The brand is not the hero

The Last Word: A brand does not need to become a therapist, a guru or a life coach. In fact, brands should resist the temptation to do so. Somewhere between a running app reminding you to stretch, a language app nudging you back to a half-finished lesson, and a music platform telling you what your year sounded like, consumers quietly changed.

They stopped being an audience waiting to be persuaded, and became a work in progress. That is why Dentsu’s new Consumer Vision study, Mothers of Reinvention , feels more useful than the usual marketing weather report. Based on 30,000 consumers in 25 markets, it says 87 per cent of consumers believe brands that help them grow will be the most memorable. The line that matters is not “memorable”. For decades, brands were trained to sell to a stable person: the commuter, the parent, the frequent flyer, the young professional, the luxury buyer. Segment, target, convert, repeat. It was tidy, measurable and, for a while, effective. But people no longer feel fixed enough to fit the spreadsheet. Careers are splintering, cities are shifting, families are being reassembled, health is being monitored, identities are being tested in public and private at once. The consumer is not a demographic. Most brands will misunderstand this. They will mistake reinvention for another campaign platform.

Key points

• They stopped being an audience waiting to be persuaded, and became a work in progress.
• That is why Dentsu’s new Consumer Vision study, Mothers of Reinvention , feels more useful than the usual marketing weather report.
• Based on 30,000 consumers in 25 markets, it says 87 per cent of consumers believe brands that help them grow will be the most memorable.
• The line that matters is not “memorable”.
• For decades, brands were trained to sell to a stable person: the commuter, the parent, the frequent flyer, the young professional, the luxury buyer.