Get ready, brand strategists – 2022 is going to be your year. The last 18 months have been packed with plot twists, creating new opportunities for better brand activations and experiences. And it’s not just the progression of the pandemic, supply-chain challenges, rising inflation or ever-more-digital consumers that’s caused this shift.

It’s that authenticity matters more as people struggle to absorb all those changes. They’re switching buying behaviors and brands at an unprecedented level. One recent study finds that 75% of consumers have shopped in a new way, with 36% trying a new brand.

To keep customers and attract new ones, companies need to prove they support the greater good in a way that’s unique to their brand. That’s terrible news for brands not actively building and delivering against an authentic purpose that consumers can believe and relate to. But this approach offers wide-open growth avenues for those that can find better ways to connect with customers. We expect the savviest brands to lean hard into these five trends in 2022:

Brand Spending Makes a Comeback

Companies are increasingly aware that they can’t earn customer loyalty without a clear brand identity. There’s just too much noise in the market, and too many options for consumers to choose from.

Clear communication about what a company stands for requires investing in a well-defined brand identity and awareness. How can companies expect to make connections if their target audience is unclear about what they are? We expect to see a greater focus on brand with more dollars shifting –often from the demanding budget – into brand building. Additional resources will allow marketers to ensure brand efforts are clear, inspirational and delivered with energy.

We even think brand and demand may stop fighting and find love, as the two resolve tensions and work together in harmony. CMOs will develop integrated models where brand –the long-term efforts to drive awareness –and demand – which seeks to get audiences to act immediately – are synchronized with shared agendas and intertwined goals.

Got Purpose? Prove it, and Make Sure it Benefits the Planet

For years, we’ve known that consumers are increasingly choosing brands with a higher-order purpose – they want to buy from companies that make a difference in the world. This year, they’ll expect brands to put their money where their mouth is. They’ll want action, like Lush leaving social media because it’s become toxic for their customers, or Nike, investing tens of millions in countering systemic racism.

Sustainability and environmental concerns are especially important. Too often, companies isolate ESG and DEI policies, but they need to become central to brand purpose – a golden thread that winds through every aspect of the organization. ESG and DEI aren’t just about mitigating risks. These efforts add value to everything the company does.

“To keep customers and attract new ones, companies need to prove they support the greater good in a way that’s unique to their brand.”

Whether companies like it or not, protecting the planet is the No. 1 concern for both Gen Z and millennial audiences. Led by firebrands like 18-year-old environmentalist Greta Thunberg and 21-year-old gun-control activist David Hogg many see themselves as warriors acting to protect the planet. These young consumers can spot green or virtue-washing efforts from miles away and will punish companies that get it wrong.

All Digital? Nope. Never

Once upon a time, the business world envied those digitally native direct-to-consumer brands and the way they dinged the dinosaurs who shopped in brick-and-mortar stores. But with the defeat of Casper in the public markets, it’s clear omnichannel rules, and those D2C darlings have stampeded toward the mall. Warby Parker, Glossier, Allbirds and Wayfair are all proving that ­humans like to look, touch and feel what they’re buying.

Led by companies like Apple, Lululemon, Nike and Samsung, this trend toward experiential retail is already strong and will continue to grow. Levi Strauss & Co., for example, is opening 100 new stores this year, and Lego intends to open 174 new locations.

While people know they don’t need actual stores to transact, they do need them for experiences – especially as consumers long for post-pandemic connections. People have spent the last 18 months re-evaluating many priorities. They’ve learned that they love digital for cutting down on the drudgery in their lives, like grocery shopping and banking, so they can focus on the experiences that mean the most to them.

They do, however, want to experience products before purchasing, especially in certain categories, and we expect to see more brands open physical spaces.

The Decline of the Mega Brand

After decades of consolidation, conglomerates are starting to see the benefits of breaking up. With a CEO openly mocking the myth of synergy, GE is leading the way, followed by Johnson & Johnson and Toshiba Corp. More will follow as companies increasingly challenge the belief that one brand can work in many markets, and that bigger is always better.

Companies are asking themselves the hard questions: Can we continue to use a single brand, expecting it to be equally meaningful among different verticals, markets and customers? Is that one brand universally credible? And if not, when is time to switch that strategy?

Facebook’s recent decision to become Meta, illustrates another facet of this trend: More brands may increase a company’s agility, allowing it to pivot in more precise (and perhaps even more affordable) ways.

Midlife Crises Spark Unicorn Reinvention

Remember all those companies we admired back when BlackBerry dominated the market? Twitter (founded in 2006), Airbnb (2008), Pinterest (2009) and Instagram (2010) are all middle-aged now. No longer the cool kids, they need a refresher course in disruption. As they revisit purpose, they need to better understand empowered consumers and find new growth channels. How and where can they innovate as they face younger rivals?

To keep up, they’ll need creative Web 3.0 pivots. We’re already used to watching elderly unicorns struggle. Google used its transition to Alphabet to age gracefully, but once-huge tech brands, such as Jawbone, GoPro and Groupon, have languished from lost relevance. We expect plenty of big news and at least a few missteps as these almost-old digital natives reinvent themselves.

With rising customer expectations, companies across industries are investing in innovative experiences, digital marketing capabilities, and organizational change to attract and retain talent. But with fast-moving timelines and competing demands, they can’t always invest in storytelling, a key component in influencing and driving change.

Verbal branding—or the strategic deployment of language through tools like voice, messaging, content strategy and copy—plays a key role in optimizing the return on these investments, ensuring companies make thoughtful choices about their communications in these high-impact moments.

In this article, we offer three imperatives for organizations to consider when using their verbal branding to differentiate, deliver their promise, and win in the market.

Meet Customers’ Expectations for Personalized, Connected Communications

More and more, customers expect a consistent experience across channels – from mentioning a brand on Twitter to calling customer service. They expect their interactions to be seamless, with one channel easily picking up a conversation started in another (for example, starting in a chatbot and following up by phone—these two interactions use different systems but are ideally connected by a centralized customer data platform to create a unified customer picture). In short, customers want brands to recognize them as the same person across different channels and interactions.

While these channels and interactions have different formats, functions and requirements, they need to feel creatively and strategically cohesive. The implication for brands is ensuring that all these channels—whether automated or human-enabled—are on-voice and on-message.

But cohesive doesn’t necessarily mean uniform. The best service interactions modulate based on user sentiment. They can sense excitement, frustration, confusion, and adapt as needed. This can be achieved through both human and digital capability.

For example, it can be as simple as empowering call center reps with cues on how to identify customer archetypes based on emotion and providing discrete service journeys and scripts for them. This is particularly important for industries that customers approach with sensitivity or trepidation, such as financial services or healthcare.

“Verbal branding plays a key role in optimizing the return on these investments, ensuring companies make thoughtful choices about their communications in these high-impact moments.”

At the same time, brands using natural language processing tools, such as in-chatbot experiences, can similarly “train” their Natural Language Processing (NLP) tool to not only identify the customer’s desired “job to be done,” but to detect underlying emotion and adapt responses accordingly. For example, a chatbot that can sense a customer’s frustration about a delayed order, offer sympathy and quickly route them to live chat support, can help repair the customer’s brand perception in a tenuous moment.

Invest in Innovation—and its Expression

While many companies prioritize investing in new products and experiences, sometimes they don’t consider the importance of the words used to guide their audiences through them.

Rather than viewing product and expression as separate steps in the process, they should be developed in tandem as complementary assets, working together to shape how customers interact with and perceive the brand. Effective verbal expression (in this case, UX writing) bridges the gap between the layout and usability of the product.

Regardless of how brilliantly developed the product is, without clear and engaging written cues, the audience (customers or employees) may struggle to use or navigate it. More broadly, however, approaching innovation solely through a product lens misses an opportunity to embody the brand’s verbal identity. Effective copy can help a brand make a human connection with users that’s often not possible through design alone.

Brands should develop on-voice UX writing that has clear user goals in mind and reflects the likely emotional mindset of customers at various stages of their journey. Using this approach, copy can help drive self-progression or clarify complex topics in an engaging, on-brand manner—without disrupting the experience.

Brands that harness the strategic prowess of UX writing will excel at forming closer bonds with customers over brands who merely prioritize function in their innovations.

Use Storytelling to Galvanize Employees Around a Shared Vision, Meet Mandates and Drive Retention

The “Big Quit” is upon us. In an increasingly competitive talent market following a year that has upended what work looks like, employee expectations are rapidly changing. To meet this upheaval, impactful verbal expression can play a vital role in shaping experiences that respond to employee needs and catapult desired organizational change.

From crafting a meaningful shared vision to galvanizing employee sentiment, retaining key talent and attracting prospective candidates, transformational organization change requires a comprehensive accompanying voice and messaging strategy.

For example, how might we excite employees about new innovations? Inspire employees to care about new internal initiatives? Bring new hires into the corporate culture and values? Present a compelling case for change?

Like customers, employees are not a monolith. Different customer segments have different needs and respond to different ways of messaging. Companies with robust customer segmentation strategies can take the same approach with their employees, creating targeted messaging to meet specific employee audience group needs.

Taking a strategic messaging approach allows brands to connect external brand ambition to internal employee communication and experience, ultimately aligning the organization behind shared ambition, values, and purpose.

Just a year ago, I talked about how 2020 was unprecedented for so many reasons. And 2021 seems to be a “rinse and repeat” of the same themes, relative to the brands that showed up to surprise and delight us, as well those that failed or disappointed us. Once again, I turned to my 500 Prophet colleagues around the globe to help decide which brands won and which lost.

There was a lot to chew on. In a year when Square turned into a Block, Facebook became Meta and the Cleveland Indians transformed into the Guardians, the debates got intense.

For instance, last year’s clear-cut winner, Peloton, got votes on both sides. Is it a winner because people still love it? Or a loser since it just slashed its annual sales forecast by $1 billion, as more consumers head back to the gym? Zoom, another of last year’s winners, continues to be as integral to people’s workday as that second cup of coffee–and is on its way to becoming a leading tech sector brand.

Many mentioned the streaming wars, which rose to a whole new level. There’s the introduction of Paramount Plus. HBO Max is taking a gamble, streaming new theatrical releases, like “The Many Saints of Newark.” And then there’s Netflix, which may have seen new subscriptions levels drop but also saw “Squid Games” become the most popular show in its history, pulling in an astonishing 1.65 billion hours of viewing in just 28 days.

Some of our favorite ‘new’ everyday brands went public, including Sweetgreen, Roblox, ZipRecruiter and Instacart, while many crypto brands saw their market value aspire toward FANG territory, only to correct themselves dramatically.  Every year, we think we’ve reached the apex of DTC brands, only to have us see another set of stellar performers. This year, those stars include Away, the ever-expanding Bombas, weight loss king Noom and the “lit” cosmetic world of ColourPop and Glossier.

And while everyone wants to pounce on Facebook renaming itself as Meta (and this would be an easy one to put on our brand loser list) as a colossal misstep, we do think the jury’s still out and want to revisit this a year from now. It’s a strategy that’s worked well for Alphabet and Google and, if they pull off the idea of taking us all into the next digital era, exploring augmented, virtual and mixed reality technologies, while working deeply on the many issues facing the brand, this could be a different story a year from now

“Every year, we think we’ve reached the apex of DTC brands, only to have us see another set of stellar performers.”

We also took a close look at the sports betting business. While it’s currently dominated by FanDuel, followed by DraftKings, newcomer Caesars Sportsbook is also making a splash, vowing to spend $1 billion to build its fan base. That includes a deal putting its logo on the jerseys of the NHL’s Washington Capitals. Speaking of sports, we still embrace our love/hate relationship with Tom Brady as both the GOAT/Sports Illustrated Person of the Year, as well as becoming an increasingly influential commercial representative…see his star turn in Hertz’s new Tesla ads.

Finally, we still love our LEGO as it continues to lead the way in reducing gender bias and increasing inclusive play. We also love Target for putting the permanent kibosh on Black Friday, starting on Thanksgiving. Rarely do airlines get a mention, but three cheers to United Airlines for becoming the first to make vaccines mandatory, the first to fly passengers using 100% sustainable aviation fuel and the first to ensure that 50% of its flight school students are women or people of color. We also have to give kudos to Sesame Street, one of my favorite clients from a few decades ago, in continuing to give us all timely lessons on how to deal with racial challenges, inclusivity, diversity and empathy. It’s a brand that is as ageless as it is wise.

Now that we are done with the warmup act, let’s get into the winners and losers for 2021.

The Brand Winners

Moderna and Pfizer

It’s no surprise that Merriam-Webster named “vaccination” as the word of the year, injecting people everywhere with much-needed hope. Moderna and Pfizer top our list. (Johnson & Johnson misses, both because it was later for approval and because while its one-dose advantage could have been a game-changer, it suffered by being perceived as less effective.) With more than 8 billion jabs given, experts say vaccines are still our best shot at stemming the ongoing global health crisis and these two brands continue to lead the charge.

TikTok

TikTok is now so much more than the 1 billion monthly users who vibe with its dance challenges or laugh with its happy pranksters or wiseass dachshunds. TikTok directly influences all forms of entertainment, all forms of business and pretty much everything in between. Just a few years removed from Lil Nas X and his Old Town Road becoming the O.G. for viral musical successes, TikTok creators used Adele’s Easy On Me in almost one million videos in the first month after its release, helping it go viral on the app alone. To say that TikTok has become the No. 1 global influencing platform would be the understatement of the year.

Feeding America

I’ve never put a nonprofit on the list of winners. But Feeding America continues to astound us with its rapid growth, canny corporate partnerships and ability to connect people even in these divisive times. It’s grim, but the U.S. is finally hunger woke, recognizing that 38 million people, including 12 million children, are food insecure. Feeding America’s brand makes it easier to help and, potentially, see an end to hunger at some point in our lifetime.

Tesla (again)

In a year when many automakers saw sales decline due to supply-chain shortages, Tesla sales hit new records. And with revenues and profits that are beating analysts’ expectations, its soaring market value shows just how deeply people love the house that Elon built. Even more amazing? While Tesla’s cars still rank nearly last in reliability surveys, it sped past Mercedes-Benz to become the third most popular luxury ride in the U.S. (Lookout, Lexus and BMW. It’s gaining.)

Athleta

Think of it as the anti-Nike, with the determination to move in on Lululemon and the athleisure market. This Gap-owned retailer welcomed high-profile athletes like runner Allyson Felix and gymnast Simone Biles, who publicly broke with Nike over its treatment of women athletes. And, with the Power of She campaign, it’s winning with teens–and well on its way to becoming a $2 billion brand by 2023.

Taylor Swift

Demonstrating that she’s one of the best marketers in the business, the singer struck back against the music machine by re-engineering 2012’s “Red” album, igniting her fan base and winning new admirers. The centerpiece is a 10-minute version of the heartbreaking “All Too Well,” which became the longest song ever to reach Billboard’s No. 1. (Adios, “American Pie.”) We’ll just quote Ms. Magazine here on Swift’s feminist tour de force: “Taylor Swift didn’t just re-record an album—she reclaimed her humanity.”

Bitcoin

Yes, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency prices have fallen sharply recently, wiping out almost $500 million worth of value from the overall crypto market in just a few days. But cryptocurrency still had a breakout year, moving towards the mainstream. Celebrity endorsers are all in, with Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen telling us, “I’m getting into crypto with FTX. You in?” And Matt Damon is representing crypto.com, which is also the new name of the Staples Center. Like electric cars and Tesla, Bitcoin still dominates any conversation about crypto.

The Brand Losers

Instagram

Some of the most disturbing allegations from Facebook whistleblowing centered on Instagram. Turns out the company has known for some time how toxic the platform can be to the teens who love it, with 32% of teens saying that when they feel bad about their bodies, Instagram makes them feel worse. Concealing that, in our book, is downright shameful. With just over a billion active users, it’s not going away anytime soon. The reports are damning enough that Lush, the body care products company, recently shut down its social media accounts, saying they risk customers’ mental health.

Billionaires in Space

I’m as eager as the next person to boldly go where no human has gone before, but companies like Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin show they’ve got the wrong stuff. At a time when tension between the haves the have-nots keep growing, especially within Bezos Amazon world, these ego-boosting launches are about little more than celebs in space.

Chevrolet

We’ve always wanted to love the Chevrolet Bolt. Not only is it the second-best-selling EV brand in the U.S., but it also beat No. 1 Tesla with a genuinely mass-market EV. And its vow to be all-electric by 2035 got our attention. Then came the massive recalls for defective batteries, with severe design concerns that shut production down for weeks. Then Bolt owners got more bad news when GM advised them to park at least 50 feet away from other cars to reduce the risk that a spontaneous fire could spread.

Robinhood

Robinhood started as an exciting brand, promising to democratize investing. With no fees, it’s tempted 19 million new investors into the stock market, gathering $95 billion in assets under custody. But with the GameStop frenzy, it closed trading, earning the enmity of both regulators and the Reddit bros that are its customer base, with a backlash that’s still generating contempt. The move was anything but customer-centric and now the brand is paying for it.

Casper

For years, branding experts (even us, sometimes) loved the way Casper, a DTC upstart, vowed to “own” sleep, with showrooms offering complimentary naps and ancillary products. But a year after its disastrous public offering and mounting losses, it’s gone private again. Besides illustrating its operational immaturity and brand braggadocio, it underscores the DTC dilemma. Acquiring new customers is expensive. And really, people don’t buy new mattresses all that often.

Delivering “impact” has taken on extraordinary new meaning in the last two years. Across the world, consumers, employees, and other key stakeholders became focused on how brands deliver impact through ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) practices with 2 in 3 consumers willing to pay more for products and services from brands that are committed to making a positive social impact. As a result, the challenge for brands has shifted from talking the talk to walking the walk.

It has become clear simply articulating and communicating purpose is not enough to drive meaningful value. Case in point: according to a global survey of 474 executives conducted by Harvard Business Review, 90% of executives said their organization understands the importance of purpose, but only 46% said it informs strategic and operational decisions.

To create value, we believe purpose must act as the North Star across the organization. At the epicenter of all activity, purpose has the power to drive business transformation including new business models, product and service design, employee engagement and more. Specifically, organizations that tie their ESG strategy to purpose—and thus, business and brand strategy—shift away from risk mitigation towards value-additive action better integrated with the business.

Today, ESG strategies are too often isolated from the business and either focused purely on hitting rating agency benchmarks or generating positive publicity. Using purpose to drive a linkage across the business, brand and ESG strategy prevents risks associated with virtue washing and ultimately drives competitive advance with differentiated value propositions.

How to Activate ESG to Create Value

So how does a company tie its ESG strategy to its purpose? First, it must build a statement of intent, defining specific plans to deliver its purpose to its community and society at large. For example, ING Bank demonstrates its purpose, “empower people to stay a step ahead in life and in business,” with a slightly more specific ESG strategy aimed at “helping customers and society stay a step ahead of the challenges they’re facing.” By honing its ESG strategy on the “challenges they’re facing,” ING is able to define how it fulfills its purpose in the communities it operates with.

“2 in 3 consumers willing to pay more for products and services from brands that are committed to making a positive social impact.”

While an ESG strategy states how the purpose will come to life, related impact areas allow the organization to focus on its activation efforts. An organization’s impact areas are thematic areas the organization will execute against to bring the ESG strategy to life.

To define these impact areas, organizations should consider four lenses while remaining focused and meaningful in their efforts and, without spreading themselves too thin. Impact areas must be:

1. Specific:

Do impact areas clearly align with the organization’s core business offers and enable necessary choices and tradeoffs? P&G manufactures thousands of products that consumers use in their everyday lives. Because the production, distribution, and waste of these products can contribute negatively to the effects of climate change, P&G has focused one impact area on packaging sustainability, committing to 100% recyclable or reusable packaging by 2030.

2. Ownable:

Do impact areas build from strengths and competencies the organization has today to ensure it can have a unique and material impact in the market? BlackRock’s purpose is to “help more people experience financial well-being,” resulting in an embedded focus on long-term financial sustainability across the business. In pursuing this focus, Blackrock saw an opportunity to focus on impact, setting out to build a new platform to invest in mission-oriented businesses. In 2019, the new platform launched, leveraging existing scale and expertise to strengthen Blackrock’s position while bolstering its intention to make a long-term impact.

3. Applicable:

Are the impact areas appealing and applicable to the organization’s colleagues, customers and communities? The aviation industry accounts for roughly 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions. Delta Air Lines’ carbon footprint is its largest environmental impact, with 98% of emissions coming from its aircraft. In 2020, Delta focused on carbon neutrality, with the goal of becoming the first carbon-neutral airline globally.

4. Measurable:

Are the impact areas conducive to being objectively measured? ABInBev, the world’s largest brewer, embarked on a goal to ensure 100% of its communities in high-stress areas have measurably improved water availability and quality by 2025. Within its breweries, teams leverage internal systems to monitor water use on a routine basis and develop bespoke tools to review operations on a quarterly basis.

“We aim to lead a corporate shift toward measurability and accountability, ensuring that our local investments and programs translate into lasting impacts on water quality and availability for our communities and our operations around the world,” states ABInBev’s stewardship campaign.

Making an Impact in All Directions

The need to connect ESG to purpose has never been more urgent. In 2020, almost 60% of Americans said they would “choose, avoid, or boycott a brand based on its stand on societal issues,” compared to only 47% in 2017. And more than half (53%) of consumers who are disappointed with a brand’s words or actions on a social issue complain about it.

Companies that build their ESG strategies and related impact areas to deliver on their purpose will create memorable, human-centered experiences that allow customers, employees, and other stakeholders to grasp the power of the organization’s efforts. Capturing impact through signature stories creates memorable, human-centered stories for customers, employees and other stakeholders to grab onto as examples of the impact of your ESG impact areas.

Within moments of Facebook’s announcement that it’s renaming itself Meta, the world swiftly reacted. The Twittersphere sniped the loudest, pointing out that the new name won’t change any of the company’s problems: It’s still one of the most controversial companies and in the crosshairs of regulators all over the world.

So, is rebranding a mistake? Far from it. As branding experts, we think it’s a smart, strategic decision. Meta is a bold new brand, one with ambitions far broader than its current social-media properties. And it makes it the first company to stake a claim in the much-coveted metaverse, something so large and nebulous that even many tech people still can’t define it.

The name certainly has its strengths. It’s short, simple, and clearly grounded in the frame of reference the business intends to exist within — and redefine. With only a day of storytelling behind it, we’re curious if there’s more to the Meta-metaphor beyond the metaverse. Is it a wink to the alternate reality that’s created through all social media? Is it a self-deprecating nod to Facebook’s size and scale? Is it a reference to the expression of irony or self-parody of “that’s so meta?

“Meta is a bold new brand, one with ambitions far broader than its current social-media properties.”

It’s a branding direction that makes a great deal of sense for tech companies, especially in clarifying their story for investors. (And it’s not surprising that Facebook shares rose following the announcement.) Just as Alphabet made it possible for the company to grow beyond Google, this new name will pave the way for Meta to broaden its brand portfolio.

We expect that Facebook will still be Facebook to its users. So will Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. Each of those brands can–and should–have narrower definitions and fulfill every expectation users and customers have for them.

But other parts of the company will be rebranded. Oculus, its VR division, will become Meta.  And Facebook Portal, its smart display products, will become Meta Portal.

As Meta, the parent company becomes more expansive and is well-positioned to move into the future. And the new name comes just days after the company announced it would invest $10 billion in developing the metaverse, moving in directions far beyond its social-media roots.

“In the metaverse, you’ll be able to do almost anything you can imagine— get together with friends and family, work, learn, play, shop, create,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in the announcement. That includes “completely new experiences that don’t really fit how we think about computers or phones today.”

Although personalization has become a key way for brands to build meaningful connections with consumers across categories ranging from shampoo (Prose, Function of) to vitamins (Ritual, Care/of) to entertainment (Netflix, HBO Max), personalization has been ingrained in the DNA of streaming services like Spotify and YouTube since their inception. In the 2021 Prophet Brand Relevance Index ® (BRI), we identified a key difference between leaders and laggards in the music industry: how effective brands are at personalization.

Data from the BRI showed that customers feel more emotionally connected to the streaming brands that offer deep, personalized experiences. While customers enjoy Pandora’s personalized playlists, Spotify is the clear winner with 99% of users saying the brand connects with them emotionally. Spotify, which consumers ranked as the twelfth most relevant brand in this year’s study, creates its emotional connection with consumers through its rich personalization algorithm. It also ranks significantly higher than Pandora in terms of engagement in new and creative ways (with 90% of customers surveyed agreeing to this statement, versus Pandora’s 63%). Spotify continues to double down on this competitive advantage as it invests heavily in more personalized playlists, podcasts and more.

“Customers feel more emotionally connected to the streaming brands that offer deep, personalized experiences.”

Additionally, Spotify enjoys strong consumer perceptions by making its personalization capabilities clear through tongue-in-cheek ad campaigns, as well as a continued focus on strategic product innovations. In its latest “surprise and delight” personalization move, Spotify launched its “Only You” feature, which leverages listener data to show amusing trends in users’ listening habits. In contrast, Pandora hasn’t rolled out any major personalization updates since 2019. It’s no surprise then, that 88% of consumers believe Spotify “is always finding new ways to meet my needs” whereas only 24% of consumers felt the same way about Pandora.

How Can Brands Deliver More Personalized Experiences?

1. To become relentlessly relevant, you need know your audience. Create audience archetypes that go deep into what your customer loves and is inspired by, not just their age and geography. Find out what your customers are doing on your platform as well as off-platform. Why is your customer using streaming services? Why do they skip certain songs? You can’t get to the beauty of personalization until you know who your customers are, and just as importantly, who you haven’t acquired as a customer yet.
2. Create content specifically for those micro-audiences. As there’s more competition for consumer attention, from video games to podcasts, content needs to be laser-focused on the needs of the customer. In working with leading streaming companies, Prophet has helped identify micro-audiences and the type of content that will appeal most to them to create lasting brand loyalty.
3. Create richer algorithms that suggest more content in line with what customers want. Even a leader in streaming like Spotify is losing customers’ attention because of newer players like TikTok, and its widely recognized algorithm. As more people discover music off-platform, Spotify will need to continue to innovate to garner consumer interest in an environment of increased competition.

With 89% of those surveyed saying they ‘can’t live without it’, Spotify continues to stand out in an increasingly competitive space by doubling down on its personalization assets, serving as a strong example for any entertainment brand looking to find new customers in 2021 and beyond.

The biggest challenge for today’s businesses is to consistently produce personalized content at a large scale, deliver it at breakneck speed, and credibly have an impact on revenue. The businesses that are successful in this endeavor have invested in an innovative set of capabilities that make up an “Agile Content System”.

Imagine you had a front-row seat to the world’s foremost scientific teams as they worked to develop a life-saving vaccine. The filmmaking team behind CNN’s “Race for the Vaccine“ recently did just that, and Prophet’s healthcare team sat down with a few of them in conversation.

“To be a strategic storyteller, acknowledge that every interaction is an opportunity to build the relationships that could lead to the next great story.”

Produced by the Global Health Reporting Center and narrated by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, “Race for the Vaccine” tells the story of the Oxford University, the NIH, Pfizer, University of Queensland and China’s CDC teams that undertook the heroic task of developing a COVID-19 vaccine as the virus swept the globe. Co-Director Caleb Hallerman and Editors Brain Truglio and Shayon Maitra joined the healthcare consulting team to share their experience making the documentary and how their efforts were designed to build confidence in the scientific processes that underpinned the vaccine development.

Whether in journalism or business, well-crafted narratives can engage audiences in an authentic and persuasive way – what Prophet’s founder emeritus David Aaker likes to call “signature stories.” Here are our takeaways from the conversation – which provide lessons for anyone who tells stories in a business context.

Lessons from Filmmakers: How to Tell Stories in the Business World

1. Know Your Beat: The Power of Relationships

Relationships unlock access to great content. In the case of “Race for the Vaccine,” relationships allowed the documentary to tell a truly global story. Because of former projects and collaborations, Caleb and the Global Health Reporting Center were able to get access to research institutes including China CDC. As Caleb pointed out, “the most important relationships you have are the ones you have before the story breaks…to make those connections before you’re in the midst of a crisis.”

To be a strategic storyteller, acknowledge that every interaction is an opportunity to build the relationships that could lead to the next great story. In doing so, you’ll build credibility and trust not only through direct interactions but also by virtue of second-degree connections to other people, expertise and opportunities. Also, the broader that network is, the greater the opportunity to bring a diversity of perspective and experience to strategic recommendations and communications.

2. Find the Right Source: Characters Who Make the Story

People want to connect with other people. And to create a powerful story you need characters that keep audiences interested and invested in the story you’re telling.  As Brian Truglio pointed out, “Character is really what drives the story…the most important thing is that you have interesting people who bring energy to the topic, and who can explain it. If you don’t have that…it’s not going to stick with people.” In “Race for the Vaccine,” this meant finding the scientists who could guide audiences on this complicated scientific journey such as Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett (NIH) and Dr. Keith Chappell (University of Queensland-Australia).

As business transformation leaders, it’s equally important to identify the central characters in any team you lead. What are individuals on your team passionate about? Where do their strengths lie? And where do the two come together to influence the business to adopt a strategic decision? Identifying what makes for a strong character at your organization can help rally it to change by clearly communicating its benefits to the market and modeling the behaviors that will lead to its success.

3. Go Beyond the Headline: Context Matters

It probably won’t come as a surprise that one of the challenges the filmmakers faced was capturing moments with the scientists in their labs. In early edits, one the biggest problems they identified was the lack of footage showing scientists in lab coats. It ran contrary to Brian and Shayon’s mantra for editing documentaries, “Show, don’t tell,” and required additional shoots and thoughtful editing to ensure that there was the right context to establish the credibility of these scientists. If the filmmakers had only had images of Dr. Corbett or Dr. Barney S. Graham at home, it may have limited viewers’ confidence in the safety and scientific rigor behind the vaccine research.

This experience highlights just how much context matters in strategic storytelling. In any business transformation, understanding the starting point – and how that starting point impacts any solution proposed to a business challenge – is critical to how a story is shaped to business leaders and executives. The synergy between story, strategy and action is the basis for credibility and trust, and the foundation for business success.