With the New Year nearly upon us, marketers are preparing for 2019 fiscal brand planning. Dr. Pasikoff, founder of Brand Keys takes an advance look at trends that will be make-or-break decisions – both for brands and for consumers.
Happily, predictive loyalty and emotional engagement metrics allow marketers to decode consumers’ emotions and expectations and, ultimately, their behavior in the marketplace.
These 2019 insights are based on 120,000+ consumer psychological assessments that measure the direction and velocity of consumer / category values and identify future trends with proven accuracy. Here’s an overview of trends that will help marketers stay ahead of the curve.
1) Real People, Real Profits
Celebrities are so 2015. Reality stars are not any better. Brands will benefit most from leveraging real customers and authentic voices in the marketplace.
2) Augmented Reality Will Become Real
Marketers will use the interactive experience of the real-world environment, enhanced by multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, and olfactory.
3) Don’t Disregard Generation Z
Born hot-wired to technology, Gen Z will make up 30% of the U.S. population, a larger cohort than the Baby Boomers or Millennials, and Augmented Reality will appeal!
4) A More Customer-Centric Mindset Required
How consumers define “value” will become more complex. Only the consumer can tell you why they buy the way the do. Ubiquity will spell trouble for brands.
5) Live Video Is Not An Oxymoron
Live streaming will take video to a new level in a more emotional and intimate way for interviews, personalized outreach, and higher conversion rates.
6) Brand Surrogacy Is Basic
Brand will continue to be surrogates for “value.” Brands will have to work harder to avoid reliance on price-points.
7) Personalization Augments Customization
The availability of enhanced Big Data analyses will make personalized content and outreach more engaging. Think of it as real-time outreach based on real consumer behavior multiplied by how customers really see themselves.
8) Consumers Want More
Consumer expectations have increased by 28% year over year. Brands kept up by just 7%, which leaves a huge gap between what’s desired and what’s delivered. And, expectations will continue to increase.
9) Search Becomes More Visual
Today’s (and tomorrow’s) consumers are more visually literate than ever and visual search will enhance the user experience and better meet consumers ever-expanding expectations.
10) Don’t Snub Voice Search
More than half of all searches will be via smarter, learning-capable AI voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google.
11) Engagement and Entertainment Are Different
Entertainment provides amusement. It gets attention, but it doesn’t guarantee sales. Real engagement affects the emotional consumer-to-brand bond and the bottom line.
12) Everything Will Get More Emotional
Successful brands need to first identify what emotional values exist in their category, and then worry about the entertainment factor. Differentiation has become more dependent on what a brand can offer emotionally.
A new year provides brand marketers a chance for new resolutions and new beginnings. But if you want to do something new, you have to stop doing something old. These trends provide brands the opportunity to break habits, embrace new methods of engagement, introduce new models, new technologies, and new – and profitable – opportunities into their brand planning.
One final trend: the best way brands can manage change will be through validated and predictive loyalty and emotional engagement metrics.
As always, we welcome the opportunity to share insights with colleagues, so feel free to reach out with questions. In the meantime we wish you all an accurate, engaging, and profitable 2019.
By Dr. Robert Passikoff
Founder & president