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How Asian Electric Vehicle Brands Can Win in the U.S.

To win with today’s sustainability-focused audience, emotion, innovation and technology all matter.

While the U.S. has long lagged the rest of the world in accepting electric vehicles (E.V.), Prophet’s new research shows that this may finally be changing. It also demonstrates that Asian brands already have clear advantages in the automotive category. But to keep winning, another trend is equally apparent: To be considered indispensable to American consumers, auto companies need to reposition themselves more as tech brands.

“Auto companies need to reposition themselves more as tech brands.”

Findings in the 2021 Prophet Brand Relevance Index® (BRI) underscore just how pivotal a moment we are at. It has taken years, but external changes, including government mandates on carbon emission, manufacturers’ promises to move towards all-electric fleets and the increasing acceptance of strong players such as Tesla, Canoo and NIO, have led the auto industry to an inflection point. US consumers are finally changing their expectations towards automobiles. And here is why.

Source: 2021 Prophet Brand Relevance Index®

Reliability Wins the Race

For the first time in the BRI’s six-year history, Honda has leaped into the Top 10. Consumers give it ultra-high scores for dependability and “Lives up to its promises.” Toyota, which is beloved for popularizing hybrid cars, also ranks No. 14, because it excels in these attributes too.

Switching Gear to High Tech

However, the BRI delves beyond practical product factors and gauges how innovative, inspirational and engaging brands are perceived to be by consumers. While heritage brands like Honda and Toyota are highly relevant today, they fall short of other technology brands on these dimensions.

This offers more profound lessons for auto companies. Auto companies have long been injecting more tech into their vehicles and their marketing, but they still act like car companies.

Tech companies have a different way of showing up in the world.

With rapid innovation and deep connections to consumers, they have become pillars of relentless relevance. They earn admiration and respect in ways no other brands today.

Apple is again the No. 1 brand in Prophet’s ranking, as it has been in every single BRI study conducted in the U.S. People love how it makes daily life easier and say it is a top brand they can’t imagine living without. Spotify (No. 12) is another company that has made itself indispensable, artfully weaving itself into people’s routines. The same goes for Netflix (No. 18), recognized for pushing the status quo and helping many through the pandemic. All these technology leaders are building powerful emotional connections with their customers.

And as these tech brands race into the automotive category, traditional automakers are highly vulnerable. Chinese tech giant Baidu saw its stock climb after it announced it was working with automaker Geely (who acquired Volvo) to launch a new E.V. venture. And while less is known about Apple’s plans, it reportedly intends to launch its E.V. in 2024.

Beyond Apple, there are other disruptors emerging in the U.S. include Rivian, a joint venture between Amazon and Ford Motor Co., that has just gone through a massive public offering. And investors are already trading shares of Canoo, an intriguing model that pairs its new E.V.s with a subscription model.

See the Case Study: How Prophet Helped Canoo Jump-start its Electric Vehicle Brand

If traditional auto brands want to hold their own against these emerging tech-auto brands, they’ll need to step up their offerings around innovation and intelligent technology to build stronger emotional ties.

Some are. For instance, Hyundai (No. 28) scores an impressive 90% on both “connects with me emotionally” and “engages with me in new and creative ways.” Despite scoring higher overall, both Honda and Toyota are weaker in those dimensions.

Hyundai is gaining that relevance edge by finding high-impact ways to connect to young car buyers. Its recent launch of the IONIQ brand (E.V./ hybrid model) collaborated with BTS, its global ambassador, to release a new song, gaining 26 million views on Youtube to date. Before that, Hyundai’s beautiful Earth Day campaign video featuring BTS was watched over 105 million times. Such moves undoubtedly build an unparalleled emotional connection with Gen Z consumers.

Next Steps to Build Relevance

E.V.s and AI technology are inevitable, igniting consumer curiosity and consideration in the lucrative U.S. market. Asian auto brands, already well known for dependability and trustworthiness, can’t afford to let this opportunity pass.

Honda is said to have developed industry-leading “level 3” autonomous driving technology that is set to be launched in March. This will be an excellent opportunity for the renowned automaker to evolve its brand positioning to be more aspiring and technology-driven.

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FINAL THOUGHTS

We believe an important route to success for Asian auto brands is to learn to think and behave like tech companies. In order to ignite fresh energy in the brand, they must…

  • Lead from the heart, finding new ways to create emotional connections with consumers and deploying marketing strategies that emphasize optimism and aspirations.
  • Leverage the power of global partnerships, both with Asian and Western brands. This is the fastest way to expand a company’s skillset and an important avenue to new customers.
  • Highlight innovations. With so many companies producing new and unexpected approaches to E.V.s, brands must work harder to spotlight their new technology.

Want to learn how your brand can succeed in the U.S. market? Talk to us.

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Turn Your Employee Experience Into Your Competitive Advantage

Start by fostering flexibility, connection and wellbeing–at every level in the organization.

COVID-19 forced every organization on the planet to prioritise employee experience (EX), whether they had ever considered it before or not. Empathetic leadership, flexible working conditions and emotional support all came into play, immediately and universally. The task of keeping employees safe, well and working, rocketed to the top of every employer’s agenda.

Progressive organizations lost a significant amount of their EX advantage overnight. In 2019, Glassdoor cited Worldpay, Telefonica and Thomson Reuters amongst others, as ‘amazingly flexible.’ Most of the accolades relate to working from home or flexible hours, neither of which would differentiate their EX today.

Whilst attrition rates are very low at the moment when the labour market stabilizes, EX will have a significant impact on talent retention and attraction. Those organizations that are proactive will be able to capitalize on the situation.

There is no silver bullet but at Prophet, we see a new employee experience equation emerging that can help organizations focus their efforts and regain their advantage going forward.

Flexibility is Here to Stay

The flexibility that COVID-19 has forced is irreversible. The pandemic segmented workforces according to parameters we hadn’t seriously considered. From ‘total isolationists’ to ‘contact cravers’ and everywhere in between, the enduring legacy will be flexibility and choice in how and where we work.

We can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube – for many employees, it is now possible to work successfully from anywhere and shape whatever mix suits their preference. To compete for the best talent, you need to build flexibility into your operating model permanently and adapt your culture to support hybrid ways of working. From enabling sales teams to meet and sign contracts virtually to setting up a design club that creates forums to get peer feedback on work – the challenges and changes that flexibility drives are endless.

“To compete for the best talent, you need to build flexibility into your operating model permanently and adapt your culture to support hybrid ways of working.”

The good news is that flexibility increases your talent pool as recruits aren’t tied to geographical locations. However, the same is true for your talent competitors, increasing the importance of focusing on the employee experience you provide – ensuring that candidates contemplating joining your organization understand that well-being is a business and cultural priority.

Early movers in this space are Twitter and Spotify. Twitter enabled its employees to work from home ‘forever’ and Spotify is adopting a “Work from Anywhere” model, which will allow employees to choose to be in the office full time, be at home or a combination of the two. A word of caution when rolling out a hybrid model, businesses will be at risk of a two-tier workforce, with some colleagues having full flexibility while there will be certain roles that must remain ‘on-site’ – something that could lead to perceived inequalities.

Connection is Your Secret Sauce

Having lost our watercooler moments of social and work-related micro-interactions, the organizations that discover natural and sticky ways to create connections and build internal relationships will emerge stronger.

In the same vein as signature moments for CX, touchpoints for employee experience that connect your people to each other and to your purpose will serve to strengthen your culture, support motivation and keep productivity at a healthy level. Creating collaboration moments and finding new ways to have fun (beyond the Zoom quiz) will help organizations embrace agile working and break down silos. Taking a human-centered and strategic approach to ‘people technology’ is necessary to properly adapt the many tactical apps and solutions that came out of the pandemic.

Connection is not only important at a peer-to-peer level. Increased access to leadership has helped reduce hierarchical barriers. HP created a series of “Connect with Enrique,” talks with CEO Enrique Lores, which enabled connection with 85 percent of staff members in just a few months. “We have learned different ways to communicate to employees and collaborate,” says Tracy Keogh, Chief Human Resources Officer at HP. “I think those have been really positive.”

Wellbeing is Key to Employee Engagement

COVID-19 catapulted emotional and mental wellbeing to the same level of employer responsibility and duty of care as physical health and safety. The legal requirements haven’t caught up yet, but they will. Sustaining this level of care without reducing capacity in the workforce will be a critical balance for businesses to achieve. Flexibility and connection are as central to business growth as is a renewed focus on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

It will be critical to ensure fairness and equity for all employees to influence and improve the general measure of wellbeing. It’s not difficult to conceive that wellbeing will emerge as a key driver of employee engagement, becoming a leading indicator of growth, CX, revenue and profitability. Unilever, for instance, found that they get a $2.50 return for every $1.00 invested in employee wellbeing.

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The EX equation will not be solved in one move. This is a continuous journey and the trick is to run at two speeds – taking a proactive, long-term approach to EX whilst starting now with some symbolic, signature moves to signal your intent to your workforce. To cover both the near and far horizons, we recommend three simple things to get started:

  1. Get OD professionals, IT, creatives and service designers together to reimagine connectivity and create meaningful and sustainable connection moments.
  2. Prepare leadership for their role in the ‘new normal,’ agreeing that as EX continues to evolve, there will be more adjustments to the operating model and changes in responsibilities of the leadership team.
  3. Start a boardroom conversation that puts emotional and physical wellbeing as a key pillar of your people strategy, to be measured and improved as a key business indicator.

As Ben Whitter of the World Employee Experience Institute says, “We want people to be at their best and deliver their best work. Any option or choice that helps with that is in scope.”

Looking to reimagine your next employee experience moves? Our expert team can provide a rapid assessment of your EX equation and how to make it add up for the future. Get in touch today. 

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Do My Customers and Employees See the Same Brand?

Turns out the secrets to staying relevant with consumers also attract and retain the best workers.

You’ve invested untold fortunes to create a customer experience that cements loyalty in your brand. You’ve invested a similar fortune building an employee experience to attract the best and brightest and become an employer of choice. But are you telling a consistent story? Do your external and internal brands share the same DNA? Are your customers inspired in the same way as your employees? Or do you feel at risk when your employees talk to customers?

Prophet is in a unique position to answer these questions. Our Prophet Brand Relevance Index ® (BRI), a survey of over 13,000 consumers rating 228 brands across 25 industries, provides a proprietary view of the brands most relevant to consumers’ lives. And at the same time, we’ve leveraged open API data by Glassdoor, the independent authority on employer ratings, to track data for over 750 companies across 50+ industries. Plotted together, they tell a fascinating story.

The Customer – Employer Brand Connection

As you might expect, companies with strong customer brands tend to have strong employer brands. Think Apple and Google. And vice versa: weak customer brands tend to have weak employer brands. Think most convenience retail and quick-serve restaurant brands (although not all).

Arguably the key to Southwest’s success – and 40 straight years of profitability – is how tightly employee purpose is woven into the very fabric of the customer experience. In stark contrast, Uber’s journey in its early days is a cautionary tale: despite owning over 80 percent of the rideshare market, #deleteUBER was born when the company was perceived to be mishandling employee engagement.

We believe a major driver of this relationship is what business columnist David Mattin calls a glass box. Whether it’s by choice or brute force, customers have unprecedented access to a brand’s inner workings – its finances, its operations, its people. And now more than ever consumers are looking for and influenced by, their clear view. In Edelman’s 2020 Trust Barometer Study, 90 percent of customers agree brands must protect the well-being and financial security of their employees and their suppliers, even if it means suffering big financial losses until the pandemic ends.

“90 percent of customers agree brands must protect the well-being and financial security of their employees and their suppliers, even if it means suffering big financial losses until the pandemic ends”

Where Does Your Brand Sit?

We have plotted customer brand strength, as measured by the 2021 Prophet BRI against employer brand strength, as measured by Glassdoor’s overall company rating to produce the chart below.

The model produces four scenarios worth exploring to understand what it might mean if your brand sits in one of these quadrants:

Virtuous Cycle (top right)

These brands have it down. They inspire and deliver. They disrupt, with purpose. Visionaries who never lose sight of what matters. With a focus on delighting customers and employees, from the inside out, it’s no surprise that brands like Apple, Google, Southwest and Lemonade have hit the bullseye of relevance.  

Relevance Challenged (bottom left)  

In the other corner, brands like Dollar General, Walgreens, Popeyes and Burger King are struggling to get points on the board. If there is one thing that healthcare, retail and quick-service restaurant brands have in common, it’s that they seem to be in a constant state of disruption – kicking up a cloud of confusion on all sides. Customers like navigating new user experiences and revolving doors of discounts as much as employees like enforcing them.    

Danger Zone (top left)

While happy customers are the key to a brand’s growth, unsatisfied employees can be its undoing. For companies in this quadrant, there is a fundamental disconnect: what should be a point of pride around customer excitement is not translating into employee excitement. Many of the brands in the danger zone are renowned for innovation, taking risks to accelerate value in the customer experience. But the employee experience has not kept pace, creating extreme risks for brands with high-touch customer interactions.

The Untold Story (bottom right)

Given the recent scrutiny of social media brands, it may seem surprising to see Twitter and Facebook stay strong in the hearts of employees. But despite intense external pressure, employees remain committed to the company’s purpose. We see an opportunity: to uncover what is driving employees; frame that passion for customers and help them see the brand in a new light. When the brand’s story is aligned with a passion in the culture, both employees and customers become brand advocates and vested in the success of the business.

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Brands need to have a true purpose that shines through, inspiring customers and employees alike. When employees believe in a company, it translates to trust and relevance for all external stakeholders.

Are you interested in aligning your customer and employer brands and getting the most out of each of them? Our Brand and Culture experts can help, reach out today and hear how we are helping clients just like you.

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Webinar Replay: 2021 Digital Trends for Businesses in Asia

Digital transformation, an integral part of business in Asia, is becoming its own discipline and department

37 min

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Why Brands Rise—Lessons from Prophet’s BRI

United Airlines, Charles Schwab, Electrolux and Peloton all offer lessons in customer-centricity.

How do you make your brand advance—really advance? Or how do you avoid seeing your brand decline or even crash? One answer is to look at other brands that have recently experienced a dramatic rise in relevance…and learn from them.

This year’s Prophet Brand Relevance Index® (BRI), surveyed 13,000 U.S. consumers to measure the strength of 228 brands from 25 categories across 16 dimensions. In a year of uncertainty, our findings revealed some of the biggest role model brand risers, which are the brands with the biggest jumps on relevance scores across Prophet’s four pillars of relevance: customer-obsessed, distinctly inspired, ruthlessly pragmatic and pervasively innovative. The research conducted by Prophet includes respondents that were active in the category and familiar with the brand. In other words, unlike other brand surveys, the affinity toward the brand is represented rather than distribution scope and awareness levels.

Brands with Rising Equity

There were six brands that increased their overall relevance score significantly during the last two years. Each has a story.

Electrolux had a meaningful brand uptick to reach No. 85 in the BRI rankings. While still lagging behind brands like KitchenAid (No. 3), Keurig (No. 34) and Dyson (No. 30), its rise was due in part to its increase on the innovation scales, likely driven by its new smart appliance products. Its name itself communicates a high-tech connotation in an increasingly digital-savvy era. Electrolux specifically enjoyed a notable increase in “Customer Obsession” or, let’s call it, brand loyalty. The introduction of a sustainability program and the announcement of a vacuum cleaner made out of recycled material most certainly played a key role. As the brand continues to expand in the U.S. market, expect to see more bold moves from Electrolux and growing relevance among consumers in the future.

While Charles Schwab (No. 114) trailed several category leaders—Vanguard (No.27), Fidelity (No. 56) and Robinhood (No. 50)—it still moved comfortably ahead of nine of the 15 financial services brands, increasing its marks on all dimensions. The Schwab appeal to “make managing money as easy as shopping on Amazon” probably felt right to people dealing with the pandemic. The brand played a leader role in mobile-first technology and integrating Google voice commands. Imagine saying, “Hey Google, check my Charles Schwab portfolio.” That’s a win for financial services.

USA Today (No. 214) rose from a bottom position to join the six mainstream media brands such as The New York Times (No. 125) and The Wall Street Journal (No. 201), both of which also rose. While still trailing far behind NPR, it gained impressive ground on “customer-obsessed” and “pervasively innovative.” The pandemic environment may have advanced its accessible and easy-to-read content and contributed to increased downloads of the USA Today mobile app.

“Success creates energy as well.”

United Airlines (No. 211) moved sharply up in 2020, even more so than other airline brands like Delta (No. 146) and American Airlines (No. 180), an interesting trend given our limited ability to travel during the pandemic. While still trailing Jet Blue, Southwest and Alaska, United earned consumers’ trust by partnering with Cleveland Clinic and Clorox to provide CleanPlus protection, offering in-airport COVID testing and much more.

Lemonade (No. 76) jumped to the top with USAA amongst the seven-brand insurance sector with advances in being “customer-obsessed” and “distinctly inspired.” With all the chaos of 2020, consumers no longer consider insurance an annoyance but rather an indispensable partner. The “new brand” has shaken up the industry by introducing an AI model that uses big data to offer a low price, a novel brand image that delights instead of scares, and a big heart that donates up to 49% of unclaimed premiums to nonprofits. These efforts help the brand become more visible, attractive and successful. Success creates energy as well.

Peloton vaulted to the No. 2 position behind Apple, edging out KitchenAid (No. 3) and Mayo Clinic (No. 4) in part based on large increases in being “customer-obsessed” and “ruthlessly pragmatic.” In a year when gyms shut down, Peloton moved quickly to set up instructors to lead classes from home and offered a 90-day free trial, all while delivering more than just an exercise platform, but rather a way to connect to a community that people desperately missed. In some ways, Peloton was in the right place at the right time with the right product, but they also hit the mark by being agile and innovative to quickly meet customers’ needs.

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FINAL THOUGHTS

Learnings from the biggest risers in the 2021 Prophet Brand Relevance Index®:

  1. It’s clear that innovation is important. When innovation includes digital and mobile-first strategy, it makes it more impactful and sometimes more visible.
  2. Having a clear and authentic social purpose and social programs can elevate a brand.
  3. Excellence in creating strategy and implementing matters.

Want to learn more about the most relevant brands? Download the 2021 Prophet Brand Relevance Index® today.

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The 2021 Prophet Brand Relevance Index®

Brand Equity – Brand Value_1_A

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Building Relevance Through Relationship-Driven Marketing

Right-now thinking, content marketing and nimble messaging nurture customer bonds.

The 2021 Prophet Brand Relevance Index® (BRI), recently launched and as we sift through the top performers, it’s clear to us that relationship-driven marketing strategies are powering the strongest companies.

Now in its sixth iteration, the BRI is based on four core principles of relentless relevance, measuring whether a brand is customer-obsessed, ruthlessly pragmatic, pervasively innovative and distinctively inspired. But a year of pandemic, social unrest, political upheaval and economic uncertainty is causing some brands to soar and pushing others entirely out of the conversation.

To understand how consumers measure the most relevant brands, we closely study the specific relevance dimensions in the top-ranked brands. We see three clear consumer marketing trends executives can tap into, regardless of industry and category.

The “right now” consumer need: Lean into how you can help, then execute relationship-driven marketing

Organizations that are confident enough to jump into a pressing need, solve it fast, and communicate effectively are among the year’s biggest gainers. Top brands demonstrated an embracement of the relationship-driven marketing mindset.

Johns Hopkins Medicine, No. 8, vaults into the Index for the first time, primarily due to the creation of its widely-used COVID-19 dashboard. Launched in late January last year, when many people felt they weren’t getting the answers they needed from the government or media sources,  it quickly became not just a trusted data provider, but also a source of daily contact.

As Black Lives Matter protests swept the world, many companies did little more than slapping a black box into their Instagram accounts. But Xbox, No. 19 and one of the Index’s biggest gainers, responded differently. It tightened rules around hate speech, sparking meaningful conversations among gamers worldwide.

And to pass the time during the pandemic, millions of consumers turn to KitchenAid, No. 3. It increases adoration by leveraging its Yummly food platform, with 26 million users and more than 2 million recipes, it elevates fans from mere cooks to domestic divas.

“Right now” thinking also includes launching new products and services that speak directly to the moment. These new offers go well beyond features and functionality. They address important emotive needs–and consumers reward that thoughtfulness. Chick-fil-A, No.39, is the only restaurant in the top 50. That’s a credit to compassionate introductions like family meal kits, well outside its quick-serve wheelhouse.

Content marketing: Keep your audiences engaged with core products & services

The most relevant brands are content juggernauts, using new agile processes, techniques and channels to create sprawling ecosystems. And these ever-growing hubs reach well beyond their central customer base, finding unexpected avenues to acquire new and potential customers. In doing so, they don’t just remain top of mind: They become constant companions.

“The best marketing and sales organizations have been focusing on speed skills for years now, reengineering both organization and culture to add more flexibility.”

Peloton, No. 2, isn’t only relevant because of its bikes, treadmills and the fact that – as gyms and fitness studios closed – people needed digital sweat sessions more than ever before. Its incredible rise started long before the pandemic and is directly linked to a smart, relationship-driven and agile content strategy, providing a constant stream of workouts, a “virtuous cycle,” built into a system that allows them to constantly retouch the content. With its commitment to supporting content throughout its lifecycle, its classes by now welcome millions of at-home meditators, yogis and weightlifters over and over again.  

Coming in at No. 5 LEGO recognized the pandemic’s effect on adult’s normal social and leisure activities, the creative outlet brand for kids introduced several grown-up art projects, including Andy Warhol style murals and the Botanical Collection… LEGO also leads by creating an entire digital content ecosystem around its products, from movies to minimovie series and microsites designed around LEGO storylines, innovative tools and processes to drive customer-generated content.

Message molding: Shape the conversation

The best marketing and sales organizations have been focusing on speed skills for years now, reengineering both organization and culture to add more flexibility.

These brands entered 2020 more agile than their competitors. But as events unfolded, it became clear just how essential this is. Our BRI is filled with examples of brands as nimble as ninjas, continually updating their messages and flexing their agile muscles.

Take Sephora. It rises 36 places to land at No. 33, an astonishing gain in a year where industrywide, makeup sales plunged 19 percent. Few nights out give consumers little reason to buy cosmetics, however, Sephora keeps gaining relevance, with messages focusing on beauty as a key part of self-care.

Amazon, No. 10, offers a different example. Its sales are skyrocketing, reflecting the surge in e-commerce. Yet it recognizes that many consumers question its lack of transparency around employee health. So, it’s running an extensive ad campaign explaining the many ways it is working to protect its front-line workers.

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Even amid intense upheaval in consumer behavior, marketing and selling strategies can help brands increase relevance–and revenues. To achieve uncommon growth, organizations must look for ways to deepen their relationship-driven marketing capabilities. This will help each respond to new needs and opportunities as quickly as they arise, invest in content that expands the brand’s universe and find ways to update messaging to meet the moment.

You can learn more brand implications and business insights by downloading the 2021 Prophet Brand Relevance Index®.

If you’re particularly interested in driving relevance within your marketing & sales organization, please reach out.

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Top Digital Transformation Challenges in Financial Services

Collaboration and personalization can help legacy firms outpace fintech upstarts.

When it comes to digital engagement, some of the biggest names in financial services still can’t seem to move fast enough.

While upstart brands like Cash App, Alipay, Monzo and Robinhood rack up millions of new customers, many legacy financial services companies are plodding along. There is progress, but many digital transformation initiatives are underperforming.

“Many digital transformation initiatives are underperforming.”

There’s no question that companies like Capital One and USAA are breaking new ground. But despite increased spending, many others are lagging behind – both in how they think about digital transformation strategy and how they execute it.

At Prophet, we wanted a better sense of what’s holding these companies back and how financial services compared to other industries. Our digital transformation research dug into the details of transformation, surveying 476 digital executives worldwide, including 150 who work in financial services.

One major finding? If efforts are uneven, it’s not necessarily because they’re underfunded. Digital marketing budgets in financial services now comprise between 50 and 70 percent of marketing resources. That’s up from a range of 20 to 40 percent in 2018. And while COVID-19 is causing some firms to cut spending as part of overall cost reductions, most execs recognize the need for more digital marketing in an increasingly virtual world.

The 2020 State of Digital Transformation research uncovers three key digital transformation challenges found in the financial services industry:

1. Missing Objectives

Financial services firms still focus on traditional marketing objectives, like increasing brand awareness or developing brand reputation. Those goals matter. But it often means that they pay less attention to higher-impact digital targets, such as adding customers (which ranks as the first priority across all industries) and increasing revenues from key customers and accounts (ranks as the second priority). And they lag even further behind financial disruptors, which use marketing to generate leads.

2. Gaps in Personalization

While almost half of the financial services respondents rank personalization as a top priority, the industry is lagging in delivering those experiences, something that is considered table stakes in other industries. While dynamic personalization is a key characteristic of digitally mature enterprises, less than half of financial services believe they can personalize at optimal levels. And 16 percent of firms don’t personalize at all across channels. There’s also a worrisome level of false confidence. Almost half do not use marketing technology (martech) platforms to scale personalization efforts, despite the general consensus that martech is needed to deliver optimal levels of personalization.

3. Lagging in Collaboration

Certainly, marketing teams at financial services companies understand that it’s essential to work closely with other business functions, especially sales. They know they need to continue to prioritize this cross-functional collaboration. In the context of demand generation and B2B2C marketing, this increased collaboration is crucial to ensuring a lead doesn’t get dropped and is ultimately converted. About three-quarters of financial services respondents plan to invest in cross-functional efforts going forward, indicating that plans are taking this collaboration need into account. While the mindset and plans for the future are good news, it’s still worth noting these efforts lag in practice. About two-thirds of respondents increased collaboration with sales over the last two years, compared with 75 percent of respondents in all industries. Almost a third of respondents actually cut back on collaboration.

The Underlying Challenges: Integration Struggles and Skill Shortages

There are two underlying areas to address that are critical to solving the above problems. First, financial services still struggle to integrate the technology they already have. Almost half of all financial services firms say they lack the budget and integration mechanisms for their technology, specifically the martech stack.

And second, finding and hiring the right talent is still difficult. More technical skills are central to digital marketing talent needs, especially data analysis, marketing automation and software expertise.

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As financial services firms look to improve and accelerate their transformation efforts, here are five ways to increase the pace of change:

  1. Use digital marketing to drive growth through generating leads and acquiring more customers, rather than simply building brand awareness.
    Integrate a marketing technology stack that enables personalization.
    Prioritize cross-functional collaboration between marketing and other departments, especially sales, for the greatest business impact.
    Focus on integrating martech into the existing technology stack by ensuring adequate budget and resourcing is in place.
    Develop recruiting strategies and revamped employee value propositions to fill talent gaps, especially in the ability to make existing martech solutions work better.

Is your business equipped to compete? Our expert Financial Services practice can help to devise a clear strategy to move your business forward in 2021 and beyond, get in touch today.

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Busting the Myth That B2B Companies Are Digital Laggards

We examined 26 criteria, and find B2B companies are holding their own.

New research shows B2B companies are on par with their B2C counterparts and should look to B2B digital leaders for best practices.

The online world is full of warnings that B2B companies have fallen behind B2C companies when it comes to digital transformation. However, our new report, The 2020 State of Digital Transformation in B2B, clearly shows that B2B companies are on par with their B2C counterparts across five stages of digital maturity. This work is based on a comparison of 170 B2B companies with 238 B2C organizations and 160 B2B2C firms based on a survey conducted by the industry analysts at Altimeter, a Prophet company.

Five Stages of Digital Maturity

Digital maturity was determined by evaluating the relative adoption of digital practices across twenty-six criteria grouped into five areas: Leadership and culture, customer experience, marketing and sales, technology and innovation, and data and artificial intelligence. To understand the impact of digital transformation maturity, we grouped all of the respondents into one of five transformation stages based on their maturity scores (see Figure 1). Click here to see a deeper exploration of digital maturity in the full report.

Figure 1: The 5 Stages of Digital Maturity

Sixty-nine percent of all companies (B2B, B2C and B2B2C) have moved past the initial stages of digital transformation maturity and are investing in digital technology and data to accelerate growth and improve productivity. Two-thirds of these more mature companies are in stage three where they are focused on operationalizing the use of platforms and data at scale and putting them to work to drive growth. The most mature companies, 25 percent of total respondents in stages four and five, are characterized by efforts in integrating operations to deliver more personalized experiences and using emerging technologies such as AI to redesign customer experiences and offer digital services to accelerate growth. Time is running out for the laggards in steps one and two while those companies in stage three must turn their efforts into impact so they can justify their investment and continue to accelerate progress.

Digital Maturity is a Better Predictor of Capabilities and Plans Than Customer Type

Our study revealed that stages of digital maturity are better predictors of digital capability building, investment in technologies or utilization of advanced digital platforms and data. Differences between B2B and B2C companies on a broad range of digital transformation plans and practices become small once responses are controlled for the level of digital maturity.

“The most mature is taking a more opportunistic approach compared to those who are still struggling to put in place basic digital capabilities.”

B2B2C companies are more likely to be more digitally mature (41% in stages 4 and 5) than either B2B or B2C companies; probably because they must build capabilities to address both business and consumer audiences.

Figure 2: Digital Maturity Levels by Business Type

Digital Maturity Matters

Organizations that are furthest down the path of digital transformation are best able to turn uncertainty into a competitive advantage. Their response to the pandemic is illustrative. The most mature are taking a more opportunistic approach compared to those who are still struggling to put in place basic digital capabilities. While eighty-two percent of stage one through four organizations are continuing or pivoting their transformation efforts, seventy percent of the most digitally mature companies are accelerating their digital transformation efforts (see Figure 3). They recognize that disruption is a time to step forward not back and have the confidence in their digital capabilities to capitalize on the situation.

Figure 3: Transformation Initiative Shifts Due to COVID-19

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B2B companies should shift their search for best practices from B2C companies to more digitally mature B2B companies.  It is easier and more effective to replicate best practices from one B2B company to another and maturity is a better predictor of outcomes than customer type. B2B companies who are digital laggards (stages 1 and 2) should look to the examples of companies that are operationalizing and scaling their digital efforts (stage 3). B2B companies can look to their more mature counterparts for insights into how to integrate, personalize and used advanced technologies to drive impact and become more digitally mature.

Want to know where your company stands on its digital transformation journey? Download the 2020 State of Digital Transformation in B2B to determine your next steps and contact us.

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DEI at Prophet: Making Progress on an Important Journey

We’re taking steps to learn more, do better and expand our definition of diversity.

For several years, Prophet has been working hard to strengthen our commitment to diversity and inclusion. Pride at Prophet, a group celebrating and building a community around our LGBTQ employees and allies, is flourishing. While we still have a lot to do, we’ve accomplished much with our Women in Leadership effort as our junior partner team became more gender-balanced. But as Black Lives Matter protests swept the globe in May last year, we knew we had to take a new–and harder– look at our own community, culture and practices.

As we absorbed what was happening around us, we closed firmwide for a Day of Reflection in mid-June and then listened to how each of us as team members at Prophet thought about how we can better reflect inclusive and diverse voices and embed them more deeply into our processes and our culture. Since June, we’ve continued these conversations as we’ve gone deeper into our DEI work at both the local and global firmwide levels.

“It’s about challenging ourselves to make sure every solution we create for ourselves and our clients–every brand strategy, every customer experience, every organizational analysis–moves toward a more just and open world.”

We also conducted a global firmwide DEI survey to better understand our current realities and perceptions and where we most needed to focus first. With broad engagement across offices, levels and functions, the survey gave us a detailed view of how we can further become truly diverse, equitable and inclusive. While we were moving in the right direction with the work done so far, we knew we had to do more.  We asked ourselves how we can better deliver on the promise of one of our values – to allow everyone to be “fearlessly human” creating the room, structures and space to bring their best selves to work every day.

So, we got to work. We made the effort more immersive and transparent. While a committed DEI Council continued to push on efforts, we aimed to make the dialogue and actions broader and more local – to fit the needs of each of our geographies. We started to push on existing processes where we can better embed the core principles of our DEI efforts.

We know that this is hard work and it is something that must be sustained. We want change to be meaningful and it is important to make this not just about hiring more people of color or donating money to a charity.  It’s about challenging ourselves to make sure every solution we create for ourselves and our clients–every brand strategy, every customer experience, every organizational analysis–moves toward a more just and open world.

In this context, we can share that we are focused on some key areas:

Increase Expertise

No one knows better than we do that the right consultants can change everything. Even though a super passionate internal team has headed our DEI efforts, we knew we could benefit from professionals with deep experience and fresh insights. We retained Collective, specialists in DEI consulting, to help.

Together, we’re looking at new and better ways to engage our people, support their development, and recognize their achievements. We expect to have a full report on its recommendations soon, and this audit will help further refine areas in which we can make progress.

We are also in the process of identifying and hiring a Head of DEI, who will be 100 percent dedicated to this vital work – a first of its kind at Prophet.

Enhancing Our Definition of Diversity

Including more diverse voices in our team has always been a goal, but we are stepping up those efforts. First, we’re working harder on campuses, adding historically black colleges and universities to our regular recruitment outreach. We are also partnering with the Consortium, a nonprofit that promotes inclusion among MBA students.

We launched senior-level searches to diversify the executive team and at the partner level. And we are actively interviewing candidates for our Board, with additional outreach underway.

Overall, as part of our recruiting process, we’ve made sure that at every level, across every role, we have a diverse slate of candidates.

Learn More, Do Better

Awareness is an essential part of this process, and during the fall, almost 90 percent of Prophet employees have completed microaggressions training to understand better the many ways bias can affect the Prophet community members. Importantly, this training also addresses what people can do about it–either when they make a mistake themselves or witness one.

From there, we are now beginning to deploy our next employee training focused on becoming better allies to our coworkers, with the aim to have everyone go through the training in Q1.

Support Racial Justice

In addition to our internal work, we are excited to be doing more to promote justice externally. In September, we also activated Prophet Impact (formerly P4NP – Prophet for Nonpofit) with a racial justice track that identified areas where we can do more pro-bono consulting with organizations dedicated to the fight for equality. Our intent is to make this ​a regular program rather than an opportunistic one, with clear budgets, goals and active management.

Measure Progress

All of this requires us to measure our progress and we all know metrics matter. The DEI survey we conducted has not only served to inform areas of focus but also to create a starting set of metrics for us to measure ourselves against. It probed four primary DEI dimensions–respect, belonging, evaluation/progression and commitment, and captured demographic information, now on our intranet, to track progress on representation. This data is feeding and informing our plan for the new year and beyond.

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What to Expect Next

In the weeks and months ahead, we expect to do more and share more. Prophet has long been built on a commitment to “Many voices. One team.” We all have a strong desire to make this a holistic reality. We are excited to have a passionate team across the globe working together to make us a better firm – more inclusive and more diverse than ever.

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Brands Are Sitting Out the Super Bowl: Is This an Inflection Point for Marketers?

How companies are recalculating the complex math of advertising during the Big Game. It’s riskier than ever.

The Super Bowl LV is right around the corner. The Kansas City Chiefs will face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and this year’s match-up is all about legacy vs. new. The duel of Tom Brady vs. Patrick Mahomes. Will Tom Brady be able to win another Super Bowl and retain his GOAT status? Or will the 25-year-old star outperform him on a national stage? It will be a fascinating game to watch.

Off the field, we also see the duel of legacy vs. new as we look at the much-ballyhooed ad spots surrounding the Super Bowl. Several legacy brands that traditionally bought ad spots are sitting out this year: Budweiser, Pepsi, Coke. While other brands like Chipotle, DoorDash and Indeed are willing to get in the game and spend $5M+ for 30 seconds of airtime. Even amidst the criticism against the NFL for their lackluster response to Black Lives Matter, the controversy of physical audiences during the pandemic and viewership ratings once again on the decline, the Super Bowl is still considered the quintessential placement for U.S. advertisers.

“The Super Bowl is still considered the quintessential placement for U.S. advertisers.”

In addition to navigating these ongoing challenges, this year’s Super Bowl also brings the duel of advertising on legacy television vs. digital video to a head. Brands are increasingly aware that coveted eyeballs are turning off the television while the reach and engagement on YouTube, Twitch and other digital platforms are becoming the new prestige play. CMOs today are seeing digital video advertising deliver results and brand awareness is also functioning as a direct response.

We believe this interesting match-up of legacy vs. new highlights 3 shifts in how CMOs decide where and how they invest their marketing dollars:

1. From Static to Dynamic

CMOs are increasingly under pressure to move the needle and do it fast. Their mandate has expanded from the top of the funnel down to acquiring customers. As a result, they are continuously experimenting with ways and channels to optimize the return of their marketing investment – often challenging practices that have been considered “tried and true.” For the first time in decades, Anheuser-Busch announced that the iconic Budweiser brand is sitting this Super Bowl out. We can still expect to see ads from BudLight and the first-ever corporate spot. Regardless, this still came as a big surprise to many.

2. From Reach to Relevance

The pandemic has shifted consumer behavior. Consumers have become more open to trying new brands – even new players – forcing brands to defend their positions. As a result, CMOs are changing their approach from maximizing reach to proactively finding ways to embed their brands in consumers’ lives. This year, for some consumers, the Super Bowl will not be as important as in prior years, given social distancing. Budweiser understands this and is reportedly reallocating its Super Bowl budget to a topic that is more relevant to its audience: COVID relief in the form of coronavirus vaccination awareness efforts.

3. From Opportunistic to Authentic

Shifting marketing strategy and execution depending on context or market conditions is not new. The best marketers have done it to raise the bar and set the standard on how to engage consumers (remember the “dunk in the dark” tweet from Oreo in 2013?). Today this is increasingly difficult as consumers expect and demand brands to be authentic. Consumers are quick to call out anything that looks and feels different or “off-brand.” With the ease and speed of social media, brands have to answer to their customers. It will be interesting to track how Budweiser executes on the COVID-19 efforts now and into the future from an authenticity perspective, at the risk of exposing the brand and hindering the return of their investments.

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Investing in a Super Bowl ad is a big decision for any marketer. Sometimes the decision is clear and compelling: by showing up to where consumers are, on the right platforms, in the right context and with authentic engagement, marketers have a better shot at maximizing the return of their investments.

But the case is not always clear and yet organizations continue to invest.  Why? The culture within organizations is slow to change. Successful marketers go beyond the data to focus on aligning the mindsets and behaviors of their organizations to ensure they make the right decisions, not the decisions that have “worked” in the past.  It’s a tall order.

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The Experience Revolution: Three Essential Innovation Trends

How equity-centered design, digital project management and profitable waste can spark brand-new concepts.

While 2020 may go down in history as among the most challenging years, it’s been a surprisingly encouraging time for those working in experience and innovation. As the pandemic pushed stuck-at-home people into an almost entirely digital world, they had time to think about bigger questions–like social justice and community impact.

Without their usual in-person channels, companies scrambled into new realms of inventiveness, often accomplishing difficult tasks in days and weeks. Braced by this crash course in risk-taking, many are emerging with clear eyes and new energy.

Amid so many changes, we believe three trends will shape the months ahead. Smart companies are already using them as a springboard to a stronger purpose and uncommon growth.

Equity-Centered Design Goes Mainstream

The intersection of social responsibility and design isn’t new. But between Black Lives Matter protests and stark inequities, CX and innovation strategists spent much of 2020 asking each other hard questions. As a result, organizations are taking a closer at how their work perpetuates (and possibly amplifies) the deepening of privilege in a world full of unequal access, opportunities and outcomes.

That means enlarging definitions of human-centered design by expanding to community-focused thinking. And it requires stepping beyond the usual approach of designing for an individual, persona or archetype, making decisions based on empathy and inclusion.

“By thinking beyond the “average” person, companies often find innovations that benefit everyone.”

We expect more companies to strive to design for fairness, especially as it becomes clear that doing so can lead to growth. Tapping into previously ignored markets, such as the disabled, non-English speakers and older consumers, are important avenues for new customers. Microsoft’s Seeing AI app, for instance, was developed by a designer who is blind, recognizes facial expressions, reads documents and more for people with visual limitations. But by thinking beyond the “average” person, companies often find innovations that benefit everyone. Those include easier-to-navigate digital experiences, better audio services and more accessible product design.

Certainly, these innovations can prevent legal troubles down the line. But the best design thinking includes equity from the very beginning, not as a late-in-the-game modification from the compliance department.

Led by organizations like the Creative Reaction Lab and the Stanford DSchool, more practitioners recognize that good experiences must reflect diversity, equity and inclusion at every level. Often, that means including inspirational stories of people who have been shut out in the past. Fairness serves the triple bottom line—profits, people and the planet.

Digital Project Management Grows Up

By now, businesses are well aware that digital projects need continuous management, led by a professional community of digital natives. But increasingly, companies are switching from a project management perspective to one of product management. The former are things a company makes. The latter are businesses that must be managed.

That means viewing them through the lens of finance, governed by profit and loss. Companies like Google have always done this. But increasingly, legacy brands, including CapitalOne, are waking up to the reality that these digital efforts are core to an organization’s value chain. This isn’t a fad. It’s a fundamental way of organizing. Rather than evaluating their work as engineering projects delivered on time and on budget, these professionals are becoming mini-CEOs.

Mature Enterprises Learn to be Young Again, Warming Up to the Reality of Profitable Waste

Google, with its well-publicized history of rewarding failure and encouraging moonshots, has gotten more than its share of attention, especially for Google X. But older companies know they have to become young again if they want to keep pace with digital natives. And more of these legacy brands–including Philips, Verizon 5G, Citi and Nestle–are owning up to the reality that meaningful innovation can’t be predicted in advance. When businesses take only small chances, they can only achieve small wins.

Businesses are aware of this, of course. A study from Partners In Leadership found that 84 percent of executives agree that their company’s future depends on innovation. But only 37 partners in their organization are willing to take the necessary risks.

These forward-looking companies are, in effect, learning to plan for breakage. This new realism means recognizing that every success may have required ten flops. They’re developing more practical ways to encourage risks. And most importantly, they are looking for new ways to measure success and reward innovation.

Those that don’t do this will have to be content with small incremental wins while bolder competitors make meaningful gains.

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FINAL THOUGHTS

Consistent with the notion that times of great struggle can bring great changes, we are seeing long-standing constructs in design and innovation evolve in new directions. Diversity, equity and inclusion are increasingly becoming requisite elements of product and service experience design methodologies and outcomes. The way in which successful digital product creation is positioned and prioritized within an enterprise is not only connected to project delivery but to strategic accountability and tangible business results.

And while ambiguity has long been something that designers and innovator leaders have needed to be comfortable with, they also need to be open to productive waste that leads to bigger and bolder outcomes in the end. The most successful companies will be those that embrace and apply these shifts in thoughtful and scalable ways.

To learn more about innovation-led transformation for your organization, contact us today.

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