Rethink your brand playbook

Are you tired of trying to convince people that your brand, product, or service is for them? It is frustrating when marketing does not seem to be working as well as you'd hope. When you wish more people knew how great your offering is and feel compelled to bring it into their life.

- Kevin Perlmutter

MYTH 1: MARKETING SHOULD BE PERSUASIVE.

Sometimes the difference between results that are disappointing and results that you're happy with comes from a new perspective and approach.

After many years as a traditional brand strategist, my career took me into work with a behavioural science research company where, together, we created an award-winning neuroscience-based research methodology. From that work, and thanks to my newfound behavioural science mentors, I came to the realisation that traditional brand strategy is broken. It is stuck in the persuasion era—a time when advertising was the primary form of marketing, customer experiences and reviews were few and far between, and choices were much more limited than they are today.

I was suddenly immersed in neuroscientific understanding and details about how our brain works, including the overwhelming influence that our instinctive emotional reactions have on our conscious behaviour, and the incredibly high correlation between how something makes us feel subconsciously and our conscious desire to have the experience again, or not.

The fact is that instinctive emotional responses play an overwhelming role in customer behaviour, yet traditional brand strategy has historically been geared toward persuasion rather than emotional insights.

Most brands are still stuck in the past, focusing on sales tactics, unique selling propositions and proof points that they believe are most important, with superficial insight around what matters most to customers and prospects.

MYTH 2: PEOPLE CARE ABOUT YOUR BRAND'S ‘WHY’.