. There's no time to think long and hard about how to deal with this. Businesses and their brands will have to make sure they climb out of the mud of over-regulated markets and open up to the over-transparent society, that they reach out to the over-stressed consumer with technological, innovative, appealing, breakthrough solutions. The only way forward is forward at speed. Join in or opt out – there is no other choice to make. If _Game Ov3r_ has a core message, it's that one.

For too long companies and brands, be they local or global, have gotten away with following trends calmly, at their own pace. The transition to new developments didn't take that many radical steps; the speed of change wasn't that difficult to follow. Now we are talking lightning speed. The day has arrived when technology itself does a better job of marketing than human marketers have ever been able to do. On many levels, that technology demands skills that aren't available, not even in the best marketing departments around the world. The key to marketing success is more or less back where it started: the person-to-person – now face-to-screen –level. What was corporate, business and brand will have to become human, personal and friendly. If not, it will be ignored. There is no other way around it: brands will have to take techno-driven steps to gather smart data to find out exactly what their potential customers are like and where they can be found. If they don't, they will be behind the times in no time at all.

However, I am an optimist. I do believe that the majority of today's business leaders are open minded enough to see what's coming and capable of doing what's necessary. They may not have found any frightening stuff in this little book of mine, but rather a confirmation of what they have already been experiencing and an idea or two to help them along.

To those who did find this book a little unsettling, well, I hope I was still able to inspire you at least a little by suggesting a few ways to get in on the game. Because the game of marketing as it will be played from now on is too exciting to miss out on. And if you play it right, you might even be able to flash your competitors the one sign no player ever wants to see:

_Game Ov3r_.

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