The Future of Branding and B2B Sales in the Coming Age of Metaverse, Industry 4.0 and Cyberworlds
Updated: Jul 3, 2022
If you search for the term "brand" in the marketing literature, you can find a wide variety of definitional approaches, which differ according to viewpoints as well as type and scope. In particular, the legal approach is frequently found, which defines a brand as a legally protected trademark with which a company distinguishes its goods or services from competing offers from other companies. The classical approach, on the other hand, also interprets a brand as a seal of quality to guarantee the consumer a consistent quality of a product.
However, a brand conveys a great deal more than a legal distinction or a guarantee of quality. It is also about the subjective perception of a brand in the consumer's mind and about an image of a product or service that is anchored in his psyche. In fact, successful and strong brands are characterized by the fact that they are unmistakable and assign a positive distinctive image and feeling in the consumer's mind.
Successfully managed brands are therefore always well thought-out and structured in terms of depth psychology - because in this way they appeal precisely to that part of our psyche which reacts to signs and symbols and is mainly responsible for our brand perception. Or in other words: successful brands build an emotional connection to potential buyers and communicate in such a way that they, the brands, weave us into a common story. They make something in us resound and thereby open access to deeper mentally stored "concepts". Carl Gustav Jung would speak here of archetypal and psychic patterns as well as basic motivations, which help to shape our ideas, influence our psyche, and can bring about an emotional force.
The truth is that people don't care about what you're selling, and even in a B2B world, people care about their own problems and how to solve them.
A good understanding of archetypes and related basic motivations naturally makes it easier to develop a good Message-Market Fit and successful Storytelling, which are supporting elements for branding. For my needs, however, I have expanded this framework from Carl Gustav Jung and supplemented it with a contemporary component, so to speak. I assume that the Dynamics of the Internet are influencing the lives of more and more people more and more intensively, and new branding ideas and selling strategies must take this development into account. For me, the Internet has become an Angel of Life, or you could also say a Life Coach (I'm thinking, for example, of my iPhone, which alerts me in good time in advance to an upcoming external appointment, considering current traffic situations and weather conditions). The market of the future thus follows the life advice that takes place on the Internet. Life improvement and the market will eventually become one.
Below you can see a graphic that depicts 8 Awareness and Engagement Triggers to basic needs and desires that want to be satisfied.
The individual triggers can be further detailed. For example, the basic needs for clean air or clean water belong in the Family Life area under the Food topic. Or sleep, shelter and health care to Money and Safety.
Think about how you can position your corporate mission and strategy within this simple framework and where you want to provide life services, solutions or support for this needs. Are you addressing more triggers, like Mobility or Family Life? Or a combination of both? And be aware that the next iteration of the Internet is the basis of this life improvement and co-evolution concept. This next Internet or Web 3.0 is influencing and organizing real life and increasingly acting as a machine co-creating our reality.
Do you still have your doubts about this? If yes, then please spend a weekend on the topic of Metaverse and the Dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0).
We are currently experiencing a great accumulation and convergence of the technologies of the last 50 years, which opens a new world and completely new ways of thinking and dreaming. This includes new forms of interaction, communication and storytelling that will open a new chapter in our socio-economic history and continue to massively change the way we live and produce products.
This convergence of diverse technologies, data, and algorithms that constantly interact with each other and stimulate our brains and bodies with diverse experiences and feelings will eventually bring us to a point where virtuality and the real physical world will increasingly merge, and the difference will become less and less discernible.
In this coming Cyberworld, the dynamics of the Internet will then fully unfold, and the Web 3.0 will take on the role of a Life Coach, as already indicated earlier. Then the Internet is no longer just a medium or a communication tool. It is then a big data space, in which continuously an invention process for the realization of dreams and decisions takes place. Co-evolution: life improvement and market have become one.
A very important point is also this: a Cyberworld consists of the coexistence of communities and Artificial Societies in the data space, and our future brand management must take this into account. Namely, in the future, your marketing and sales efforts must take place in this new collaborative space as a partner to your potential customers in the form of an Avatar. In the future, you must know how to address this artificial society and get the people behind it to connect with your brand and enter a sustainable relationship (keyword: Community Building). One recipe for this could be to offer life advice and services, and this is also possible with complex cutting and bending machineries, for example.
In other words, you gradually need a radically new view to be able to make powerful decisions which will help to drive brand awareness, engagement, and sales in 2022 and well beyond.
Transformation is needed:
++ Navigation should transform into a Community Creator.
++ Data Management should transform into Conquest Strategy.
++ Content should transform into Co-Evolution.
++ Design should transform into Signification.
++ Events should transform into Cult Coding.
++ Corporate Identity should transform into Culture Production.
++ Brand should transform to Avatar.
Thanks for your attention and as always, of course, I appreciate your input and opinion.
Best, Roland
Post Scriptum:
In one of my next posts, I'll tell you about a very innovative tech company that is already implementing metaverse worlds for large, global companies. It's about virtual events and conferences as well as experience platforms that enable brands to present products with all their details to their customers in a virtual showroom.
Please subscribe making sure you don't miss anything. Thank you.
Comments