1. The Majority Of Online Reviews Are Not Real: In the past, many brands were quick to note how they gained an edge by using online “ratings” to hack their way to the top. But lately it has come as no surprise that the “wisdom of crowds” and their reviews of your product make little sense if most of those reviews can no longer be trusted. With a deep mistrust of reviews, prospective customers retreated back to a smaller circle of influence that contains their closest friends, family and allies. As a result, brands should be be careful not to overemphasize their digital footprint, but rather put the effort into earning the five stars. We’ll see authentic five star brands win this decade.

2. Brands Thrive In The Physical World: The past decade has been filled with terrible advice. Brand marketing is not important, advertising is dead, retail is dead. The latter of these three statements is truly one that is so far off in its thinking that it catches many by surprise how brands like Away luggage, Travelocity and Netflix are all in the physical space now even though they are digital brands! We know that brands can’t scale if they aren’t in the living ecosystems of humans. And thus, where you play in the physical space is more important than ever as the physical space allows for true discovery and interaction unlike the crowded digital world where one can only be discovered through lots of paid ads, engagements and interactions that don’t tell the full human story about what your brand is, how it thinks, feels, smells, tastes and looks like. Only physical and analog can accomplish this which is why it isn’t dead but simply remixed for the world where everything is two degrees away from being a status update on social media.

3. Brand Marketing Matters More Than Ever: The past decade many brands over-indexed on performance. I mean, if everything you were trying to measure and show ROI on matters, then of course long tail activities like brand marketing were thrown into the dust bin. But in 2019 brand marketing struck back. First, several big brands admitted that performance marketing ruined their brands, second, good insights were released noting overemphasizing on strictly performance is junk science. The best of brand marketing still infuses performance marketing into the mix. In fact, Les Binet and Peter Fields noted that the top performing brands put about 60 percent of their budgets into brand marketing and 40 percent into performance. A hybrid to say the least. It’s important to note this as some big brands that faltered the last several years had more of a 10 percent brand to 90 percent performance mix. You can’t get new customers if those new customers don’t know you and they won’t know you if all that you’re doing is hyper targeted, personalized messaging. Brands matter when people can speak to others about them and the social validation occurs when many people have seen the brand. This only happens when brands actually commit to brand marketing.

4. Brands Will Open Storefronts Without Amazon: How is this possible? Well, these digital advertising behemoths are simply middle players looking to take your money for helping to connect people to you. But nobody says you have to play by those rules. In fact, what if you launched a brand today with mass Out of Home advertising? Think I’m crazy? That’s what DTC brands do on a daily basis. And they use both brand and performance to track the effectiveness of that out of home marketing. Many might say this is nuts, and that they can only get scale from using these big digital monopolies, but such thinking misses the point. Brands aren’t built by digital, they are exposed on digital by people who have heard about the brand in a variety of ways and have taken action to discover the said brand using platforms like search or social. But what about selling goods? How can a brand do this without Amazon? Hmmm, maybe we should ask this iconic brand. What’s even more important is in a world where digital is so big, overrun, but monopolized by three players, it takes us back to trend #2 on our list, where your brand is physically helps it a lot. The physical experience IS now the marketing. And thus, can help brands who have paid a lot of money the past decade in digital to put that budget toward customer experience, service and success where it most counts in a world where intimate word of mouth will matter more than the fake diatribes found in trend #1. And remember a few years ago when people and said brands needed to behave like publishers? Publishers have the most control when they can go direct to their audience. The same can be said with brands. Brands need to be their own storefronts because when you own the store, you can be more personal. And the best way to do this is through first party data, not through Amazon or other walled gardens.

5. People Will Pay More For Brands With A Human Side: The mighty algorithm. We won’t see them ever die but they could mean less in a digital world where many understand how they work and that nothing of interest can be found from them. If you’re like me you may complain that going to Blockbuster back in the day was a terrible experience because even after three hours you still had no clue what to watch. The algorithm was the humans working in the store. Terrible? Not when you think we’ve replaced those humans on many platforms like Netflix, Hulu or Disney+ In music Spotify, Apple and Amazon have done similar. Search, for example, tells us what we want to know, but can’t help if we don’t already know what we want. Far from disappearing, human curation and sensibilities have a new value in the age of algorithms. Yes, the more we have the more we need automation. But we also increasingly want informed and idiosyncratic selections. The world still needs human curators and concierges to guide us. This is why brands matter. They are these curators and concierges. In a world where automation has overtaken what we see, hear, sense and smell, it’s important to get back to finding things on the edge using human Sherpas. We relish the messy reality of another’s taste and a trusted personal connection. We don’t just want correlations – we want a why, a narrative, which machines can’t provide. Even if we define curation as selecting and arranging, this won’t be left solely to algorithms. Unlike so many sectors experiencing technological disruption, from self-driving cars to automated accountancy, the cultural sphere will always value human choice, the unique perspective. And this is why human choice brands have the most value to add in the upcoming year.

If we take a look back at our list and add up trends number 1 through 4 we reach 5 as a natural progression of what awaits us in 2020. It all makes perfect sense. People need brands who they know are backed with human intent more than ever in a world awash with a lack of trust, digital fakery, automated spam, monopolies and gamified hype.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Geoffrey Colon, Head of Brand Studio, Microsoft, author of Disruptive Marketing and Host of Disruptive FM sponsored by Branding Strategy Insider.

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Think about it: everywhere you look, the grand narratives of the last era are continuing to collapse. American hegemony is in decline largely because we’re out of the cold war era, but also for other reasons. The importance of religion, especially in the west, is decreasing and has created a vacuum of meaning that some suggest explains the rise of a new “Church of Woke” among progressives. A financial system that measures growth only in terms of profits has many people asking, “Can capitalism even work anymore?”

The collapse of old narratives means we are, right now, in the process of creating something new, and a part of that is understanding how brands fit into our lives. This is why we must get back to the basics of why brands exist (hint: It’s not to ‘join the conversation’), what people want and need (hint: it’s not having a relationship with the brand), and how to thrive as a member of a global community.

Here’s a few trends to think about as you take your brand and business into a new year, and new decade:

1. Purpose (But not in the way you might think)

Brands have made a mess of purpose in recent years. At best, it’s a ‘nice to share’ but do people really care? At worst, it has been a veneer for unauthentic marketing tactics that weakens trust. As Lionel Barber, the editor-in-chief at the Financial Times says in Fjord’s 2020 Trends Report, “The long-term health of free enterprise capitalism will depend on delivering profit with purpose.”

Doing this will require brands to think about a wider range of success metrics that are at least as important as revenue and profitability. A few years ago, Gravity Payments’ CEO Dan Price, famously slashed his own salary to bring all workers’ salaries to a minimum of $70,000 per year. He currently makes 4x what his lowest paid employee. While there were many bumps along the road, and it is not necessarily a scalable model that works for all brands, it does show that capitalism can have a heart. And in 2018, Gravity processed $10.2B in payments, more than double what it did in 2014 before the announcement.

Inside of the brand, having a clear understanding of purpose is important. But the louder a brand feels the need to communicate that purpose to the world, the less likely it is to be living that purpose. Instead of sharing your purpose with customers (who likely do not care), instead, in this new decade, demonstrate that purpose delivers.

2. Money (Make it easy to take)

Money is evolving and people are using cash less. New cryptocurrencies like Facebook’s Libra are starting to get serious attention. But for all the talk of “mobile first” design and slick apps, many make it still too difficult to take people’s money. For brands to be successful, they need to make it easy to pay for anything.

Just the other day, I was using a well-designed airline app, and wanted to upgrade my seat. When the payment option popped up, it required me to manually enter my credit card versus using Apple Pay, adding an unfortunate layer of friction. Countless media sites charge $60+ per year to read articles. But, as Tom Goodwin often points out, if articles were available a la carte, for less than a dollar, he (and I suspect many others) would be glad to pay. Retailers that require a sign in or profile, are losing potential revenue because they make it too difficult. In 2020, logging in and manually entering credit cards should be an option, but the default should be as frictionless as possible.

3. Design For Life

It seems that we are trying to move past the peak narcissism of the 2010s and, while politically, many places, especially the US and UK are divided, there’s a general understanding that when it is all said and done, we are in this together. In Fjord’s report, they conclude, “Until now, human-and user-centered design has often separated people from ecosystems. Now, designers must begin to address people as part of a greater ecosystem, as opposed to being at the center of everything. To successfully make this shift, they’ll need to embrace a broader, more holistic systems mindset. Designing for two sets of values — personal and collective — will be critical.”

Here’s two examples in action, Dr. Martens rolled out a line of vegan (synthetic) leather boots and saw a 70% increase in profits. We’ve seen several quick service restaurant brands successfully roll-out plant-based “meat” products in everything from charbroiled burgers to burrito bowls.

And so, in the new decade it will fall upon us, brand owners and marketers, to respond to these trends, balancing brand building, with performance.

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In the following five future trends, look for ways to align your brand with these shifts in culture.

1. Museums Of The Future

While we’ve written about the ‘made-for-Instagram’ style pop-ups here on Branding Strategy Insider before, this trend represents the next step in the countless installations inspired by The Museum of Ice Cream last year. Instead of creating something worthy of capturing on social media, these larger-than-life installations make the visitor the protagonist and surround them with interactive displays of color and light that respond to what the visitor is doing.

With more applications of virtual and augmented reality being used by brands to enhance the customer experience, it won’t be long before we see this type of experiential art expanding beyond the museum. There could be significant opportunities in travel, retail and restaurants, as consumers become more accustomed to visual stimulation on-demand.

2. Xennial Politicians

We often see the advertising and marketing trades spotlight the importance of millennials. But in the last election cycle in the US, we saw several older millennials and younger gen-Xers becoming more influential in culture, consumption and politics. Their interests are broad and largely progressive, with concerns about climate change, gender equality, education and immigration reform top of mind. And as the JWT report finds, they are “engaging in politics to grapple with the unique systemic challenges they’ve inherited, from student debt to housing prices.”

We can see this effect play out for brands in the way they are shaping and having conversations. Frank, sardonic humor like social media accounts from Steak-Umm, bring a combination of realness and wit that reflect this cohort who are often saddled with tremendous student debt and the reality that home ownership isn’t often an achievable goal. Brands can tap into this movement by acknowledging that much of the status quo is rigged against this generation and provide ways (or at least light-hearted relief) to affect meaningful change.

3. Mothers Of Ambition

This last year has seen a rebranding of motherhood. From New Zealand’s prime minister bringing her baby onto the floor of the UN, to Sports Illustrated model Mara Martin walking the runway in a gold bikini while breastfeeding, women are leading a new conversation about what it means to be a mom.

Even five years ago, we were writing here on Branding Strategy Insider about the need to break through the common (and tired) tropes. Back then, Mark Di Somma offered, “Showing women of all ages and sizes in their advertising, showing women in leadership roles, showing women as entrepreneurs, women of different races, even different religions – these are all examples of how smart marketers can not only celebrate and endorse their biggest market, but also telegraph empathy, commitment and confidence.” Today, smart brands don’t shy away from real and raw portrayals of motherhood, and the consumers can’t seem to get enough.

4. Reframing Masculinity

2018 hasn’t been an easy year for men. Between #timesup, #namehim and #metoo, shocking revelations about a small, but high-profile group of men in positions of power have put a spotlight on what has been called “toxic masculinity.” Toxic often refers to archaic stereotypes that lack nuance, flexibility and compassion and brands like Hims, Axe and Harry’s are paving the way for a more accurate portrayal of what it means to be a man.

Peter Maxwell, senior journalist and author of the Future Laboratory’s “New Masculinity” study, tells the JWT Intelligence that, “There’s a need for brands to become involved in providing better role models for men and to undo some of the damage that they’ve been complicit in subjecting society to over the last 50 to 100 years.”

5. Zeitgeist Shades

While the least sociologically profound on this list, some of the colors you should expect to see brands playing with this year include a multitude of black shades. Even the cover of The Economist was black for their “Year Ahead” issue. Designers are drawn to the mystic connotations of black, as they search for “wisdom, elegance, sophistication and magic.” Meta-metallics are also called out, as Apple’s iPhone XS debuted in gold this year. And more subtle tones like aqua and Pantone’s “Living Coral” are giving technology a softer look.

Brands can tap into these colors in subtle ways across a wide palette of media to connect with consumers on a different level. If you need proof, just check out the aqua tones used by Google in their Home Mini speaker.

This time of year, nearly every publisher will be offering some listicle of important things to pay attention to in the coming year. Let these lists inspire your imagination and creativity as you look for ways to bring better competitiveness to your brand in 2019.

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1. Quirky Brand Influencers Are the New Spokespeople – Conformists and celebrities are boring. By trying to appeal to the masses they appeal to no one. Brands need to understand that there are customers and then there are “customers.” What I mean by this is there are always niche groups of customers who go above and beyond and really support the brand. So a brand that actually takes one of these influential personas online and converts them into their spokesperson becomes unique and interesting compared to someone who probably has never even used the brand.

2. Post Digital and Phigital Will Be Common Utterances – What we mean by this is digital is no longer the sole way to reach people. That was the big talk of strategists for much of the 2010s but now people are living everywhere. And that means assuming digital ads will be the answer is not thinking long and hard enough about behavior. People live online but we live in the physical world and sharing stories isn’t limited to what one shares on a social network. This means brands who can be more creative and holistic and tie the matrix together have a better chance of reaching people and retaining them. An example of physical brands going digital and vice versa? Now we have brands born in augmented reality and then becoming physical. There is no single path to success.

3. Why Are Sales and Marketing Departments Sitting in Silos? – Companies who say, “That’s the job of sales,” or “Hey marketing, give us enablement materials,” will fail fast in 2019. In Disruptive Marketing I spoke about the need to become a hybrid within marketing. But now that isn’t even enough. Sales and marketing not only need to collide but blend and become a whole new animal. A whole new way of emotionally being that simply hasn’t existed for much of the 21st Century. Sales isn’t about selling, it’s about coaching and connection. Marketing isn’t about marketing as much is it is about education and enablement. Brands that have one team with hybrid skills have the advantage.

4. Customers Drive Brands, Not the Other Way Around – Brands still assume they dictate the rules. But we’re in a customer’s market and may always be in one. Using the analogy of real estate, when you’re in a seller’s market you can make the buyer jump through a number of hoops before considering selling to them. But when it’s the other way around it is concession central. Brands need to think in the latter. Assuming people will follow what you dictate to them means you’re not really listening or empathetically understanding them.

5. Brands Who Create, Compose and Coach Will Lead – As automation continues to pick up speed there is less of a need to talk to anyone at a brand or rely on any of their content or owned information or knowledge to make a decision. In fact, almost everything is in the hands of the decider. But there is a way for brands to break through this and stand as one with their customers. Using the example of a clothing retailer, instead of that retailer saying, “We created these fashions for you to consume,” the new create attitude is, “We created tools for you to design your own fashions.” Instead of saying, “We’ve composed the ad campaign for you to aspire to,” the new compose attitude is, “We’ve partnered with our customers on our communications.” And instead of saying, “We know best because we’re the brand,” the new coaching attitude is, “We are always learning and learning based on our customers needs in the world.”

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Geoffrey Colon, Head of Brand Studio, Microsoft, author of Disruptive Marketing and Host of Disruptive FM sponsored by Branding Strategy Insider.

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Perception-Shifting Case

One of the more interesting factors in marijuana’s pivot to create highly-desired brands has been the influence of the tech industry. In April of 2015, Founders Fund, a venture capital firm co-founded by investor Peter Theil, made a multi-million dollar investment in Privateer Holdings, a Seattle company that manages several marijuana businesses. Among Privateer’s company is Leafy, a site that manages news and reviews, and Tilray, which researches and cultivates crops in Canada, and the Bob Marley official cannabis brand which includes the “rise up” social initiative and a line of body care products.

Brendan Kennedy, one of Privateer’s founders said in a NY Times interview, “After looking into the industry, we quickly realized that this is no longer, and hasn’t been for years, a countercultural product.” There was opportunity, he added, because “the brands that were out there tended to embrace the clichés of the industry.”

Another cliché that is being broken, according to Rustigian Burderer, founder of cannabis start-up Simplegentix, is the customer experience. By creating tastefully curated dispensaries that look more like polished, high-end retail stores, it’s easy to reach more customers. Campaign describes a San Francisco store, called Harvest, where consumers are welcomed into a modern retail environment that doesn’t scream marijuana. Instead, wooden shelves showcase products while posters describe its medical benefits. She says, “It’s indicative of how the industry is becoming more accepting. From the stoner, it’s developed into a sophisticated, elegant light.”

Evolving Opportunity

JWT Intelligence asks, “Can cannabis be the next beauty super ingredient?” SXSW panel speaker Emily Paxhia says, “I’m seeing more branded lifestyle products that address the different need states around cannabis, and it’s not about getting as high as humanly possible.” She points to Whoopi Goldberg’s Whoopi and Maya line of medical cannabis products that work to ease menstrual cramps, and are branded to look more like “high-end products you might come across in a department store.”

Beauty and wellness is a massively growing segment. In the last year and a half, executives from L’Oreal and Aveda have expressed interest in implementing cannabis in products. Some brands are infusing beauty products with cannabidiol (CBD), which is a non-psychoactive substance derived from plant. Since it lacks THC, the products can be classified as ‘legal hemp’ versus cannabis. This may contribute to even broader appeal, further destroying the old, outdated stigma.

The Trend Is Your Friend

In the age of disruption, very little is permanent. Some taboos, such as those surrounding cannabis, are eroding in the face of the growing body of science about its benefits. Other taboos as well – gender norms, womanhood, the definition of ‘a beautiful body’ — are meeting similar challenges in the marketplace of ideas. Brands that are stuck due to stigma can take a lesson from what is happening with the cannabis industry. By understanding the forces at work behind the all-up perception-shifting case, and working to implement fundamental changes based on those insights, it’s possible to leverage a trend to affect dramatic outcomes. Even better still, the beauty and wellness industry is removing the controversial aspects of the cannabis taboo (THC) and double-trend-dipping in both ingredient and lifestyle.

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