2014 年夏季达沃斯论坛科技新领军 NEW CHAMPIONS IN TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION

Transcription

1 2014 年夏季达沃斯论坛科技新领军 NEW CHAMPIONS IN TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION

2 Unleashing Brand Growth Through Purposeful Technology Over the past three decades, technology has been central to business transformation and growth. Technology has been and continues to be a catalyst for change. It shapes not only how businesses are run, but also how brands are built. In today s world, companies that make a difference and outperform their peers are those who use purposeful technology as a means for a to to achieving their ideal. Over the years, we have seen a strong connection between technology, business management practices and branding. The pre-internet era, 1980 s to mid-1990 s, was a time marked by the development and deployment of more sophisticated information systems and networks. These new technologies led to two major business transformations; globalization and business process re- engineering. These two help organizations to fundamentally improve customer service, cut operational costs, and become world-class competitors. This era can be linked with with the era what what we we would would describe as as the era of functional marketing. Branding was about dialing up functional benefits; businesses and brands tried to outdo each other on the ground of product differentiation and prices. Then came the internet era, , during which the new web-based technology transformed businesses, redefining how they worked, used information and engaged with consumers. Companies were running globally and had managed to produce high quality and differentiated products, efficiently. The new challenge was about breaking through and capturing consumers imagination and attention in world of a information overload. This resulted in what we call, the era of emotional marketing. Think of the sensational campaigns, be the the Nike Just Do it campaigns super charged with hero celebrities (Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods among many others), or Budweiser Whassup? commercials for Anheuser-Busch from 1999 to In both these examples, the brands became pop culture icons, by talking less about the products, and connecting with global consumers on emotional grounds. The last decade, the era, has seen the rise of new disruptive technologies, such as big data, mobile and social media. These new technologies created new multi-billion dollars businesses in the shortest time period ever, as like per Facebook, Uber and Alibaba. They also helped redefine businesses such as IBM, Amazon, Disney or Nike. These new technologies invited companies to think about the role they play in peoples lives, and to consider how they could serve consumers rather than how they could merely sell to them. In parallel, consumers found themselves more empowered through social media. Consumers now set higher expectations for the companies and brands they engage with and consume. This is the era of Societal Marketing or what we call Purposeful Marketing. Consumers seek higher meaning and choose brands with ideals. The companies that can capitalize on these technologies and offer societal benefits will win in this new market context. Fuel Behind Ideal-driven Brands Our research and academic work has provided 89

3 趋势 Trends learning on the drivers behind brand value creation and growth today. Higher Purpose purpose as we have discovered and validated, is central to the most successful businesses. Millward Brown Vermeer led a global study, analyzing 10 years of financial and consumer data of 50,000 brands, to identify the top 50 fastest-growing brands. The findings showed that the brands that serve a higher purpose deliver stronger financial performance and build deeper relationships with consumers. The key to their growth was defining themselves not around a particular product or service, but around an Ideal: a higher-order reason for being that articulates why the brand exists and the impact it seeks to make on the world. The global study and the findings were the backbone of Jim Stengel s book, Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World s Greatest Companies (Crown Business). Our continued effort to understand how brands unlock business growth, using insights from our BrandZ Most Valuable Brands annual rankings, as well as our recent Marketing2020 study (see Harvard Business Review article, July-August 2014, The Ultimate Marketing Machine, authored by Marc de SwaanArons and Frank van den Driest (MB Vermeer), and Keith Weed, Unilever), drew our attention to the central role played by technology at these ideal-driven companies. Our findings show that the greatest brands use purposeful technology in the pursuit of their ideals. Purposeful technology which we have seen applied to R&D, operation management, capability building and digital and mobile applications not only changes what the company does and how it does it, but also fosters a more aligned culture behind the ideal. Purposeful technology helps the best brands achieve their ideal in three ways. First, it invites businesses to rethink and even reinvent where they play and what they do. Ideal-driven companies are not defined by what they sell, but what they stand for. Technology enables companies to redefine their space and push the boundaries of their categories. Secondly, purposeful technology challenges businesses to reinvent how they organize themselves and how they work internally. Best companies put their Ideal at the center of all activities, Benoit Garbe HR, procurement, R&D, manufacturing and marketing. Purposeful technology sets new ways of working, and inspires new operating and organizational models. Lastly, purposeful technology invites companies to reinvent how they engage with consumers. Ideal-driven brands use technology to co-create and dialogue with consumers, while they add meaning and deliver value to consumers lives. Enabling Companies to Rethink Business Purposeful technology enables brands to rethink the business they are in. Technology enables companies to expand their scope, and stretch category boundaries in service of their ideal. Ideal. Purposeful technology is the enabler. One clear example of this is Nike. What business is Nike in? Through the use of purposeful technology, Nike has effectively extended itself far beyond its early beginnings as a running shoe company. Since 1964, Nike has been integrating technology in service to its ideal Ideal empowering people to find their greatness. While Nike has been a leader in footwear, Nike s most notable use of technology has extended the brand into digital with Nike+. Bringing together social media and mobile solutions, with wearable healthcare technologies (Running App, SportWatch, Fuelband and and SE, SE, Training Club), Nike+ has become a virtual fitness community that inspires individuals to challenge themselves and be at their best. Purposeful technology has helped Nike redefined itself in the pursuit of its ideal. Even though Nike disinvested in Fuel s hardware business earlier in 2014, Nike has redefined the category its plays in, Nike is as much a digital platform, a technology company, as an apparel and footwear company. Google is another example of a company, built on an ideal and technology, which constantly stretches beyond its core category. Google exists to organize the information of the world in service of people. Inspired by its ideal, with each new venture, Google aims to solve consumers problems and make life better. For example, Google announced that it wants to explore ways to slow aging, tackle health, rethink how we use our time in our car (by not driving), and now Google will be moving into our home, with the recent acquisition of Nest, to make 90

4 our home more sustainable and smarter. Tencent in China has followed a similar approach, using technology to provide added value services to consumers and be integral to people s lives. These companies, by stretching across platforms and categories, compete to capture consumers share of life. The companies who manage to gain as much share of consumers life will maximize share of wallet. Method, the San Francisco-based company, one of the fastest growing household cleaning product brands, is one another good example of a company that uses purposeful technology to reset category standards. Method s ideal is to to create happy, healthy homes. Method s co-founder, Eric Ryan articulates the reason for being of Method as creating natural, non-toxic cleaning products that perform well and look beautiful in our homes. Since the brand s inception, Method has pushed the boundaries of R&D, using cutting edge technology and chemistry, to deliver on its ideal. Products that do more than clean; they must be green, smell like heaven, be friendly and safe to make happy, healthy homes. home. Competitors are catching on and the category is transforming. Today, only 3% of home and cleaning products are green friendly, by 2020, it is expected to be 30%. Method is well placed to capture this exponential growth. Setting A New Way of Working Undeniably, technology has become central in the workplace. More and more businesses, large and small, are trying to incorporate the latest technology into their operations, to reshape the way they work and collaborate. The appeal of the whole technology advancement is that it is designed to make people and businesses more knowledgeable, connected, efficient and profitable. Purposeful technology put at the service of the organization and its people, and designed in line with the ideal, has the deepest impact on businesses. Purposeful technology allows companies to create world-changing innovations using big data and analytics, to develop faster and smarter supply chain management, and to rethink organizational designs that foster more collaborative and single-minded brand culture. Take Monsanto as an example, a leading multinational agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology business. It defines itself as a sustainable agriculture company, which exists to improve humanity by ensuring affordable and accessible food supply to all people. The biggest challenge to achieving its higher purpose is Mother Nature itself, and theunpredictable climate changes. Monsanto acquired Climate Corporation in 2013 and invested in Solum, Inc. in early From these, Monsanto can leverage the latest big data analytics technology to provide farmers with a more complete picture. With integrated insights ranging from weather forecasting, soil assessment, seeds yielding, weed and insect management. Purposeful technology was deployed to help Monsanto fulfill its higher purpose, and ultimately delivered stronger business performance. IBM is a similar case example of a company that leverages purposeful technology in big data management and analytics, in the pursuit of its ideal to build a smarter planet. IBM believes that the technology, the thinking and resources exist to solve the world s most complicated problems, if there is the will to solve them. IBM has the will, and it has deployed the technology. Through smart data analytics and cognitive technology such as Watson, IBM can now provide a wide range of solutions, to tackle traffic congestion, crime, cancer, or energy over-consumption. Ideal-driven driven companies use technology and social platforms to rethink how to innovate and create a singleminded brand culture. One of the hottest Chinese brands in the recent recent years years is is Xiaomi, the the rising star in the technology space, taking on Apple, Samsung and other tech giants. It is founded on the belief that Xiaomi exists to create technology for the technology fanatics. Tony Lei has set Xiaomi apart by utilizing technology and social media to foster an open and self-monitoring culture, to stay connected with consumers and programmers, and spark innovation. Xiaomi has built an operating model which is agile, responsive and fast moving, what Tony describes as hungry and foolish culture. Xiaomi has incorporated an internal messaging system Miliao similar to Wechat, to host business meetings, discuss product development, share creative ideas and suggestions for the business, or even approve reimbursement. Better yet, Miliao is also used by the millions of Xiaomi fans, meaning Xiaomi is always one swipe away from their consumers, and within reach of a passionate community of designers, engineers and programmers willing to co-create with Xiaomi. Challenging Companies to Reinvent How They Engage with Consumers As per Jeremy Bullmore of WPP, Brands are 91

5 趋势 Trends complicated, elusive, slippery, half-real and half-virtual things. When CEOs think about brands, their brains hurt brands don t hurt CEOs brains, how to make them engaging does. Marketing has undergone a radical transformation as the world has gone online and mobile. The digital age has given rise to remarkable tools such as mobile devices, social media platforms, and large-scale databases. These all help businesses better connect and engage with consumers on an anywhere, anytime, just-the-way-youwant-it basis. Yet digital has also created immense new challenges for marketers. To engage with consumers, a brand must be meaningful, different and salient. However, finding the right way to engage consumers and being part of the conversation is the marketers Holy Grail. Ideal-driven companies have changed the nature of the equation. They are less interested in shouting what they have to sell, rather they focus on sharing their point of view, inviting consumers into dialogue, and adding value into their lives through services. Once again, purposeful technology is the enabler. Starbucks stands for more than coffee. It is a people business, with a higher purpose to create human connections. Starbucks has bet not only on its stores and baristas since Day day One one to create these connections, but also on technology, mobile and social digital platforms to bring people together. Alexandra Wheeler, VP Global Digital Marketing describes Starbucks internal set up as a venture capital-style incubator for digital technology, where Marketing and IT collaborate to drive innovation to achieve the company s higher purpose. Starbucks was one of the first brands to use Instagram to share the behind the scene; the stories of the company, the coffee, the people and the communities. Starbucks also uses meaningful technology to make life easier. Its mobile app, App, delivers many value-added added services such as store location finders, membership loyalty programs, and in late 2014, a new mobile app will enable customers to reserve their coffee through mobile phone and pick up the coffee at stores. Similar to Apple who controls the entire eco system (Hardware, Software, itunes, Apple Stores) to protect and deliver the ultimate consumer experience, Taobao has redefined the rules of engagement with consumers, by designing and controlling the experience across the entire buying process. Tao Magazine triggers needs; etao enables consumers to compare among offerings; Taobao Marketplace is the on-line retail; Alipay supports with transaction payments; Cainiao takes care of deliveries; and finally Juhuasuan help the consumers spend points rewarded through previous purchases. All are under one roof. Taobao s. Red Bull understood that branded communications and advertising designed to sell no longer worked in the digital and ideal-driven world. Non-advertising and meaningful content is the only means to engage consumers. In its own way, non-conventional way, Red Bull delivered on its ideal of uplifting mind and body through technology, as seen with the Red Bull Stratos project and Felix Baumgartner's supersonic freefall. Red Bull redefined the rules of consumer engagement by creating meaningful content, and captured the imagination of people around the world. As a result, an estimated $200M worth of publicity, 30M Youtube views within the first week, and continued brand value growth in our BrandZ Top top 100 ranking. More interestingly, beyond engaging with consumers with one-of-a-kind of-a-kind events, Red Bull uses its ideal and technology to redefine the business it is in, as we have discussed with Google and Nike earlier. Red Bull is more than an energy drink company, and has transformed itself into a sports, media and lifestyle company. In today s era, the societal marketing era, successful businesses have set higher standards for themselves, and built their organizations around an ideal. They align their activities, business decisions and culture behind a higher purpose. More than anything, they capitalize on meaningful and purposeful technology to deliver the impact they wish to make on consumer s lives. As business leaders, one shall think of answering the following questions. Why do we do what we do, and what is our higher purpose? Which technologies can we deploy in the pursuit of the ideal? The companies leading the way, who have answered these questions, are not only touching people s lives but also outpacing their competitors financially. Where do you stand and what will you do differently, to unleash brand-led business growth in this new era? Contributors: Daniel Obrien; Tao Lin; Kevin Yu; Jack Tian; Chris Hui; Cecilia Li; and Leon Zhang, at MB Vermeer Shanghai 92