Consumers get bored and cynical when brands try to "sell" to them very overtly. When brands talk too much about themselves and how 'life-changing' their benefits, consumers don't really believe in the claims. They develop a wait and watch attitude. Hence, brands and marketers need to think of ways of 'earning the belief' of consumers.
Unilever's Michael Polk has some interesting thoughts to share on my point of view. At a Wharton marketing conference, he talked about 'dislocating ideas'.
"It's not invention.... It's innovation" that is at the heart of successful marketing campaigns, Polk said. It's all about coming up with "dislocating ideas" that "disrupt the norm in a category."
He used the example of Unilever's Dove "Campaign for Real Beauty," which debunks the traditional notion of physical beauty and replaces it with a message of self esteem and confidence. Good marketing initiatives, like the Dove campaign, succeed because they "change the status quo" in a category, he suggested.
According to Polk, it is critical for companies today to develop a world-class "tri-lingual organization" fluent in the "languages" of the consumer, the customer and the company. "What you are doing is translating your agenda into the language of the person who has to execute it," namely the retailer who sells the product. He likes to think of Unilever as an "import-export business," with some good product ideas hatched in Europe or elsewhere and then exported to the United States, or vice-versa.
Polk complimented Starbucks, Apple and 3M for exemplifying the spirit of innovation by offering solutions that "change the consumer and the marketplace status quo." Starbucks, for example, "changed the rules on coffee." The Dove marketing campaign likewise works, because it hinges on a "dislocating idea," he said, adding that "90% of women are not happy with the way they look," and they are frustrated with the way beauty is portrayed in our society. Not everyone buys into Dove's inner-beauty message, promoted by real women with real curves, but that's okay, "because the folks who get it, really do get it and it is meaningful."