Substance & style – driving brand growth

Blog Andy Drake – Managing Consultant UK

Last week’s Festival of Marketing brought many of the UK’s marketing thought leaders together online. What was fascinating to me was ‘connecting the dots’ and there was a good degree of common ground from practitioners on what was key to driving growth and commercial success. Alongside other speakers, our CEO, Lucas Hulsebos, shared the key conclusions of our annual Brand Growth study, which significantly, is based on the views of marketing practitioners. This year, DVJ focused particularly on creative development. Across the event, there were so many themes, but in order to ‘connect the dots of success’, I found the following 6 crucial.

1. Strategy and long-term thinking

It was a clear message from many sessions that brands need to think and act strategically. They need to get the right balance between tactical short-term sales activation, and long-term brand building. ‘Crisis’ makes that even more important. Mark Ritson highlighted the need for cool, calm strategic thinking. Retaining this approach and holding your nerve through tough times, is key. Several people commented on the tendency for marketers to over focus on the ‘latest shiny new thing’ and there is an associated risk of short-term focus. The message is: don’t give up the fundamentals and commit to your plans. Lucas highlighted the need to diagnose the market and that part of the problem is simply commitment – marketers admit they rarely have a day of strategic thinking.

2. Commitment and consistency

The natural follow on to embedding strategic thinking is that it requires serious commitment and consistency, both in terms of the approach and the people in the business. Cheryl Goh, the founding CMO from Grab, the ‘everyday, everything’ app that has taken South East Asia by storm, talks about resilience. Grab’s commitment is clear and its brand purpose ‘to elevate the lives of people in South East Asia’ is both authentic and central to consistency. It felt like a business that was true to its purpose and – whilst highly agile – sticks to its beliefs, vision, and plans. Yilmaz Erceyes, CMO of Premier Foods, have achieved 12 consecutive quarters of growth highlights innovation and effective brand building. This requires time, effort, and consistency but also in Yilmaz’s view: creating the right ‘internal’ culture. Yilmaz highlights Premier Foods have created a real passion for winning, an entrepreneurial approach linked to innovation and encouraging ownership of growth. Consistent growth is the reward.

3. Fundamentals and authenticity

Whilst there was universal belief that creativity, innovation, and growth were crucial and inextricably linked, a recurring theme was to focus on the fundamentals. This was brilliantly summarised by Lubomira Rochet, Global Chief Digital Officer at L’Oréal. Who passionately spoke of the need for focus on ‘what’s meaningful, not toys and noise’.  Lubomira referenced a recent study that companies only know 10% of their consumers, and danger of losing sight of need to connect with them in a meaningful way.  In parallel, Ivan Pollard, CMO General Mills, said fundamentals for a marketer were, in the words of Talking Heads, ‘same as it ever was’. However, the world in which it operates has, and is ever changing. Ivan shared a great metaphor of comparing a Kodak instamatic camera from 1968 with his current smartphone, that allowed him to create great photos, opening all sorts of possibilities. But still, expertise and skills are needed to stand out in a cluttered world full of content. The fundamentals remain the same, the way we operate according to Ivan: ‘magnificently different’.

4. Creativity and innovation

Whilst there was a common thread that to focus on growth required a focus on the fundamentals, there is also an overwhelming consensus that creativity (in its broadest sense) and innovation are key growth drivers. Lucas empirically showed the influence of creativity on growth, where innovation, consistency and vision are main drivers for growth. Winners are more consistent and support innovation. It is vital that vision and consistency around the brand are practiced reinforcing consumers’ memory structures, and that brand owners do what you say they will do. Creativity is also obviously broad, not just creative media but assets like your website, packaging and point of sale. Our study is interesting in defining and measuring success through the relevant brand KPI’s and here there is a strong difference between winners and losers. The winners where creativity is executed successfully, is seen in leading KPI’s like sales and market share. An interesting additional angle is that when DVJ looks at ‘winners’, the biggest impact in terms of evaluation of creativity is at the end of the creative process, just before launching, whilst many UK brands spurn this opportunity and focus on feedback at the ideation stage.

5. Listen to consumers and represent them in the boardroom

Our Brand Growth study also highlights an alarming gap in the UK of testing creative, in Lucas’s words: ‘gambling with stakeholder money’. Lucas showed evidence that winning brands tend to have marketing seriously represented in the boardroom. That sense of leading with proof and representing consumers, was heard loud and clear during the programme. Ivan Pollard’s view was that marketers have to be advocates for the ‘power of marketing’ but with that, comes the need to have proof. Lubomira similarly supported that by saying our core marketing purpose is to be the voice of the consumer. Mark Ritson neatly summed it up: marketers need to better understand and use the ‘language of the boardroom’. That really leads us to being evidence based.

6. Measuring success and impact

Lucas clearly demonstrated through our Brand Growth study that winning brands are defined by a very clear focus on growth KPI’s (sales, market share) and there was a real sense amongst speakers that marketing is increasingly understanding how to speak for the consumer in the boardroom.
Andrew Geoghegan, Global Consumer Planning Director at Diageo, talked with real clarity about the importance of having a clear vision and destination but one that is linked to bold business and financial targets. He talked about the power of great creativity in powering growth, but in parallel how measuring impact was key. Teresa Barriera, Global CMO at Publicis Sapient, focused on growth and the importance of having a strong growth mindset. That requires a clear focus on outcomes rather than activities or outputs. Everything should be about driving growth; everything has to be measurable and therefore needs to focus on the destination. Data is absolutely key, not just to measure, but inform decisions and crucially, you have to act on the data. And finally, a really critical ‘organisational’ perspective on marketing performance also came from Teresa: to foster a culture and environment that allows for experimentation, curiosity and flexibility that has agility of speed and embraces risk. That requires speed over perfection, genuinely empowering people to make decisions.

Overall, a great opportunity to listen and contribute to the brand growth arguments, reflect, and think strategically. The overriding feeling was the focus on ‘substance’ (strategy, measurement, consistency, hard work and focus), which is a clear foundation for growth, supported by ‘style’ in the form of creativity and innovation. All in all, enough practical insights for marketers to start connecting those dots of success.