More than 75% of the brands could disappear tomorrow and no one will notice and that’s very interesting. A brand tomorrow, if they want to survive to be on top, needs to have meaning.
Vincent Ramond is the Managing Director at ekino London, a digital consulting and customer experience agency that is part of the Global Havas Group. ekino was founded on a human-centric approach featuring omnichannel communication and scalable solutions.
Prior to his role as Managing Director, Ramond served as Digital Transformation Expert and was in charge of setting up ekino’s office in the UK.
In this episode of Velocitize Talks, Ramond shares his insights on designing one-to-one experiences, brand purpose and credibility, and the power of AI.
The purpose-driven brand (3:07)
Customers today are asking for meaning and they are not asking anymore for just services…but really for meaning, for purpose.
Ramond cites three main pillars to creating meaningful customer experiences: functional, personal and community. So how do we interpret those in the midst of the coronavirus crisis?
Brand purpose and credibility were already important and now more so than ever. The recently released Edelman Trust Barometer found that not only do a majority of today’s consumers view businesses as the leaders for information; they also have strong feelings about current brand messaging.
Serving up content (4:20)
Everything is content. How do you serve the content? How do you contribute the content, create the content or publish the content?
Content creation has become increasingly challenging, and will continue to be as digital marketing progresses at a rapid speed. A recent survey found that content marketers are hampered by a lack of time and resources, especially given the multiple platforms and channels that require different messaging.
Change the channel (7:07)
Let’s create the the right content in the right channel for the right audience. That’s the ultimate purpose of a company, whether it’s PR content, whether it’s above-the-line content, whether it’s digital content; we create the right content for the right audience at the right moment.
Understanding and targeting different audiences across platforms is time-consuming. Achieving success through omnichannel marketing means delivering a seamless and personalized customer experience, especially when it comes to retail. It can also make or break customer loyalty.
One of ekino’s campaigns was for a leading beverage company which needed to transform their fragmented customer experience into a smooth end-to-end journey. ekino was able to align the key markets using its customer journey map, identifying long-term opportunities.
Finding your voice (8:15)
Voice has no screen, it’s really a different way of thinking about a creative piece of work because there’s no screen. The way we interact with the channel is completely different.
An estimated 53 million people in the U.S., or 21% of the population, own at least one smart speaker, and the total number of devices has increased 78% year-over-year. And yet, brands are still working on their messaging and SEO strategy. According to Raymon, ekino takes a “test and learn” approach when it comes to voice activation.
There are a number of so-called brand personas involved in smart device marketing. So not only do you have to customize your messaging to an audience; you have to customize your messaging to an individual.
National intelligence (11:07)
Everything that is about omnichannel communication is already driven by AI and it’s going to be more and more and more and more. One of the challenges is going to be, how do we make it at scale?
In five years AI is expected to be a $190 billion industry. From artificial intelligence to pervasive intelligence, smart devices and machines are just getting smarter. Two out of three consumers don’t even realize that they’re interacting with a chatbot on a regular basis with Google, Facebook and Amazon, to name just a few.
To learn more about ekino UK, visit their website.