WHERE HAVE

ALL THE BRAVE

BRANDS GONE?
KIM DOUGLAS
 What do Robin Williams, the World
Cup, and Ebola all have in common?
They were Google’s three most
searched terms in 2014. Not a single
for-profit brand found itself in the
top ten because of its marketing
campaigns. Wondering why? Well,
it might surprise some marketers to
discover that consumers are not likely
to go to the Internet for advertising.
Brands and agencies that are com-
mitted to finding ways to enter their
consumers’ always-on worlds have a
special sort of bravery. They see in new
technologies and media a call to step
away from the familiarity of “trusted”
messaging and media strategies,
and to start experimenting with new,
non-traditional marketing initiatives
that thrive in the digital environment.
Responding to that challenge means
that they must welcome digital’s
unique opportunities versus simply
repurposing existing assets from
traditional channels.
Brands that treat the Internet
like a traditional advertising
medium often irritate, rather
than engage, people.
As with the launching of any new
medium, the first instinct is to adapt
current media successes to the new
channel. This “horseless carriage”
thinking is why we still find YouTube
pre-rolls (reformulated TV commercials)
and banner ads (reformulated print ads)
1
PR Newswire. “Younger Viewers Find Targeted Ads
More Invasive Than Older Viewers.” http://www.prnews
wire.com/news-releases/younger-viewers-find-targeted-ads-more-invasive-than-older-viewers-267164601.html.
OUR PERSPECTIVES
all over the Internet. But brands are
slow to admit that these placements
do not always work as well as they had
hoped. Accepting disappointing returns
on time, creative, energy, and media
investments is not the brave course
to follow.
In a recent study of online ad viewer-
ship, over 50 percent of viewers –
Brave brands see
across all age brackets – found both in new technologies
targeted and non-targeted ads to be and media a call
equally intrusive. Also noteworthy, the
survey revealed that only 10 percent
to step away from
of respondents believe that online the familiarity of
video advertising (despite its ease in
“trusted” messaging
audience targeting) is actually tailored
to them correctly.1 and media strategies,
These numbers aren’t new. Statistics
and to start
and insights like these have been experimenting with
readily available for brands to digest new, non-traditional
and apply for some time now, yet
adaptation to the changed environment
marketing initiatives
has been slow. that thrive in the
Perhaps this is because brands are digital environment.
overwhelmed by the barrage of digital
opportunities; they’ve gone from
running print and broadcast campaigns
to maintaining multiple social, digital,
live streaming, print, and broadcast
messages (often for the same budget).
Often then, it seems that brand
managers find themselves coping
by becoming managers of agencies,
rather than acting as marketing entre-
preneurs pursuing clear visions of their
brands’ futures.
 Power to the people
Unfortunately for marketers, consumers have increasingly more control over how,
when, and even if they see an advertisement online. A few clicks is all it takes to
skip a YouTube pre-roll, hide a sponsored post on Facebook, or choose to pay for
ad-free streaming. In short, digital audiences are not captive (and they know it), and
they have the power to opt in and out of “interruptive messaging.”

Consequently, brands that fail to meet one or another of the consumer’s “need
states” are struggling to make tried and tested offline advertising principles work
in new, and very different, digital environments.

Four consumer need states

In our experience, there are four predominant needs that drive consumers to
the web: information, service, entertainment, and social interaction.

INFORMATION SERVICE
Google it! Can I do it online?

Information gathering is the highest rated
category of people’s time on the web.
• 91% go online to research
• 89% go online to remain informed
• 82% go online to educate themselves
This is probably the consumer request
heard most frequently by brands.
Consumers expect:
• To perform offline functions online
2 • Brands to provide any service any
time of day

ENTERTAINMENT SOCIAL INTERACTION

Just for the fun of it. Making connections.

84% of those surveyed claim to use
the web primarily for entertainment,
explaining why, every 60 seconds of
every day:
• YouTube adds 72 hours of new videos
• Instagram users upload 48,600 photos4
• And 15,000 tracks are downloaded
from iTunes5
Consumers look to the web to socialize,
express themselves, and advocate
personal belief systems.
On a global scale, there are two-thirds
3 as many active social media accounts
(2.08 billion) as there are active Inter-
net users (3.01 billion people).6

2
Ruder Finn. “RF Intent Index.” http://www.intentindex.com/. Updated quarterly, accessed May 15, 2015.
Mashable. “Internet Users Send 204 Million Emails Per Minute.” http://mashable.com/2014/04/23/data-online-
3,4

every-minute/.
5
Apple. “iTunes Store Sets New Record with 25 Billion Songs Sold.” https://www.apple.com/sg/pr/library/2013/
02/06iTunes-Store-Sets-New-Record-with-25-Billion-Songs-Sold.html.
We Are Social. “Digital, Social & Mobile Worldwide in 2015.” http://wearesocial.net/blog/2015/01/digital-social-
6

mobile-worldwide-2015/.

OUR PERSPECTIVES
 So, what does a courageous
brand look like?
To be brave, brands need to re-evaluate
their roles in both the online and offline
lives of their consumers, a step often
involving accepting difficult truths.
Core organizational structures and
the traditional funding practices of
marketing are being challenged at the
same time as demands for results are
increasing. It’s akin to changing the
wheels while the car is moving, and it
requires that brands become more
flexible with their roles.
Brave brands should envision how digi-
tal technology can facilitate always-on
story systems, creating an optimal
range of roles in consumers’ experien-
ces. For instance, if your business
relies on selling products, it is worth
considering how your digital experience
can provide a service layer that serves
another need state. And vice versa. If
you offer a service, think about what
products can bolster that service to
deliver scale and growth.
Brave brands have removed their fin-
gers from the triggers of purely tradi-
tional advertising scatterguns. They
have embraced consumers’ newfound
powers and have taken the time to un-
derstand need states before engaging
consumers in a dialogue.
Nike, for example, has repeatedly
revolutionized its original brand offering
over the past five years, shifting from
ads to hardware and now to apps. Ini-
tially focused on producing ads about
7
Macrumors. “Spotify Approaching 10M Paying Users, Revenue May Soon Surpass iTunes in Europe.”
http://www.macrumors.com/2014/04/25/spotify-10-million-europe-itunes/.
OUR PERSPECTIVES
sportswear (as well as sponsorship),
Nike started by building the Nike+
FuelBand, its proprietary hardware
that directly provides consumers with
relevant information about themselves.
And as wearable devices continue to
proliferate, Nike has now pivoted again
toward software creation – apps that
live on other brands’ hardware – to
enhance its digital platform and engage
its customers. With the launch of the
Apple Watch, the Motorola Moto 360,
and many others, Nike has an oppor-
tunity to put its brand on the wrists
– and in the real lives – of aspiring and
serious runners alike.
Similarly, Spotify challenged Apple in
music streaming by offering a music
product more deeply founded upon the
sharing economy, and capitalizing on
social network integration, peer recom-
mendations, and a “freemium” on-ramp
monetization model. It has become a
one-stop shop for listening to, sorting,
and sharing music across devices,
besting Apple’s iTunes in terms of reve-
nue for some record labels – at least in
its European home market.7
Focusing on a different need state,
Red Bull has reimagined modern
media practices by avoiding paid-for
interruption entirely and moving into the
production of entertainment itself. The
brand has become a major producer
of content through initiatives such
as Red Bull Rampage, Red Bull Stra-
tos, and regular live experiences that
generate tremendous digital activity
and engagement.
 Both Samsung and Cheerios found
social media success with quick-witted
(and subsequently viral) responses to
the 2014 Oscar Awards and 2015
Super Bowl. The Samsung “ad” – a
photo by Oscar host, Ellen DeGeneres
– had twelve A-list stars in it and lev-
eraged the event’s real-time audience
to generate 3.3 million retweets and 2
million favorites. It also briefly crashed
Twitter’s servers. The photo was taken
by a device made by Samsung (the
main sponsor that year) and they
claimed it was unplanned.
Wilson at the goal line to seal a win
in the 2015 Super Bowl game for the
Patriots. At that moment, Cheerios
tweeted an image of its renowned
cereal (shaped like an “O”), along with
the caption “Everyone's mouth right now.”
Both Samsung and Cheerios accom-
plished their marketing not through
traditional ads, but rather by being
ready to seize a momentary opportu-
nity during live cultural events and
appealing to consumers’ delight in
social interaction.

Cheerios also cleverly chose a real-time All of these brands have found success
moment to promote its trademark pro- by identifying a gap and inserting them-
duct: When New England’s Malcolm selves – authentically – into consumers’
Butler picked off a pass by Russell online conversations.

FIGURE01

Lufthansa’s Travel Companion platform – built for the Apple Watch and for the
iPhone and iPad – is a great example of digital technology facilitating always-on
Story Systems. The watch app, in particular, is a seamless, hands-free way of
providing upcoming flight information such as the terminal, boarding time or
seat number.

OUR PERSPECTIVES
 Five points for creating a brave brand
Brands and their agencies should approach the Internet holistically.
The process of creating an effective online presence shouldn’t be seen
merely as a list of tasks or channels that have to be checked off.

1 UNDERSTAND

CONSUMERS’ NEEDS
Most paramount is to genuinely un-
derstand the needs of the consumer.
Over the past decade, we’ve seen the
refinement and application of many
new methods of consumer research.
The first step for a brave brand is to
develop a rich understanding of its
consumers’ met and un-met needs,
attitudes, and behaviors. For this, brave
brands use a mix of online and offline
methods, including instrumented intel-
ligence (directly measured activity on
smartphones and in physical spaces),
ethnography techniques, instant online
surveys and focus groups, and many
other methods.
3
THINK PLATFORMS,
NOT ADS
Investing in new digital platforms
requires a different timeline than
traditional media spend. It took Nike five
years to build the different elements of
the Nike+ digital platform – connecting
wristbands, an owned online platform,
social network functionality, and third-
party hardware and sensors.
These types of opportunities in digital
require a multiyear vision and ongoing
investment. Digital platforms typically

2
live on for months or years, making it no
trivial thing to shut down the products,
services, and communities that people
love. Successful Storyscapes have
RETHINK YOUR long-term visions that deliver on a wider
BRAND’S OFFERINGS brand purpose, and their business case.

Your brand’s products and/or services

should acknowledge consumer needs.
If those are not being met, rethink your
brand’s strategy – the center should be
around the consumer. Indeed, a great
brand will build a world around the con-
sumer, ensuring that all touchpoints are
interconnected to create a seamless
experience. At SapientNitro, we call
this our Storyscaping approach.

OUR PERSPECTIVES
4
DO SOMETHING
SIGNIFICANTLY
DIFFERENT
Do not be satisfied with a 2 percent
increment here or a 3 percent growth
spurt there. Creating a great brand via
the Internet is not solely about techno-
logy, platforms, or software. Instead,
commit to a different relationship with
your consumers online and beyond.
Brave brands combine consumer
insight with strategy to rethink how and
where the firm can best compete –
and then support that positioning with
investment not only in traditional media,
but also in technology, new product
development, and digital modernization.
Conclusion
Traditional advertising has been called
“selling through yelling,” and one of
the reasons why brands struggle is
because they continue to focus on
pushing messages out. Today, making
an impact requires a relationship with
pull. This approach strengthens brands’
connections with their consumers
and the benefits it can bring; loyalty,
relevance, and engagement are the
rewards for those brands brave enough
to reduce their traditional “message
out” approaches.
In the age of the interconnected, brave
brands need to be acutely empathetic
with their consumers – a timeless
concept in new contexts. Brands with

5
a successful and welcomed digital pre-
sence understand how their products
are integrated into people’s lives and
are taking critical risks to evolve their
TEST, LEARN, ways in. More so, they are aware of
AND ADAPT digital’s current role and the future role
that it could play in enhancing consu-
The greatest lesson of successful on-
mers’ experiences and interactions.
line branding is to be immensely agile.
Test, learn, and build organizational
changes around this “new way” of
behaving. Use every step and misstep
to guide your company forward, and
consistently strive to be ahead of your
brand’s sector. Otherwise, despite the
transformations, your brand will find
itself struggling to keep up.

OUR PERSPECTIVES
 Kim Douglas
Vice President, Managing Director,
SapientNitro Singapore & Hong Kong
kdouglas@sapient.com
Kim has spent some 20 years in advertising agencies and
has been the MD for the last 5 years. His primary focus
today is growing our business across APAC out of the
region’s HQ in Singapore.

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