Brand Keys continues to prove itself as an authority on retail insights and customer loyalty, measuring the direction and velocity of consumer values 12 to 18 months in advance of the marketplace.  As brands, designers and retailers prepare for 2011, Brand Keys identifies 11 trends which it believes will have direct consequences to the success or failure of next year’s branding and marketing efforts.

11 Factors For Marketing Success

The number 11 is significant in the year 2011, according to Brand Keys.  In symbolism and spiritualism, the number 11 is said to represent intuition, honesty, understanding and the ideal. The number 11 is said to provide both insight and inspiration.

1. Value Is What The Consumer Says It Is:  Excessive spending will continue to be replaced by a reason-to-buy at all.  The appearance of ubiquity will be trouble for brands with no authentic meaning, whether high or low-end.
2. Brand, Meet Value:  Brands will increasingly become a surrogate for “value.”  What makes goods and services valuable will increasingly be what is wrapped up in the brand and what consumers believe the brand means.
3. Zappos-ification:  Marketers will have to comprehend what drives their category, know what consumers expect, and where to focus both process and brand efforts.  Zappos sells shoes, but their brand equity lies primarily in the emotional driver of “service” (how they get shoes to customers and accept returns).
4. Ethosnomics:  Brands increasingly must stand for something beyond just rational items.  Brands cannot just “stand for” the cause. Doing what others do and just because they’re doing it won’t work very long or very effectively. Corporate social responsibility efforts will need to be believable, sustained, and engaging.  Some of the strongest will come from the brands that connect the public and the personal in today’s financially-strained world.
5. Differentiation Can Be Emotional:  Differentiation remains critical to brand success as the proliferation of products and services available to consumers continues. While true innovation exists when it comes to the offerings available, differentiation will come from what the brand offers emotionally to consumers.
6. They’re Talking To Each Other Before Talking To The Brand:  Social Networking and DIY media-exchange of information outside of the brand space will increase as consumers become more comfortable with their power to get the true story on products from total strangers.  Brands will need to drive positive feedback out in the virtual world like never before.
7. Friendtelligence:  Influence by friends will also increase.  If consumers trust the community, they will extend trust to the brand.  Not just word-of-mouth, but the right word-of-mouth is what matters. Look for more websites using Facebook Connect.
8. Putting The Brand Into Their Hands:  It is increasingly handheld technology that facilitates transactions.  Brands that make it hard to buy on the small screen will suffer.  Watch for promotions and coupons to continue to explode, especially if the brand can customize that experience.
9. Prolifetition:  Look for increased competition, and not just from traditional brands.  Ubiquitous awareness is replaced by strong word of mouth and positive viral sharing. Knowing what drives a category, what consumers expect, and what creates loyalty can give you a meaningful advantage when entering new and uncharted categories populated by strangers to your brand.
10. Exponential Expectations:  Brands are barely keeping up with consumer expectations now.  Every day, consumers adopt and devour the latest technologies and innovations, and hunger for more.  As app technology becomes more entrenched, brands will be expected to deliver in that space. Look for more apps in 2011.
11. Engagement Is Not A Fad:  It is the way today’s consumers do business.  Marketers will continue to use engagement methods like the right platform, program, message and experience.  But there is only one objective for the future:  brand engagement.

These trends will require changes on the parts of how individuals and companies measure, manage, and market their brands. But after all, isn’t that what the dawn of digital has been prompting retailers to do all along?