How are agencies redefining brands?
Gone are the days when brands were defined in closed board rooms on Madison Avenue. As much as marketing leaders would like to think that they can carefully curate brand images and messages, the content that’s produced by consumers far outweighs the polished ad content of even the world’s most powerful brands.
Starting with the dawn of the internet, and now evolving into ever more connected realities, the new brands are defined by their audiences and the touchpoints that are created in that interplay. Thus, new brand leaders understand how to move those audiences to tell compelling stories.
"Brands today are made in the experiences of people across every domain of life. More opportunities for touch points across digital and physical environments mean that consumers are involved in brand-building in unprecedented ways," says Mike White, CEO of Lively Worldwide. "The brands that are interested in putting their mark on culture understand this and are building evocative campaigns that powerfully tap into audiences and allow them to iterate on the collective brand and human experiences."
Lively is a creative innovation agency known for provocative campaigns on behalf of companies like Coinbase, Adidas and Mazda. According to White, here are 4 ways to tap into the power of audiences.
1) Reward Audiences For Engagement
If you want communities to engage with your content and brand, it makes sense to bake rewards into your strategy.
Lively worked with Coinbase to develop the EARN platform, which gave Coinbase insights on their audience’s experience with the crypto space and allowed them to fill in knowledge gaps. By rewarding users for their engagement on the platform, it empowered new adopters of Coinbase services while intuitively conducting actionable market research.
2) Move From Branded Moments To Lasting Relationships
Advertisers often fall into the trap of building campaigns that are time-bound, and measuring the effectiveness of campaigns against the campaign timeline. Shrewd advertisers are thinking about campaigns more generationally and shifting from momentary activations to long term experiences that are interwoven with people’s lives. “Marketing is going through a metamorphosis,” says White. “From engagement and entertaining formats to culturally relevant stories that last.”
White points to their work with Mazda as an example. The multi-year case study was aimed at giving audiences experiences with the brand in multiple contexts, physically and digitally and aligning the brand across 22 territories.
3) Put Purpose At The Heart Of What You Do
It’s no secret by now that corporate social responsibility is important, particularly to younger consumers. But virtue signaling isn’t enough to reach savvy audiences. When a brand’s adoption of a purpose is disingenuous, it can degrade trust and can have communities engagement for the wrong reasons. We don’t have to think back too far to remember all the brands that were called out after demonstrating allyship on social media for Black Lives Matter without doing the hard work of actually building equity within their organizations.
By putting purpose first and operating from a company’s core values, brands will attract authentic relationships with consumers and build community around honest efforts.
4) Stay Ahead Of The Technical Landscape
Brands that are defining culture are often early adopters of emerging technologies, but they also have the ability to discern between meaningful trends and fleeting fads.
“Technology has and will continue to allow us to connect in more human ways,” says White. “However technology can also be a distraction and take us down paths we were not expecting.”
Lively is one of the first agencies to launch a ChatGPT-powered website experience, and they're exploring innovative ways to utilize generative AI and web3 formats for their partners.
“Generative AI has the ability to tap into the collective and synthesize their feelings and ideas,” says White. “This is a powerful proposition for brands. ChatGPT, Digital collectables, live streaming and Web3 can give us access to a whole new world of engagement. It’s about learning what is right for the audiences our clients want to talk to.”
Understanding the power of audiences to tell you brand story can give marketing leaders unprecedented resources and power. By leading with purpose, encouraging engagement, and innovating through technology into new platforms, creatives can harness that power to move culture forward.
