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Three Ways to Win With The New Digital Care Continuum

The right platforms can fix breakdowns between care settings.

Ten years ago, it was all about the patient experience. More recently, it was all about healthcare consumerism and now, the focus is shifting towards enablement – the healthcare platforms. For years, healthcare companies have been talking about the full continuum of care but nobody wanted to own it. Even when you look at the so-called Integrated Delivery Networks (IDNs), they weren’t truly “integrated,” meaning their urgent care clinics, surgery centers and home care were all run as different business units by different leaders (often with different incentives).

Back in 2016, Prophet and GE Healthcare’s Patient Experience study found that because nobody owned the full care continuum, patient experiences often broke down in between care settings. At the time, we saw the opportunity for digital solutions to bridge those gaps. Now, enter the modern healthcare platforms and the digital care continuum.

“The biggest disconnect between how patients experience healthcare and how executives rate their performance was around non-clinical aspects.”

With two decades of extensive M&A activity within health systems and little improvement in the patient experiences, healthcare platforms are rapidly scaling to become not only the digital care continuum for patients but THE care continuum.  By now, we all know Teladoc Health and Livongo, as well as Carbon Health and One Medical. And let’s not forget the original healthcare platform, Kaiser Permanente. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they are approaching $100 billion in revenue. They were half of that a few years ago, and they have the leading market share in most of their markets. While not digitally native, they are more of a true platform business than virtually all of their peers of the same age.

You might be asking, what is a platform? A platform business facilitates value exchanges between two or more interdependent groups, usually consumers and suppliers. The next question becomes, how can I prepare my business for the future of healthcare platforms and digital care?

Here are a few things to consider when building your digital care continuum:

Stop Running Your Business as Self-Contained Units

Enterprises with standalone businesses and distinct P&Ls are great for managing costs, but terrible at delivering integrated care experience. This is not to say you can’t do discrete budgeting and hold people accountable for fiscal performance. But combine that with organizing and incentivizing them to create products and services that integrate into a platform that supports a patient (or any type of customer) continuum. “Warm handoffs” is a commonly used approach with today’s healthcare systems, but it’s no longer enough. It now has to be an integrated handoff. And you don’t have to be digital, Kaiser Permanente has always taken this approach.

Don’t Think About the Healthcare Experience as Care Points

Healthcare execs often say that success resides in delivering the right care, at the time, and at the right place. As patients self-navigate the U.S. healthcare system, the healthcare experience feels more like jumping from one experience to the next. As we learned in our patient experience study, the biggest disconnect between how patients experience healthcare and how executives rate their performance was around non-clinical aspects. University Health has already called out creating a seamless patient experience as a strategic priority with the digital care continuum as a critical enabler, and they intend to, offer programs and digital tools that allow patients to connect with their care team to manage episodic care or chronic diseases. Their orthopedic and pediatric cardiology specialties have utilized these tools for facilitating disease management and patient engagement. The next step for enterprises is to go beyond their specialty practices having a self-contained digital care continuum. Organizations need to view patients as people who often have multiple conditions and use health systems for a variety of care needs.

Start With the Holistic Patient Experience

It’s surprising how many large healthcare companies still don’t view patients as people. Patients with osteoporosis, heart disease and depression, are still seen as independent patients of rheumatology, cardiology, and psychiatry departments. The system is aware of the different conditions, but the experience -from treatment to bill payment to diagnostics- will differ. For pharma companies, that means three independent business units with separate brands providing drug treatments. Patients are seen as three unique conditions, not as a single, person.

Making this shift doesn’t happen overnight.  Prisma Health took its first step toward delivering a holistic patient experience by enlisting the help of PerfectService, a unified platform for clinical communication and collaboration that helps physicians, nurses and care team members improve patient care. You can’t deliver an integrated patient experience if your clinical teams can’t seamlessly collaborate on a single platform. Things like EHR systems have primarily been designed to store medical records and file claims, not optimize care coordination. Restructuring your technology footprint can go a long way to address this gap. And if you’re a digitally native healthcare provider, you’re likely already a step ahead.

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FINAL THOUGHTS

The reality is that todays’ care continuum is still largely conceptual. ACOs are designed to own the full care continuum but they are a small fraction of the U.S. healthcare spend. Look at your own company’s claims data. For commercial plans, you’ll be fortunate if 25 percent of the claims are tied to a value-based care model, and don’t be surprised if it’s under 5 percent. We’re still very much living in a fee-for-service world. And while payers have visibility across the care continuum, they don’t often have full control. Providers typically focus on just one area; primary care, specialty service lines, post-acute care, etc. which is why understanding the emerging modern healthcare platforms is so critical. Whether it is the rapid expansion of digital natives like Teladoc Health, legacy players going through a transformation like Prisma Health, or the steady growth of Kaiser Permanente, it’s coming faster you think.

For more help in getting your healthcare organization ready for the new world of healthcare platforms, and winning with the new digital care continuums, connect with our healthcare team.

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Celebrating DEI at Prophet

How community building is helping all our colleagues learn more–and enjoy the ride.

Prophet entered 2021 with a firm commitment to diversity and inclusion. This included growing our beloved employee resource groups, or Prophet “ERGs” for short. Making up the fabric of our culture, these groups are dedicated to education and community-building – ultimately fostering a workplace where colleagues across identity groups feel valued, heard, seen and supported. They also demonstrate what it’s like to “Enjoy the Ride” at Prophet, where everyone is encouraged to bring their whole selves to the table.

Over the past couple of months, thanks to our Black@Prophet and Women in Leadership ERGS, Propheteers across the globe got to participate in (virtual) programming to honor and celebrate Black History Month, International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month.

Celebrating Black History with Prophet’s New ERG – Black@Prophet

Black@Prophet was welcomed to Prophet’s ERG community in February and kicked off their activities with a variety of Black History Month content. Given the diverse backgrounds of the group, they felt it was important to shine a light on Black history and culture from a global perspective. Black Propheteers shared how Black history has shaped our world and dove deeper into topics like the creation and evolution of historically Black colleges and universities, supporting black-owned businesses and the untold history of some important Black heroes.

Prophet’s Music League also dedicated February to spotlight Black music artists. Propheteers submitted their favorite songs for categories such as “All The Singing Ladies” and “Black Voices Around the World.” Each Friday, Propheteers started their days jamming out to songs new and old – contributed by their colleagues. Since Black History Month, Black@Prophethas been planning “Listening Sessions,” which will be dedicated time for the community to knowledge share, develop programming and resources for Black employees and their allies. Also, already in the works? A celebration of Juneteenth.

All month long, Propheteers used special Zoom backgrounds highlighting important Black leaders – including Kizzmekia Corbett, Lebron James, Stacey Abrams, John Legend and Matthew Cherry.

WiL: Choosing to Challenge with Prophet’s Women in Leadership Team

In recognition of International Women’s Day, Propheteers participated in the #ChoosetoChallenge campaign and also spotlighted incredible women who are continuing to challenge the status quo across the globe. As part of the celebration, the Women in Leadership team partnered with the Black@Prophet and Pride at Prophet resource groups to write internal blog posts that highlighted the important intersectionality between these communities.

To spotlight changemakers across the globe, the Women in Leadership team collaborated with our Direct-to-Consumer vertical to highlight women-led brands that are dominating their industries while creating change along the way. The blog series also covered topics like allyship, perceptions of the glass ceiling and young female activists.

Over the coming months, Women in Leadership will continue to empower and promote women across the organization through Prophet’s internal mentorship programs, group discussions and by supporting other employee resource groups’ programming.

All month long, Propheteers enjoyed another set of specially-designed Zoom backgrounds highlighting important women leaders – including Greta Thunberg, Ozlem Tureci, Angela Merkel, Naomi Osaka, Amanda Gorman, Kamala Harris and Rachel Levine.

FINAL THOUGHTS

We look forward to welcoming more ERG’s into our community and celebrating the diverse backgrounds and experiences of our Propheteers. There will be more to come in the months ahead!

For more information on Prophet’s DEI journey, you can read our latest update here. Please reach out if you would like to get in touch to learn more. Connect.

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Webinar Replay: The 2021 Prophet Brand Relevance Index®

In our sixth iteration of relevance research, we take a closer look at the pandemic’s impact on brands

55 min

Watch the webinar recording to hear key insights about the top-ranked brands in the Prophet 2021 Brand Relevance Index®.

In this year’s Index, Prophet turned to consumers to find out which brands matter most in their lives today. We surveyed more than 13,000 U.S. consumers to determine which 228 unique brands they simply cannot live without. Visit the BRI site to learn which brands consumers considered the most relevant to their lives.

To speak to someone on our team about how to make your brand more relentlessly relevant, contact us today.

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How Prepared Are You For Digital Selling?

Our research shows companies are moving toward digital selling techniques faster than they’d planned.

Sales teams have had a tough year. The forced push into selling virtually through tools like social media and video conferencing have disrupted both sellers’ sales funnels and their customers’ journey.  We’ve developed a tool to help you quickly assess your organization’s digital selling readiness for the key capabilities used by top performing sales organizations discovered in our 2020 State of Digital Selling research report. You don’t have to be in sales to find this useful: marketers will play a key supporting role in the digital transformation of the sales organizations they support.

Sales have watched for years (largely on the sidelines) as the influence of B2C e-commerce changed the expectations of B2B buyers, who now increasingly favor seamless digital experiences that make their lives easier. Many sales teams polished their LinkedIn profiles to engage prospects in the digital landscape only to realize that without great content and integration with backend CRM and SFA systems, those profiles are hollow attempts at transformation. Post-COVID, don’t expect selling practices to go back to “normal,” because there’s no undoing the changes in buyer and seller behavior the global pandemic has caused.

“Post-COVID, don’t expect selling practices to go back to “normal,” because there’s no undoing the changes in buyer and seller behavior the global pandemic has caused.”

Our 2020 State of Digital Selling global research report found that 73% of surveyed sales organizations will transition to digital selling techniques faster than planned. And McKinsey’s research found “Looking forward, B2B companies see digital interactions as two to three times more important to their customers than traditional sales interactions.” The question our research sought to answer is which capabilities are needed (and most important) to digitally transform sales.

What is Digital Selling?

Like any technology disruption, defining it in the early phases of adoption can be tricky. It’s sure to evolve as seller and buyer behavior continues to change.  Here’s a starting point:

Digital Selling is the use of technology-focused commerce practices to meet the needs of digitally savvy buyers and by sellers to seamlessly integrate the sales funnel across marketing, sales and service.

Just as marketing has transformed into a technology and analytics-lead discipline, the digital transformation of sales is underway to position sales as an equal digital partner.

Don’t think of digital selling as entirely end-to-end virtual or digital experiences, but rather a practice that finds the right balance of the complementary offline and online forces. Our research found that top-performing sales organizations combine the human touch needed to influence and sell with digital enablement tools and analytics that give them a significant edge in key sales metrics, including win rates, quota achievement and customer satisfaction. In fact, the best sales team practices were based on the digitization of the Key Accounts sales model, in which a cross-function team of marketers, sellers and service pros focus on key account wins (see chart below).

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Customer
Demand

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Which digital practices make a difference?

In our research, we chose to study the digital transformation of sales from the perspective of the capabilities a sales organization needs to succeed. 

The report breaks down each of these capabilities further into sub-capabilities that again show the gap between top performers against the industry average.

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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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FINAL THOUGHTS

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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FINAL THOUGHTS

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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Brands

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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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FINAL THOUGHTS

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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FINAL THOUGHTS

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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