In the era of co-creation, leveled up from the integrated communication strategy with the strong encouragement for engagement, the actual execution of the marketing strategy would actually be the new source of purchase power - the more we do it, the more buying power we create, not because the mere marketing communication simply makes people want to buy the products, but the engagement experience and advancing it creates the common shared spontaneous conceptual world in the customers and the brands that can affect both ways in return as the fruit of it. Why would that be the buying power? In the long run, the contribution will circle back to the brand itself; it is true that it supports the economical activities or pre-economical activities of the customers which does not have to be the “purchase” at the cost of the customers. How vague and uncertain would that be, to see that as the future “buying power”! How unreliable! You might cry out. But without it, how can you relate to the customers showered by the flood of information of all the other products and the overflowing essential information that matter more to them in the first place?
Benefit of “experiencing”
Experiencing leads ones to the new realizations, mostly about themselves, but sometimes about what they are experiencing. There then becomes the bubbly thought world with the feelings and the new findings attached but not necessarily sustained the same way as time passes by. What marketing communication does very well is that the brand gets to become “theirs” or at least “their element” associated with, again, “theirs”. This is psychological and both conscious and subconscious, well, which means that there now is the large portion of the consciousness associated with the brand, which should be the start of the new type of marketing communication. (As subconscious, which is often described as the low quality trains that only knows to run toward one single destination per train, but is so large in “volume” compared to what “conscious mind” can be scaled to be) Hypnosis and subliminal messaging try to affect this area - so that the behaviors of the person will be “automated” in some ways, without he or she wanting it to be that way. Experiencing upon the will of the customer, on the other hand, gets the privileged seat in his/her mind surrounded by the things that matter to him/her. It’s a good position just not that super clearly profitable in the short term viewpoint or rather, we never know. What it helps though, aren’t neglectable; the trial period with the brand as a future customer, the test of oneself and the relative essences in his/her life to get along with it, the entry action to the economy, the value of new experience, emotional benefit, social benefit, opportunity to consider further or to kill time, etc., etc. Here, “experience” does not just mean the experiential marketing but any “customer” experience, including receiving brochures, making complaints, working for the brands, and so on and so forth. It is the opportunity for the novel challenge that can accumulate within oneself as something more valuable.
Myth of “happy few”
The brand identity is now, federated, not united, if we allow ourselves to include the mind and heart of the consumers in addition to the brand expression of their identity characteristics through marketing communications. Empowered individuals do not obey brands, they choose, not that they get chosen by the brands. It is the form of the relationship often observed among modern civilians. Celebrities have often said that they are the brands that wear the fashion of the brands ONLY of their choices. In new generations, especially the younger ones, have this mindset as their regular attitude. They mix brands, find out their best coordinations that fit their identity, social status, characteristics and the proportions, as well as how they relate to the rest of the world at the time of wearing that fashion OF THEIR CHOICE. Even though they do aspire brand and their world per se, the image of a happy few taking advantage of the brand as their desired role model, so-to-speak, would not work as planned as much as it used to, not because the brands do not shine brilliantly to the consumers anymore, but that the people have changed and they see brands differently now. With the information revolution coupled with the internet advancement, people are the ones that now have the abundance of the world’s knowledge, not the inventors, pioneers, founders or initiators. It might be the chicken and egg issue but the transparency does cultivate some sort of credibility for the owners of the information therefore the more flows out to the receivers of it if through the internet that requires less monitors, middlemen or business deals in between. Would then the aspiring customers get so driven to the purchase of the brand product? They get fulfilled in other ways and they get better at the same discipline, in other ways than engaging with the brand per se. Indeed the happy few life is aspiring, it is inspiring them to make their own original actions that can be replaced for their opportunity purchase if without the information innovation.
Does it now sound like the brands are only offering great values for free but nothing in return? Does it sound ridiculous?
Let’s talk about what’s reliable - the new discovery and the brand evolution.
Following the aspiration to intelligence is the desire to “become” - with all the materials Kings would have enjoyed to possess, with all the experiences the ascended Kings might have indulged themselves in, where the heritage can lead people into is the state of “be the superior above”, to see the King’s view, understanding his concerns and the ambitions, feeling them and solving them, almost. This is the timeless value of the brand heritage leading customers into the next level inspiration. Brands are the essentials for them at this level, and the timeless value will create the most beautiful co-creation that can prosper on it own given the life to evolve by itself. This is the democratization of luxury. As scary as it sounds, what the brands now are to the people might have to conceive the possibility of further cannibalization. Indifference, unionized concept with their value getting democratized to the people on all level, ending up serving to the people in the way that they get the same result anyway across all the different brand experiences. The brand might represent something different, the world of Sicilian beauty or the luxe of traveling - but all get them to have the “higher life” of their preference and for that part, the brands can be all the same. The real evolution can be the co-becoming, “together, we become something greater.” Or would that be so obsolete?
With the first point in this blog, the benefit of “experiencing”, can I dare to say that it is marketing that the future of brand can be infused by? As the infinitely widened variety of experiences, the increasing diversity of them and the expanding brand world world uniformly has to come back to the core of the brand DNA, the way to go is the blossoming from only the way discovered by the marketing at the hands of the present marketers and the wisdoms gained from their execution, and making them theirs, not just the consumers’.
What it does to the brand is the cultivation of the world full of unknown “possibilities”, the next dimensional key following the concept of “time” as the common theme. How would a brand evolve with you? What world would it create for you? What world would not be there for you? How would you be there with the brand? What the world would have been with the brand? All that, stemmed out from any snapshots of the brand history, are going to be the brand properties…, wouldn’t they? Feels great and fantastic. The above findings are not the signs of the brand degenerating. Yes, future is bright. It means that the juice of the haute couture concept gets democratized while contributing to the greater joy and happiness on the higher realm while co-creating the new norm for anybody to involve in the brand world per se.
What kind of dream world a piece of dress can create? With or without the customers wishing to advance the desire and transform it into something greater? What would the impact of the customers to the society be after the interaction, or if not be too stringy like that, what are the sub-creations, the impact of “something greater”? They should all lead humans to the greater freedom, the happiest world that should not exist in our limited minds.
So the marketing itself can be the creator of the new world, not just the new standard but the world adjustable and changeable to one’s spontaneous momentary preference. It is the world of empowered imagination and the consciousness getting descended into materialization.