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It's the question that's on everyone's lips. We map out the role for brands and brand experience in building a brave new world.
In this episode:
We wrap up Season 1 of the Total Experience Podcast a.k.a. 'Brand Experience in the Age of Corona' by looking at what brands can do to shape our uncertain future in a positive way. With Richard Cable.
A frame of reference
The hero's journey
The region of supernatural wonder
The Spanish Flu of 1918, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the global protests of 1968 all rolled into one
A world facing economic catastrophe, global pandemic, racial injustice and inequality
Planning for total victory
Why it's not ridiculous to talk about brand experience at a time like this.
Constructive thinking
Seismic change
History's horrible precedents
Shaping the world for good
The bandwagon is the place to be
Brands and social progress
Courageous individuals and grassroots movements - George Floyd and the humiliation of Donald Trump
The purpose of a brand
Embracing, normalising and amplify positive change.
Brand purpose is still bollocks
Creating bandwagons of our own
Branded cynicism
Aligning what you do and what you say
Revenge spending and the slump to come
Lockdown easing and rising optimism
"Revenge spending"
Government debt and small to medium business meltdown
Where brands add value
Enterprise value and powerful brands
Recklessness of neglecting your brand
Why brand experience is so important: brand, people, touchpoints and creative
Brand
Digital transformation and innovation
The inherent dangers of short-termism and neglecting your brand
Adidas as one to watch
People
Radically altered customer demographics - new skills, asymmetrical effects, the positive effects of lockdown
Touchpoints
Reweighting your brand ecosystem
The rise of social commerce
The re-rise of AR and VR
Only as strong as your weakest touchpoint
Creative
Crises and creativity
Creative red herrings
Glitz and glamour vs grit and grime
The birth of the anti-hero
Smashing shibboleths
Summary
The positive role for brands in unfucking the world
Being on the right side of history
The engine of recovery -
Every day, McDonald's makes 40+ million Big Macs worldwide. How does the brand stay coherent in the face of a global pandemic and other enormous challenges?
In this episode:
We're joined by George Strakhov, Head of strategy EMEA for DDB, and Steve Griffiths, Chief Digital Officer for DDB Europe, both of whom work with McDonald's across 40+ markets.
The scale of the McDonald's business
A dynamic and complex business
Product and experience
Diversity of touchpoints
Geographical diversity
Menu diversity
Segment diversity
Guest counts and sales
Speed of the feedback loop
DDB and McDonald's
From advertising to strategic planning and tactical activation
Market to market activation
Digital transformation
Focus on convenience - experience, accuracy and efficiency
Optimising process in a process driven company
Changing consumer tastes and experience
Artificial intelligence
Creating interconnected, intelligent touchpoints
Preference and transactional data
Loyalty and longitudinal data
Data driven marketing, analytics and experience design
Creating a coherent brand experience
Maximising the interaction
The balance between delivering the most value for customer and business
Short term (activation) vs long term drivers (brand)
Constantly adapting to circumstance - a very responsive business
McDonald's and the Coronavirus crisis
Restaurant closures
Cautious reopening
Focus on crew
The perils of getting it wrong
A return to the foundational elements of the business
People needing the basics more than ever - Quality, Service, Cleanliness
The 'bubble of happy'
Producing 40 million Big Macs all the same
Switch to drive thru, changes to menu, delivery changes, dark kitchens
The benefits of being a 'known quantity'
Creating intergenerational connections
Happy Meals and birthday parties
No longer a family mealtime
Screen distractions
Matching the brand with the next generation
Innovation and brand experience
Entrepreneurship vs innovation
Bazaars vs cathedrals
The difficulties of tech mediated brand experience
A gap that needs closing
Giving franchisees and restaurant managers the capacity -
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We talk to Leonard Cheshire's 'Change 100' about enabling more people with disabilities to find careers in marketing, and ask if the lockdown can have a positive long-term impact on the way we work.In this episode:Verity Ayling-Smith, training and consultancy advisor with Leonard Cheshire and the 'Change 100' programme, and Priyanca Desouza, user researcher and former Change 100 intern.What disability isProtected characteristics, diversity and inclusionDisability as a normal and common thingBringing down the barriers in recruitment and the work environmentA wide range of accessibility needsThe visibility of disabilityDisability more prevalent than we realiseThe duty of employers to remove barriersChoosing whether or not to disclose your disabilityEmployers missing out on fantastic talentThe inexplicable employment gap for disabled peopleChange 100 and Leonard CheshireLeonard Cheshire's mission to support disabled peopleChange 100's mission to close the employment gap for disabled graduates and studentsMatching skills to rolesA highly competitive programmeThe popularity of marketing and communicationsThe challenging language of job descriptionsThe value of different life experiencesResilience, creativity and difference by defaultThe danger of the agency bubble and cookie-cutter thinkingActively welcoming and valuing a difference life experienceChampioning inclusive experience designThe 'amplified self'The problem with traditional recruitmentJim Carroll and the amplified selfExcellence vs mediocrityThe positives of the lockdown (for us all)How remoteness has brought colleagues closerA more personalised way of workingIt's not where you work but how - challenging office cultureBusiness investment in agile, remote working and managementA more autonomous, liberated and creative workforce
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What can one man’s horrendous ordeal at the hands of a Japanese game show teach us about the need for more empathetic brand experiences?
In this episode:
January 1998: casting for a new show
The luck of the draw
Meet Nasubi
A secret destination
'A life out of prizes'
Naked and alone with only a phone
The million yen target
Eggplants and modesty
The physical impact of isolation
A starvation diet
The first roll of toilet paper
What you own but can't use
The mental impact of isolation
Curtailed stimulus
Compensating for lack of emotional feedback
Anthropomorphising
Radical deterioration and mental suffering
Doubling down on the cruelty
An unwitting megastar
Victory - suspended
Nasubi in Korea
Nasubi flies home
The brutal show finale
We are all Nasubi
Parallel experiences
The impact of isolation
An analogy for brand experience
More anxious, more cautious, more socially isolated and lonelier
The practicalities of a post-Covid economy
Not making isolation worse
Be more 'Great British Bake Off"
Enhancing what makes us human
Brands not just claiming human qualities but exhibiting them -
The US has always had a special relationship with brands. We ask if we should be looking to the US for leadership, or vice versa?In this episode:Leigh Baker, founder of New York creative brand consultancy we@leighbaker, talks to us about the different approaches US and UK brands have taken to the Coronavirus crisis and what we can learn from both.How the US does brands differently Marketing at scaleImmediate impactThe hard sellWearing your heart on your sleeveThe US special relationship with brandsThe Super BowlClint Eastwood and "It's half time for America"Brands stepping into the breachWeak institutions leaving a vacuumThe 3 different approaches of American brandsBranding the moment - NikeDo something, but what? - American banksGood, honest promotional utility - Burger KingThe US reaction to the crisisWhy American brands don't stopCreative perils of group think Lockdown fatigue and reactive marketingGreen shoots of a new US brand behaviourA shift in tone - the new optimismIt's OK to be funny - GeicoHard times and escapismWhat the US can learn from the UKBrand experience beyond the advertisingGetting your digital act togetherA unified response from strong institutions
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Strategic research has a vital role to play in navigating us out of the current crisis, so why are brands cutting research projects?
In this episode:
Roger McKerr, founder of insight and strategy agency Davies McKerr, and Darren Savage, chief strategy officer at Tribal London and lecturer at the Oxford Business School, discuss the crucial role of research in shaping brand strategy as we emerge from the Covid 19 crisis.
How the world has changed
Ever-shifting points of reference
Doing the unthinkable
Forget getting back to 'normal'
Imposed behaviour change and new social norms
Imposed behaviours
Forming new rituals and habits
How crisis exposes differences
Challenges to strategy
A much more complex audience profile
How brands have responded to the crisis
Shutting down 'non-essential' activity
The IPA Bellweather Report
Halting strategic research
The dangers of strategic short-termism
Paralysis through lack of analysis
Brands that are doing well
Nike's integrated brand experience
Brands that are doing badly
Primark's devastating lack of ecommerce
Insight as an enabler of action
Building new insight
Creating confidence
What brands should do next
The 5 point plan
Identifying new consumer needs/preferences
Getting your tone of voice right
Reviewing and revising media plans
Thinking about what your brand stands for
Combining behaviours and communications
Positives coming out of the crisis
Positivity and human nature
Leveraging our intuitive gifts
Innovation and experimentation -
It's been said that after a nuclear war, all that will be left are cockroaches and a production team making a film about them. How ever-resilient production is adapting to the lockdown.
In this episode:
Producers Flo Clive and Paris Palmer talk about how to keep making great work despite the lockdown.
How hard has production been hit?
The agency view
The freelancer view
What are the lockdown regulations for producers?
Government regulations
Agency policy
Safety first
What type of work is getting done?
Adaptations and reworking
Home studios
Post production's defining moment
Pro bono
The future is documentary style shooting
UGC
Self shooting
Remote directing
The importance of continuing to invest in marketing through a crisis
Helping clients get back on the horse
The need for contingency and understanding
Good work that's getting made
Tesco Food Love Stories
Ohio Department Of Health PSA
Lucozade and Anthony Joshua
Joe Wicks' PE Lesson feat. George Ezra
How brands should react to the crisis
Deeds not words
Can-do attitude
Power of the people
Quality vs quantity
Don't be silent
Do good things -
The Coronavirus crisis has forced massive changes on the way we work. What can lockdown working teach us about building a better brand experience?
This episode:
Why is the colleague experience so important?
An introduction to the three components of great brand experience.
1) Customer experience
2) Colleague experience
3) Operational enablers - the tools to do the job.
A cautionary tale about poor colleague experience.
A much-loved heritage cheese brand neglects its colleague experience with devastating results.
What the Coronavirus can teach us about the colleague experience.
1) Distance. Do we need to be in the office?The modern office is a product of the Industrial Revolution, and doesn't reflect the changing nature of work and “the declining cost of distance”. Do we need to be in the office?
2) Decompression. The emergency brakes have just been slammed on our just-in-time 21st century lives, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. How slowing down and allowing ourselves time to think will improve our quality of life and produce better work.
3) Dispensing with the digital distinction. In the modern workplace there shouldn't be a distinction between colleague experience (physical) and colleague experience (digital). They just need the right tools to do their jobs. Why the lockdown is the ultimate acid test for how future proof your business is.
A persuasive tale about good colleague experience.
A much-loved heritage cheese brand creates a best in class colleague experience that sees them through the greatest crisis of their 450 years of history. -
Did you know there is such a thing as disease branding? Well there is, and it plays a hugely important role in how we respond to outbreaks and pandemics.
This episode:
Why diseases need branding - and rebranding.
A short but sordid history of 19th century 'freak shows'
Stigmatising names we still use today
Gay Related Immunodeficiency (GRID) - a masterclass in the worst possible brand you can give a disease
The pharma business and 'disease awareness' campaigns.
Why they exist
Pros and cons
The tricky business of naming a disease that's new to science.
Naming the pathogens vs naming the disease
The World Health Organisation's new guidance on what you can and can't call a disease
Novel diseases and how often they occur
How Coronavirus got its name.
SARS-CoV-2
COVID 19
Coronavirus
What happens to a brand when it shares a name with a disease.
Corona beer versus Coronavirus
Can panic-buyers tell the difference? -
How we experience brands has undergone radical change during the Coronavirus crisis. What have we learned about surviving these turbulent times?In this episode:Why the distinction between your physical and digital brand is dead.The three key questions that dictate how heavily a brand is being impacted by the Coronavirus crisis.Why the crisis is a hugely valuable learning experience from a brand experience point of view.Why your brand can't afford to shut down marketing activity during the crisis.The scientific consensus against reducing investment in marketing.Marketing effectiveness guru Peter Field's 4 key lessons about the benefits of continuing to invest in marketing during an economic downturn: 1) Cutting marketing budget in a downturn only helps defend profits in the very short term; 2) If you do choose to cut budgets, your brand will emerge from the downturn in a weaker and much less profitable position; 3) During a downturn, you should aim to maintain your share of voice, at or above your share of market during a downturn. Evidence shows that this delivers a longer-term improvement in profitability that outweighs any benefit gained from short-term reduction of investment; 4) If your competitors are cutting budgets during a crisis, the benefit of maintaining your investment in marketing expenditure will be even greater. In short, if your competitors go quiet, it’s easier to make yourself heard.Why you need to make use of your entire marketing mix - the '4Ps' - Product, Price, Promotion and Place. Why Promotion (Communications) may not be the right play.The power of Product, Price and Place, with examples.The 5th P - 'People' - and how it can make or break your brand.Doing the right thing by your people.We're all in this together and brands need to act like it.
