Catalyst Lite (Summer 2019)

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“Over-scheduling is the enemy of inspiration” ISSUE 3 2019

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Age of wonder WHY OVER-FIFTIES ARE W O E F U L LY U N D E R S E R V E D

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Opinion / E D I T O R ’ S L E T T E R

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INSPIR ATION VERSUS P ERSPIR ATION Big ideas need space to breathe, and fresh perspectives

do love a lightly mangled quote. Politicians to painters alike love to throw out the occasional homily, and “80% preparation, 20% perspiration” is one of the more popular examples.

That “80%” is a bit of Pareto’s law gone wrong, with Thomas Edison’s “genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration” thrown in. But both refer to the idealised process of getting stuck in to get a project moving.

The 80-20 rule presumes that you have to put in the hard yards before you get going. Edison’s one-to-99 version gives the impression that a big idea is just a grain of sand, and that it takes a whole lot more toil to turn it into a pearl.

These are indeed both true. But both also imply that the value is in the slog, and that the big idea just … happens. We all know there is more to it than that.

For example, what about just thinking?

Neither inspiration nor perspiration, but an essential part of each new idea. Take when genius hits from out of the blue: KFC’s ‘FCK’ ad when it ran out of chicken or Oreo’s ‘You can still dunk in the dark’ tweet, sent during a power outage in the 2013 Super Bowl. We agonise over how to find something similar.

In this issue, we look at a number of ways that marketers can start doing things

I

differently, taking the path less trodden and putting themselves in a place where inspiration and opportunity are more likely to strike.

Take Twitter’s EMEA vice-president, Bruce Daisley, for example, interviewed on page 22. He argues that we aren’t giving big ideas the space to breathe. We are squashing even that tiny one per cent of inspiration with unnecessary ‘busyness’.

The more we schedule meetings and teleconferences, not only do we actually end up doing less productive work, but we are stifling any opportunity to simply think.

By failing to find ourselves in moments he

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calls “daydreamy”, those magical ideas just will not come.

But we are also not going to find groundbreaking ideas if we look for them in all the same places. In ‘Thinking Differently’ (p52), Direct Line Group’s marketing director, Mark Evans, champions neurodiversity. He says that we need to access insights from people on the autistic spectrum or with dyslexia, who are able to offer fresh perspectives. That means we have to rethink the way we hire, as current recruitment processes are incompatible with bringing these people to the fore.

In this quarter’s ‘Big Conversation’ (p26), a panel of experts explores the power of the ‘nudge’ – how to find new ways of influencing customer behaviour in a way that benefits both brand and consumer.

Interestingly, while we have been trying to smooth every possible hurdle in the consumer’s path to purchase, it turns out the odd barrier can be a very helpful thing.

As always, this issue is packed with insight and opinion from a wide range of sectors, disciplines and geographies. CIM non-members looking to access locked content can join today for under £13 a month. Regular inspiration for a bargain price, plus techniques to help you have your own ‘daydreamy’ moment.

Morag Cuddeford-Jones is editor of Catalyst

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CONTENTS

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Catalyst’s main themes digested for a quick download

Older consumers are fitter and financially more secure than ever before. Marketers must start to understand this diverse and vibrant market

The on-demand services boom across South Africa is the result of an exacting consumer and an environment that fosters a thriving start-up community

MAGAZINE IN A MINUTE

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C H R I S D A LY

CIM’s chief executive reveals why culture is at the heart of transformation, and explains the vital role of the CEO in driving it forward

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NEWS

COVER STO RY

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SOCIAL SERVICE

Bruce Daisley, Twitter’s EMEA vicepresident, explains why marketers’ to-do lists seem never-ending, and proposes techniques to help executives rediscover the joy of work

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26

Hiscox’s Annabel Venner recalls three ads that stand the test of time

What are the most effective ways to get customers to change their behaviour?

This quarter’s Big Conversation brings together a panel of experts who reveal how they guide consumers towards better choices that benefit them, as well as the brand

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CIM NEWS

News and updates from the Chartered Institute of Marketing

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D EMAND GENER ATION

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SELLING NOODLES TO NIGERIA

A look at the issues affecting senior marketers this quarter, including the cigarette manufacturer looking to sell life insurance

THE POWER OF THREE

Cover image Golin

AGE OF WONDER

Yinka Adegoke discovers the story of Indomie Noodles, an IndianSingaporean company that introduced not just a brand but a whole new food group to Nigeria, and turned it into one of the nation’s favourite foods

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GO DIRECT

NUDGE NUDGE

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Cutting out the middleman is reaping rewards for producer brands that want to get closer to their customers

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A M A ZO N P L AYS GOOSEBERRY

Amazon cosies up to Google and Facebook in advertising inventory

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TO UNLOCK

Join CIM today for the sharpest marketing journalism and analysis worldwide cim.co.uk/membership

46

INDIA IS ALL EARS

Radio is booming in India, with its ability to deliver cultural hyper-locality

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PREPARE TO BE PRODUCTIVE

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Understand how to build a plan that supports marketing goals, tactics and technologies, and turns runaway projects into a runaway success

Municipalities are latching on to the potential of a connected infrastructure, and brands are hitching a ride

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52

‘Catalyst Clinic’ recruits four top marketers to advise on navigating social media with skill

Recruiting from the neurodiverse community with an open mind can bring huge benefits

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THE SMART CITY

T H I N K I N G D I F F E R E N T LY

55

MAGGIE JONES

Marketing must broaden its horizons, says CIM’s director of qualifications and partnerships

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MASTERS OF COMPLEXIT Y Brands risk losing nuance and varied appeal for consumers if marketers try to oversimplify the message

COMMUNIT Y-MINDED

REVIEWS

Top reads, articles and events, recommended by marketers, including Karen Eccles, director of commercial innovation at The Telegraph

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GEMMA BUTLER

CIM’s marketing director says it’s time for marketers to stand up for marketing.

If they cannot define their role to the business, why should anyone buy what they are selling?

Editor Morag Cuddeford-Jones morag.cuddeford-jones@ lidbusinessmedia.com Art director

Kate Harkus Editor-at-large Lucy Handley Chief subeditor Sally Raikes Assistant editor Kirsten Levermore Digital editor Tobias Gourlay Account director Niki Mullin Editorial director Ben Walker Publisher Martin Liu CIM chief executive Chris Daly Director of marketing Gemma Butler Head of PR and engagement James Delves Director of qualifications and partnerships Maggie Jones Content and engagement executive Ally Lee-Boone Chartered Institute of Marketing CIM Moor Hall, Cookham, Berkshire SL6 9QH

Advertising sales and sponsorship opportunities Please contact Alec Egan, business development executive, on E alec.egan@lidbusinessmedia.com T 020 3567 0542 M 07591 200041 Publishing Published in the United Kingdom by LID Business Media, 204 The Record Hall, Baldwins Gardens, London EC1N 7RJ lidbusinessmedia.com Disclaimer Copyright 2019 The Chartered Institute of Marketing and LID Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved. Material may not be reproduced without permission of the publisher. While we take care to ensure that editorial is accurate, independent, objective and relevant for the readers, Catalyst accepts no liability for reader dissatisfaction rising from the content of this publication.

The opinions expressed or advice given are the views of individual authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Catalyst, The Chartered Institute of Marketing or LID Publishing Ltd. Catalyst is editorially independent. Sponsors and advertisers have no input into editorial content or opinions expressed therein. Catalyst is printed on FSC-approved paper from responsible sources. Catalyst takes every effort to credit photographers but we cannot guarantee every published use of an image will have the contributor’s name. If you believe we have omitted a credit for your image, please email the editorial director, ben.walker@ lidbusinessmedia.com

Printers Newnorth www.newnorth.co.uk ISSN 2631-7966

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Image David Stewart

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COV E R STO RY

AGE OF WONDER Diverse, vibrant, wealthy – why older consumers are still woefully underserved

Words LUCY HANDLEY

Live fast, die old,” is the strapline of Ageist, an online publication and brand consultancy created by Los Angeles-based photographer, David Stewart. He was fed up with how people in mid-life were portrayed in the media and marketed to by brands. Stewart had a highly successful career working for clients such as The New York Times Magazine, CocaCola and American Express. Casting briefs typically specified people aged 22 to 28.

At 55, he started to notice how people of his age-group were represented.

“I’m looking around and I’m not seeing a whole lot. What I am seeing is a certain kind of stock photo; a couple of nice-looking, grey-haired people,” he said in a TED Talk last year. “They’re dressed in pastels, cardigans over their

“

Inside...

Mature audiences control the majority of disposable income in the US Agencies staffed by a younger demographic can have a skewed view of over 50s Explore the reality (and fantasy) of being 50+ via celebrity and aspiration People become more diverse as they age, not less shoulders, they’re on a beach, they’ve got a bike, they’re pushing the bike, but they’re very fragile – they push the bike, they don’t ride the bike.”

In his TED Talk, Stewart, now 60, looks like a fit, 40-something tech entrepreneur in jeans and Nikes, an appearance far from the images he saw around him. He decided to find people like him, interview and photograph them, to try to change his generation’s narrative. Now, the Ageist website profiles those people each week and includes the likes of Aliza Sherman (pictured, left), a 53-year-old digital entrepreneur who just adopted her third child, and Michael Blake, a New York dancer who continues to perform aged 59.

It was not just the visual portrayal that was broken. Stewart found the words used to describe people in their 50s or 60s were entirely wrong. “The language [was] of receding and then this kind of Hallmark card, like ‘golden, sunset years’ or ‘silver-set’ … My mom is 89.

It’s great for my mom, it really captures

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WHAT I AM SEEIN G IS A CERTAIN KIND OF S TOCK PHOTO, A COUPLE OF NICE -LOOKING, GREY HAIRED PEOPLE... THEY’RE ON A BEACH, THEY’VE GOT A BIKE, THEY’RE PUSHING THE BIKE, BUT... THE Y DON’T RIDE THE BIKE

her sense. But it does not capture me or anyone I know,” Stewart tells Catalyst.

He chose Ageist as a name because it gets noticed, plus it positioned the company as an expert, “sort of like sartorialist or biologist”, he says.

MAT URIT Y ME ANS MONE Y

David Stewart, founder, Ageist

that group … [saying, for example] ‘30% of the people in your similar situation are saving $100 a week. Do you want to try it?’ That kind of thing, and it gets people thinking: ‘Oh yeah, maybe I should be doing that’.”

The bank is working with Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology and behavioural economics at Duke University in North Carolina, to understand the ‘nudges’ that can encourage people to save. “To say: ‘Do you want to save $100?’ is going to have a completely dif-

Images David Stewart / Ageist; Charly Lester / Lumen

It is hard to put a precise figure on the value of this group, but the media agency Zenith estimates that in less than five years, 50% of the US population will be over 50. They will control 70% of income.

For Susan Johnson, chief marketing officer at US retail bank, SunTrust, reaching people in their 50s and 60s who are not retired is crucial for her business, and they are targeted accordingly.

“That kind of middle-age group is critically important to us, because they are still accumulating money. They’re not de-accumulating it. When you go into retirement then you start spending your savings. So, it’s important for us to help them make sure that they’re getting ready for retirement,” she said, speaking to Catalyst at Adobe Summit in March.

For the first time, Johnson is using behavioural economics to reach this group. “We definitely message a lot to

ferent result than if you say: ‘30% of the people in your situation are doing it’.”

It is also working with Adobe technology to understand how best to personalise messages to people based on their behaviour – and that may transcend age.

In the UK, people are likely to have to work for longer, notes Paul Fennemore, a consultant at software company Sitecore and associate lecturer at Oxford Brookes Business School. “[Brands] need to realise that people are now working to an older age; retirement for some people

Left and above The online publication Ageist features weekly profiles of people who are ‘forward-leaning examples of how we are living now’; Opposite Part of a campaign to protest ageism that launched in April for the Lumen over-50s dating app

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is 69 before they get their state pension.

They are not retired sitting with their feet up.

“I’m not sure brands recognise there is an increasing segment of people of that age who do have a disposable income and are in work, and their lifestyle as a consequence hasn’t changed since they were 29.” Fennemore advocates using psychographic profiles to increase conversions among this – as well as other – age groups.

CUT THE CLICHE

Charly Lester is co-founder and chief marketing officer of Lumen, the dating app for over 50s, which she launched with dating entrepreneur Antoine Argouges in September 2018. “Most 50-year-olds I know have gym memberships and mobile phones and work full-time. They live their lives more like 30- or 40-year-olds than 70- or 80-yearolds, but brands forget them and so you see a lot of ‘older’ advertising which contains images of 70- and 80-year-olds on beaches, retired,” Lester says.

Even the 70-, 80- and 90-year-olds are fighting back against marketing that shows them as docile retirees. In May, Magnum took fashionista extraordinaire, Iris Apfel (97), to Cannes to launch its latest ice-cream ads. The subtext is not that this is a gentle ice-cream, suited to the elderly. The message is that consumers should feel liberated, fearless and playful, without worrying about who is judging you.

Amey St Clair, who appeared in Lumen’s campaign, says: “I feel very passionately about speaking up for my generation. Even though I still do all of the same things that I did when I was younger, I often feel like I am invisible because of my age.” Nearly 13% of the population aged between 50 and 64 in England and Wales was single in 2017, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. The Lumen dating app has 500,000 members and launched in the US earlier this year.

It also doesn’t help that people in this group are often lumped together as ‘the over-50s’, but they often are vastly different (and what kind of marketer would talk about ‘the under-50s’?). The sociologist Anne Karpf argues that people become more diverse as they age, not less (see box out on p21).

Part of the problem, says Ageist’s Stewart, is that advertising is often made by younger agency creatives who can’t get into the headspace of someone who is in mid-life (and 50 really is mid-life,

MOST 50-YEAR- OLDS I KNOW HAV E GYM MEMBERSHIPS AND MOBILE PHONES AND WORK FULLTIME. THEY LIVE THEIR LIVES MORE LIKE 30OR 40-YEAR- OLDS THAN 70- OR 80-YEAR- OLDS Charly Lester, co-founder and chief marketing officer, Lumen

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EVEN THOUGH I STILL DO ALL OF THE SAME TH IN GS THAT I DID WHEN I WAS YOUNGER, I OFTEN FEEL LIKE I AM INVISIBLE BECAUSE OF MY AGE Amey St Clair, Lumen advocate

given that every other child born since the year 2000 in wealthy nations is likely to live to 100, according to a study in The Lancet medical journal).

But a bigger issue is that some marketers in their 50s or older also have a mental block about people of their own age – and are therefore missing out on this lucrative market. Stewart recalls a meeting with senior executives at a large global cosmetics company, each of whom ran brands worth $1 billion-plus annually. “I said, let’s think about who is aspirational to this consumer. And they just go silent. People in marketing and advertising who are in their 50s or even 60s are unable to see themselves as part of this target group,” he says.

Images Carine Roitfeld; Levi’s

NO FALSE IDOLS

Part of the solution is to think about the types of people who this audience might look up to, and Stewart mentions the likes of Madonna (60) or the American pro-surfer Laird Hamilton (55). He concedes that while celebrities have a “very different reality” to the rest of us, there are plenty of mid-lifers who are attractive, successful and something to aspire to. “We say we look for North Stars that are hidden in plain sight. They’re around us all the time.” Ageist also helps brands to cast people for advertising.

“If you put me out on the sidewalk for five minutes, I’ll get you ten of them,” Stewart says.

He rates the American fashion designer Rachel Comey as getting it right when being age-inclusive. Her website mixes different types of people wearing her clothes but without an inclusion fanfare. “She sets the bar for fashion.

No lady clown acts, or goofy grandmas, just strong, proud people of all ages and colours. Every fashion brand out there should study this and expand their imagination of what can be,” he states.

Nadia Turan, creative director at London-based agency Dam Digital, says

Ageless advertising Some marketers worry about making a brand appeal to different types of people, and not targeting one agegroup at the expense of another. When Carine Roitfeld, the former editor-in-chief of ‘Vogue Paris’, launched a range of perfumes branded CR, she did so with no specific age, or gender, in mind. Aged 64, she used nude photographs of herself to promote her fragrance line, pasting 4,000 posters on the streets of Paris in February, during the city’s fashion week. The images had been shot by her daughter a couple of years before.

“The thing I love about the image is that you don’t know it’s me. It’s an idea of a woman, the silhouette shot from the back,” Roitfeld tells ‘Catalyst’. Roitfeld also made a video showing pedestrians’ reactions to the postings. “It’s a pretty young girl,” remarks one. “Another naked girl to sell perfume,” says another, with neither person having any idea that the nude model is Roitfeld herself, a woman in her early 60s. “Next time, I go full-frontal,” Roitfeld remarks in the video.

In May 2019, the brand used a pop-up shop in New York to promote the fragrance range to experience-hungry millennials, but Roitfeld’s son and business partner, Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld, says the brand’s appeal is ageless.

“While some luxury brands specifically target one agegroup over the other, the CR brand isn’t focused on that.

Carine’s line of fragrances spark desire and fantasy, no matter the age of the wearer,” he says, calling the target audience “sophisticated”.

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What does age actually mean?

Above Carine Roitfeld; Above left a poster from her CR perfume campaign; Left Levi’s 2017 ‘Circles’ campaign

Levi’s painted a true picture with its 2017 ‘Circles’ commercial, showing people of all ages and backgrounds dancing in denim. “Old and young from differing cultures all dancing to the same beat: ‘Men, women, young, old, rich, poor, gay, straight. Let’s live how we dance’ [the ad states]. I love this ad. This is the only ad I’ve seen that truly embraces an ageless strategy,” Turan says. It was one of YouTube’s most watched ads of the

year in 2017, and Levi’s said it conveyed “a message of joy and togetherness that crosses countries and cultures”.

Turan is less impressed with an ad called ‘Break Free’, showing a man escaping from his old people’s home wearing Adidas trainers, which was made by a student for a school project and went viral in 2017. While it had the right sentiment, it got the creative idea wrong. “As with most campaigns, old

Intelligence / T A R G E T I N G

The reason for some people’s lack of imagination around an older age-group could be because when the topic of age, or ageing, is introduced, they can be fearful of it in relation to themselves, and often start talking about the elderly, says the writer and sociologist Anne Karpf in her book, ‘How to Age’.

“Whenever the subject is raised, both popular culture and political discussion gravitate to old age, as though ageing were the business of our last decade or so of life …

We need to draw on an alternative model of getting older: one that recognises that the process starts at birth, never stops and has the potential to enrich our lives,” she writes.

One challenge for marketers is that people become more different to one another as they age, not less. Karpf states: “Age doesn’t obliterate our individual traits and identities – on the contrary, it heightens them … there are far more differences among individuals within the same age-group as there are between age-groups.” A fit, affluent, 70-something may have more in common with his 30-something next-door neighbour than of someone of his own age living opposite.

Karpf argues that images of old-age are often negative, such as the British road signs that show elderly people as hunched over with sticks, or a news report that depicted a 90-year-old woman evacuated from her flooded home as a victim. In fact, she had gone upstairs to wait for the water to subside, showing resilience over victimhood.

people were represented as being in a home with dementia. We don’t all end up infirm, in a home and senile, and certainly not as soon as we hit 50,” she says.

Brands need to be more age-diverse in general. “I think if there isn’t a label and people of all ages are shown as the norm, it wouldn’t be a problem. I’m 52 and my business partner is 54. We both run, cycle, do yoga, have Apple watches, and so on. In fact, we’re more active than our much younger employees,” Turan explains. She adds that those of her age do feel left out: “I don’t know any 50-somethings who aren’t craving the latest holidays, food, fashion and gizmos but I do know a lot of 50something-year-olds who have to look bloody hard to find [these things], and that’s the problem.”

For sociologist Anne Karpf, in her book How to Age, it is worth reconsidering our entire approach to age.

“Gerontologists, who study the process of growing old, have puzzled over this unique feature of ageism: that it’s prejudice against one’s future self.” Let us Lucy Handley hope marketers can is Catalyst’s break that cycle. editor-at-large

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NUDGE NUDGE Smoothing a path to behavioural change

Words MORAG CUDDEFORD-JONES

ree will is a slippery concept. Most of us believe we have it but, if we are honest, few of us probably actually exercise it. We are either bound by cultural convention, persuaded otherwise by compelling argument, or just too lazy to act on it.

A vast array of businesses and institutions rely on their ability to influence free will. This all sounds very 1984, and in an effort to make guided behavioural change more palatable, academics – or more specifically one academic, economist Richard Thaler – came up

Image Shutterstock

F

Photography PHIL ADAMS

with the much cuddlier concept of ‘nudge theory’.

Nudge theory boils down to encouraging people to make decisions that are in their broad self-interest. It’s not quite carrot-and-stick. There should be no penalty for not acting in your own self-interest, but there should not be an overt incentive either. Perhaps it is more like a snowplough – carving a furrow to make it easier to take what the ‘nudger’ considers to be the right decision.

For public bodies such as governments, health or financial authorities, their goal is to nudge the general public

Inside...

Removing friction and pain points help drive desired behaviour Too little interaction removes emotional highs needed for memorable experience Understand consumers’ wider life contexts to improve relevance Using CSR must be wholly authentic

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towards behaviours that are in the individual’s interest, as well as that of the common good. Healthier lifestyles keep everyone living better for longer, but also put much less strain on health services.

Prudent money-saving behaviours help people enjoy a more financially secure daily existence as well as a potentially fruitful retirement, easing the burden on social care.

But can the same philosophy be applied to commercial interests as well?

Can finding the right way to gently nudge the consumer help companies beat the competition, foster growth and

cut costs? Among a panel of assembled experts for CIM’s Big Conversation, the answer would appear to be yes – and no.

SHOULD CUSTOMERS BE NUDGED?

A lot depends on what constitutes a nudge. Saul Lopes, head of customer relationship management (CRM) for Dixons Carphone, suggests: “Customers do want to be nudged. They want and expect brands to help them with their purchase and through their journey.”

So in this case, we are talking about the snowplough; making some actions

easier than others in ways that also happen to benefit the company. It is a question of influencing behaviour and motivating existing desire, rather than creating an entirely new one. Colin Strong, global head of behavioural science at Ipsos, elaborates.

“The nudge is just one element of behavioural science. What is the role of the nudge in bringing about change, and what else can you use to change behaviour? In the public sector, they use COMs – capability, opportunity and motivation: can they do it, are they somewhere they can do it, and do they want to do it?

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It’s about understanding the context of people’s lives rather than just focusing on the choice-decision architecture.”

Executive strategy director Aaron Shields of Fitch London brings it back to the marketer’s remit. “When we talk about nudging, we’re talking about how open people are to persuasion and how do we persuade them?”

Nudging as persuasion is one thing, but it certainly is not badgering, something retargeting has yet to grasp. CIM’s marketing director, Gemma Butler, is the voice of the customer. “There’s so much noise. Organisations are thinking about the next step – when I have bought a holiday, for example, I’m served content around sun lotion, travel insurance and more. I know someone has looked at what I’m looking at and it’s almost an invasion.”

Data-driven messaging bombardment is quite the opposite of the aim of nudging, as Butler says: “When does a nudge turn into a shove?” It is becoming increasingly clear that, while digital and data provide marketers with a lot of advantages, when it comes to Shields’ ‘persuasion’, the algorithms seem destined to fail.

“We need to start thinking about what a human experience looks like,” Strong says. “Perhaps people are starting to feel concerns around ‘What is happening to me? Am I starting to feel a bit creeped out?’ There’s an optimal point

CUSTOMERS DO WANT TO BE NUDGED. THEY WANT AND EXPECT BRANDS TO HELP THEM THROUGH THEIR JOURNEY Saul Lopes, head of CRM, Dixons Carphone

where some fluency is good, just not too much.”

UND ERS TANDIN G THE CUSTOMER

Data clearly has an important role, as to drive change, you first have to understand the consumer. Scott Allen, global marketing development & strategy director at Microsoft, adds: “The days are gone when you can just segment your audience into ages. Generation Z could pinch and zoom before they could crawl. But if you’re going to market to them, you’ve got to under-

stand what appeals. For example, they’re turned off by celebrities in adverts. They prefer something more authentic, with real people.”

Allen adds: “It’s understanding who consumers are. Making sure you really know what they’re about and not just putting them in the 18-25 bracket.”

Shields also has experience of trying to over-generalise on what makes consumers tick. “We did work seven or eight years ago on Gen Z, and I was presenting it in the Middle East. They said, ‘That’s very interesting, Aaron, but all of our customers are acting that way now.’”

Attendees (pictured left to right) Andrea Ttofa Head of organ donation marketing, NHS Blood and Transplant Aaron Shields Executive strategy director, Fitch London Saul Lopes Head of CRM, Dixons Carphone Scott Allen Global marketing development & strategy director, Microsoft {seated} Vicky Reeves Managing director, digital & deputy group CEO, WPNC Colin Strong Global head of behavioural science, Ipsos Morag Cuddeford-Jones Editor, ‘Catalyst’ Kristof Fahy Interim CMO, Checkatrade Gemma Butler Marketing director, CIM

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But even here, experts urge caution. Kristof Fahy, interim CMO of Checkatrade and veteran of the gambling sector, warns against doing customer insight projects that only result in a snapshot: “We mapped the customer journey but we mapped it at a point in time. Six months later it’s probably still up on someone’s wall, because they’d think: ‘Great, we’ve mapped it’. You need to map the experience. That’s the thread across the organisation, however your business is constructed. And companies change structure every three years.”

Equally important is looking outside the bubble. Customers don’t just live for your brand, the panel agreed. It’s about you fitting into their lives, not the other way around.

“We can help change customer behaviour by really understanding what motivates them. Not just about your product but what they really care about in general,” explains Vicky Reeves, managing director, digital & deputy group CEO at WPNC.

WHEN TO NUDGE

How consumers go about their daily lives is vital in understanding not just the ‘what’ to nudge, but also the ‘when’.

Says Fahy: “In the travel industry, there was some research that said there are potentially between three and 600 touchpoints before a person makes a booking. Where the hell do you nudge in all that? Where is the right place to insert yourself?” Lopes adds: “People dive in and dive out – the brand is touched many times on the way.”

Reeves explains why maps are still important. “We do those journey maps and one of the things we put on there are

Above left Vicky Reeves, managing director, digital, & deputy group CEO, WPNC; Above right Kristof Fahy, interim CMO of Checkatrade

the pain points; how the customer was feeling during that experience, the highs and lows. Off the back of that, you can map out the opportunities because you can see them.”

There is also a warning about putting too much energy into the point of sale. Lopes claims: “We always focus on the conversion journey and then as soon as they convert, we abandon them. The best opportunity to nudge a customer is after they’ve bought. When you improve the post-purchase journey, the brand loyalty comes with it.”

Or, Reeves suggests, how about looking at the earlier stages? “Clearly, data is important. The more data we can get, the better. Particularly earlier in the funnel.

A lot of people focus on the conversion journey but what about when they’re just out there browsing?”

Paying attention and always updating information is key. As Butler

IT’S UND ERS TANDIN G WHO CONSUMERS ARE. MAKING S U R E Y O U R E A L LY KNOW WHAT THEY’RE ABOUT Scott Allen, global marketing development and strategy director, Microsoft

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warns, people’s circumstances change.

“It’s about understanding the ‘why’.

Everyone is obsessed with the ‘what’.

I bought dog food every three weeks but then my dog died and the retailer kept sending me messaging: ‘Why aren’t you buying food?’ It’s understanding that human emotion around why you do something.”

NUDGING OR PAVING T H E WAY

There are two slightly conflicting opinions about whether a nudge is more successful the more seamless you make the customer journey. Interestingly, they are held by the same panellist. Lopes admits: “It’s about getting rid of the pain points. That’s good, because pain is remembered. But interestingly, the more companies focused on creating a friction-free customer experience, the more parity they gained with competitors. If you pick friction-free as your only

focus, you begin to lose difference.”

Strong agrees: “We need to think about which bits we want fluency in and where we want disfluency? Where do we want people to stop and think?

If they don’t, it becomes a forgettable experience.”

“I like the idea of fluency and disfluency a lot,” says Shields. “When you look at big shopping areas, what you find is that 75% of those shopping missions are ‘dreaming’ missions. They don’t have a purchase in the front of their mind. They may purchase. And if they do buy while they’re in that mindset, they generally purchase higher-margin items.”

However, Shields has a critical insight for retailers who complain that they still don’t understand how to address the issue that consumers seem to be deserting the high street. This is about where nudge turns into experience, and taps into emotion. “The biggest proportion of people walking in [to

WHEN W E TALK ABOU T NUDGIN G, W E ’R E TALKIN G ABOU T HOW O P EN PEOPLE ARE TO PERSUASION Aaron Shields, executive strategy director, Fitch London

stores] are Gen Zers. They’re the ones using exciting retail. It’s not that retail is dead. Crap retail is dead.”

“If you focus on creating one or two peaks, emotional highs on a journey, you’re much more likely to be remembered,” Lopes insists. “Those memories are long-lasting and lead to all the good things like conversion.”

One brand where emotion always runs high is NHS Blood and Transplant.

But even then, emotion is not always enough to carry volunteers through the whole journey. “We’ve always been really good at tapping into the emotional highs at the beginning of the journey – signing up to the organ donor register – and we get thousands of people registering to be blood donors, but there’s very little integration across the organisation,” admits Andrea Ttofa, head of organ donation marketing, NHS Blood and Transplant.

“How do you understand the conversion journey, and where do you insert those emotional highs? Signing up is one thing, but it’s very different to rolling up your sleeves and putting a needle in your arm. Fear is a big barrier, but saving lives is a fantastic motivator. How do you bring the two together?” she adds.

When it comes down to it, the idea of nudging begins to look like good old-fashioned marketing skill.

Understanding the audience, responding to them in the way you now understand they like to be engaged with, and serving them products that are timely and relevant.

THE VALUE OF AUTHENTICITY

The human factor and giving customers what they want are just two of the ‘old-fashioned’ approaches that will effectively nudge consumers towards purchase, loyalty and advocacy. Brand trust is another.

This is never more vital than when you are talking about people’s health.

“My ambition is to get as much of the NHS behind this as possible. I have 55 million people I need to reach, with totally different ages, demographics, trust levels. Is a 17-year-old going to think about death? Is a 50-year-old, or a 70-year-old? Some might, some might not,” Ttofa admits. “I need to sell this in a way that isn’t talking about death. So [it’s about] doing that through trusted voices or brands, because they are part of a bigger society and we could all need a transplant: it’s about finding the right partner and the right brand proposition.”

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FEAR IS A BIG BARRIER, BUT SAVING LIVES IS A FANTAS TIC MOTIVATOR Andrea Ttofa, head of organ donation marketing, NHS Blood and Transplant

“Brand is starting to come back now,” adds Reeves. “There is so much noise that they’ve got to show that they aren’t just selling a product.” Values are critical but they have to be the right ones, and they have to be authentic.

Trying to manufacture brand trust to underpin the nudge is another red flag.

Ttofa warns: “Are big brands realising that it’s not about using CSR [corporate social responsibility] partnerships to raise money? They have a role to play in society’s wellbeing. We are employees, and can all be messengers. But we’re trying to find those authentic messages.”

Butler shares the example of Lloyds Bank being the leading public voice of

a mental health initiative. “We had a big discussion about whether it was the right thing to do [given the association of stress with finance]. It’s almost like they’re part of the problem. Trying to put emotion into banking is a difficult thing to do.”

Corporates are not excluded from emotion. Microsoft worked with NHS Blood and Transplant on its iconic ‘Missing Type’ campaign, with highprofile advertising at Heathrow Airport.

Ttofa enthuses: “Microsoft has been a great example of a strategic partnership,” to which Allen adds: “[This sort of work] does put us alongside really interesting brands. The partnership with Blood and Transplant really resonated internally.”

But, as is often said, having principles is hard. “It would be interesting and very brave for any gambling company to step up and take responsibility. Much in the same way Volvo did. It came out and said: ‘We don’t want anyone to die in our cars.’ It’s a punchy statement,” Fahy admits.

“It would be interesting to see a gambling company say: ‘We don’t want anyone to have a problem with gambling on our books.’ Being blunt, I don’t think they will. They can do it, you can see the behaviours. The issue is, will they make a stand enough to hurt their profits? Boards don’t sit there and say, we’re going to make societal change, unless someone points out that it will also deliver growth,” he adds.

Much of the greenwashing and other charges against brands simply hitching their wagons to causes to nudge consumers in their direction could be avoided if they examine what these things mean to end users. Strong proposes: “I make the case for understanding the psychology behind these things – what do we mean by authenticity? What do we mean by naturalness and trust? We bandy these terms around as if we know what they mean. We don’t always know how someone comes to a conclusion that a brand is trustworthy.”

When push comes to nudge, tricking the customer, bombarding them and even smoothing their path are all myths when it comes to altering customer behaviour. Fahy concludes by suggesting that a much simpler mantra may be worth maintaining instead: “Be useful, make people happy – and repeat.”

Big Conversation / S T R A T E G Y

Left Colin Strong, global head of behavioural science, Ipsos

If you would like to add your voice

to the Big Conversation, visit CIM’s page on LinkedIn or tweet us at @CIM_Exchange

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Opinion / G E M M A B U T L E R

GROW YOUR CAPABILITIES. D EFINE YOUR ROLE. ENHANCE YOUR CAREER. CIM.CO.UK/MEMBERSHIP

STAND UP FOR MARKETING If marketers cannot define and sell their role to the business, why should the business buy what they’re selling?

he marketing function encompasses a broad range of activities and, in a changing world, this range is becoming even broader.

As marketers, we know that marketing plays a crucial role in delivering business growth. But with many organisations looking to the future with a renewed customer focus, defining the parameters of the discipline is ever more difficult. And if marketers themselves cannot define the role that marketing plays, how can they expect their businesses to do it?

CIM’s recent research report with PwC, Export Ready, defined marketing as: “The management process for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably. This includes a range of activities: advertising; sponsorship, research and development; customer relationship management; design/creative activity; database management and data mining; branding; digital optimisation; public relations; pricing; business development; website design and user experience; and social-media engagement activities.”

But often it seems like that crucial word, ‘management’, is missing. The expectation remains that even the most senior marketers must be getting their hands dirty. As a result, all too often they are pigeonholed as the ‘doers’, not the ‘thinkers’. Marketers must drive the focus away from their executional responsibilities, and demonstrate the strategic contribution they can provide.

An acknowledgement that marketing is a diverse and ever-changing discipline central to business direction is critical.

Marketers have a responsibility to communicate the value that a strong brand brings to business, and must work

T

to embed brand-thinking in the organisation, from the top down. In today’s marketplace, with competitors closing in all the time, their influence must reach across functions to deliver both business results and a consistent end-to-end customer experience.

In many companies, marketing is often regarded as a consumer-facing function and therefore only considered towards the end of the decision-making process, after strategic direction and objectives have been set. But to truly understand the needs of its customers and deliver value and growth, marketing has to inform the strategy. It can bring insights, data and ideas, as well as show where the brand needs to permeate through every aspect of an organisation.

CIM is committed to addressing and defining the value that marketing adds to businesses. Our Export Ready report found that the UK marketing industry generates almost £37 billion in annual gross value added (GVA). With Britain’s

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exit from the European Union looming in 2019 and surrounded by uncertainty, marketing is set to become even more essential for businesses. Its response to the challenge of political and economic shock is critical.

Every marketer has faced financial and resource constraints. It is unlikely that this will change. However, the emerging conversation that CIM has convened over the last 12 months points to one conclusion: company culture is critical to building the team you need to succeed, making clear marketing’s contribution to the bottom line.

Business leaders must learn to move at the same pace as their marketing teams and be ready to deploy the tools on offer. Businesses that survive and flourish over the next 12 months will be those that take steps to re-establish the company culture, and clearly define Gemma Butler is the role marketing marketing director plays within it. at CIM