Digital habbits marketers need to break from: Tripti Lochan

Let us begin with establishing a basic premise of the social world. It is the consumers’ world. While brands are now present, and present in great numbers in this space, it not the brands’ world. So, any brand which aspires to be succesful in this space, needs to play to a few rules without fail.

According to the 2015 Trend Report by Trendwatching, there are dominant consumer trends to watch out for in any interactions brands plan with their consumers. And, they serve as great base tenets for brands as they plan their social marketing.

One of the first trends, which has been around for a few years and is still dominant is what we call “The Internet of Me”. In a study conducted by Camp Mobile, “The Youth and Online Habits Study” in 2014, it showed that 60% of consumers mentioned sharing pictures of themselves as the top activity on social media, followed by information of what they were doing at the time at 50%.

What can brands on social do with this? Put the consumer in the center of everything you do. Its not about you sending a brand message or product information, it is about allowing consumers to interact with your brand and content in the manner they prefer. In some cases even creating the content for you.

In a campaign for Wendy’s the iconic burger chain in the U.S, VML launched a campaign for to reward consumers for the love they showed the Pretzel Bacon Cheeseburger product. We took consumer tweets, which spoke of the product in glowing terms and changed that love into actual love songs, performed by some of the world’s leading pop artists. Consumers were tweeted back the song from their tweet, to create delightful surprise.

The second trend, which is particularly relevant to social marketers, is the “Power of Storytelling”. In a 2014 ContentMarketing Trends Survey, by Holger Schulze for Optify, consumers were researched to ask what made for winning content. Engaging storytelling topped the list at 81.5%, followed by orginality at 52.6% and custom content at 49.2%. brands cannot recreate adverts on social and expect consumer interest or engagement anymore. They have to find an original and engaging story to tell consumers through their social content.

As part of the social marketing efforts of the Moods Condoms brands, we use multiple strands of storytelling to communicate to the brand’s audiences. In keeping with the brand’s propostiion of #PlayItRight, we create content ranging from dating tips to sexual equality of genders to the right way to manage the morning after a one night stand. This story also finds extension into other aspects of consumers’ lives keeping the #PlayItRight story relevant to them.

The third trend, is what Trendwatching 2015 Trends report called “Fuzzynomics”. It predicts yet another evolution of the relationships brands form with their consumers. Over the years brands have experiemneted with the tapping the crowd route to participation in marketing route. But, all of these routes are now looking jaded. And joining the path that consumers lead us to seems to be the next way to go.

In a recent campaign for a leading bank in Singapore, VML devised campaign based on a trend of consumers tweeting pick up lines about bank products. As a bank brand, it would have been usual response to either ignore or respond with caution. But, in this case the bank jumped right into the game, and opened their own social channels with enthusiastic sharing of more variants of bank product pick up lines. Putting themselves right in the middle of a real consumer conversation, and making the point about being a non-stuffy bank in a way that no advertising could have made.

About the Author:

Tripti Lochan, CEO VML Asia - Ms. Tripti has been successfully leading teams in the Internet, wireless & direct marketing space for the last 20 years. She has worked extensively in Asia, Middle-East and in the US creating marketing solutions for multi-national clients such as Dell, 3M, INSEAD, ICICI Bank, Mahindra and BMW. She has the experience of working on Web Consulting, Marketing Campaigns, and large Website Builds as well as helping brands with their Brand Positioning and Strategy. In her capacity as CEO for VML South Asia, she leads the agency across the geographies of Singapore, India, Malaysia and Indonesia and is the vision that drives the agency forward.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of the author and Adgully has no role in it