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Marketing To Become More Personalized, Authentic

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by Aaron Baar

Brands will have to become more personal and more authentic in 2015, says Landor. Marketing will become even more personalized next year, as technological advances catch up to consumer expectations, and marketers will have to continue to overhaul how they communicate with consumers.

According to branding firm Landor Associates, the top marketing trends for 2015 include more hyper-personalized marketing to the individual (rather than the masses); customized packaging thanks to 3D printing; shorter and easier to remember names, and authenticity.

“You have to be more agile, faster, more flexible and willing to try new things. Doing the same thing you did yesterday is less and less likely to work,” Allen Adamson, North America chairman for Landor, tells Marketing Daily. “People are busier today [with] more multitasking and more scattered than ever before. You need to be simple, sharp and direct.”

Among the top trends for 2015 are:

Mass Individualism. Adamson pointed to an initiative from Coca-Cola in Israel to print more than two million individually designed labels for its sodas and Holiday Inn marketing more customized experiences based on the consumer’s history with the brand as more examples of individualism in marketing.

“Because digital has made everything personal, consumers expect that in their brand interactions. [They think,] ‘I’m not like anybody else, so why should I use the same products as they do?’” Adamson says.

Simple Brands. Brands such as Uber and Square have demonstrated that unique, easy-to-remember names are better able to capture the public’s attention in a crowded field, where the first point of contact is often through a Web site or social interaction. New brands (and even existing brands launching new products) will be looking toward shorter, to-the-point names, Adamson says.

“If your brand name can tell your whole story, you’re almost in the end zone,” Adamson says. “You can’t wait for people to see the commercial on TV to find out what you’re about.”

Authenticity and Story. Meanwhile, the power of social networks has equalized brand interactions to the level of friendship. Using Facebook, Twitter and other two-way media, consumers will look for an authenticity and honesty from their favored brands just as they do their friends. Communicating honestly with consumers to tell a story about a brand, its ingredients and its value proposition will take precedent over marketing-speak, Adamson says.

“Millennials and younger have a much better nose for BS,” Adamson says. “They can smell a fake a mile away. They’ve grown up in such a media-intense world; they can feel what’s real and what’s not.”

Source

"Marketing To Become More Personalized, Authentic." MediaPost, 11/19/14.

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