End of the line for trackers?

Recently, and with more frequency, clients have been letting off steam about their brand tracking. These are the top 4 complaints we hear: Our tracker doesn’t help It is costing us a small fortune It is difficult to change anything It is even harder to stop We accept that some tracking studies may be useful, but we tend to agree with many of these complaints. We have a lot of sympathy with clients who feel stuck with a long term contract that churns out continuously unchanging readings of measures and metrics with the metronomic regularity of a Swiss railway timetable […]

“Training doesn’t work?”

Most of our clients would say that they have three primary assets – their brands; the goodwill tied up in the relationships they have with customers and consumers; and their people. And many would place people at the top of the list. Putting to one side the issue that most people, not least the burgeoning millennial generation, don’t like to be classed as an asset (which is somewhat dehumanising and has implications of ownership), we know what they mean: it is through the creativity, enthusiasm and application of people that great things are achieved. Therefore, it is a major occupation […]

BRANDS THAT SPEAK WITHOUT TALKING

In our experience of researching people’s engagement with brands, it seems to us that strong relationships are formed with those where there is a visual force. Psychologists and behavioural scientists have, for decades, talked about the power of visual appearance and body language over verbal communication. It is often quoted that 80% of effective communication is non-verbal and that how things are presented can, therefore, be even more important than content. We have even heard that people who are perceived to be more attractive earn more. We believe that the same probably applies to brands, although we wouldn’t advocate the […]

Brands That Talk to Me

When we ask people to tell us about brands they reply with words. Even when we give them pens and encourage a bit of drawing they like to start with words. It’s not surprising, as we have all been conditioned to work this way since childhood – “tell me what it was like”, “describe her”, “tell me a story”. We will talk about the power of visuals and the “body language” of brands in a different post, but here we are focusing on those words. What people talk about when they talk about brands. They usually start, and finish, by […]