Buy One, Get One Free; Only $9.99 with free shipping; Washes whiter than ever.
These are the ad slogans of the past, there is a major shift in the way that brands communicate driven by the digital revolution. Two major changes are driving this, the first is the proliferation of marketing messages through multiple channels and media – no longer is it easy for brands to stand out and drive a clear positioning from the communications. The second is the ease of comparability of products and the voice of the consumer. Brands can’t hide behind bad service or poor products anymore.
So content marketing and service design are the new weapons for branding and communication. One is the new way to engage consumers’ interest and the second is the product itself. Look at the success of brand content across the world (some great examples here: http://blog.newscred.com/the-top-25-most-influential-content-marketing-brands-of-2014/) and how even the pinnacle of advertising, the Super Bowl, is now more about content and entertainment than sales messages.
Service design is probably the newest weapon in the marketers toolkit – but it goes way beyond marketing and thinks most about the fluidity of the customer/product experience and how the product or service itself is the communication. Think about all those brands that exist in our daily lives, but do very little true marketing/advertising: Amazon, Uber, Facebook, etc.
So the future of branding is not perfectly clear – but what we do know is that everything is changing, and marketers need to understand a changing ecosystem to evolve.
Washes whiter might be making a comeback – if it really does it!
