Why Meaning Matters More than Noise

“When everything you do is framed by the question ‘is this product or service worthy of my customer and why?’ it changes everything.”

If you know Bernadette Jiwa, this line will feel familiar; if you don’t know Jiwa and her work around helping brands tell their stories, this book is a great place to check out her refreshing worldview.

Meaningful is a book about the importance of deliberately and transparently paying attention to customers and prospects. In this is found the meaningful work most marketers and their brands can only dream about. Jiwa builds on the simple proposition that if brands spent less time shouting “Look at me” and more time telling their customers “I see you”, things would be much less skeezy in Marketingland.

She quite effectively kicks that old touchstone, brand relevance, to the curb, noting that it’s now the very  minimum we bring to a customer amid the clutter, competition, commoditization of our products and ubiquitous customer consciousness.

Jiwa proposes that great brands are much more than relevant; they are transformative at a personal level: “Every successful business creates a new kind of customer. That customer’s story changes because the business exists.” Google, Facebook and Kindle are obvious examples, but so, too are the neighbourhood cafes which claim our Wednesday mornings, the bands we simply can’t go to the gym without and the political candidate who forces us to rethink a position.

She notes the fundamental shift from the old school Awareness to Attention to Action continuum in favour of one that begins with Attraction and requires Affinity to drive action . “Affinity is what powers growth”, and affinity must now be earned in an age when attention goes simply to the highest bidder.

On this base, Jiwa introduces the contrast between persuasion, which is how most of us spend most of our time, and money and true understanding, which most of us guess at with data, personas and proxies.

“Persuasion once felt like a shortcut. We got very good at telling customers what we wanted them to know, and we forgot to consider what they wanted us to understand.”

Tesco got caught in this eddy in recent years, when its focus on loyalty programs distracted it from the reality that customers were looking for lower prices and fewer gimmicks. While Tesco was paying rapt attention to customer metrics, it was managing to not see the customers themselves. “Loyalty cards can’t replace genuine connection, and data analytics can’t always measure what matters most. Meaningful has to cut both ways.”

The middle of the book looks at trends and key shifts in the market – nothing surprising there. The usual suspects are trotted out as grand examples of meaningful brands, including Apple, Disney, Ikea and Amazon. Thankfully, for those of use sick of the usual club, she also holds up newcomers Harry’s, Kahn Academy, GoPro and Shopify as exemplars of meaningfulness (is that a word?).   These latter brands show us that the old rules of brand awareness:

1. Make something for everyone
2. Tell our story
3. Attract customers
4. Build brand awareness

Have given way to

1. Understand the customers’ story
2. Make something they want
3. Give them a story to tell
4. Create brand affinity

You should write this down.

The book ends with Jiwa’s Story Strategy Blueprint. If you do nothing else, go look at this section and give it a go. In addition to the blueprint, she offers multiple case studies demonstrating how it looks for different business models. I would particularly recommend this exercise for new businesses or for existing businesses kicking the tires of a new product or strategy. 

Bottom Line: Marketers who follow The Story of Telling blog, will have seen a lot of this content, but even if  you’re a fan, stick with it because Jiwa expands on her usually spare posts in a very engaging style. This is a generous book by a fresh and important voice, and should be on every brand marketer’s gift list.

Related Posts:

Brand Longevity Tips from Mick and Keith
Sometimes Brands Should Whisper

Interesting Things I Found This Week

A few of you have written lately about your struggles with email campaigns. If you’re looking for some fresher ideas, nice designs or just a bit of forgiveness, check out The Best of Email for inspiration and templates.

Another great spot for help with email, is this site reallygoodemails.com. 

BizMarketer is Elizabeth Williams
You can reach me at escwilliams@gmail.com
or follow me on Twitter @bizmkter