It’s noisy and busy in the marketplace, perhaps more so than at any time in human history.

We were promised that the internet would democratize access to information, tear down geographic boundaries, and make interacting with people and businesses all over the world as simple as clicking a button.

For better and for worse, that all happened. We’re still grappling with the externalities, but a digital economy and a connected world are no longer thought experiments. They are essential parts of our daily lives.

For brands and advertisers, that reality is a double-edged sword. Their outreach can travel further and more efficiently to larger audiences, and with more precise targeting and data feedback than they ever dared hope for a decade ago — but so can the competition’s message.

“Modern consumers are inundated with content and branded communication from a growing list of channels. In a media ecosystem that hits the average consumer with over 6,000 marketing messages daily, it can seem impossible to get noticed (or hold everyone’s attention if you do). Anything boring, subdued, inauthentic, or commonplace gets tuned out.”

– Mitch Fait, Creative Director, Gigasavvy

To separate your brand from the rest, you have to be willing to put real skin in the game and go for something bold.

Audiences Have Seen and Heard It All Before

Attention is a scarce and fleeting resource. To capture and keep it, brands have to act boldly, making creative decisions that are just a half step outside their comfort zone.

They have to innovate faster, take more chances, iterate on successes, and brush off and learn from failures. Most of all, adaptive brands and companies must direct their energies towards strategies that will separate them from everyone else in the minds of their target market to inspire durable brand loyalty.

The alternative isn’t much of an alternative. It’s stagnation and ultimately extinction. Brands that play it safe, rest on their laurels and avoid upsetting anyone undercut their opportunities for growth and let their chance to pivot in the face of changing market forces wither on the vine.

As Atilla Cansun, pharma giant Merck’s former CMO once told an audience at Cannes Lions, brands need to take more risks and “constantly provoke,” explaining, “You can be overtaken in such a short space of time.”

Jorn Socquet, AB InBev marketing head, put it even more bluntly: “As CMOs, we don’t take risks. I think we’re a very lazy bunch who want to protect our jobs. We don’t want to have tough conversations with our bosses.”

Perhaps there was a time in marketing when outright risk aversion was called for, but this definitely isn’t it. Trading your long-term prospects for short-term security isn’t a strategy, it’s a surrender.

Embrace Risk… But Manage It

Whatever the reason for avoiding risk and bold ideas, be it fear or apathy, the consequences are similar. Sinking further and further into irrelevance, while nimbler, more daring, and aggressive rivals steal away market share.

Managing risk is good brand stewardship, but only so long as the goal isn’t to eliminate risk entirely. Nothing of great value comes without risk. Frankly, if a project has no risk, it means one of two things: either the risk was misjudged or the project is of trivial importance.

Winning new fans, breaking into new markets, challenging an established market leader, and shifting public perception require putting skin in the game. So, the question is, who has been taking big but smart risks and finding success?

Here’s the story of three brands that went bold and won big:

Marc Ecko – Still Free

Back in the aughts, streetwear designer Marc Ecko had a problem. His brand was perilously close to becoming mainstream. That’s not a problem for most clothing makers, but for Ecko, it meant losing cachet with its most influential audience, namely the graffiti artists and young, urban demographic that put it on the map in the first place.

Ecko needed a big, crazy move to prove it was as gritty and authentic as ever.

In a guerrilla marketing stunt for the ages, the brand filmed a three-minute video called “Still Free” that purported to show a vandal breaking into Andrews Airforce Base and tagging up none other than Air Force One.

It was all just special effects trickery, but the footage was convincing enough that the Pentagon had to issue not one but three strongly worded denials that America’s most secure aircraft was in fact perfectly fine.

The end result for Ecko was perhaps the first viral marketing coup, with 23 million unique views in just the first two weeks of the video’s release. More importantly, the story was picked up by over 17,000 international news outlets, winning global attention for Ecko.

They had successfully converted a tiny marketing spend into millions of dollars of earned media, and demonstrated to their audience that they hadn’t lost their edge.

Nike – Dream Crazy

Colin Kaepernick probably didn’t realize when he first started taking a knee at NFL games during the National Anthem that his football career was ending and life as a political activist and influencer was beginning.

Once he started on that path, however, battle lines were quickly drawn. One side supported his objection to the treatment of African Americans by police. The other considered his act unpatriotic. Brands as big as Nike don’t typically like to wade right into the middle of a dispute as politically and emotionally charged as that.

This is why the world was stunned in 2018 at the release of a campaign headlined by Kaepernick asking us to “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.”

The backlash was swift. #BoycottNike immediately started trending on social media and former Nike fans posted videos burning their sneakers and cutting the Swooshes off their clothes. But not everyone was upset. Serena Williams tweeted that she was “…especially proud to be a part of the Nike family today.” Online sales spiked 31-percent immediately following the campaign’s launch.

Three years later, and while the boycott mostly disappeared, Nike is still riding high. Ace Metrix found that only 13-percent of consumers they surveyed said they were less likely to purchase from Nike after viewing the ad. 56-percent said they were more likely, and that number was higher for millennials and Gen Z.

While it might have seemed a huge gamble, in truth, it was in keeping with their brand identity and core values. Nike has long positioned itself as a young at heart rebel brand that embraces the pain that accompanies growth and greatness.

Plus, they are as aware as anyone, particularly given the younger demos they court, that consumers are demanding the brands they interact with and patronize take a vocal stand on the big issues of the day — and lip service won’t cut it. They want to see action.

So, Nike took a risk that is in keeping with its ethos, capabilities, and goals. They didn’t attempt something out of character just for the sake of risk-taking, and, according to Nike Chairman Mark Parker, it led to “record engagement with the brand” (not to mention an Emmy for best commercial).

Wendy’s – Keeping Fortnite Fresh

Wendy’s is a classic challenger brand. It’s not a niche player, but it has little chance of overtaking the dominant market leader. Rather than see that as a limitation, however, it has chosen to take it as a license to have more fun, take more chances, and be fearless in its efforts to define itself as different and superior to other burger brands. And it’s working! Wendy’s is now the No. 2 burger chain in America.

In 2020 they have been anything but square, applying truly innovative marketing and advertising practices to work, increasing sales by 4.8% and rounding out a $10.23 billion year amidst a pandemic, while Burger in contrast fell by 5.4%. Sure, McDonald’s is still the dominant player, with U.S. sales exceeding $40 billion that remained flat this past year,

There are so many great campaigns that come to mind when digging into Wendy’s archives, but one that demonstrates just how intune they are with their audience and current trends, as well as how agile and innovative their marketing team is, would have to be their campaign “Keeping Fortnite Fresh.”

Without an official in-game sponsorship, Wendy’s identified an organic way to make waves across the Fortnite community. When Fortnite announced a new game mode, Food Fight, pitting Team Pizza against Team Burger (a reference to the game’s 2 iconic restaurants, Pizza Pit and Durr Burger), Wendy’s saw their opportunity and seized the moment. Rather than bombarding Fortnite fans with Wendy’s advertisements and interrupting their gaming fun, Wendy’s joined the fray and became part of the story by creating a Wendy’s inspired avatar and announcing their mission on Twitch to destroy all Durr Burger freezers in the game on behalf of Team Pizza. A move in complete alignment with their core brand message and key point of differentiation: fresh, never frozen beef.

And what about the results? Wendy’s amassed more than 1.5 million minutes watched. Their Twitch stream was viewed over 250 million times and mentions of Wendy’s increased by 119% across social platforms.

In today’s competitive landscape you have to break out of the ordinary and serve up entertaining and engaging content if you want to cut through the noise. Companies with a strong brand strategy in place can identify unique opportunities and leverage original ways of communicating to strike gold. But conform to convention and you’re dead in the water.

The Only Way Out Is Through

In the digital economy, things move fast and the rate of change is accelerating. A lack of awareness of what’s at stake, or a lack of urgency in addressing these realities, is brand growth kryptonite, and any brand not growing is dying.

Yet, there are also growing concerns about offending audiences. Fears of being canceled, inciting a social media hate mob, insulting a vulnerable population, or just making the brand look bad are discouraging brand managers from sailing fearlessly into uncharted waters.

The only proven path ahead is to welcome change and have the courage to face the consequences of trying big and bold (but strategically selected and analytically vetted) brand experiments.

As Michael Lee, the Creative Director at oat milk brand Oatly, tells his team: “You have to have a thick skin because there’s a lot of anger and contention.” Lee sees that as a cost of doing business and one worth the price.

The key to pushing creative boundaries is to remain true to your brand’s mission and voice while maintaining a strong connection with the culture and community that supports you. If you remain actively engaged and stay true to these principles, you will identify your unique opportunities to break with convention and run unexpected campaigns that gain attention, build loyalty, and drive growth.

“My favorite time of the day in Joshua Tree is when the sun has just set, the moon is beginning to rise, and the warm tones of the rocks turn beautiful shades of pink and purple. There’s something so calm and peaceful about the stillness, and I wanted my poster to reflect that feeling.”

– Brittany Davis

“I chose to celebrate Yosemite National Park and highlight the Half Dome crest. This particular vantage point can be seen driving through the park as you pass through the bend of the trees. As the road twists and turns, it opens up to this breathtaking view. This iconic landscape inspired me to visit Yosemite National Park this year in person, for the first time. It is a view more people should experience in person and hopefully, these vintage-inspired travel posters will encourage nature lovers to get out and enjoy earth day!”

– Nicole Pawloski

“Death Valley is one of the hottest places on the planet and features striking, dramatic landscape. The Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes are one of the very few locations where large dune fields are created. While individual grains move and ripples form, the dune field remains. Knowing that a nearly infinite number of grains of sand are in perpetual motion, constantly reshaping the landscape, yet somehow remaining a part of a greater whole is an idea that continues to draw me in.”

– Ryan Schram

“Sequoia National Park is a very special place to me. It’s like nowhere else on this planet. There’s something magical you feel in the air and in the ground beneath your feet when you’re walking amongst those giant trees. Nothing can prepare you for your first glimpse of the Giant Sequoias after making your way up the winding mountain road, and nothing can make you forget it.”

– Tyler Oslie

Love these California National Parks as much as we do? Drop us a line and we’ll hook you up the high-res files so you can create your own Art Prints.

As a creative agency, Gigasavvy’s purpose has been brought into sharp focus over the last year and is more relevant than ever. To inspire meaningful human connection in a digitally-dominated world is baked into how we approach every aspect of our business. We believe that putting people first is essential to developing and delivering truly innovative solutions for our clients as well as for ourselves. Identifying the core human truths that connect us while focusing on ideas that inspire and unite people helps our team continue to challenge the status quo. With that in mind, we are excited to share the first installment of Positive Propaganda, our quarterly look into the key moments and trends poised to shape and impact the culture at large.

The interactive deck below is filled with insightful articles, engaging videos, immersive digital experiences, and whimsical games that represent the best of what the global creative community has put out into the world during quarantine. You can explore Positive Propaganda by clicking the arrows on the bottom right corner of the deck or view in full-screen here.
 

While everything felt a bit different this year, there were still a handful of the usual star-studded affairs featuring Timothée Chalmette and Winona Ryder (Cadillac Lyriq), Matthew McConaughey (Doritos), Jason Alexander (Tide), and Drake (State Farm). That’s what got Gigasavvy’s creative team thinking, “What if we flipped the expected on its head; what might that look like?” And the Gigasavvy Brand Bowl was born.

HI-CHEW Unicorns

HI-CHEW is a candy that is not only known for being unique but stands for the greater good of encouraging others to embrace their own uniqueness. It’s ok to be different and dance to the beat of your own drum. It’s all about being confident with who you are. The unicorn is exactly that. It embodies the idea of being unique and different with an entire rainbow of confidence. So let’s agree to be ourselves, and we’ll be champions no matter what.

Oi Guardians

This creative iteration displays Mother Nature as Oi’s Super Bowl team mascot in a fun, modern way. The greens and topography lines call back to the earth, while the black lines make a bold statement.

Oi has a world-focused mindset when it comes to their company values and goals, and I wanted to display that here as well. Our earth and our womanhood are worth guarding and protecting, and we can only succeed when we come together and defend them as a team.

Nationwide Eagles

Focusing on “Nationwide Pride”, this creative execution gives off a sense of protection and security. The logo takes the form of a family crest – which symbolizes the shield of protection around Nationwide Pet customers. The Nationwide eagle has been redesigned with its wings wide, to show how wide its protection extends – Nationwide! This sense of security allows the team to feel free and victorious!

Flame Broiler Flames

With the Flame Broiler Flames, we really wanted to capture the magic of Flame Broiler and what it stands for as a brand, which is a quick and easy way to eat “Simply Healthy”. To do so, we started with a very simple, minimalistic geometric illustration style, bringing to life Flame Broilers bold branding with a fun and edgy SoCal flair.

The Flame Broiler Flames bring the heat every time they step out onto the field, with their superior defense and an offense that is Simply Magic! This Southern California based team never fails to delight with a healthy dose of style and flair that always leaves their fans feeling satisfied.

Building Your Brand Begins With Strategy

Gigasavvy specializes in marketing and advertising across digital and traditional platforms that elicits an emotional response from our audiences, resulting in a lasting change in perception and behavior. We believe that inspiring authentic human connections is a brand’s best path to loyalty, sustainability, and bottom-line results. To accomplish this, Gigasavvy has built a multidisciplinary team of experts that work in collaboration, leveraging their respective skills to help brands read between the lines of data and deliver memorable brand experiences that connect decision-makers to brands by accessing their core human truth. Our combination of strategic, creative, and technical disciplines empowers us to help brands navigate the complex business challenges that arise in a rapidly evolving marketplace. Get in touch today to learn how partnering with Gigasavvy will keep your brand ahead of the competition. 

For a year marked by lockdowns, 2020 was also paradoxically a time when many people were in motion. We moved from densely packed cities to remote spots in the countryside and transitioned from physical locations to virtual ones.

The gym gave way to live-streamed Peloton classes. The office was replaced by Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and other productivity and collaboration platforms. Even school went virtual and many medical services were delivered via telehealth.

Digital transformation was a priority across industries even before the pandemic hit, but after, it became a true lifeline.

Post-Pandemic Pivot

Some brands and companies were slow to change when COVID emerged. Others saw the opportunity to use their skills and creative strengths to quickly develop memorable and innovative solutions.

For example, when the L.A. Dodgers made it to the World Series, Postmates developed a unique at-home experience for fans. Everything from classic Dodger Dogs to a mini baseball helmet filled with chicken strips was made available for home delivery to recreate the stadium experience as best as possible under the circumstances.

Lockdowns forced us to rely far more heavily on digital tools than ever before. And not just the mundane stuff like online spreadsheets and chat rooms. Almost two-thirds of leading consumer brands, invested in AR, VR, 3D content, and 360-degree video in 2020, according to Accenture.

These still early experimentations will only grow more sophisticated, more immersive, and more engaging. We still haven’t seen a killer app in this sector, a piece of content, or a platform that massively drives adoption, but it’s only a matter of time.

In fact, Gigasavvy Creative Director Mitch Fait believes that reality is closer than even many industry insiders realize:

“There has always been a barrier to entry for AR in advertising because you had to force users to download a special app to view content. People resisted using QR codes for the same reason. But, with that tech now native to most phones, there is an opportunity to push AR experiences in ways previously unimaginable to mass audiences.”

Ultimately, technology is only as useful or engaging as the purpose for which it’s deployed, and 2020 saw some ingenious implementations — many of which will stick around in 2021 and beyond.

Digital Togetherness

Humans are social animals. We are driven to share, connect, and congregate. When we couldn’t see each other in person we formed gatherings on messaging apps, video conferencing platforms, and social media networks. We formed digital clubs, live-streamed our days, and shared our experiences through whatever digital means were available. And the platforms responded to this new normal.

Discord, the online service for gamers, artists, and hobbyists, saw a 47% increase in use. Spotify rolled out a plugin-in for listening parties. Twitch, the video game streaming site, broke usage records seemingly every month. Five billion hours were watched on the platform in the second quarter of 2020 alone.

Live viewings jumped 50% on Facebook during lockdowns, and Instagram was up over 70%. Generation Y favorite TikTok broke 100 million active monthly users in the U.S., an 800% increase from 2018.

What’s more, these platforms enabled a far more interactive and engaging experience than legacy media channels are capable of. Viewers could post questions, tag images and videos, share digital stickers and emojis, and even buy products directly in their mobile apps and social media websites.

Virtually There

Another thing that is likely here to stick around in 2021 is the increasing number of incredible interactive virtual events. A record-breaking 12 million players logged into Fortnite to catch Travis Scott’s live virtual concert, Astronomical. J Balvin’s Halloween concert in the battle royale game was also incredibly well received.

Though forced to take their acts online by the pandemic, brands leaned into the opportunity and created experiences that were eye-popping, larger than life, and so engaging that you can bet Fortnite will continue to seek out top artists to collaborate with for virtual events, regardless of whether real-world venues are hosting events or not.

With its runway show canceled, Prada converted its SS 2021 Womenswear Show into a multimedia experience, complete with fully immersive 3D VR. Competing high fashion brand Zegna described its approach as ‘phygital,’ a hybrid solution that merged pre-recorded content with live models.

Rebranding Revolution

Some of the changes brought about by the pandemic will slowly fade away with time. A post-COVID world will hopefully feature a lot less social distancing. But not every new change will disappear. 75% of U.S. consumers tried different stores, websites, or brands during the pandemic. The majority of them said they expect to integrate these new brands or stores into their post-pandemic lives. Gigasavvy Strategy Director Kristy Gulsvig expects the recent interest in rebranding will spread in 2021 and continue growing as brands are required to evolve and adapt to accelerating trends.

“Brands are beginning to invest in rebranding to keep up with changing consumer behaviors and attitudes,” says Kristy. “They are also rethinking the way they converse with their customers. Brands are laser-focused on identifying what consumers truly care about and communicating their values in authentic ways that resonate by tapping into our shared humanity.”

Conscious Companies

An increased demand that brands and companies articulate their position on pressing issues of the day and behave in accordance with their stated core values, a trend that has been attributed to the Gen Y and Z demographics, exploded in 2020 amid cultural upheaval surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement, pandemic lockdowns, and growing awareness of environmental risks.

Diversity and inclusion, in particular, were hot button issues in 2020. Accenture found that 41% of consumers have begun deserting retailers that don’t reflect their views on identity and diversity. That trend has implications from the consumer perspective — 66% of millennials say they won’t patronize a company that refuses to take a stand — and for employers who have discovered that most of the younger talent pool is willing to ‘job-hop’ until they find a home that matches their ethos.

“The need to formulate and express a prosocial corporate culture and vision has become a vital objective, with very real repercussions not just for most company’s ethical grounding and perceptions of their authenticity, but on profitability and brand growth,” said Gigasavvy’s Kristy Gulsvig.

Co-creative User Involvement

In March of 2020, as the pandemic was just starting to become a reality, there was an 80% increase in searches for “DIY” (“do it yourself”) on Google.

Taking the initiative to build it yourself turns a rote activity into a journey of personal growth. Harnessing the IKEA effect (the tendency to put disproportionate value on goods you help build) is an emerging goal for all designers of engaging experiences and interactions. What was once limited to couches with unpronounceable Swedish names now applies to just about anything.

“Your audience isn’t a dumping ground for content, messaging, and products,” explains Gigasavvy Marketing Director Daniel Reizes. “So much of what traditional marketers do is landfill, put into the world to meet a deadline or check a box, then tossed away and forgotten in an instant with the hope of subconsciously influencing purchasing decisions. But it doesn’t have to be that way. As marketers, we are in a position to add significant cultural value to society by creating opportunities for dialogue and discovery. Best of all, we don’t need an algorithm or cookies that track our behavior to make these connections.”

Part and parcel with that development has been the perpetual growth of user-generated content (UGC). “Audiences loved the opportunity to share their voices, and brands were more than happy to help them because it’s an inexpensive source of relatable and authentic earned media that helps form lasting bonds and stay stop of mind amongst consumers,” says Reizes.

Gigasavvy’s Senior Social Media Strategist, Angie Guevara, predicts that the next big trend in UGC will be remixing. Superfans empowered with the tools of digital creation aren’t just consuming culture, they are recreating and reimagining it, and adding in their own personal touches and character.

Agile Agencies

Another trend that flourished in 2020 and which is primed for further growth is the rise of smaller and independent marketing and advertising agencies. With a new reason to pivot seemingly every month, the value of a partner that is inherently nimble — and able to extract maximum value from smaller, more targeted brand investments — has been highlighted.

According to Adweek, 40% of brands could be looking for a new agency in the next six to 12 months, and with less bureaucracy and fewer stakeholders to appease, small and independent shops are empowered to be proactive in solving problems and accelerating turnaround times to address rapidly changing conditions in the marketplace.

Even the very biggest brands, like pizza giant Domino’s, are devoting a lot more attention to this space these days. “I really feel that the independent agency model gives us more flexibility and less distractions,” said Domino’s Chief Marketing Officer Art D’Elia. Others, including their rival Papa John’s and massive conglomerates like Kraft Heinz, are also diversifying their roster of agencies to include smaller firms that are more open to creative experimentation and a quicker cadence.

Cookieless Web

One of the biggest unknowns facing us in 2021 will be the fate of a time-tested piece of digital marketing technology: the browser cookie. These tiny bits of data record user activity on the web and are essential for advertisers attempting to track, target, and optimize digital ads. It’s difficult to personalize outreach when you don’t know who you are talking to, after all.

That is about to change, though. Google has announced that in 2022, its Chrome browser, which dominates globally with 65% market share, will stop supporting third-party cookies. That change might result in the development of new, less invasive, and more private means of tracking users.

It also looks to spur the growth of advertising directly on ecommerce platforms like Amazon and Walmart, which rose by 39% in 2020, according to eMarketer, and is predicted to grow another 30% in 2021 to reach 13% of the total digital ad spend in the U.S. Top ecommerce sites know a lot about their customers already and aren’t as reliant on third-party tracking.

What’s Next?

Complacency breeds contempt, but new obstacles light the fires of creation, and the whole world was challenged in 2020 like at no point in most people’s lives. We should be proud that, in the face of volatility and turmoil, so many forged ahead unabated. More than half of the respondents to tech brand Wetransfer’s year-end survey said that the changes in their working environment resulted in them having more ideas, not less.

Growth always happens outside our comfort zone, and 2020, most would agree, was a year spectacularly devoid of typical comforts. For certain, the road ahead is still perilous and uncertain, but the knowledge that we can not only survive but thrive no matter what 2021 throws at us is confidence-inspiring and should serve as motivation to continue to evolve, ideate, and connect.

Ready to start leveraging the lessons of 2020 to make your 2021 revolutionary? Talk to Gigasavvy today.

The majority of consumers make decisions based on their personal values.

So what does a successful purpose-driven strategy look like?

We held a roundtable discussion with four marketing and business leaders from three national and global brands, to explore the ways they create and support powerful purpose-driven strategies. 

Here are some of the takeaways from our panel of purpose-driven marketers:

Question: Why did you choose to pursue a purpose-driven brand and marketing strategy?

Barbara Moreno, VP Marketing of Allied Universal

It started before I even took the position with Allied Universal, when I was doing my research on the industry. What we found was that there was a sea of sameness and lack of differentiation among our top competitors. 

When we started doing our own research, we found that customers and employees would tend to talk about features and benefits. But when there’s no emotional connection, customers tend to make decisions based on price. That’s a problem. We don’t want to be viewed as commoditized. 

We started to dig into our why: what do we and why do we do? What we uncovered – the feeling of safety – was there all along. 

Safety is a basic, fundamental truth based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This went perfectly with our existing tagline, “There for you,” and resonated with us as a team. We were able to build a distinct purpose around defining what “there for you” means.

As we defined our direction, it was key to have executive buy-in at every step of the process. We had ongoing conversations with our CEO as we went along. The CEO was involved every step of the way in defining our new guiding statements, and in the brand campaign that brought our purpose to life. It’s essential to involve your senior leadership and to have that alignment all the way through the process.

Question: What are some of the challenges in pursuing a purpose-driven strategy?

Helen Robinson, CEO of Organic Initiative

The noise! Greenwashing is a big issue for us. In the period products marketplace, unlike food companies or cosmetics, we are not required by law to list ingredients on our packages. So when someone sees “made with organic cotton,” no one realizes that the majority of the product is made of plastic and filled with toxins and chemicals. That communication makes it hard for companies like us who are doing it right.

Our conventional competitors have very deep pockets. So how do we help educate our customers that there is a different way? 

We have gone through the difficult process of ensuring that our period products are certified organic, globally. We have to use partnerships with like-minded companies to help us get that message out. It’s certainly not easy. There’s so much misinformation everywhere. 

What we’ve tried to do is use a provocative positive protest. We want to be positive and forward-thinking, while also being thought-provoking. Our packages say “Pure inside, nothing to hide.” We want the consumer to think about what that statement really means, and to ask questions about the products they are buying and using.

Question: How do you ensure that your purpose- or mission-driven strategy is playing out in an authentic way?

Daniel Lee, Head of Brand and Technology, Flame Broiler

Christian Lee, Head of Business Operations, Flame Broiler

Especially recently, being an ethical company has become a table-stakes feature for brands. For a lot of companies, being purpose-driven comes from a place of showing first, and doing second. Many companies are making it about a marketing ploy. 

For us, at Flame Broiler, it’s all about the heart. We try to live our values before we talk about them. When you lead with purpose, you may have a P&L that doesn’t always make sense. For example, we buy antibiotic-free chicken and sell it for $7.40.

But when your purpose is woven into the framework of who you are and let it inform your decisions, you can be confident that you’ll live it authentically. And success, profits, growth, become a byproduct. 

We use the analogy of an archer. Some archers look at the bullseye and try to hit it again and again. But instead of trying to focus on hitting the bullseye, if you focus on your form, equipment, and breathing, it becomes much easier to be successful. 

Question: Describe some of the success you’ve found in pursuing a purpose-driven strategy?

Daniel Lee, Head of Brand and Technology, Flame Broiler

Christian Lee, Head of Business Operations, Flame Broiler

When the company started, our dad never wanted more than one store. But in 2020, there are hundreds of locations. We’ve gotten to where we are through word of mouth. 

Our dad opened the first store to feed us and feed people good food. But customers demanded more, so he allowed franchisors to open their own store. We have no franchise salespeople, which is unusual in our world. Our growth is entirely community-driven. 

Barbara Moreno, VP Marketing of Allied Universal

Our industry has very high turnover so employee loyalty is super important. We’re very focused on employee retention. Being purpose-driven makes a lot of difference from that perspective. Since we’ve began communicating that purpose, we’ve had a lot of positive feedback from our employees!

When we were able to articulate our purpose, it gave our employees and customers a definition of what they were a part of. It simplified our message. It brought authenticity and clarity for everyone in our organization. When you’re truly authentic to your purpose, people are naturally drawn in. It drives loyalty among customers and employees. It gives people a much bigger reason to believe in a company.

Helen Robinson, CEO of Organic Initiative

A single purpose guides our underlying principles. What are the actions and messages that you can use that play on those principles?

We use sales agencies and brokers to work with different retailers. This year, I spoke at a sales rep event. When I thanked them, I told them, “When you’re out there next year talking with buyers and stores and customers, remember that it’s not just about the orders and products on the shelf. It’s about the impact you’re making for the world and the health of women in the world.” The feedback I’ve had is how motivated they are because of that purpose!

Bonus Question: How did you find the right agency to pursue a purpose-driven strategy?

Barbara Moreno, VP Marketing of Allied Universal

It’s really important to find an agency partner that understands you well as a client and that can help you find ways to articulate your purpose and bring it to life. 

Not every agency has the background and wherewithal to tap into those core human truths and to create that core emotional connection with a given brand. For us, we’re very appreciative of working with Gigasavvy. From the beginning, the focus was on who we are as a company and brand, our culture, and why we do things. It’s that close partnership that allowed us to really be successful together.

     “Will brand marketing provide a return on my investment?”

     Or even… “We’re not looking for brand work at this time. Do you do performance marketing?”

These are real questions I have been asked by brands, friends and colleagues looking to hire agencies.

Regardless of the audience, my response is typically that brand vs. performance is not an either/or decision. For short term growth and long-term success, you really need a strategy that utilizes both.

To help explore the topic, here are some of the top myths about performance marketing.

Myth #1: Only Performance Marketing Tactics will Solve My Sales Problems

Performance Marketing often focuses solely on lower funnel tactics, capturing quick wins, or even borrowing from a “growth hacker” mentality. It is typically effective at producing a quick hit and an attractive sales bump as it picks up on those already in-market to make a purchase, regardless of brand related factors (“brand switchers”).

Brand marketing is the language through which performance marketing can articulate long term goals, real consumer motivations, and build a sales funnel set up for longevity. Only by knowing your brand positioning, your brand attributes, and how to translate that into messaging and imagery that resonates, will you will be able to elevate your marketing to create short term growth and long term customer retention.

So yes, effective performance marketing can produce short term sales or leads, but unless brand focused tactics are taken into consideration as well, the “why” that inspires consumers to purchase dissipates shortly thereafter – and along with it, your customer retention.

Myth #2: Performance Marketing offers a Better ROI than Brand Marketing

An effective sales funnel doesn’t end after the first conversion.

The fastest return is often conflated with being the best return on any investment. Even experienced marketers can fall victim to glamorizing the lower funnel conversions. This is often connected to last-click attribution models and other short term measurement strategies. As the most common form of measuring digital marketing performance, the last-click attribution model uses key performance indicators (KPIs) such as return on ad spend (ROAS), cost-per-click and other black and white data points.

While these metrics give us healthy insight into campaign performance, they can often be misleading. In this type of attribution model, the lower funnel, performance marketing tactics – the ad that gets the final click – get all the credit for the resulting transaction. And as a side effect, the brand-related marketing that actually allowed the last ad to work will get no credit, and therefore appears to have a much lower ROI.

So, while ROI for performance marketing is easy to measure because results are immediate, it’s entirely possible (and likely) that a campaign’s effectiveness was only possible because of the support provided by a strong upper-funnel (brand-focused) strategy.

Want to know more about full funnel and retention marketing?

Myth #3: Performance Marketing and Brand Marketing are Separate Strategies

At the end of the day (or campaign), real success is achieved by artfully articulating your brand’s vision, while ruthlessly optimizing against multi-touch performance data. Looking at brand and performance tactics as separate initiatives (or even hiring two different agencies to execute them) is a strategy destined to crash and burn. After all, the bottom line for an effective marketing strategy should be about making a positive impact on a brand’s financial health and market share, in the short and long term.

So, can we all just agree to drop the “performance” vs. “brand” debate and embrace the power of both? A strategy that employs both brand AND performance marketing tactics will allow you to effectively influence the one audience EVERY brand is trying to reach…humans.

Let’s Recap

Between performance marketing AND brand marketing is the power of “and”.

Think in terms of Pareto’s Law, the principle that 80% of your sales come from 20% of your customer base. Performance marketing allows you to bring in sales from the 80% who just want to complete a transaction. But, the 20% that will make up more than half of your sales need something deeper than just a transaction – they want to connect with your brand in a way that performance tactics just won’t allow for.

Read about how to create true brand love with your customers

Performance and brand marketing hold entirely different, but complementary purposes. While performance marketing can close deals and boost short-term sales, brand-focused tactics help to drive brand loyalty and long term customer retention.

Don’t buy into the either/or debate. Only the combination of both practices will drive real human influence and create the kind of success we’re all looking to achieve with marketing and advertising.

A Proven Market Leader

Many know 3 Day Blinds as a California original that has evolved from modest roots to become a leading manufacturer and seller of custom window treatment solutions. With more than 40 years of experience, they have built a brand that represents high-quality, customized offerings, and an authentic commitment to their customers.

Despite an incredibly competitive and fragmented marketplace, 3 Day Blinds has seen decades of growth and market dominance in part because of its culture of innovation. It’s drive to know its customers, test ideas, and offer a premium service has led to continued expansion across the country.

Now, in its next phase of innovation, 3 Day Blinds reached out to Gigasavvy for a new approach to its advertising.

A Sea of Sameness

In today’s world of performance marketing, a preference for direct-response tactics leads to repetitive, undifferentiated advertising. Many of these ads – including those in the home improvement space – recite a laundry list of features and benefits, followed by a phone number that you can “call today!” These ads are great for educating consumers, but typically don’t inspire brand loyalty.

In the past, 3 Day Blinds relied on this style of direct-response advertising that focused on the features of their products, the wide range of options they offer, and their well-regarded in-person consultation program. The ads work, but 3 Day Blinds is a brand that continually seeks to push its success to the next level.

In order to stand out in a cluttered marketplace, 3 Day Blinds and Gigasavvy sought to create a campaign that would go against the typical direct-response style. Instead, we would try to inspire growth by creating a close emotional connection that would allow us to stay top-of-mind if – and when – homeowners need to update their window treatments.

But before diving headfirst into pursuing this approach, we needed to make sure it was right for the brand. That’s where data and market research came into play.

Data-driven, Human-centric Marketing

Data is a keyword used across industries in 2020, and rightly so. In the digital economy, the companies making the most of their data routinely outperform their rivals.

Still, amassing data is the easier half of the modern marketing equation. The real trick is separating the signal from the noise: identifying which datasets are valuable, extracting meaningful business insights from them, and strategically leveraging those assets.

Data is merely a means to an end. An instrument for measuring things that resist quantification, like personal engagement, emotional connection, and even ineffable human values and truths. Gigasavvy is built around the idea that contemporary marketing is an inherently cross-disciplinary pursuit, one that requires a mastery of both art and science.

Creative brilliance that isn’t vetted by data and narrowly tailored to achieve measurable outcomes is obsolete. Likewise, dogmatic adherence to raw numbers without any consideration for the flesh and blood behind them is equally unproductive. Finding the balance between these two concepts is the only proven pathway to greater performance.

The modern consumer is more sophisticated, better informed, and, yes, slightly more jaded than their predecessors. Today, hard selling and information overload are instant turn-offs. It takes a more nuanced approach — one that connects organically to your target audience — to generate lasting brand affinity, customer loyalty, and increased sales.

Performance marketing is a holistic endeavor. It’s more than picking the right demographic, channel, and ad spend — those are merely prerequisites, things that you have to get right before tackling the harder challenge of forming real and durable human connections. You can generate short-term results with just the bare fundamentals, but the returns will inevitably diminish without ongoing, creative investment in the brand and its content and messaging.

The Art of Pressure-Testing Creativity

You can’t connect with people if you don’t understand them. That’s why step one at Gigasavvy is always rigorous data collection and market research to find out exactly who the target audience is, how they see the world, what they value, and what sets their hearts and minds in motion.

Yet, as we’ve established, research, investigation, analysis, and statistical interpretation will only take you so far. Creative output can only be informed by data, not determined by it.

It’s through reading between the lines of data that we can parse out the true value of the numbers. Loyalty and emotional connection are highly subjective; the magic of successful campaigns comes from the stories that the data isn’t telling.

Seeking to increase bookings for their design guidance offering, we developed two very different concepts, one focused on humor and one more emotional and heartfelt. Our ultimate goal was to see how consumers would react: Would one ad resonate better? What would consumers have to say about either concept? And most importantly, did the stories communicate the right emotions and features?

Both spots were tested among the target market, and both received overwhelmingly positive and constructive feedback. The heartfelt version of the ad garnered the highest marks for consideration, the reaction we were hoping for. Not only was the spot well-liked, but consumers were able to parse out complex features and benefits that were never explicitly mentioned in the script.

That feedback helped us refine the scripts and storyboards to maximize the number of potential customers we could connect strongly with.

The Audience Reaction

The finished product subtly highlighted the durability, beauty, and variety of 3 Day Blinds’ products. It was filmed on location in a lovely home that showcases window coverings as a backdrop to family life — which also tied nicely into the reality that most of 3 Day Blinds’ customers are now doing their shopping from home, too.

The public response and the return on marketing investment we achieved for 3 Day Blinds has been incredibly gratifying. The quantity and quality of their leads immediately jumped following the launch of the ads.

Gigasavvy has long invested in the tools and expertise, as well as the mindset, that enables these results. By synergistically augmenting our creative powers with the latest analytical methodologies, we are helping brands like 3 Day Blinds boost their bottom line while making deep and lasting connections to the customers they value most.

For a long time, we relied on digital databases to provide us access to more data than we knew what to do with. But there are two problems with that reliance. On the one hand, the big data dumps are more than most marketers can handle. Without a dedicated analyst to make sense of the numbers, that data is as good as useless.

The other issue – and arguably the bigger problem – is that the data is going away. With the California Consumer Privacy Act going into effect at the beginning of 2020, we are seeing more and more information disappear.

So how do we get the information we need to be as effective as possible? At Gigasavvy, we’re seeing a resurgence of primary market research to fill the gap.

To clarify, Primary Research is custom research you perform yourself. Not desk research, or online searches where you farm information that others have gathered, but insights that you are gathering yourself – straight from the source – using tactics like focus groups, online surveys, or one-on-one customer interviews.

However, market research can be expensive. Not to mention; translating numbers into actionable information is an art – so, depending on the research partner you choose, it can have a limited impact on your business.

Here are three types of market research that we find are always worth the money, and that can have the biggest impact on your business.

Consumer Preference Studies

A consumer preference study helps identify specific consumer trends or market segments to help inform the way you do business.

These exploratory studies can help guide everything from product strategy to audience targeting. When designed around your specific business, it can give your brand a leg up over the competition by providing you with proprietary insights that only you own.

These types of studies are incredibly valuable when launching new things. For example:

• Launching a new product and identifying market reception
• Mid-stage startups and quantifying market opportunities
• New businesses or industries testing market interest

Brand Perception Studies

Brand Perception studies help quantify the subjective value of your brand. This type of research can be incredibly valuable at the start of a brand strategy project – when you’re trying to identify the best path forward for a new or refreshed brand – or to evaluate the health of an existing brand.

Between common measurements like Net Promoter Score, awareness levels and other quantifiable KPIs, this type of study repeated at regular intervals can give you an idea of how your brand is perceived, and the impact of your marketing and branding efforts.

At their core, Brand Perception studies give you a firm foundation to build your brand. They allow you to explore the attributes consumers like about your offer, and the factors you need to improve upon.

But don’t assume these studies are just for customers – your employees are an incredibly important audience for your brand. They have to be on board with your vision in order to accurately exemplify your values to the outside world. Your employees are the literal face to the brand, and it’s just as important to understand what they think is or isn’t working.

Understanding your brand and customers’ perceptions of it can help shape messaging and marketing approaches that will truly resonate and create loyal followers for the long term.

Ad Testing

Whether you’re testing a concept or a fully fleshed-out campaign, Ad Testing is a great way to get both qualitative and quantitative feedback on a creative concept.

Ad Testing can be the trickiest kind of market research. Consumers – who are not professional marketers – often don’t know what to look for when responding to ads. And, when being paid for their time (like in a focus group situation), they feel obligated to give opinions that they may or may not feel strongly about.

Ad Testing needs to be done carefully and consciously, keeping the line of questioning to subjects that the consumer has direct knowledge of, and topics directly pertaining to your advertising goals.

We use Ad Testing in a variety of ways to inform our creative decisions. In a recent case, we tested two partially-developed commercial concepts to help determine which one would be most effective with our target audience. The up-front research focused our efforts on a single ad that consumers told us would be most effective, rather than going through the time and budget of A/B testing two high-production-value ads.

In another case, we used Ad Testing to measure brand perceptions of a client, both before and after viewing an ad. (Spoiler: Our ads raised the client’s Net Promoter Score by over 30 points!)

A side note on A/B testing; It’s only as effective as the quality of work being tested. If you’re comparing two underwhelming concepts against each other, the final outcome will still be mediocre regardless of which campaign scores higher.

The Real Test

Regardless of the kind of market research you’re considering, make sure you’re clear on your objectives, and the questions you’re trying to answer. With a pointed focus on your end goals, you’re sure to find the right insights to propel your business and marketing strategy to create a true competitive advantage.

The truth is it’s hard to quantify exactly what impact a strong brand has on an organization. We can all feel it when a brand is successful. We can all name successful brands. But how do we define that value?

The Feel of a Strong Brand Strategy

When a brand is thoughtfully created and strategically supported, it can be felt throughout the entire organization. Some of the softer, intangible indicators of a strong brand include:

• Internal Culture: Your employees feel good about working at your organization. They are happy, they like coming to work, and they act as your internal fan club.
• Customer Enthusiasm: You’re popular. Customers are seeking you out. Word of mouth is great, and those that know you, love you.
• Market Reception: Even among people you haven’t met yet, you’re popular. The media loves you, your competitors envy you, and investors trust you.
• Business Results: Sales! Sales today, sales tomorrow, and a strong forecast into the future.

But What Is a Brand’s Value, Really?

Actually quantifying the value of a brand is a common challenge. Lucky for us, it’s also a common field of study. We’ve compiled some of the best stats from across the industry that demonstrate the true, quantifiable value of a strong brand strategy.