Four principles that can help build stronger brands: Erich Joachimsthaler, Vivaldi

• Brand building today is about ‘World of Webs’ and not ‘World of Walls,’ says Erich Joachimsthaler, Strategy, innovation and branding expert at Star FLOW Fest.
• It is more about understanding consumers, getting them to interact, and participate than just meeting a demand.
• To succeed in this era, Joachimsthaler shares four principles that can be used to create a sustainable growth for the brands.

Brand building is no longer about creating Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. It departed from the traditional AIDA model long back after the advent of digital media. However, marketers haven’t quite reached there yet.

To succeed in this age of disruption, Erich Joachimsthaler, Strategy, innovation and branding expert advises to embrace the ‘World of Webs’ and ditch the older ‘World of Walls.’ The olden days were about insulating from competitors and creating a preference or a liking. Today’s world is ruled by demands, and brands should serve to enable connection, interaction, and change.

Joachimsthaler who is also the founder and CEO of Vivaldi Group, an independent strategy, brand, and innovation marketing consulting firm believes that marketers must compete, even more than before, for a share of their customers’ busy lives and build an atmosphere that helps consumers interact and feel like they are a part of a larger ecosystem.

Explaining how the ecosystem functions differently today, Joachimsthaler said, “The new world of branding is all about leveraging the connectivity that exists in the world, which is the connectivity of information. In a way, technologies that we see today aren't doing anything but connecting each other or connecting machines. And that's a source of competitive advantage. So when you want to build brands today, rather than doing interruption marketing, you need to find a new way because interruption marketing, the old way of branding and advertising, doesn't work anymore.”

He further shared four new principles that can be followed to make stronger brands. The first rule is to establish a direct connection with the consumers. To execute this, Joachimsthaler said ‘you need to find a way for consumers to share data or content to engage them in a debate.’

Joachimsthaler said Nike and American global manufacturer of confectionery, pet food Mars Petcare have cracked this rule and managed to make consumers a key part of their journey. Nike became the shoe company for the World of Webs by tracking its customers’ habits accurately.

“Nike as a shoe brand, for 30-40 years sold to retailers and and then the retailers sold to consumers. Last year in November, Nike made a very big shift. They started to sell directly through Nike. The reason why you do that is because you learn from consumers all the time and you collect first-party data. The other example is Mars Petcare. At great expense, they invested in veterinarians because they didn't have another way. People would not be buying pet food anywhere else but the grocery store because of convenience. So the other way for them to connect and establish a relationship with consumers was through these veterinarians.”

His second principle suggests making consumers active participants in value creation by leveraging ‘Network Effects’ or ‘Learning Effects.’

Third is about building an ecosystem, by partnering with other brands to help facilitate the availability of everything that a consumer needs under one roof and doing what’s best for all.

Joachimsthaler says this is the trickiest principle, which made a local American corporation that manufactures agricultural, construction, and forestry machinery successful in a short period. Amazon, on the other hand, has developed a huge ecosystem by partnering with local artisans to big brands, but it takes away most of the profit, which is not what brand-building is.

He said, “The third one is about building data and not just for you. It is about collecting your data through the interactions you have with your customers and figuring out who do I partner or collaborate with that would benefit from the data, but primarily also benefit my customer. For example, John Deere invited fertilizer companies to use the data and felt okay about sharing its profit with them. Most importantly, it realised that the farms will be better for my customers. And when they started doing that, suddenly there was a real connection, everybody benefited, including some startup companies who could actually work with real farmers on the field through John Deere. So the key there is to build an ecosystem. I call it in my book 'In the action field'. Amazon is also an ecosystem but mostly it takes the share. That's not good, it needs to change and it will change.”

The fourth principle says that there's a need to ensure that data is used in the right manner and to personalise the conversation with your target audience. Joachimsthaler gave an example of Hema, a Chinese toy brand, that used its data to grow from scratch.

He concluded by saying that any brand can beat Apple at its retail business by using the data correctly and personalising its communications.