Trends Marketers Should Keep an Eye on in 2018

In 2017 the ad industry went Venezuela. The year left the ad industry traumatised with a slide into oblivion. It felt the force of nature in the very worst way. The year began with the head of P&G Global Marketing and Brand Building Officer Marc Pritchard’s speech calling out the online advertising industry for being fraud-ridden. A month later the Times of London called out the online tech firms for funding terrorism through online content. Then came the blow out from Facebook with all the ads paid for by Russian Troll Farms to take down Hillary. The huge corporate ad agencies posted bad results, and then the results got worse. Entire layers of management were let go. Things got complicated fast. Change hit harder and faster. 2017 was a year of incredible change . And you can rest assured that it will continue into 2018. The lines between culture, business and politics continue to evaporate. We humans are becoming weary of the digital world. Younger consumers enthralled with social media are the loneliest generation ever. 

How fast life got in 2017. And 2018 will be the year when advertisers lose their thrall for digital and focus on empathy and human connection and emotion. And in 2018 the role for brands to ignite movements that inspire employees and empower consumers alike will continue to grow, separating status quo, old fashioned brands from modern successful brands.

As our new age of business continues, the CMO role will continue to have great importance in determining which companies will win or lose in the year ahead. For advertisers, here are five top things to keep in mind for 2018, from digital transformation to movement driven business.

1. 2018 is the experience economy

To win in 2018, marketers need to think and design  interactions with customers instead of pushing transactions. Do you know anyone who likes to be hard sold? I surely don’t. Consumers are weary of being sold, and the new generation of consumers are even more so. In 2018, CMOs should make storytelling, not selling, the experience that creates an emotional connection and an advantage. In today’s age of brand experience, it seems that emotional engagement is at the heart of this movement and more and more critical to achieving winning results rather then digital marketing.

CMOs must tell the stories consumers feel connected to and emotionally engaged with. Case in point the emotionally charged film 'Climber' for the FAB Grow Stronger Movement.

When thinking about how to gain a competitive advantage in 2018, think about capturing key human insights relevant to the lives of your people, and generate content experiences that bring your brand to life. This will be achieved through stoking passions within a cultural movement - the term I’ve coined to express this marketing framework. 

2. In the age of movement, EVERYONE is a customer

Today, organisations that use movements to create winning experiences are the ones who are leading our new era of collaborative change inside their companies – improving engagement and retaining employees. The key to their success is knowing that everyone, inside and outside of the company, needs to be seen as a customer.

In 2018 companies that harness creativity and technology to tell winning movement-based stories will positively affect the economic, innovative, agility/transformative ability, future aspiration and brand engagement. Both the employee and the consumer want to be a part of a brand that they believe in – a brand movement – that can enrich their daily lives in ways that create meaningful and impactful interaction. Aim to create a movement that brings a genuine kind of purpose, ideas and motivations. And through the movement, the best consumer experiences will be defined by telling informed stories that create emotional engagement: motivation, trust, education and empathy.

According to Harvard Business Review, 89% of executives surveyed said a strong sense of collective purpose drives employee satisfaction. 84% said it can affect an organisation's ability to transform; and 80% said it helps increase customer and employee loyalty. However, defining your purpose has become a me-too ambition for many brands and an average marketing strategy. In 2018 companies wanting competitive advantage will activate a cultural movement which is the evolution of purpose branding.

3. We are in an era of Movements driven by collaboration, inclusion, and the notion of leaving the world a better place. Empathy is key in 2018

2018 will be a year that elicits a call to action for business leaders to contribute to the world as much as their own bottom-line, and do so in ways that bridge the gap between the public and private sectors to activate real change. This means brands must connect with people on a much deeper and more personal level. What’s relevant in their lives? In 2018 movement marketing will combine access for many with big ideas and purposeful action to make the world better.

In 2018, brands that make customers feel included in the aspirations to make tomorrow better than today will capture our hearts and our wallets. The key ingredient in devising a movement strategy is starting with empathy in your marketing, storytelling and brand experience. Transforming collaboration and inclusion from activities into movement strategies will be critical to achieving such endeavours in 2018.

When thinking about internal audiences in 2018, movements will deliver best-in-class content experiences to employees with an eye on retaining them and turning them into brand advocates. Similarly, when applying this, idea leaders will also be able to drive external culture to achieve the same success in the customer funnel.

Case in point: part of Apple’s new brand push includes an empathic plea to “open your heart to everyone.” The Designed for Ian spot within this campaign celebrates the brands sense of purpose, and the world’s new sense of inclusion. Look for more of this in 2018.

4. Don’t just be smart. Be emotionally smart

In a world where products are commoditised by price point, and consumers are looking for experiences that enable them to feel emotionally connected. Ahead of voting with their wallets, connecting on a deeply emotional level, has never been as important as it will be in 2018. The world is looking for deep human passions and brands that muster the courage and fearlessness to deliver that will beat all others in their sector. 

In the year ahead, what will separate the winners from the losers, will be those brands who make a commitment to sharpen their emotional intelligence.

According to this month’s Harvard Business Review, “by understanding that the mechanism behind mindfulness is the improvement of broader emotional intelligence competencies, leaders and the brands they steward can more intentionally work on all of the areas that will have the strongest impact.”

Research across hundreds of brands in dozens of categories shows that the most effective way to maximise customer value is to move beyond mere customer satisfaction and connect with customers at an emotional level – tapping into their fundamental motivations and fulfilling their deep, often unspoken emotional needs. That means that by appealing to any of dozens of 'emotional motivators', such as a desire to belong, to succeed in life, or to feel secure, brands will engage with customers.

Emotionally connected customers are more than twice as valuable as highly satisfied customers. These emotionally connected customers buy more of your products and services, visit you more often, exhibit less price sensitivity, pay more attention to your communications, follow your advice, and recommend you more – everything you hope their experience with you will cause them to do.

Sometimes the emotional power of two simple words have the power to create aspirations, optimism, ignite passions. Case in point: when I wrote the words 'Hello Tomorrow' for Emirates people told me how this phrase connected deeply with them and enabled the airline to express so many aspects of its business strategy to both employees and travellers.

5. Combine culture and AI

Few are happy these days. People have been mowed down by the velocity of the industry and noise and commerce and the pace of change. We got to fix this thing, and find ways to bring it all together. In 2018, that will happen with solutions that come from culture and artificial intelligence will be front and centre in 2018. Building brand movements that align with ideas on the rise in culture will be critical rather than building old fashioned branding off the product difference. Movement strategies based on insights gathered from culture will be more important in 2018 than mere product pillars. Getting the brand movement experience right, creating emotional content bringing that to life, and then underpinning it through a seamless AI purchase experience is a recipe for success in 2018.