THE FLUX CAPACITOR OF FUTURE-PROOF MARKETING
“Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Roads” — Dr. Emmett “Doc” Brown
Welcome to 2022, and marketing amid a global pandemic, already in progress. In these mad, uncertain, propaganda-filled, and perilous times, every brand needs, now more than ever, a north star to orient themselves in the new abnormal; a directional focus by which to navigate all of their marketing efforts. And despite whatever you think is your USP (Unique Selling Proposition), now it’s not any One Thing that will stand out. In order to light a fire trail through the sky and the feeds, we at Remarkable Digital Group employ a proprietary 3-part measurement diagnostic to ensure consistency of impact across 1) brand heath, 2) social/conversation, and 3) search/discovery.
Brands Are Humbled Into Saying Less While Trying To Do More
The year feels like it’s off to a promising start, and as much as the advertising and media world is evolving and fracturing ever further in real-time, and the ongoing backdrop and dampening effect of the third year of a global pandemic, remote and virtual everything is now the default. Brands are humbled into saying less while trying to do more, with cultural respect and without so many of the retail, on-premise and live marketing tactics that touch consumers in real, 1:1 ways. With everyone hunkered down (yet again), our once-upon-a-time active, outgoing lifestyles all too often throttled, the too-often urgent, impertinent, commercial realities of mass advertising crash and interrupt our TV and feeds. Advertising (just like our wider world) feels like it’s hit the wall in so many ways — so much uninspired, default features, benefits, brand-first ads and the old ‘tell’ vs ‘show’ messaging. This great sea of mild, play-it-safe, uninspired grey paste of ads reflect our challenged times, as the idealized world of ads is now as sideways as our reality and consumer behaviors.
The way your brand shows up, the way people talk about you, is as important as who you are or what you sell, possibly even more so. And the search and social characteristics of a real-world brand is the critical essence to successfully market in these mad times. Most brands do brand, search and social, and typically achieve success at no more than 2 out of 3. Rare is the client/brand that hits on all 3 dimensions, Brand, Search, Social — if only because brand building and direct marketing are too often seen as opposing goals, but that’s all the more reason why this construct is for future success as much as for today.
We at Remarkable Digital Group work to build our clients and brands holistically through this modern, three-part lens, and because we’ve helped pioneer trailblazing and modern brand, social and search campaigns we know this is a business-building proposition that holds true from SMBs to the biggest players in the game. As every brand has had to pivot to become both virtual and direct in the ongoing saga that is 2022, now it’s about brand role and relevance as much as it is about personal word of mouth, all parsed through the mercilessly effective, essential lens of search and discovery; a triple-threat-view on success in the future comes into clearer focus. Now that everyone has to sell direct, so when properly focused on a measured, successful balance of all three we have found the sum of the parts is greater than each discipline individually, and each arm made equally compelling often becomes a force multiplier of the other two.
In A World Of Infinite Access And Choice, It’s Still A Popularity Contest As Much As A Peer-Endorsed Reality
As we see it, modern marketing has at its most fundamental three macro objectives, and driving consistency, authority and relevance across each dimension (as well as overall consonance) is critical to playing to win:
1) Brand, reputation and product/service: this the long-term, non-price differentiator is essentially your first pillar to succeed in the modern world. This is, and always will be, your core. Your real-world reputation and customer experience. But now, it takes so much more to ensure your future relevance.
2) Social — No matter the media or the times, it’s all about earning word of mouth at scale — for people believe people, more than brands, ads or sponsors. Now, people are your media as much as any platform buys. 3rd-party personal endorsement is the core of word-of-mouth, and along with product and customer service track record, your reputation. In a world of infinite access and choice, it’s still a popularity contest as much as a peer-endorsed reality.
3) Search, the 3rd and often elusive principle is now critical, and a lens many brands fail to appreciate as foundational. In an always-on, feed-first, social-as-ambient-world, what you publish and share is as important as what people say about you, and ultimately helps inform how discoverable you are. How well your brand consistently creates and shares a record of searchable reference, that if done right, best matches the lucrative patterns Google spiders crawl for and classify in your category. This now is as often as not what makes or breaks businesses built for future customers and prospects to whom there are no (other) roads.
The Flux Capacitor of Marketing
In a world with too many choices, banal play-it-safe marketing, hype-driven “Influencer” plays, where bright shiny objects meet rabbit holes, we offer these three principles — The veritable “Flux Capacitor” of Marketing. For in our own moment of inspiration (like good old Doc Brown falling and hitting his head on the sink, and awaking with the key to time travel), we now name the only three facets that matter: The Real, the Remarkable, and the Discoverable.
The work ahead for all future-forward marketers is to sync up and optimize your three-part signal strategy work, so that all dimensions fire in concert. In today’s modern reality, there are additional brand obligations, such as how are you helping save the world? How are you currently supporting diversity and inclusion? How are you championing the marginalized, pushing for actual inclusion, helping to address societal ills and inequities? Helping make a difference as well as a dollar, working to build community as much as commercial success. These new resets are a necessary and good thing, and are an additional dimension fueling reputation’s role by the day.
Our world after Covid 19 will be more virtual first than it is real, that’s not changing anytime soon. Like doc Brown, we can travel forward across time confidently when we use this diagnostic, thanks to the focused, triple threat of optimized Brand, Search and Social success, all firing in complementary, force-multiplying ways.
Great Scott, indeed.