3 Major Strategies of how Companies can take Advantage of Innovation

Luc Suykens, marketing director at P&G, is not unknown to the Belgian Association of Marketing (formerly STIMA).

When STIMA launched in 2004, Luc presented the beginning of a cooperation between Pampers and Unicef.

One tetanus vaccine would be donated for every pack of Pampers that got sold. Today more than 300 million vaccines have been handed out and more importantly, more than 300 million babies’ lives have been saved.

Let’s have a word about… consumer attention!

This year at the BAM Congress, Luc talks about consumer attention and how to grasp this attention in a world where so many brands are fighting to engage consumers and keep them engaged.

In the end, marketers are left with no other choice than to raise the bar… or leave the stage.

Consumer attention

First of all, it has been proven that brand growth has an 80% correlation with market growth. In the past there have been multiple innovations that led to an immense market growth.

Take for example the invention of steam power that led to the Industrial revolution or the microchip that led to the computer era.

Today we are on the verge of a huge market growth thanks to the invention of Internet of Things.

However, to capture this growth, we will have to make a fundamental change in our marketing strategies.

Luc mentions 3 major strategies companies could use to be able to take advantage of this innovation.

1. Consumer relevance

The first is consumer relevance. Today we have so many data, which are essential to gain consumer insights.

As a multinational, it is really important to understand the consumer and adapt your products according to his problems and needs.

P&G for example has employed new technologies to develop a position detection app that guides people through the tooth brushing process.

A bit unnecessary, one would think, but 32% of the population suffers from dental caries which is mainly caused by insufficient dental hygiene.

P&G saw the average duration of a tooth brushing session increase from 43 seconds to 2,5 minutes for their app users.

This excellent result proves that the application is indeed relevant to their consumers.

2. Mass 1-to-1 marketing

The second strategy is mass 1-to-1 marketing. For a company as P&G, it is mainly important to have a broad reach.

Their products are relevant to so many different target groups but to reach all these target groups, they need an adaption of the medium.

The key is to improve media and advertising quality: develop short and powerful messages that speak to the imagination and to leverage data in every touchpoint of the consumer journey (think of bol.com, Amazon, YouTube,…).

Luc Suykens pleads for the maturing of digital marketing. We think we are sending relevant content to carefully selected target groups but meanwhile ad blockers have never been more popular.

We need to use the right data to send the right message to the right target group. There is an urgent need for a panel of experts to help us become digital marketing-adults.

3. Force for good

The third and final strategy is force for good, the role you play as a company for the environment.

Nobody has issues with companies making profits, as long as they give back to society or the world.

As multinationals aim to have a broad reach, they have the unique opportunity to really have an impact, change attitudes, etc.

The ‘Always’-campaign called ‘Like a Girl’ illustrates this perfectly. Research has shown that girls lose their confidence after they get their period.

Always used their reach to address this problem by means of a commercial where girls of different ages were asked to run, throw or fight like a girl.

The younger girls were full of drive and energy whereas the older girls perceived ‘like a girl’ as something inferior.

This commercial has won prizes, got showed at the Superbowl and really changed something in people’s attitudes.

P&G did a study with a testing audience and prior to watching the ad, just 19% of 16-24 year olds had a positive association toward ‘like a girl’.

After viewing it, however, 76% said they no longer saw the phrase negatively. Furthermore, two out of three men who watched it said they’d now think twice before using the ‘like a girl’ as an insult.

These results prove that big companies can indeed have significant impact on consumers and influence people’s behaviour.

To conclude, in order to stay relevant to consumers, we need to develop relevant content. Sending that content to the right target group, using the right medium, will contribute to a better world.

In short: raise the bar… or leave the stage.