Brand Utility: Creating Usable Marketing Experiences

Once upon a time

Top of mind awareness

Frame of mind awarenessReaching potential customers when they are in an active shopping and buying mode.

Current accepted dynamics

New ways of thinking

The traditional view is that marketing is essentially about responding to buyer needs, and doing so will create competitive advantage. Mounting evidence, however, suggests that marketing does much more. It educates buyers and significantly shapes the nature of competition.

-Kellogg on Marketing, 2010

Researchers trying to understand

• How a customer discovers information• What their consumption preferences are• What motivates them to take action

Customers are ninjas

We used to talk to a real person as a first step; now it’s the last resort. Customers are ninjas, stealthily evaluating you right under your nose.

Friend of mind awareness

To succeed, you prospective customers must consider you a friend. If you provide them real value, they will reward your company with loyalty and advocacy, the same ways we reward our friends

New approach to marketing

• Self-serve information• Radical transparency• Real-time relevancy

Services vs. Brand Message

"We've been viewing digital as less of a marketing channel than a place for services… It's really hard to convey a brand message through Web ads.” – Stefan Olander, Nike Global Director of Digital Media, 2008

Enter brand utility

Marketing that is so useful, people would pay for it

- Jay Baer, author of Youtility

Brand utility: charging station from Samsung

Not: man sleeping

Not to be confused with brand jeans utility

How about a free album?

Marketing upside down

Instead of marketing that’s needed by companies, Youtility is marketing that’s needed by customers.

It’s massively useful free information that creates long-term trust and kinship between a company and its customers.

In other words

Stop selling, start helping

Examples• Geek Squad how-to videos• Charmin’s Sit or Squat App• @HiltonSuggests• Phoenix Children’s Hospital Car Seat Helper app• Taxi Mike’s Dining Recommendations• River Pool & Spas • IBM Billboard Umbrellas• Nike+ Fuelband• Fiat EcoDrive• Special K apps and website • J&J babycenter.com• Domino’s Pizza Tracker• Mastercard ATM Hunter https

://itunes.apple.com/app/atm-hunter/id309754128?mt=8

Market Your Marketing