Source - Luke Jones | BBC.com

Recent research from Australia and New Zealand has re-examined and re-understood how consumers choose brands. From the minds of Justin Mowday and Rupert Price from DDB New Zealand, check out some of the new rules on how to grow business below, or visit NZ Herald here for the article.

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The supermarket chiller offers 174 varieties of bacon. How does a shopper choose which one to buy?

New research shows many marketing beliefs about how consumers decide between brands are wrong - and have been for decades, according to DDB New Zealand chief executive officer Justin Mowday and chief strategy officer Rupert Price.

Price says, in 40-year-old thinking, there have been three golden rules to grow business: 1. Win your category. 2. Win the mind of your consumer and 3. Win today.

Based on the research of academics, including New Zealander Byron Sharp, Professor of Marketing Science at the University of South Australia, DDB has come up with three new rules, described as "unreasonable thinking" - because that's how modern science shows people make decisions.

Price says research shows that rather than making reasonable, logical choices, consumers are driven by more deeply rooted and unchanging emotions. Consequently, many notions marketers have long held to be true are unfounded and contrary to how consumers behave.

"As the data shows, the old 80:20 rule - that 80 percent of your sales come from 20 per cent of your customers - is just not true," says Mowday. "The idea that the Unique Selling Proposition gives you an advantage, finding a unique space in your market that differentiates you from your competitor, is just not true."

Even for rock-star brands like Apple, the research shows people are as likely to buy from a different manufacturer each time they choose a product, challenging the long-held perception that consumers stick with preferred brands.

So the first new rule is: Culture dwarfs category, defined as making a brand distinctive and making it stand for something bigger than its products.

Price explains: "Make your brand more famous than the others. The first way is getting into conversations more often and being more obvious - a good example is the Westpac chopper.

"How many times does it get mentioned on the 6 o'clock news? Those things build memories and the more top-of-mind a brand is, the more likely you are to choose it.

"But it's not just fame. In addition, it's building a point of view on the world. Consumers are more attracted to brands that have a point of view bigger than just the product or service they provide."

Mowday says while there have been missteps, "brands that don't take a stance are at risk of being tarnished with a negative point of view. One side of a debate will say, 'That brand hasn't taken a stand for us, we are therefore against it,' and with social media, within a day you're in the news for all the wrong reasons."

New rule 2: Feelings conquer thinking: "We are an irrational species, and so our emotive brain controls 95 per cent of what we do. Most of the choices we make are subconscious," Price explains. "When you choose from your 174 varieties of bacon in the supermarket, you don't weigh up the benefits and attributes of each one. We have short-cuts that allow our brain to say, 'I just like that brand' or whatever.

"Those are down to likes and preferences and those are shaped by memory. Memory is shaped by emotion, so if you can create an emotional connection, it's a far more powerful and compelling way to draw people towards your product or brand.

"Emotions drive all the decisions we make and our subconscious brain is shaped by our emotions. Most of the brand choices we make are based on intuitive gut feeling."

Mowday: "If we look at one ad break, a whole heap of the content is based on rational reasons why I should buy something - yet we know from science 95 per cent of our decisions are made by emotion. This is where the advertising and marketing industry hasn't caught up with science."

Rule 3: Long-term beats short-term. "We live in the tyranny of short-termism," Price says. "Organisations like Unilever no longer report quarterly because they believe it's forcing them to make short-term decisions not necessarily in the best interests of growing their businesses.

"What a lot of evidence is showing us now is that if you can invest in brand-building long-term, you won't necessarily see a lift in your sales short-term, but if you can stick it out for 12 months, 24 months, 36 months, then you'll see a phenomenal payback.

"That's because (a) these things take time to build (b) it's those long-term emotional associations that dictate brand behaviour over time rather than short-term deals designed to entice people to buy things immediately."

Mowday advocates a balance, citing Specsavers, which has been using "Should have gone to Specsavers" to build its brand for 33 years and running offers like "Get two pairs from $199".

"McDonald's, a client of ours, is a perfect example with their 'I'm Loving' It' slogan and jingle."

Price says empirical evidence supports a split of 60 per cent long-term brand-building against 40 per cent short-term sales tactics.

"In the modern world, every product and service gets copied within minutes or maybe months. You don't have a competitive advantage for years. Brand is therefore even more important.

"We know these rules provide a simple, measurable and actionable approach to drive exponential business growth."

Source – mediaite.com

Fake news has the potential to kill brands. It’s everyone’s job to stop that from happening!

Fake news, or, ahem, ‘alternative facts’ has been hitting the headlines increasingly so in the past few months. But, it’s certainly not a new problem. What is new is both the volume and the speed in which fake news spreads, and in the number of people who don’t analyse basic stories critically enough to ascertain whether they are genuine or not.

The following advice from Fact Check offers some useful perspective on how to spot fake news, and how to decipher it from the plethora of real news that is out there. Frankly speaking, every little thing we do to help stop the spread of fake news is a good move. It’s up to us all. For the whole article, click here.

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Consider the source.

In recent months, we’ve fact-checked fake news from abcnews.com.co (not the actual URL for ABC News), WTOE 5 News (whose “about” page says it’s “a fantasy news website”), and the Boston Tribune (whose “contact us” page lists only a gmail address). Earlier this year, we debunked the claim that the Obamas were buying a vacation home in Dubai, a made-up missive that came from WhatDoesItMean.com, which describes itself as “One Of The Top Ranked Websites In The World for New World Order, Conspiracy Theories and Alternative News” and further says on its site that most of what it publishes is fiction.

Read beyond the headline.

If a provocative headline drew your attention, read a little further before you decide to pass along the shocking information. Even in legitimate news stories, the headline doesn’t always tell the whole story. But fake news, particularly efforts to be satirical, can include several revealing signs in the text. That abcnews.com.co story that we checked, headlined “Obama Signs Executive Order Banning The Pledge Of Allegiance In Schools Nationwide,” went on to quote “Fappy the Anti-Masturbation Dolphin.” We have to assume that the many readers who asked us whether this viral rumor was true hadn’t read the full story.

Source – Fullerton College Library

Check the author.

Another tell-tale sign of a fake story is often the byline. The pledge of allegiance story on abcnews.com.co was supposedly written by “Jimmy Rustling.” Who is he? Well, his author page claims he is a “doctor” who won “fourteen Peabody awards and a handful of Pulitzer Prizes.” Pretty impressive, if true. But it’s not. No one by the name of “Rustling” has won a Pulitzer or Peabody award. The photo accompanying Rustling’s bio is also displayed on another bogus story on a different site, but this time under the byline “Darius Rubics.” The Dubai story was written by “Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers.” The Pope Francis story has no byline at all.

What’s the support?

Many times these bogus stories will cite official — or official-sounding — sources, but once you look into it, the source doesn’t back up the claim. For instance, the Boston Tribune site wrongly claimed that President Obama’s mother-in-law was going to get a lifetime government pension for having babysat her granddaughters in the White House, citing “the Civil Service Retirement Act” and providing a link. But the link to a government benefits website doesn’t support the claim at all.

Check the date.

Some false stories aren’t completely fake, but rather distortions of real events. These mendacious claims can take a legitimate news story and twist what it says — or even claim that something that happened long ago is related to current events.

Is this some kind of joke?

Remember, there is such thing as satire. Normally, it’s clearly labeled as such, and sometimes it’s even funny. Andy Borowitz has been writing a satirical news column, the Borowitz Report, since 2001, and it has appeared in the New Yorker since 2012. But not everyone gets the jokes. We’ve fielded several questions on whether Borowitz’s work is true.

Among the headlines our readers have flagged: “Putin Appears with Trump in Flurry of Swing-State Rallies” and “Trump Threatens to Skip Remaining Debates If Hillary Is There.” When we told readers these were satirical columns, some indicated that they suspected the details were far-fetched but wanted to be sure.

Check your biases.

We know this is difficult. Confirmation bias leads people to put more stock in information that confirms their beliefs and discount information that doesn’t. But the next time you’re automatically appalled at some Facebook post concerning, say, a politician you oppose, take a moment to check it out.

Try this simple test: What other stories have been posted to the “news” website that is the source of the story that just popped up in your Facebook feed? You may be predisposed to believe that Obama bought a house in Dubai, but how about a story on the same site that carries this headline: “Antarctica ‘Guardians’ Retaliate Against America With Massive New Zealand Earthquake.” That, too, was written by the prolific “Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers.”

Consult the experts.

We know you’re busy, and some of this debunking takes time. But we get paid to do this kind of work. Between FactCheck.org, Snopes.com, the Washington Post Fact Checker and PolitiFact.com, it’s likely at least one has already fact-checked the latest viral claim to pop up in your news feed.

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Craig J Selby | Craig is a long-time proponent of structured and measured change. His early career saw him teaching marketing and management at a variety of Universities and PTE’s in his native New Zealand, where he quickly climbed the management ladder to head several private sector institutes. Needing to do that little bit extra, Craig formed his own consultancy firm and was engaged by many in the sector as a trouble-shooter - responsible for internal auditing, restructuring and redevelopment of many departments and institutes in order to remain competitive in a highly contested market. This involvement motivated him to branch out and work with other industries - focussing on change and development as a core theme in business survival. When Craig moved to Malaysia, he went back into the Education sector to share his ideas with local private sector educational facilities. In 2009 Craig co-founded Orchan Consulting Asia, an award-winning Public Relations agency. His areas of specialisation are Crisis Management Communications and Change Management.

Many of us cringe when we say the word ‘Millennial’. It could be a factor of our age; it could be a factor of our experience; or it could be a factor of the gross overgeneralization of the different target groups in our marketing materials. 

Well, lets turn our attention to the latest ‘overgeneralisation’ – that of Generation Z – ‘kids’ born roughly between 1995 and 2000 – those who are now entering our workforces, and starting to ‘adult’ for real. Regardless over-generalisation or not, there are some very correct assertions in the discussion, and that helps us to understand the demographic better.

Be it as employers, as marketeers, or as workers just trying to pay our bills – it’s good to understand the broad values of each generation, and to look at how best to engage effectively together for mutual win-win situations.

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Source - REUTERS/Thomas Peter

David Stillman and his Generation Z son, Jonah Stillman, have written a book to help sort out the generational gap between younger people. And just who makes up Generation Z? While there is disagreement over the definition of Generation Z, most demographers include people born between 1995 and the early 2000s. But the Stillmans’ warn that employers shouldn’t confuse “Zers” with millennials, who are a generation older. 

The following are three key points from their podcast conversation (refer original source to enjoy to the podcast).

Generation Z is ambitious and hardworking.

Compared to the millennial generation, Gen Z is more competitive and independent. Millennials were raised to believe in collaboration and inclusion, which are positive traits that extend to their work ethic. However, the view that everyone wins if everyone works together isn’t necessarily realistic.

“I was told that there’s winners and losers, and if I’m not willing to work my butt off there are 70 million other Gen Zers that are going to come right up behind you and take your job,” Jonah Stillman says. “We are a very competitive and driven generation.”

It’s important for millennial managers to realize they need a different approach with their youngest charges.

“Now we’ve got a generation that’s going to be much more independent and very competitive,” David Stillman says. “I think we run the risk that millennials will dismiss this generation as not loyal, not team players, and it’s just not true. They’re coming and looking through a completely different lens. I think step one is that we need to train those who are going to be on the frontlines just how different Gen Z will be from millennials.”

Generation Z babies are digital natives.

Employees who belong to Generation Z have never known life without the internet or social media, and they are comfortable with rapidly changing technology. It’s a trait that the Stillmans identify as phygital.

“Phygital has sort of blurred the lines between physical and digital,” David Stillman says. “They see no line at all. This generation has only known a world where their phones are smart.”

Because Zers are digital natives, they can serve as authority figures on the technology that is so imperative to the modern workplace. They are quick to streamline processes, and they have less hesitation or fear to try something new.

“One thing we heard again and again in researching for the book was Gen Z felt the other generations over-thought a lot of things and took too long,” David Stillman says. “So, they are going to be good to say, ‘Let’s just try it, let’s get out there, let’s do it and maybe cut out a lot of the deep, long processes.’

“At the same time, we have to be careful because this generation can act too quickly. You don’t want them having a company spend all these resources to move something that is only just a quick fad that came and went.”

Generation Z is looking for alternatives.

Economic and political events — including Sept. 11th and the Great Recession — have critically shaped the worldview of Gen Zers. While millennials are often seen as having an undeserved sense of entitlement, Zers have an attitude more in line with their Generation X parents. David Stillman describes it as the difference between, “Wow, this job is lucky to have me,” and “Wow, I’m so lucky to have this job.”

“That switch up, because of the Recession as well as Gen X parents with some tough love, 76% of Gen Z said they are willing to start at the bottom and work their way up,” he says. “I think it’s going to be great.”

Jonah Stillman describes his peers as the do-it-yourself generation, partly because the internet provides unprecedented opportunities for self-education.

“If I wanted to learn how to re-tile my bathroom floor or speak Russian, I could do all of that and anything in between by logging onto YouTube,” he says.

His generation is more willing to think beyond the traditional path to that first job. Like Harvard-bound Malia Obama, more Zers are weighing the idea of a “gap year” between high school and college to travel, intern, learn a skill or simply hone in on what they want to be when they grow up.

The reason for the change lies partly with the increasing burden of college debt. The younger set is hyper-aware of the debt that millennials have, and they don’t want to be saddled with the same load. They want to find a deeper connection between an expensive education and what they will do with it.

“We know that 75% of Gen Zs believe that there are other ways of getting a good education than by going to college,” Jonah Stillman said.

Source: www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/06/heres-what-employers-need-to-know-about-generation-z

Craig J Selby | Craig is a long-time proponent of structured and measured change. His early career saw him teaching marketing and management at a variety of Universities and PTE’s in his native New Zealand, where he quickly climbed the management ladder to head several private sector institutes. Needing to do that little bit extra, Craig formed his own consultancy firm and was engaged by many in the sector as a trouble-shooter - responsible for internal auditing, restructuring and redevelopment of many departments and institutes in order to remain competitive in a highly contested market. This involvement motivated him to branch out and work with other industries - focussing on change and development as a core theme in business survival. When Craig moved to Malaysia, he went back into the Education sector to share his ideas with local private sector educational facilities. In 2009 Craig co-founded Orchan Consulting Asia, an award-winning Public Relations agency. His areas of specialisation are Crisis Management Communications and Change Management.