Interesting post from Wynter, a messaging testing and target customer feedback firm, about how tone of voice is a key to brand differentiation in competitive markets. “How your brand speaks online and offline can be a huge competitive advantage,” writes Gustavo Imhof, a Customer Insights Lead at Avado, a training company. “A clearly defined brand voice guideline is a reliable ally in ensuring consistent messaging. A consistent and predictable tone of voice is fundamental to building trust. Trust is a key ingredient to the customer acquisition process.” At Pluralytics, our OnBrand SaaS tool uses AI to help marketers analyze the key lexical elements of brand messaging -- values, tone of voice, and style – during the content creation process to ensure consistent messaging. When defining what your brand stands for, Imhof says: “look at what your brand values are. If you don’t have any, turn to your company’s values, which you use internally.”
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A good reminder from the Content Marketing Institute by Erika Heald about how to find your ideal brand voice. “If you’re not careful, you can end up with a random assortment of voices and tones in the content produced across your marketing ecosystem,” writes Heald. “The content won’t provide a consistent picture of your brand or even the same use of language. ”Why does brand voice matter? “It’s a consistent voice that enables your brand to be an easily identified and authoritative source in your area of expertise. Similarly, a consistent brand voice and vocabulary are essential to implementing localized content and intelligent content strategies effectively.”
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Where do PR, brand, and values intersect for your business? In this piece for Entrepreneur Media, Jessica Wong says: “For any new or early-stage business, one of PR’s most important tasks is to raise brand awareness. The goal is to create a recognizable image in the mind of prospective customers and build positive associations with your brand values.” “To benefit your business, your branding and PR need to be aligned. PR develops its messages from branding’s values. Unique brand values and campaigns can themselves become the subject of PR,” writes Wong, who is founder and CEO of Valux Digital. "Well-thought-out and cleverly crafted PR activities are among the most cost-effective marketing tactics.”
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“Your brand voice is your means to creating an authentic connection with your audience,” writes Julia McCoy, the creator of The Content Transformation System (The Content Hacker™), in this piece for Entrepreneur Media. “81 percent of people say they’ll buy from a brand they share values with.” At Pluralytics, our AI-powered software helps entrepreneurs understand how to communicate their values in messaging and how to deliver their brand voice consistently across platforms. “Your brand voice is going to be your golden ticket to creating an authentic connection with your audience and generating a river of new sales," writes McCoy. “Luckily, it’s not complicated to learn how to form your brand voice and tone — it just takes a little bit of elbow grease.”
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Aligning brand values with consumer expectations was front and center at the 2022 CEO Summit by the Jay H. Jay H. Baker Retailing Center - The Wharton School - US of the University of Pennsylvania. “The conference’s theme, ‘Values + Purpose: Leading the Neo-Renaissance,’ offered a fascinating look into how some of the nation’s top brand and retail leaders - such as Pfizer’s Sally Susman and Revlon Inc.’s Debra Perelman among others - are innovating today in order to remain relevant tomorrow,” writes Greg Petro in this piece for Forbes. One of Petro’s big takeaways from the conference was the influence of GenZ. “Throughout the CEO Conference, every speaker touched upon issues that are being driven by Gen Z, from community building to saving the planet,” writes Petro, who is the founder of First Insight, Inc., a leading Experience Management (XM) platform. “First Insight’s recent survey in partnership with Wharton reveals that Gen Z is using its collective voice to influence all generations.”
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In this piece in Newsweek, Chris D. Bentley, who is the owner of Bentley Fine Properties in Dallas, provides guidance on cost-effective ways to rebuild a brand. “Rebranding is a time to assess your company's mission, vision, and values. You should ask yourself: What makes this company special? Why was it founded in the first place and what makes it unique?” writes Bentley. “The next question to consider is your brand's voice. The words, tone, and voice you use to communicate to the world should be similar to your message.”
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A must-read for HR Comms pros and brand managers from LinkedIn's Marketing Blog, posted by LinkedIn’s Jonathon Palmer, EMEAL Lead Consultant - Content Solutions, Global Strategic Accounts. “Businesses are increasingly taking a more unified approach to brand,” the report says. “They are bringing together and aligning the three dimensions of those brands: consumer (whether B2B or B2C), corporate and employer. They are putting their brand DNA (their values and the essence of who they are) at the heart of how they communicate to each of these audiences.” “The reach and scale of your brand is multiplied many times over when the different dimensions of your brand are unified by a common brand DNA. Showing up consistently whether you’re talking to employees, customers or investors builds familiarity far faster. Crucially, it also builds trust over time,” says LinkedIn.
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“Brand values are conveyed through everything, from major internal decisions to messaging and communication with customers. They shape your company culture and they are fundamental to how your brand will develop in the future,” writes Samuel☔️ Thimothy in this piece for Forbes Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC). Thimothy, who is VP at the inbound marketing agency OneIMS - Integrated Marketing Solutions, lists 6 elements for a solid brand foundation: Purpose, Vision, Values, Personality, Promise, Positioning. “Brand personality shines through your website, social channels, marketing campaigns and so on. If there are inconsistencies across these channels, customers will have trouble understanding who you really are and what makes you special,” write Thimothy.
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So, you don’t want “Frankenstein marketing?" This article by Ambreen Ali in the business news publication SmartBrief describes 3 steps to creating a successful brand voice and leveraging it to achieve business goals: “define brand voice,” “document the voice,” “plan routine reviews.” We’d like to add a fourth: use Pluralytics OnBrand language intelligence SaaS to measure your messaging against your custom brand voice before you release it. Our AI-powered system helps marketers define, document, and review their copy so it is in alignment with their ideal brand voice – every time. “Consistent branding drives an average 23% uptick in revenue, Semrush surveys reveal,” writes Ali. “Consistent communications build connection and trust with the target audience, while improving brand recognition. It helps convey sincerity and legitimacy.” And, says Ali: “Failing to have a consistent brand voice can result in what Julie Guest, CEO and chief marketing strategist at digital marketing firm Bolder&Louder, calls ‘Frankenstein marketing.’”
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Check out this thorough guide about the importance of brand voice from Frontify, the digital asset management company. “Within your brand identity lives your brand voice. While your brand voice does include the words and language that you use to speak with your audience, more importantly, it embodies your brand’s ‘unique perspective, and the values you stand for,’” the article states, quoting Evgenia Verbina from a piece she wrote as a content strategist for Semrush. Frontify makes an argument for why companies need a strong brand voice: “A strong brand voice can reinforce a strong brand identity by helping it remain consistent across all channels. The digital landscape has long been overcrowded, so now it’s especially important to have a clear and recognizable brand voice.”
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An interview with Dr. Susan Fournier, Dean of the Questrom School of Business, Boston University, on the risks and rewards of celebrity/brand partnerships.
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This piece from Sports Video Group (SVG), a community for professionals working with technologies to produce and distribute sports content, asks a great question about how to balance product marketing and brand marketing. How can you be successful in product-led marketing and build a long-term relationship with customers through brand values? “Who are we? Why are we here? Why is this important to us? Product is important,” writes Leanne Tomlin MCIM marketing manager at Object Matrix “but establishing relationships based on our core brand values also plays a significant role, perhaps a more important one.” The piece is full of interesting stats for B2B marketers who struggle with the brand vs. product paradigm. “Whilst B2B marketing is not entirely emotionally driven, ultimately, the saying ‘people work with people, not companies’ applies,” Tomlin says. “The more you can personify a brand, then the more appealing it will be to your target audience. And to achieve this, you need to instill it with your values, your culture, your people, and your vision.”
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How to align brand awareness and demand generation? Be bold. Be Authentic. Be Consistent. This article in ClickZ.com, a digital marketing community, reminds marketers about the important balance between brand and demand. “Shaping your brand voice and telling your brand story will be key to making your brand stand out, and forge lasting relationships with customers,” writes Michael J. Collins, who is CMO and Managing Director of the CFA Institute, a global association of investment professionals. “As you finetune your brand voice, make sure you’re implementing it across all marketing channels—website, blogs, social media platforms, and other marketing collaterals. Brand voice consistency is crucial to gaining and maintaining the trust of potential and current customers.”
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Ecommerce marketers need a strong brand identity, too. This piece from Grace Lau in ReadWrite, a media platform dedicated to “IoT and the Connected World,” lays out strategies for delivering a clear brand identity for ecommerce businesses that will have an impact. Here are three of those strategies we think are crucial for success: Establish Values and Identity Build a Tone of Voice Consistency Across All Channels “Think about the values at the core of your ecommerce site, morally, and pragmatically. What kind of things does your company provide, and what does it stand for,” writes Lau, who is the Director of Growth Content at Dialpad, an AI-powered cloud communication platform. “Your tone of voice should permeate every level of communication to convey a unified, consistent brand.”
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Number three of the four tips? “Ensure your brand message is consistent across channels.” In this article in CEOWORLD magazine, author and opinion columnist Rhett Power lays out the importance of brand values to business success, especially in the wake of the seismic shift in consumer attitudes during the last two years. “Gone are the days of choosing products based on brand affinity. Modern customers make conscious decisions about every product they buy — shampoo, salad dressing, socks, etc.,” writes Power. “They want to patronize companies with principles that align with their personal values. ”When in comes to consistency in brand messaging on every platform – tip #3 – Power says: “The message you deliver across platforms should align with your values. But when you’re dealing with multiple forms of communication, such as a blog, social media accounts, print ads, and more, it’s difficult to maintain consistency.”
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In this article for HBR (Harvard Business Review), Bryan Adams lays out three main principles of employer branding and discusses how the Great Resignation is driving up the importance of effective employer branding as candidates consider where to work. “This evolution in thinking has undoubtedly been accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which put immense pressure on leaders to not just communicate their values but also to demonstrate them,” writes Adams, who is the CEO and founder of Ph.Creative, a global employer branding agency. When it comes to reputation as a key component of employer brand, Adams says it is important to think of candidates the way you might think of customers: “You can even develop multiple candidate personas and segment them in terms of fit. Then start building your reputation in the talent marketplace by investing in initiatives that align with the preferences of your ideal candidates.”
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“Research from an IBM survey found that 81% of people now belong to one of two shopping segments: value-driven consumers (41%) who want good value and purpose-driven consumers (40%) who seek products and services aligned with their values,” writes Hunter Johnson in this piece for Forbes Agency Council. For companies starting up in 2022, Johnson, who is CEO of Xpedition, an agency and entertainment company, recommends creating brand pillars. “Once you’ve narrowed down your company’s top values, make a brand pillars guide. Brand pillars convey your unique brand purpose, personality, perception, positioning and promotion,” he writes. “They are meant to clearly articulate what your brand stands for in a way that’s easy for customers to understand and relate to. They also help distinguish you from the competition, shape how the public perceives you and communicate your unique voice and tone.”
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“Experts on consumer behavior say an emotional connection to a brand, a sense of shared personal or social purpose, is increasingly important to shoppers,” writes Meghan Gunn in Newsweek. “That idea of the brand and the customer being aligned, being on the same side, comes up repeatedly in a range of recent studies of shifts in consumer behavior and brand loyalty,” writes Gunn, and asks: “The top secret to brand loyalty?” For one answer Gunn quotes christie nordhielm, an associate professor of marketing at Georgetown University McDonough School of Business who says: "There are three things: alignment, alignment and alignment."
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A really thorough look at creating a brand voice for a business from Alexa Collins on Shopify’s blog. Why is brand voice so important to marketers? “A customer that feels connected to a brand is often loyal to that brand,” writes Collins. “In many ways, a brand’s voice sits at the core of the relationship customers have with a business. It fosters connection and community, and can even instill more confidence in a brand’s products. Just like the personality of a close friend or acquaintance, a compelling brand voice feels as unique as the business it belongs to. It’s an easily recognizable identifier that emulates the main goals and values of the business.”
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From Fast Company, a look at the importance of a consistent brand voice, especially “if you’re outsourcing your content creation efforts.” “Successful businesses have clear, powerful messaging that lets customers know their values and what they stand for as a brand,” writes the Members of Fast Company Executive Board, a panel of industry experts that share their insights with readers. “The messaging these companies use doesn’t differ on each social media platform, either: It stays consistent, whether you read about the brand on Instagram, LinkedIn, or other sites.”
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What do top HR leaders say about building a purpose-led culture that aligns with building a strong employer brand? This is the central question asked of HR leaders in this piece from Asmaani Kumar, Senior Associate-Content at People Matters, India's leading publication for “organizational matters, talent management, and leadership.” Here are a couple of responses: • “Employees, customers, partners and shareholders...look to work for, invest in, and buy from, companies that embody a greater purpose that resonates with their own values.” Hwa Choo Lim (she/her), VP-HR APAC, Equinix. • “In the ongoing turbulent and challenging talent hunt, a strong employer brand is a critical value addition.” Elisabeth Stene, CHRO, Digi Telecommunications
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“Values and customer loyalty are the focus of this piece from the staff at The Wise Marketer, a source of news, insights, and research on data-driven, customer-centric marketing. The article says that today consumers are “increasingly attracted to brands that reflect similar values or values to which they aspire. It’s no longer as straightforward as choosing between Brand X and Brand Y, it’s now a matter of selecting the brand that aligns with the right WHY. ”One of the most interesting stats about values comes from research by Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute, a workplace culture consultancy, which found: “60% of US consumers say brand values (including a commitment to diversity and a positive company culture) influence their purchasing decisions.” The study also showed: “customers identifying as ‘brand loyal’ expressed the strongest focus on brand values when making purchasing decisions.”
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“Brand should also be apparent in any online presence, such as websites and e-commerce stores. Every page should showcase the brand logo and have the brand colors and font throughout. The same should be true of the brand voice,” writes Cory Maki, Affiliate Marketing Editor at Grit Daily News, a news source on Millennial and Gen Z startups. Step 10? Remain Consistent. “In many ways, a brand is all about consistency,” writes Maki. “Consumers put their trust in a brand, and if their expectations are not met, it can be damaging.”
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Social Media Today, LLC is covering a new report from Twitter: “The state of brand behavior on Twitter and what’s coming next.” The article by Andrew Hutchinson, who is Head of Content and Social Media at Social Media Today, highlights the study, which he writes: “is the result of analyzing a decade worth of brand tweets, and user tweets about brands, along with numerous consumer surveys, in order to get a real view on what works in modern Twitter marketing, and what Twitter users both respond to and expect.” One of the stats that caught our attention was that 8 in 10 people expect a brand's tone to change with the times. “Read the room,” the report says. “People today don’t want brands that rely solely on being funny and playful – they want a brand’s tone to evolve with the times.”
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“Your employer brand is more important than ever,” writes Francesca Di Meglio in this piece for the HR Exchange Network, a news source for HR professionals. To explain exactly what employer branding is and why it is crucial, Di Meglio quotes two sources: "An employer brand is an important part of the employee value proposition (EVP) and is essentially what the organization communicates as its identity to both potential and current employees," according to SHRM. "It encompasses an organization’s mission, values, culture, and personality." "Just like your external brand, it's a thread that runs through everything. It motivates people day-to-day. It puts different teams on the same page. It helps you find new hires who will add to the culture of your organization, and gives recruiters a way to sell you to the very best candidates," Samuel Pollen, creative director at Reed Words, a global branding agency, writes in Fast Company.
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Here are thirteen ways to make sure your company’s values are being communicated and received by your key stakeholders. “To ensure a cohesive organizational culture, it is critical for a company’s leaders to ensure that all internal stakeholders understand and embrace its core values,” writes the Forbes Communications Council in this Expert Panel post. “However, corporations also need to communicate their values outside of the organization in ways that people will pay attention to and remember.” Here are some that made the list: Communicate Your Values Through Actions Make Sure Your Leaders Walk The Talk Create And Regularly Update Content Around Your Values
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Interesting episode of Up Next in Commerce, a podcast for commerce teams and entrepreneurs from Mission.org. Host Stephanie Postles interviews Erica Buxton, the President of Hello Bello, and Jessica Tennant, the senior vice president of marketing at Hello Bello, a brand that makes premium, plant-based, baby products. Hello Bello was cofounded by actors Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard. Listed as one of the main takeaways about how to connect with your target audience: “One Voice: When thinking about developing a brand voice, you have to make sure this is established early and that it’s concrete. In order to have a brand people know and love, everything you put out should look and feel consistent, that way your brand is easily identifiable and consumers can become loyal to it.”
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An interesting piece in Entrepreneur Media that takes a look at 3 trends marketers should know when preparing for 2022, written by Shama Hyder, who is CEO of Zen Media, a marketing and PR agency for tech-driven B2B firms. “Brands that want to stay relevant in 2022 will need to do a values-based reality check. How well do your brand’s actions reflect your stated values or mission? Does your marketing align with what you say you care about? If not, get ready to fix it — and fast,” writes Hyder.
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An interview with Smith College’s Vice President for College Relations and Communications, Julia (Mears) Yager. “Yager is often drawn to the advertising of organizations quite different from her own, especially when they are values-based. New York Life Insurance Company’s ‘Love in Action,’ and Abbott’s ‘Dignity Demands It’ are examples she references when working with colleagues to bring Smith’s values forward in its communications,” writes Sarah Vancini. “Those ad campaigns have also reinforced the importance of building communications on values, which is encouraging when there is pressure to focus solely on product attributes,” says Yager.
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“It’s important to set your brand and your brand voice to remain recognizable and trusted by your customers. Otherwise, you’re more likely to get lost in the noise,” writes Erica LaCentra in National Mortgage Professional, a business magazine that focuses on the mortgage industry. “Evaluate what you already are sending out to customers across multiple channels to see if, one, the language and phrasing you are using would resonate with your customers, and two, if your voice is consistent across all platforms,” continues LaCentra, who is director of marketing for RCN Capital.
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“A social media style guide is connected to your brand voice. You want your brand essence to be showcased on social media and other marketing platforms for better brand recognition,” writes Jayson David in this post for Ragan Communications and PR Daily. “Your social media style guide can ensure you have the same brand voice, even if your tone changes,” says David, who is a writer, editor, and researcher at Hosting Foundry, which reviews web hosting services. “That’s important because a consistent brand voice helps humanize your brand to customers. If your brand voice is inconsistent, you’ll only confuse them.”
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“Your brand’s persona is what makes it come alive for your prospective customers, not to mention your investors, partners, and current and potential employees,” writes Jamie Viggiano in this piece for TechCrunch. “Once you articulate the attributes that contribute to your brand’s persona and the primary elements of your brand’s voice, you’ll have a blueprint for every single writer, marketer, product team and designer who touches your brand from now on,” writes Viggiano, who is the chief marketing officer at Fuel Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm.
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“Nielsen’s latest global research into trust in advertising has found that consumers are responding to ads with humor and brand values rather than products,” writes Hannah Bowler in The Drum, a global publisher for the marketing and media industries. According to The Drum, Nielsen’s “Trust in Advertising Study” surveyed 40,000 people to find that 43% of global consumers are more interested in seeing values-based ads over celebrity-endorsed products. The article quotes Cathy Heeley, international media analytics lead at Nielsen: “People’s lifestyle and values changed over time, and likely the pandemic accelerated the change in certain aspects. Consumers are looking at what brand values actually ‘mean,’ what they stand for and their practical application.”
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Great expectations, indeed. This new research from McKinsey & Company, in collaboration with Consumer Brands Association, focuses on “consumer loyalty and expectations, brand response to social issues, and digital acceleration” after such an unprecedented year. Successful CPG brands, it argues, “will be those that can navigate a wider range of stakeholders.” But how? Five themes emerged from their survey of key stakeholder groups-- consumers, retailers, employees, investors, and government – including the importance of brand authenticity. The report indicates that delivering on brand purpose and story is vital to resonating with consumers and employees. “Resonance also attaches to ‘a brand I’m proud to buy’ and ‘that shares my values.’ Misalignment could cost brands market share.”
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What makes for an “awesome” employer brand? This webinar from the Top Employers Institute, an independent body specializing in best practice for employment, discusses how to create a great employer brand, the challenges you must overcome, and the importance it plays in attracting talent and retention. “Employer branding is really an integral part of our TA [talent acquisition] strategy. We're looking to attract a very diverse set of talent around the globe and branding and the respective messages and channels are a great opportunity for us to simply reach those people—as well see their reaction to some of our messages,” says Elke Manjet, who is head of Global Head of Talent Attraction at SAP.
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“Less than 2% of enterprise software startups in the U.S. have at least one female founder according to a new report,” writes Isabelle Bousquette in The Wall Street Journal. The report Bousquette references is from New York-based venture-capital firm Work-Bench, which was co-founded by Jonathan Lehr and Jessica Lin.
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Employer branding occurs regardless of whether you’re working to strategically craft and shape it,” writes Bryan Adams in CEOWORLD magazine, a business magazine for CEOs, CFOs, high-level executive professionals. “It’s crucial to invest time and energy into your employer brand strategy to avoid ending up watching as talented folks walk away — and the most promising replacements join your competitors.” Adams, who is CEO and founder of Ph. Creative, a global employer branding agency, adds: “By refocusing on your mission, vision, and employee value proposition and then communicating it with employees, you can differentiate your organization, reengage the talent you have, control expectations around your business in general, and reinforce the reputation you want to cultivate.”
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“It is a bit ironic that we are living in the age of AI, advanced analytics, and big data and yet the word brand – one of the main pillars the entire business world is built upon – remains just as elusive as ever,” writes Emma Worden in this piece for CoFounder Magazine, a magazine focused on the European startup ecosystem. “Loose definitions have a tremendous impact on the fate of one company, and factors affecting the brand image play a very large part.”
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“Purpose marketing has become the advertising industry’s hottest buzzword, and with good reason. Among millennials, 83% report they prefer buying from companies that are aligned with their values, and 71% of consumers overall believe it is important for brands to take a stance on social issues,” writes Erin Schmidt in Ad Age. “But aligning a brand’s marketing messaging with its stated values can be more difficult than it seems,” continues Schmidt, who is Chief Product Placement Officer for Branded Entertainment Network (BEN), a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation company.
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“How have brands become more values-based since the start of the pandemic?” is the central question of this interesting discussion, which was part of the American Marketing Association’s Coffee Break series. “How are we as communications and marketing professionals telling our brand stories?” asks Mike Doyle President and CEO of Ketchum. “There is a common thread running through all of this discussion, and it really is about values.” “Now we see brands aiming to connect with consumers through shared values and elevating their core identity in their marketing and communications efforts,” adds Amanda Gadaleta, Managing Account Supervisor, Travel, Hospitality & Leisure at Ketchum.
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“Why do companies pay so much attention to brand voice?” Asks Kate Parish, the chief marketing officer at Onilab LLC., for this post on How Brands Are Built, a blog and podcast for branding pros hosted by Rob Meyerson, a San Francisco-based brand strategist. “It creates a bond between a business and a client,” writes Parish. “Some brands make you feel light and hopeful. Others motivate, sympathize, or make their buyers feel elegant or sassy. The key is to delve deeper than terms like ‘glad’ or ‘good.'"
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Is the Great Resignation a great opportunity? “It’s a once-in-a-generation moment for organizations to reassess and reinforce the glue that keeps them together: their values,” writes Jimena Zubiria in this piece for Fast Company. “Values for organizations exist to define collective behavior and inform its ways of working, and that behavior has a direct impact on retaining and attracting the right people,” writes Zubiria, who is Vice President of People and Communications at TheVentureCity, a venture capital & private equity firm in Miami.
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“Your brand voice can impact the customers you attract, if they convert, and your profits,” writes Peter Roesler in Inc. Magazine. “Your company's voice relates to its personality, and the tone is the emotional delivery that content shows your customer base,” says Roesler, who is president of Small Business SEO, an agency that helps companies improve Google SEO rankings and drive Facebook leads. When figuring out what your brand represents, he says, you need to have clear definitions of brand mission, brand values, and brand vision. But how do you make sure that your brand voice is coming through in all the content you create?
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Interesting research from SapientRazorfish indicates that GenZ “prioritizes purpose when making purchasing decisions, with 76% stating the brands they buy stand for a greater mission/purpose.” The research, which was conducted with VICE Media Group, looks at changing consumer attitudes toward brand purpose and includes these findings: “62% of consumers of all ages surveyed say that when it comes to making purchase decisions, a brand’s values are important or very important to them, with 40% actively researching a brand’s values and practices. Brand purpose (41%) also outweighs other benefits, including innovation (32%) and discounts (26%), when choosing a brand.”
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“After the significant disruption to recruiting and hiring over the last year, it’s become clear that companies need to make employer branding a top priority in 2021 and beyond,” writes Jonas Barck in this piece for Forbes Communications Council. “How companies position themselves in the job marketplace could dictate their success in attracting key talent in coming years,” writes Barck, who is CMO at Universum, an employer branding consultancy. “Employer branding has always been an important part of a company’s overall marketing strategy. Fundamentally, it’s a company’s identity, a thoughtfully-crafted mix of its vision, mission, character, culture, and personality to attract and keep potential and current employees.”
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“What is Brand Authority?” asks columnist Erik Huberman in this piece for Grit Daily News, a news site covering startups. “When your company has ‘brand authority,’ it means that consumers respect your brand and have confidence in it,” writes Huberman. “They trust you do what you advertise, and act in ways that align with your company’s core values.” Huberman says that an important component of marketing is a style guide that clearly defines a brand’s tone of voice.
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“Consumers want to support brands that represent their values,” writes Tanya Gazdik, a Senior Reporter for MediaPost, in Digital News Daily. “As the consumer population diversifies — by race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, or differences in ability, for example — brands must authentically reflect a range of backgrounds and experiences within their messaging, advertising and brand campaigns if they expect to effectively connect with future customers.”
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In this piece for Forbes, Irene Froehlich, Chief Communications Officer at DrFirst, Inc., a healthcare technology solutions provider, poses 5 thought-starter questions to ensure “your company’s content accurately conveys your unique brand personality every time and for every target audience.”\n\nQuestion Number 5 asks: “Do you have a tone of voice and brand guide?\" In response, Froelich writes: “Invest the time and effort into creating a style guide that explains your brand’s tone of voice with illustrative examples.”
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McKinsey on consumer attitudes: “Loyalty shakeup continues.” In this report from McKinsey & Company, the authors examine changing consumer attitudes during the Covid crisis. “Consumers are again adjusting their behavior as the economy reopens,” the study says. “As many as 30 to 40 percent of consumers continue to switch brands or retailers, driven primarily by younger consumers seeking value, combined with greater emphasis on purpose-driven alignment and quality.” For consumers who switched brands since the start of the pandemic, 34% cited a purpose-driven reason for the switch. 11% selected “share my values” as a reason for trying a new brand.
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Want to create a “dedicated brand community?”\n\nHere are five ways from Event Marketer, a magazine for the event marketing and trade show industry. “Be consistent with communications,” writes Senior Editor Kait Shea. “Regularly communicating with and creating calls to action for brand communities is a must, but it’s critical that the brand’s voice and engagement approach remain consistent amid those efforts.”
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Really interesting research from the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) on purpose-driven marketing. “Brand purpose campaigns drive 15% more market share growth than marketing campaigns that don’t focus on purpose, according to new statistics from marketing and advertising researcher Peter Field,” writes Sam Bradley, Assistant editor at The Drum, a global publisher for the marketing and media industries.\n\nThe research also shows: “41% of well-executed brand purpose campaigns drove a very large growth in market share vs. 26% of non-purpose campaigns.”
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Interesting podcast from brand management platform, Frontify, on the importance of developing a unique brand voice on social media. Frontify VP of Marketing Michael (MJ) Müller and Content Director Oskar Duberg interview Russell Banzon, the Senior Director of Marketing at Gong, a revenue intelligence platform.\n\n“Our top operating principle as a business is to create raving fans,” says Banzon. “In all of our marketing and of course in the experiences that we want to give all of our customers…we want that same tone, that same feeling to come across.”
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“While the majority of consumers expect brands to offer good value for money, they are increasingly using brand values to decide whether they will try new products.”\n\nIn this article, MarketingWeek lays out some interesting stats about how “consumers would like to filter brands by values,” including: “Nearly half of consumers (45%) would like to be able to filter products by the values that matter to them…”
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Big news from Microsoft for purpose-driven marketers. In this post on the Microsoft Advertising Blog, Vi Nguyen, Crystal Zheng, and MJ DePalma announce the release of a new feature they say is “unique to Microsoft Advertising,” the company’s search and native ad network.\n\n“Marketing with Purpose Business Attributes allow you to differentiate your brand from your competitors by highlighting unique attributes that showcase the ways your brand demonstrates responsibility, how your brand values align with the values of your customers, and how your brand is being inclusive,” they write. “These are the core building blocks to trust.”
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“Speak like a human” is number 2 on this list about building customer loyalty in the insurance sector. “A way in which brands can maintain consistency throughout their content – while speeding up the approval process – is by producing a tone-of-voice policy that also incorporates key brand compliance guardrails,” writes Marnie Blair in this promoted content post for The Drum, global publisher for the marketing and media industries.\n\n“The tone-of-voice policy should encourage content creators to understand how customers would expect to be spoken to in real life and avoid any technical jargon,” writes Blair, a marketing strategy consultant at Frog Design UK, a part of Capgemini Invent.
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Interesting review of comments made by Marvin Chow, VP of Global Marketing at Google, at September’s Brandweek event. Emerging tech reporter Patrick Kulp writes about it in this article for Adweek.\n\n“From mass resignations of employees to a slew of new home-bound hobbies, the pandemic era has been as a time for re-evaluation of priorities for many people,” writes Kulp.\n\n“As brands and as stewards of brands, we really had to reevaluate what our purpose and our values are, all while consumers are not only holding us to task, but dealing with their own self reflections of what this new world means for them,” says Chow who is quoted in the story.
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“Today brands must navigate the intersecting complexities of a dynamic social landscape, high customer expectations and increased scrutiny. Brands that lack clarity of purpose often find themselves in unfamiliar territory without a map,” writes Nora Bradshaw in Ad Age.\n\n“The big question businesses need to ask themselves is: Why align yourself with someone else’s values when you can’t even define your own,” says Bradshaw, who is Co-Head of Strategy, Superunion North America, a global brand agency.
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“Roughly two-thirds of consumers expect companies to take a stand on issues such as environmental stewardship and fair labor practices, and they will reward the ones that align with their beliefs, according to Accenture,” writes Ambreen Ali in the business news publication SmartBrief.\n\n“Asserting brand values comes naturally for some companies,” says Ali. “For other brands, adopting values into their messaging has been more challenging.”
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"If you find that your mission and purpose are hard to decipher, or even worse, don’t align with your current brand, you need to correct that,” writes Bill Kenney in this post for Fast Company about when to rebrand. “Stand for something and make it clear through the entire brand. This is a powerful way to resonate with your target audience.”\n\nThe main elements of brand voice -- values, tone, and style -- are key factors in building relationships with customers. “Consistency across your brand is paramount. The resulting harmony builds loyalty, recognition, and ultimately trust,” writes Kenney, who is CEO/Co-Founder at Focus Lab, a brand agency.
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“People don’t just care about product features. They care about aligning themselves with a brand that reflects their values and has a clear purpose,” writes Katy French in the piece contributed to Business 2 Community.\n\n“A brand strategy helps you articulate your core identity (aka your purpose, vision, mission, and values) and, most importantly, communicate it,” writes French who is Content Marketing Director at B2B-focused creative agency Column Five Media. “Ultimately, understanding your brand’s beliefs, building an organization that reflects them, and telling your brand story effectively is crucial to attract and retain the people you want to reach.”"
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Pluralytics AI company launched in March 2020 and is the brainchild of former Public Radio International executives Alisa Miller and Rick Byrne and technologist Morteza Nia.
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Why is Purpose-Driven Digital Marketing Important?\n\n“63% of global consumers prefer to purchase products and services from purpose-driven brands. Moreover, over 70% of customers are more likely to recommend a brand that supports a good cause,” writes Cheryl Baldwin, Director of Marketing & Communications at WSI World, a digital marketing agency based in Canada.\n\n“Consumers are actively seeking to make a difference these days,” says Baldwin. “The desire to make a difference is now highly reflected through consumers’ behavior and purchasing decisions.”
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“Young consumers want brands to reflect their values, and their loyalty is shifting,” writes Sheryl Estrada in Fortune's CFO Daily newsletter, which takes a look a new report by McKinsey & Company gauging the sentiment of consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic.\n\n“About 42% of millennials and Gen Z consumers cited purpose as the primary factor in changing brands,” writes Estrada. “For example, they based their decision on whether a company shared their values and if employees are treated well.”
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“As brand leaders, we’re always looking for ways to align our brands with causes that reflect our values and amplifies that of our clients and customers. But fit requires thoughtful deliberation and collaboration,” writes Michael Polk in this piece for Rolling Stone Culture Council.
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“The CMO of today must be agile enough to capitalize on the strategies that will align their brand values and communicate these values with today's consumer,” writes Janice Caston, senior vice president for marketing at Toluna Corporate, in this post for Marketing Dive: Digital & Online Marketing News and Tips. “In order to remain competitive in a changed landscape, brands will increasingly need to stand for something,” writes Caston, “to participate in culture, society and politics; to show that they are environmentally friendly or support humanitarian issues — in order to attract consumers looking for brands who share their values.”
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13 ways to increase customer loyalty, and 2 are values-focused…what else? In this piece from Newsweek, panel members shared their top ways to increase customer loyalty. We like #7 and #12: 7. Share Your Company's Core Values The best way to leverage transparency to increase customer loyalty is to share your core values as a company. Sharing your core values in your marketing and on your company website is an effective method because it allows companies to let customers know where they stand, why they started and where they are going. - Kisha Renee Ward , Creative Umbrella Consulting, LLC 12. Engage Customers With Your Vision, Values and Purpose Customer loyalty is powered above all by trust. Trust builds a strong emotional relationship which always beats a transactional one. Transparency builds trust. Clear and open communication of your vision, values, purpose, leadership ethos and contribution to wider society and the environment starts to build this. Then engaging customers in how you do it, for their ideas and contribution, deepens it. - Chris Roebuck, Simply Success
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“Today's consumers are more attuned to brands' values and willing to pay a premium to support companies that share their values.” This piece on Phys.org, which is part of Science X Network , a science, research and technology news service, takes a look at new research from the Bauer Leadership Center at Washington University in St. Louis and Vrity, a brand measurement company specializing in values. "2020 was an inflection point for many Americans," says Jesse Wolfersberger, CEO and co-founder of Vrity, "Some percentage always cared about brand values, but now we've crossed a threshold where most people care and are willing to make purchase decisions based on values. It's the new differentiator for brands and the genie is never going back into the bottle.”
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Pluralytics, a natural language processing startup that is the first system using AI to match corporate language with customer values, today announced that it is formally launching its ValuesFinder™ product and has raised over $1M in seed financing. The company also announced the following innovative, values-driven companies as enterprise customers in its Early Adopter Program: Speedway Motors, Nelnet Renewable Energy and two Fortune 500 companies. This product launch is timely as purpose-driven enterprises and all companies respond to the meteoric rise of the values-based consumer, investor and employee. Many companies are also rethinking how to communicate with values-driven stakeholders in the wake of the social and political events of 2020. Language choice directly affects how consumers connect with brands and products.
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How deeply you connect with your customers is make or break for any business. When marketers go through the process of defining brand voice, they dimension three elements with their target audience in mind: values, tone, and style. A well-defined and executed brand voice combined with a compelling visual identity are the foundational elements of a unique brand personality that is the hallmark of the most successful brands. Marketers also know that consistency is king when it comes to generating engagement, the primary driver of ROI across platforms: website, content marketing, and social. Clear brand messaging that engages target customers and current customers delivers improvement in vital metrics: conversion (CAC), loyalty, churn, revenue per customer, and LTV.
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In this tip sheet in CMSWire, business software journalist Kaya Ismail lays out strategies to create winning digital marketing. At number 2, he lists: “Be Authentic.” But what does being authentic really mean? “Organizations should strive to be true to their values and mission,” writes Ismail about authenticity. Kent Lewis, President at Portland, OR-based Anvil Media, who is quoted in the piece adds: “Create messaging and marketing strategies that are authentic and based on core values, mission and vision instead of doing something because it’s the latest trend.”
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“For some consumers, a great product isn’t enough. When given an option, they’ll choose something from companies whose social purposes align with their values,” writes Julia Petryk the piece for PR News Online, a leading trade publication for communicators and marketers. “So, what qualifies as corporate social responsibility (CSR)? Sometimes, it’s a social or environmental cause that a company supports, even if there’s no apparent link to its identity, culture or values,” writes Petryk. “Unfortunately, this is not a sustainable model.”
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“There should be no distance between a company’s internal values and its external brand,” writes Kyle Scott in this interesting piece for Forbes. “Companies should decide on a set of core values and integrate those into their operations, communication tactics and financial decisions.” “It is the responsibility of the communications team to help shape how those values are framed, communicated to internal stakeholders and integrated into public affairs and branding efforts,” says Scott, who is Vice Chancellor of Strategic Priorities at Lone Star College, where he leads marketing and communications.
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How to build better brand recognition? In this post from the Forbes Agency Council, 16 branding, PR, media and advertising experts share their best tips. Number 1? “Define Your Brand Voice And Use It.” “Brand voice is often overlooked when building brand recognition,” suggests Patricia Rioux of Team ODEA. “But when you get down to the nitty-gritty of web copy, social posts, email marketing and blogs, brand voice is where you can really shine.” Number 13? “Bring Your Top Values To The Forefront,” says Hannah E. Trivette, NUVEW Web Solutions, “from social media to website content, use value statements to show your values.”
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Interesting news release from Porter Novelli pointing out how values-based campaigns were recognized at Cannes Lions awards, which took place from June 21-25. “Every year, Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity explores the value of creativity in branded communication: from product and service development to the creative strategy, execution and impact. The winners of the festival show the power of communications and the shift towards values-based marketing. We have underscored how consumers are gravitating to and even demanding this type of content, but it is also now being celebrated and recognized by the industry elite. The trend of brands showing their values through their advertising is a growing one that will continue to become the standard by the marketing and advertising communities.
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How to build better brand recognition? In this post from the Forbes Agency Council, 16 branding, PR, media and advertising experts share their best tips. Number 1? “Define Your Brand Voice And Use It.” “Brand voice is often overlooked when building brand recognition,” suggests Patricia Rioux of Team ODEA. “But when you get down to the nitty-gritty of web copy, social posts, email marketing and blogs, brand voice is where you can really shine.” Number 13? “Bring Your Top Values To The Forefront,” says Hannah E. Trivette, NUVEW Web Solutions, “from social media to website content, use value statements to show your values.”
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“The unfolding shift toward a more values-based society opens up new opportunities for credit unions,” reads this bold headline in an opinion piece from the Credit Union Times. “People across generations are replacing old habits with new, more values-based choices about brands, the workplace and how they want their work-life setup to look going forward,” writes author Stuart R. Levine, Chairman and CEO of Stuart Levine & Associates LLC. “This should impact the credit union industry in positive ways.”
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“Create values-based marketing that leads with the organization’s values” is listed as Step #1 in this article about growing audiences for digital content in Material Handling Network, which covers the material handling industry. The author Lisa Apolinski, CMC, who is a digital strategist, author and founder of the digital agency 3 Dog Write Inc., recommends as Step #2: “Share your organization’s values as a digital story.”
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Interesting news from Deloitte Digital re: BrandWorth, a tool to help CMOs demonstrate the business impact of good brand strategy. “Four telling metrics were evaluated to determine BrandWorth scores, giving brands more precise insight into what areas of their brand need investment.” We were not surprised to see Values Alignment as one of those key metrics: “As corporate purpose and values increasingly took center stage over the past year, it’s no surprise that values alignment proved especially powerful in the BrandWorth research. This metric measures whether an audience feels the organization shares their values and ultimately motivates them to engage.”
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“Brands need to consider how generational values contribute to a successful digital marketing strategy,” writes Lesa Hastings in this article for Search Engine Journal(SEJ). “Generational values have started driving consumer engagement, brand loyalty, and consumer expectations,” she writes. “These generational values differ (with occasional overlap) between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers.”
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“Marketers and executives must do the work of ensuring the brand’s values are communicated clearly,” writes Lemuel Park, Co-founder & CTO at BrightEdge, in this interesting piece for Search Engine Journal. A theme running through this list of digital marketing trends to watch in 2021 is changing consumer behaviors and attitudes after 2020. “While ‘value for money’ was the top purchase driver for consumers polled by KPMG US in late 2020, Ernst & Young [EY] more recently found that 69% of consumers believe that brands must positively change the world,” writes Park. “This is particularly important for Millennials, 83% of whom find it important that the brands they choose to buy from have values that align with their own.”
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“Customers have always looked for great products and services. Today, though, they’re looking beyond what you can provide,” writes Sumit Aneja in Fast Company. “To earn their business, you also have to prove that your beliefs and philosophies align with theirs.” At Pluralytics, we’ve created AI-powered software that helps companies target customers and measure how well messaging is aligned with their values. “Identify what your values are. Live and breathe them within your business,” says Aneja, who is CEO of Voxco Survey Software, an omnichannel software survey platform. “If you do it right, then you’ll attract people who think and act as you do, and it will be easier to grow organically.”
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“Today, values alignment is where there is real power for global brands and sports sponsorships,” writes Mirella Amalia Vitale, SVP Marketing, Communications & Public Affairs at ROCKWOOL Group, in this piece for Forbes. “As values become a more important driver for decision-making, consumers and other stakeholders will choose brands that align with their values and avoid those that do not. Companies that truly lead with purpose and build around it can achieve continued loyalty, consistency, and relevance, through all situations and events, even crises.”
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“Determining your company's core values isn't something that you can sidestep without undermining business success,” writes Kisha Renee Ward, CEO of Creative Umbrella Consulting, LLC, in this piece for Newsweek. “There are countless reasons why it's vitally important for you to define your company's core values before launching any type of marketing campaign.”
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