People today are marketed to more than ever. They’re bombarded every moment with ads for websites, apps, articles and more. That much choice can mean opportunity for people to find what interests them most, but it can also mean noise.
In this oversaturated market, some companies are not only surviving, they’re breaking through. Breakthrough Brands grow fast, get big sales and garner headlines. They’re companies who integrated marketing into their strategy from the very beginning, and they seem to innovate every step of the way. How do they do it?
Keep reading to learn what makes a Breakthrough Brand stand out. Applying these lessons to your own business can revitalize your marketing and lead to more growth.
It’s never too late to break through.
Mobile-first Mindset
It used to be enough for a business to have a mobile-friendly website, or emails that looked good on smartphones, but today’s Breakthrough Brands are built from the very beginning to be mobile. Think trailblazing brands like Uber and Lyft. Reaching a mobile audience has been central to their success.
Geography, infrastructure, and distribution all go away in a mobile-first world. This plays to the strengths of Breakthrough Brands, but how can you take advantage of a mobile-first mindset, even though you might already be an established company? What aspect of your business most easily lends itself to mobile?
Bold Vision
A mistake that’s often made when discussing Breakthrough Brands is equating innovation with a faster way of doing something. Speed is important, but if you’re headed in the wrong direction, speed will just get you to the wrong place faster.
Breakthrough Brands succeed because of a singularity of vision that can be owned by only their company. Breakthroughs like TOMS, Warby Parker and Out of Print clothing embody this concept. Philanthropic efforts have been part of their missions from the beginning.
Being purpose-led gives Breakthrough Brands a clarity that’s lacking at companies that only care about market share or quarterly profits. But that kind of vision can’t be focus-grouped or tacked on after the fact. It’s not a PR strategy, marketing angle, or empty slogan. It has to be bred into a company’s DNA from the beginning. When it’s not, consumers will smell a fraud.
The New Marketing
Traditional advertising—which used to exist in silos and was defined by the marketing funnel—is breaking down. It’s no longer about brand versus performance, marketing versus sales, consumer versus shopper. Breakthrough Brands are blind to these distinctions and, instead, see one funnel and one person moving through it. Their ads are not mere product announcements or promotions designed to shout the loudest. Instead, the new marketing consists of campaigns that are smartly targeted, well-crafted, and designed to drive meaningful action.
Other Breakthrough Brands expand the very notion of what marketing is. For Breakthrough Brands in the apparel category, anything that has to do with the brand—even the fulfillment and shipping of their physical product—is treated as marketing. They also use traditional avenues, such as bricks and mortar locations, to build relationships in person. Not all breakthroughs are purely digital.
Learn more about what makes a Breakthrough Brand and how to apply these ideas to your own business. Read the full article, Thinking like a Breakthrough Brand by Head of Brand & Creativity, North America Marketing, Judy Lee and download the Interbrand Breakthrough Brands 2016 Future of Growth report.
