How to Create an Unforgettable Brand

Written by Jillian Ogawa via UpCounsel.

Startups are known for having a “go big or go home” work ethic, but unfortunately, the same approach often backfires when applied toward marketing. Some startups spend too much too soon on big marketing initiatives that either prove ineffective or, at the other end of the spectrum, too successful to the point that they aren’t able to keep up with customer demand. Other common mistakes include focusing promotional efforts on marketing channels that are irrelevant to the target audience or copying the marketing efforts of competitors.

Startups can’t really afford to make these kind of mistakes. They only have a few months to make an impact on the minds of consumers, so it’s important to develop a strong brand will drive your marketing efforts toward platforms and methods that effectively communicate your brand ideals. 

The key to making your marketing efforts work smarter – not harder – is having a brand message powerful enough to guide your company through all stages of growth.

Likewise, a resonating brand message enables startups to quickly identify effective marketing opportunities that drive their brand forward.

Click here to read the full post on UpCounsel.

How Does Spotify Tap Into Consumer Psychology?

Like some media platforms nowadays (think YouTube or Pandora for example), Spotify has two principle revenue drivers within their music-as-a-service, business model: an ad-based, free streaming service and a paid premium subscription tier.

... and, in similar fashion to most platform-based tech companies, the goal of the business is to have consumers open up the app and keep them there for as long as possible. The more time we spend in the Spotify app, the more music we consume, the more the artists get paid, and Spotify takes a cut of that profit. It's a beneficial situation for us as consumers (we get to jam out to the music we like), and lucrative for the artists and Spotify.

For the last few weeks, I've been reflecting on the ways in which Spotify utilizes nudge theory on consumers to use the music platform and keep them there. One thing I came to notice between Spotify and other apps I currently have installed on my phone is the lack of Spotify mobile phone push notifications.

Push notifications serve as a great way for brands to stay top of mind and I've been wondering why Spotify doesn't send more notifications. The default notifications setting allows Spotify to send mobile phone notifications so unless you change it, you should be receiving push notifications. But, since having the the app installed on my phone for several years now, I can't recall ever receiving a push notification. Wouldn't it be useful for Spotify, if say, when one of the artists I'm following releases a new album, I'd receive a heads up from the mobile phone app so I can open the app and give the album a listen? I receive "New Release" emails from Spotify, but being how tied we are to our phones nowadays, I would think that push notifications would be a way to reach and nudge consumers into using the app.

Since push notifications aren't a major part of their strategy, how does Spotify draw you and keep you listening in the app? While I've noticed the usage of the default effect and social proof (both behavioral economics nudges) within the app, it's the familiarity heuristic that struck me as most prevalent as I conducted my user testing. More on the familiarity heuristic coming up...

Part of the value proposition of Spotify is their hyper personalization. The usage of big data provides a variety of personalized flavors of recommendations - whether it be their Discover Weekly feature or the Daily Mix playlists - and machine learning algorithms brining it all together.

That being said, we should also note the emotional connection we have with music. As humans, we have the tendency to form associations in our memory with different songs. As a result of these associations, songs becomes stimuli that have the ability set off internal triggers within ourselves, whether it be a sense of joy from the memory of a night out with friends after hearing a song played that night or a sense of depression after listening to a song that reminded you of a deceased relative.

At times we want to relive those moments. We dig up these events from our memory through associated songs, providing a sense of nostalgia and experiencing those emotions again. This is where the familiarity heuristic comes into play.

Understood to be a cognitive "rule of thumb", the familiarity heuristic is our tendency to form decisions favoring what we know (the "familiar") instead of what we don't. We understand what songs impact our moods and in what ways. There are songs that cheers us up, chill us out, and so on. Being that we have a massive selection of music to choose from on music streaming platforms, we can feel overwhelmed with the vast catalogue available. Unless you're specifically searching for new music to listen to, as music consumers we rely on the familiarity heuristic to help us decide what we end up listening to. 

When it comes to our consumption, we rely on those associated emotions to help us make that decision. Once we make a song selection, Spotify's recommended-songs feature kicks in and plays a suggested track based on the original one. In using context- and content-based data to make their suggestion, Spotify is pretty accurate in pinning down your mood and, as a result, will keep the songs aligned with your mood.

Spotify clearly has a deep understanding of not only the psychology of their consumers and the link between music and emotion (which could be one of the many reasons why Mood Playlists were made available on the Spotify platform), but also an awareness of our mobile phone usage. With users spending increasingly more time within the Spotify app, Spotify's doing something right in terms of keeping consumers engaged within the app. Instead of potentially irritating people with push notifications from another mobile phone app, Spotify's usage of machine learning is undoubtedly a strategic way to implement nudge theory on a media platform like their own.

What Doesn't Get Measured...

... doesn't get managed.

This was too good to not share. Credit goes out to Tom Fishburne from the Marketoonist.

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When it comes to the marketing field, I've always found it quite interesting that to many people, the term "marketing" is synonymous with "advertising". In other words, these folks think marketing is all about coming up with a well-designed ad and spreading to the word about a business or brand.

Yes, advertising is an aspect of marketing communications. Yes, it's important to communicate your value proposition to drive short-term sales and build long-term brand equity, but if you're not measuring your marketing campaigns, how do you know if your marketing dollars are being utilized in an optimal way?

Unless you're living in a world where money grows on tress, there's normally a limit to your marketing budget. With that being the case, resources have to be used in the most effective manner possible. In order to increase the return of investment (ROI) of the marketing campaigns, marketers and marketing researchers utilize a variety of methodologies, from marketing mix modeling to brand equity trackers, to evaluate marketing effectiveness.

As useful as some of the above-mentioned methodologies are to help maximize your marketing ROI, you need to established what your current ROI is. To those aren't familiar with the concept of ROI, the essential ROI formula equals to net profit (from a certain marketing campaign) divided by investment amount (for said marketing campaign) multiplied by 100 (ROI's expressed as a percentage). An ROI of 0% is your break-even point and an ROI of 100% means that you doubled your money. I would suggest using Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets for the calculation and easily creating a chart to visualize the data.

While the idea of ROI starts to become a little fuzzy around branding, you want to keep your pre-established key performing indicators (KPIs) for the business in mind and work towards meeting the goals for these KPIs.

The moral of the story - marketing isn't just about creating pretty ads and promoting them.

Marketing's both a science and an art, requiring creativity in producing out-of-the-box strategies, but also analytical rigor to measure what works and what doesn't. Don't let your marketing dollars go to waste.

Adventures in Taste Testing for New Product Success

You know how people say the devil is in the details? Well, that couldn't be truer than with taste testing.

During college I participated in my fair share of paid food research studies (which was a great way to make a quick buck as a college student btw). While I took part in these taste testings, I never really gave much thought to the complexity of the research until years down the line when I decided to conduct taste tests for a food product I was considering bringing to the market.

As with most consumer usability testing, consumer taste research design is pretty complex. Some of the considerations include testing location, in addition to whether you want to reveal the product brand, conduct the research with a group of people verses one person at a time, and who exactly you're going to be recruiting for the study. Mike Burkenbine and Kathryn Korostoff do a great job at breaking down some of the research details below.

Some of the key take-aways from the video include:

• In-facility testing is vital. In-store/in-restaurant should be conducted as a second part to the research.
• "People eat with their eyes" - be weary of variables, whether it be the color of the packaging or serving utensil, that might affect gustation via vision, audition, olfaction, and somatosensation.
• Ethnographic research might be best for packaged products that are made to be used at home (e.g. frozen meals).
• Conduct blind testing first to check if the target market likes the product, then conduct further branded testing to check brand association.
• Beware of regional differences in taste preferences.

If you've ever wondered how CPG companies and restaurant chains what food and beverage products to sell (and mitigate some of the business risk of launching a potential flop), consumer taste testing is the way to go.

UMG & Marketing in the Music Industry

I've been completely infatuated by the business of entertainment for some years now. As I reflect on my interest in this industry, I can boil it down to a couple points:

• The growth of media streaming platforms, their business models, and how the different players within the streaming ecosystems capture value

• Connected devices causing a shift in consumer behavior as it pertains to media consumption

• Monetizing intellectual properties as a form of passive income

The entertainment industry is undergoing major changes and it's all pretty exciting. 

In the back of my mind, I knew I was going to end up working in the industry soon or later. Guess it looks like it'll be sooner than later.

I'm proud to announce that I'll be working as an Artist Brand & Insights Strategist at Universal Music Group starting next month.

As I wrap up my grad program and gear up for my new role, I've been studying up on the industry. In doing so, I came across Bobby Owsinski's Inner Circle music podcast - a highly recommended podcast series for anyone interested in the music industry. In the episode below, industry veteran & Music Executive Ted Joseph talks about radio promotion, retail store co-op advertising, and more during his time as Head of Marketing at Warner Music.

The Seven Basic Stories in Marketing

I haven't been able to write on here since our second term started, but thought I'd post this video I came across lately.

What Happens In Vegas...

Say it with a postcard. Or more importantly...don't say it until much much later. We're the official Las Vegas tourism page brought to you by the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority. Remember: "What happens here, stays here."

"Our current generation's idea of travel is very much centered around experience-first, and Vegas, thanks in large part to this ad campaign, has really driven that idea forward, and solidified it"

Creepy = Relevant?

Someone in my graduate program shared this with the rest of our classmates in a WhatApp group we have going on (shout out to the IE MRCB Class of '18).

Nowadays, the usage of acquired data by marketers can come off a bit creepy. But, in order to create relevant products & corresponding ads & messaging, the question arises: is being creepy the only way to produce ads that'll capture the attention of potential customers? This reminds me of this Cost Plus World Market ad campaign I came across recently.