CMOs: 3 Action Items to Captialize on Delivering Consumer Experiences

As a CMO, one of the issues you may face is the keeping a track of all the new marketing trends and evaluating which ones are relevant for your audience. With my interest in enhancing brand value to consumers, I have been reading on the subject and found two articles that I though tied in the discussion around the consumer experience marketing trend very well. 

In “6 Keys For Designing Customer Brand Experiences”,  Mark Di Somma talks about how experience marketing is not for everyone. While for some categories like hospitality, delivering great consumer experiences is key to the brand’s existence, for other categories it may be a forced and out of place. Brands must define what message they are wishing to convey through their experiences and whether it holds true to the brand. Secondly, select the touch-points that work best to deliver these experiences, and lastly, ensure the delivery across touch-points is memorable and relevant to the consumer.

 

Changing the Rules of Delivering Customer Experiences

With the above context, I looked at the the re-branding efforts of Intel with their new “Experiences Outside” campaign as described in this article by Dean Takahashi. Being an ingredient brand, Intel has always been focused on the superiority of the product and functional benefits – a faster computer. It realized that it was losing relevance to Millenials and is now stepping into the visible spectrum, allowing consumers to see how it is adding value to their lives. In their new campaign, they are focusing on the “why” of their existence; which is to create great experiences on the outside. Intel plans to power experiences for music artists like Lady Gaga, ESPN X Games and various other sports to allow a very focused target audience to “feel” the amazingness of Intel’s technology.

While Intel has tied in their brand very well with the promise of delivering amazing experiences through technology, we need to wait and see the results this drives for them. After reviewing the above articles, and based on my experiences as a graduate student in the Northwestern Medill IMC program, here are three key guidelines that I believe will help you on your way to creating successful consumer experience strategies:

• Set yourself Apart: Don’t jump on the bandwagon just because it is a new trend. If it not right for your brand, don’t do it. Deliver the right experiences by staying true to your brand DNA. The experience you craft and deliver needs to tie in to the brand and the image you are trying to build for the consumer.

•  Empower and Engage: Having said the above, don’t be sales-y. Its not about what the brand does, but what it is the consumer wants. Don’t try to be everything to everyone; you will lose credibility if you try too hard.

• Define Success: It is easy to get carried away and dedicate resources to delivering these grand experiences. But make sure you have defined metrics on how to measure success. If you do not have results, you will now know if it worked.

      Consumer experiences can be crucial to developing a relationship with a key consumer segments. Ensure that your strategy is in place and the execution team shares the same vision in order to deliver a seamless brand experience.

About the Author: Sonam Rateria is is an experienced marketing and strategy professional with over 5 years’ experience in B2C products ranging from Financial to CPG. She is an MS Candidate at Medill, Northwestern University’s Integrated Marketing Communications program. Her focus is on delivering brand growth through building consumer relationships. You can connect with her on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter.