The Holy Trinity of Digital Success and how to make it work for your brand
There are three things that make up the Holy Trinity of Digital Success; Product, Access and Love.
Product is about making sure you have a great offering. Access is making sure your product is easy to get and Love is…well about loving your brand. Considering these three areas will bring together your digital results.
These three things have to work harmoniously or brands can easily find themselves becoming irrelevant or even obsolete.
Technology is changing all these elements so quickly. The below explains why taking your eye off the ball is dangerous.
PRODUCT
This goes without saying, making sure you have a great product is the starting point for everything. But, it’s not enough to offer quality if you’re not considering relevance.
A powerful quote of the CEO of Nokia in 2016 sums this up – ‘We didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost’. Nokia underestimated the speed and aggression of their competitors.
The same with DVD’s. Strategy Analytics recently did a report into Streaming vs DVD retail. In 2011 86% of consumer spending on home video was via DVD. In 2016 it was 42% and they predict by 2021 it will be as little as 13%.
No-one can predict the future fully, but making sure that you’re constantly evaluating if your product is fit for purpose is Step 1.
ACCESS
But what about if you have a non-technology based brand? What if your product is bricks and mortar or retail based, surely the above case studies aren’t relevant?
This attitude is at best naive and at worst dangerous.
Technology is the key disrupter in every industry right now and if your brand ISN’T considering Access, you could soon find yourself going the way of JC Penny or Blockbusters.
A recent large area effected is the retail market. Bloomberg reported this week that American retailers were closing stores faster than ever.
Access (and therefore convenience) is becoming more important to consumers than geography (who cares about footfall if you can get it delivered straight to you?)
Amazon recently reported a 38% YOY growth in the US houseware, health, personal care and beauty industries. A stark contrast to the 6% growth with traditional retailers.
With its investment in the Pantry Prime service, Amazon looks to cause further disruption to Superstore, grocery and drugstore channels.
One of the reasons for this increased growth is credited to milliennials who are twice as likely to buy online as other demographics. And they’re not all early adopters – Millennials are mainstream housewives now.
Young and aggressive companies are challenging traditional sectors in Finance, Housing, Transport and even Bedding and Dry Cleaning. If your company isn’t thinking about HOW your audience gets your product then it might as well be sat gathering dust somewhere.
LOVE
Then once you invest in the Product and Access – how do you let people know about it?
Amazon, already a threat to traditional retail, will be spending $4.5 billion on original content in 2017*. That’s nearly the same budget as the BBC. Amazon is establishing their own media network at a time when broadcasters and publisher are struggling to retain the advertising income model. ITV recently reported that non-net advertising revenues now make up 53% of total revenues.
This is now an opportunity for brands to stop wholly relying on 30 second ads or full page ads – and evolve strategies using owned channels, influencers and word of mouth to build love. How can you use your social channels to build a relationship? Can your brand talk to your audience about THEM rather than about yourselves? Then how do you get those people to talk about the brand positively to their families and friends?
Love creates consideration whilst negative sentiment can override convenience, value or even years of previous brand awareness (looking at you Pepsi and #United).
And this is a slow burn ROI. It’s not about going in with mass marketing and an Acquisition metric, it’s about trial and testing smaller content pieces to fragmented audiences and as Gary Vaynerchek says – getting permission to sell to people with positive association.
We know in the PR world this is changing, it’s why alongside our award winning traditional services, we’ve been running client social channels, developing influencer strategies but also investing heavily in original content.
If you keep your product great – then our job of building Love and letting audiences know about Access is easy.
*est by JP Morgan as reported by Statista
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