While business leaders have been splurging significant proportions of the $846 billion global ad revenue on lofty advertising campaigns – from the great, like Patagonia’s customer-centric promise to fix all Patagonia clothing, to the greenwashing, like Pepsi’s cringe-worthy Kendall Jenner fiasco – a consumer uprising is unfolding right under your noses.
The age-old belief that ethical behaviour and worthy causes are the keys to customer loyalty and long-lasting relationships? It’s been unceremoniously dethroned.
We’ve seen this trend at Cannes this year, with an uptick of entertainment, humour, and commercial RTBs proving to be the biggest winners, versus previous years when purpose-driven campaigns seemed to win landslide victories across most categories.
The latest Total Brand Experience (TBX) Report delivers a brutal reality check: consumers couldn’t care less about your brand’s noble ‘why‘ if it doesn’t directly benefit them. Brace yourselves for these sobering findings:
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- 75% of Australians agree that connecting with their preferences, needs, and expectations is the most crucial factor for brand loyalty – not your self-congratulatory CSR initiatives.
- 88% of consumers prioritise brands that offer tangible, personal benefits, even if they resonate with a company’svalues.
- 76% of respondents value a consistent brand experience above all else – no points for purpose if your messaging is a mess.
In this frank ‘me-first‘ era, corporate social responsibility has been exposed as an afterthought. The report highlighted that “selfish” attributes like value for money, good customer service, and relevant products trump ‘worthy‘ purpose-led attributes like ‘company philosophy’ every time. Case in point: while 65% of respondents claimed to care that brands like Patagonia, Canva, Tesla, and Koala stand for more than just profits, a staggering 75% admitted that meeting their individual needs and expectations was paramount.
For customers to maintain a relationship with your brand, their order of priority is crystal clear: ‘me-first’, social responsibility second, and your self-serving interests a distant third. Neglect this hierarchy, and you’ll find yourself in the firing line of consumer backlash, or worse, being ghosted.
Just look at Telstra’s self-inflicted wounds from raising prices and laying off workers without improved service, sparking a fury that garnered a big backlash and saw satisfaction plummet.
The likes of Bunnings and Gelato Messina get it – delivering low prices, quality service and innovative products that captivate consumers. But most businesses are choking on lofty ‘purpose’ delusions, neglecting this seismic customer-centric shift at their peril.
So what’s the prescription for survival? Quit the virtue-signalling and take urgent action.
For Australian CEOs, the writing is on the wall: embracing a customer-first strategy is no longer a choice; it’s a matter of survival:
- Relentless customer listening: Regularly gather and act on customer feedback to stay aligned with their ever-evolving needs, or risk becoming obsolete.
- Aggressive technology investment: Leverage AI, machine learning, and data analytics to personalise the customer experience with surgical precision.
- Fostering a customer-obsessed culture: Ensure every employee, from the C-suite to the front line, lives and breathes the brand’s customer-first mission.
In this unforgiving ‘me-first’ era, prioritising individual customer needs and delivering consistent, personalised experiences is the only path to building lasting brand loyalty.
As the TBX Report and recent case studies make abundantly clear, those who fail to adapt to a more customer-obsessed approach will struggle to maintain long-lasting relationships.
In 2024, it’s still about purpose, as long as your brand’s purpose puts the ‘me-first’ needs of the customer at its core.
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