The Fluid Consumer E-Book

Teo Correia

• Herausgeber: REDLINE Verlag
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

The Fluid Consumer takes an in-depth look at how digital technologies are driving profound shifts in consumer expectations and in the consumer packaged goods industry, and it explores the implications of those shifts for business models, branding, and growth strategies. Branding in the digital world requires new practices and strategies. And, as Teo Correia explains, platform economics demonstrate how brands can leverage the power of network effects to grow. In this book, Correia builds upon the new model for digital branding: Brands as Platforms, a revolutionary way to approach and leverage digital technologies beyond e-commerce. He also provides a framework to help leaders and managers position their organizations for sustainable growth by leveraging digital technologies to engage consumers, and to optimize innovation efforts, marketing, and channel strategy development. In a nutshell, The Fluid Consumer: - Reveals how profoundly the consumer is changing in the digital era, and the ways in which consumer packaged goods companies are evolving and adapting as a result. - Develops the new model for digital branding – Brands as Platforms – a revolutionary way to approach and leverage digital technologies beyond e-commerce. - Describes the Four Pillars of Digital Growth needed to achieve digital consumer engagement and position an organization for success. - Uses case study examples to demonstrate how consumer packaged goods companies are finding new ways to position themselves and stay competitive in the face of industry transformation.

Leseprobe

TEO CORREIA

The Fluid Consumer

TEO CORREIA

The Fluid Consumer

Next Generation Growth and Branding in the Digital Age

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A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

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A CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

© Accenture

Published in Germany in 2017 by Redline Verlag, an imprint of Münchner Verlagsgruppe GmbH, Munich, Germany, as The Fluid Consumer. Next Generation Growth and Branding in the Digital Age by Teo Correia. All rights reserved.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced to a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher.

© 2017 by Redline Verlag, Münchner Verlagsgruppe GmbH

Nymphenburger Str. 86

D-80636 München, Germany

www.redline-verlag.de

ISBN Print 978-3-86881-626-6

ISBN E-Book (PDF) 978-3-86414-887-3

ISBN E-Book (EPUB, Mobi) 978-3-86414-886-6

Edition Kogan Page 2017

Published and distributed in Great Britain, United States and India by Kogan Page Limited.

ISBN 978-0-7494-7837-7

2nd Floor, 45 Gee streetLondon EC1V3RSUnited Kingdom

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USA

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Cover design: Blomquist Design

Typeset by des2com Ltd.

Illustrations: © Accenture, except “World of Me” illustration © Vic Lee 2016.

Photo: © Accenture

Printed by GGP Media GmbH, Pößneck

eBook by ePubMATIC.com

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Decision makers have their hands full trying to develop and execute on brand-growth strategies to please today’s digitally driven Fluid Consumers.

PART I: The Outside Focus

Chapter One:

Experience or Utility: Setting a Course to Please the Fluid Consumer

To serve these increasingly demanding consumers, brand managers need to embrace the concept of curating for them – rolling bundles of products into services, or creating optimal experiences.

Chapter Two:

The Platform Imperative

All brands, regardless of where they reside on the Experience-Utility spectrum, should be establishing digital brand platforms.

Chapter Three:

Considering Digital Consumer Journeys without Bias

Studying scenarios in which Fluid Consumers interact with and “consume” brands on various points on the Experience-Utility spectrum can help brand decision makers brainstorm effectively.

Chapter Four:

Staying Relevant in the Big Blur of Makers and Sellers

Ten behaviors of forward-thinking retailers offer opportunities for (and threats to) brand growth.

Part II: The Inside Focus

Chapter Five:

The Four Pillars of Digital Growth

Designing the right brand journey isn’t enough. Companies must follow through with effective channel strategies, strong innovation arms, and sufficient funding.

Chapter Six:

Targeting Growth in Emerging and Fragmented Markets

Digital technologies are presenting exciting ways to tap the tremendous growth opportunities in fragmented markets such as those in Asia and Brazil.

Chapter Seven:

The Dual-Engine Approach to Innovation

Separating “renovation” from “total experience innovation” offers a way for organizations to maintain stability and act like disruptive startups at the same time.

Chapter Eight:

The “New Normal” Marketing Framework: A Place to Start

Different parts of an organization may be in very different places with regard to embracing and using digital technologies. It may therefore help to prioritize the development of a digitally empowered marketing model that purposefully connects marketing, sales, IT, and global business services.

A Forward-Facing Epilogue:

Serving Fluid Consumers 20 Years from Now

What we’re seeing now provides clues to how companies will create, position, and market their brands, and how those brand will interact with consumers, over the long term. The future looks pretty spectacular.

Endnotes

About the Author

Acknowledgments

This is the page that usually matters only to the author and the other people whose contributions help turn an idea into a book. However, I would like to ask for the attention of all readers here because I truly believe that the names I list below are the best consumer goods practitioners in the world today. They deserve all the praise I am about to give them and more.

I have long felt privileged to be part of the consumer packaged goods and retailing industries and to serve those industries as best I can. But my fascination with the power that brands have over consumers started in my youth. The magnetic attraction we have to certain brands, and level of trust we have in them, astounded me then, and continues to do so now. Not only those brand names that I grew up with, but also, and importantly, those that have been created in recent years, quickly captivating us and commanding space in our lives.

However, I also believe that the formidable power of brands has never been more challenged than it is today. The emergence of digital technologies has brought with it significant threats to incumbent brands even as it reveals new opportunities for growth. My desire to understand how the threats can be addressed and the opportunities leveraged – and to share my learning with others – has been this book’s core motivation.

Given the scope of the topic, I knew from the earliest days of this project that I couldn’t do it alone. I had to tap into the knowledge of the best in the industry to critique, provoke, challenge me, and to bring their own views to bear to inform, shape, and improve the concepts on the table. To develop and write this book, then, I turned to colleagues, mentors, and friends for input across a wide range of subject areas including marketing, technology, finance, logistics, analytics, and consumer behavior.

I am extremely grateful for their generosity of spirit – for their willingness to carve out time at a moment’s notice to discuss, debate, and guide this manuscript as it evolved into the book it is today. And here, I would like to give special thanks in particular to the following individuals:

Sangeet Paul Choudary, Mark Curtis, and Ulf Henning, who inspired me to think about the art of the possible, traveled deep into the ideas explored in the book and brought me along, encouraging me to build on even the newest concepts informing brand development and growth decision-making in the digital age.

Rajat Agarwal, Sohel Aziz, Marcello Dalla Costa, Angelo D’Imporzano, Brian Doyle, Alessandro Diana, Michael A. Gorshe, Karen Fang Grant, Maria Mazzone, Joseph Taiano, Larry Thomas, Robert Willems, and Oliver Wright, who dedicated significant time and energy to their input. They are experts in their fields and I have the greatest admiration and respect for their knowledge.

Mark Austin, Kurt Busschop, Satyadeep Chatterjee, Dai Hamaoka, Mikael Hansson, Dwight Hutchins, Evan I. Kelly, Simone Morandi, Richard Murray, Pietro Pieretti, Kazunori Seki, Daljit Singh, Nary Singh, Ed Stark, Tricia Stinton, Tony Stockil, Juliano Tubino, Sonoko Watanabe, and Marco Ziegler – all exceptional consumer goods practitioners. They gave freely of their time and expertise not only to check my ideas, expand on examples, and verify client experiences, but also to offer new insights. Whether chatting in passing or discussing the topic more formally, they responded without hesitation, matching me in my exploratory enthusiasm and bringing clear-headed perspective to what is, while also helping me contemplate what might be.

Adi Alon, Louise Alford, Alexandra Bentley, Nadine Berne, Sandra Hernandez, Andrew Hutton, David Light, Harini Mohan, Fiona Morris, Scott Johnson, Weiger Joosten, for their responsive guidance, support, and insight.

Maureen Bossi, Titus Kroder, Regina Maruca, John Moseley, and Jens Schadendorf, who helped me ground, organize, and communicate my thoughts in book form, and who kept all potential readers in mind.

Simon Berger and Rupa Ganatra, my dear partners in the Millennials 2020 project, whose passion for new ideas has been contagious, and who have demonstrated the greatest entrepreneurial spirit I’ve ever encountered.

Helen Kogan and Jenny Volich from Kogan Page, and Michael Wurster from Redline, as the publishers of this book, for their enduring trust in this project.

Sander van’t Noordende, our Group CEO, who supported this venture from its earliest days.

And finally, profoundly, and above all, my wife Sheila and my daughters Stephanie, Giovanna, and Giulia, for their patience, unflagging support, and love.

To all of the above and to those I may have omitted (inadvertently, with my sincere apologies): the strengths in this book are to your credit.

Teo Correia, London/UK

Introduction

I recently bought a TAG Heuer watch. It’s a venerable brand, a Swiss watchmaker in business since 1860, known for its high-quality precision craftsmanship, instantly classic designs, and unfailing reliability. But this watch – my new watch – embodies all that and more. It represents TAG Heuer’s big leap forward into the digital future. It has an LED screen and an Intel Atom Z34XX processor. It has the ability to accommodate Android Wear apps, such as Google Fit, RaceChrono, Insiders, and Golfshot.

In short, with this offering, the very traditional TAG Heuer brand now offers much more than the best in timekeeping. It has added the promise of lifestyle assistance. TAG Heuer’s brand decision makers understood the need to reconsider their brand in light of the tsunami of evolving digital technologies, and in doing so, they saw the opportunity to infuse one of their product lines with the capacity to provide a consumer experience. CEO Jean-Claude Biver understood that companies such as Apple have been “preparing the wrist” for the next generation of shoppers for a while now, elevating their expectations of what even a classic timepiece can and should do, and he acted on that understanding.1

I love my new watch. More importantly, though, I also freely acknowledge that, like many consumers today, I’m impatient. I know very well how fast technology advances in the digital age. And if the currently cutting-edge technology that supports my new watch seems old or stale tomorrow, I will once again seek the latest and best available.

What’s more, I will shop for that future product on my own time and terms because I am a Fluid Consumer – one among millions upon millions of individuals who now use mobile digital technologies to flow easily between different types of transactions at almost any time, in almost any place. We Fluid Consumers can review, compare, consult, contrast, and contract at will. We are also constantly mentored and educated, not least through the reviews that other Fluid Consumers share with us on the digital channels we frequent.

We are more informed than we used to be, and also more demanding. In fact, we often seem to take the ever-improving standards of digital convenience as much for granted as we do that crucial 21 percent of oxygen saturation in the air we breathe.

Are we putting incredible pressure on the companies (such as TAG Heuer) that seek our business? To simply say “yes” would be a gross understatement. The pressure on consumer-facing companies to keep up with these dynamic mega trends in modern consumer minds is immense. And no industry is immune – least of all consumer packaged goods and services (CPG). The Fluid Consumer is asking this sector for nothing less than to respond in kind – with fluidity in thinking, producing, designing, marketing, and delivering intelligent digital points of engagement in an environment where brand loyalty is fleeting and the challenge of growing strong brands can seem alien. As Rachel Rolfe, creative director at Fisher Productions, a London-based event company, has so adroitly observed, “For reasons of necessity and opportunity, every industry finds itself in the technology business.”2

I wrote this book to try to help CPG brand decision makers find their footing in this new era (though I believe that the ideas in these pages are also applicable in other industries, for other types of brands, such as fashion, luxury, and to some extent, consumer electronics). I wrote it to explore and explain the Fluid Consumer in a way that allows CPG leaders and managers to make sense of how their brands can and might fit into their (our) world. I wrote it to remind CPG executives that brands are tremendous assets and to let them know that if they have an established brand to work with, then they are already in a position of relative strength; they have much to build on. I wrote it to help CPG executives identify the right place and profile for their brands and to help them figure out where to prioritize spending and how to boost agility to compete. From my vantage point, I’m fortunate to have the big picture of the industry’s evolution constantly in my sights. In this book, I try to share that view.

The challenges of the digital era are real and immediate for CPG leaders. For many, I wouldn’t be surprised if an average workday feels like riding on the Cheetah Hunt roller coaster at Busch Gardens in Tampa Bay, Florida. (Look it up; it is designed to make riders feel as if they are a predator on a chase. And since would-be riders can’t see what’s in store for them from the line, they have no idea what to expect before they have their turn.) But to my mind, these times are as exciting as they are unpredictable and tumultuous. Imagine the power of being the ride’s designer. We in the CPG world have the potential to design Fluid Consumers’ experiences and expectations just as much as we have the responsibility to react to them. With so much unfolding in digital technologies and so much potential only just coming into focus for harnessing even the little we currently comprehend, I can’t think of a more invigorating time to be in the consumer goods and services field. I hope this book persuades you to feel the same way, and I would like to hear your thoughts on these ideas. Feel free to reach me at [email protected]. The journey is just beginning …

PART I: The Outside Focus