Goafest 2015: ‘Use purpose to build bigger, longer ideas’: Guy Abrahams

“Marketers say marketing has changed more in the last two years than it has in the last 50 years,” said Guy Abrahams, worldwide strategic marketing director at ZenithOptimedia, in the first of the Knowledge Seminars on day two of Goafest 2015. He was quoting from The Economist, to lay the foundation for his talk, in which he underlined the need for marketers to move from 360 to ‘365’ communication.

 

He noted that in the present day, telling consumers what brands want to say is no longer relevant. “Today we should be concentrating on 365 and not 360. We should be concentrating on building ecosystems of experiences, around messaging that consumers want to hear, across paid, owned and earned media,” added the speaker.

 

The biggest thing that has changed in communication in the last two years is the ability to identify consumers at different stages of the consumer journey, and target messages to them at each stage, noted the media veteran, citing examples of online video player Netflix and retailer Target.

“So today, secret for marketers is to transfer the effort from building short term campaigns to long term ecosystems. We need to use purpose to build bigger, longer ideas,” he said, citing examples including that of Johnson & Johnson’s BabyCentre, which he billed as the largest baby media in the world. 

 

 

The time has come to change from the model of control to one of orchestration, according to Abrahams.

 

Brand purpose delivers

 

Brands need a purpose and a value exchange to win, reflected the speaker, noting that consumers would offer attention and action in exchange for relevant experiences.

“Creative agencies love brand purpose. They create great ads. For media agencies, it allows room for much more,” he noted. Backed by study findings, he underlined that brand purpose delivers RoI.

 

Abrahams noted that in the paid, owned and earned ecosystem, earned media is a function of paid and owned media of a brand. He added, “Earned media has to be earned.”

 

Six ways to 365

 

Abrahams urged the audience to ‘optimise the ecosystem and not the silo’. For this, he underlined the need for connected storytelling, good call to action and (connected) technology. 

The speaker surmised enlisting a few ways to achieve the 365 communication: Mining insight from new sources; focus on the journey and consumer experience; change your audience perspective; embrace a new kind of creativity; and use of brand purpose to build bigger, longer ideas.

 

The Knowledge Seminars this year are being presented by SureWaves.