Blog post by Russell Goldsmith, Founder, Audere Communications

 

For part 2 of Show 31 (starting at 8:31) of the csuitepodcast, the second of the three shows recorded at the Global ICCO PR Summit, I spoke with Michelle Hutton, Chief Operating Officer at Edelman Europe about the findings of the latest Edelman Earned Brand Study.

The theme of this year’s study was disruption, particularly looking at how brands themselves, across 18 different categories, can be disrupters, and this was achieved by researching over 13,000 consumers across 13 countries.

As Michelle explained, marketers have spent a lot of time and money getting consumers from being aware, through consideration and preference, to being loyal.  However, Edelman have found that there is something special beyond loyalty and that if you can get consumers to be committed and really invested in a brand, they will do some pretty amazing things.  Therefore, as part of their study, Edelman have developed a methodology to be able to measure how marketers can be disruptive in their relationship with their consumers.

Michelle said that many people think that in low involvement categories, the concept of being committed is not relevant, but actually, in every single category that Edelman explored, they found that there are already many people committed to brands in those sectors.  However, where many brands are falling short is around the concept of shared value.  For example, those people who want to be committed to the brand want to feel like they are part of the conversation around it – they’ll advocate for the brand, defend them in times of crisis and are there waiting.  However, whilst brands listen well, many don’t often respond well, and therefore, it’s those brands that use those committed consumers to their advantage who are doing it well.

The highest relationship index scored turned out to be in China and the lowest was in the Netherlands.  As for age splits, millennial males were found to be the most engaged segment with brands, which Michelle found surprising.

Michelle then went on to talk about how this all leads to how you can engage consumers to take real action around a brand and she cited Unilever as a best in class example of a company encouraging all of their brand marketers to think long term and creatively about how purpose can not only drive business results through their brands but also make the world a better place.  She also said that disrupter brands understand the shared economy and the power of peer-to-peer and so marketers in more traditional companies need to look at those start-ups, their business models and how they engage, respond and communicate with their consumers.

#ad – Many thanks to global media intelligence provider CARMA for supporting the series of shows I produced from ICCO.  Please do visit their website to find out more about how they can help you deliver actionable insights through media monitoring and PR measurement.

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