Turning Up: Go Where Your Customers Are

It starts with really knowing your customers – once you do, you can appear not just in the channels they spend their time in, but in the places they live their lives in. How you do it is key. These brands demonstrate how to authentically connect with customers.

Turn up when they need you

So, how to connect with customers? If you can prove to your customers that you understand their problems, you can fast track your way into their hearts. Even better is if you can show up with a solution. From the silly to the serious, solutions come in all shapes and sizes. But they should always relate to your brand or product.

For example, Nike noticed that running routes in Lima were littered with potholes, making for an uncomfortable ride through the city. So, to help local runners, Nike filled the potholes with the same springy material that’s in its running shoes. Not only solving a problem, but giving potential customers a free demo at the same time.

Turn up when they’re at work

We spend something like 90,000 hours of our lives at work. That’s a lot of time in front of the screen – but it’s also another great opportunity for brands to demonstrate they show they understand the everyday lives of consumers. Turning up in this space can be effective because it’s unexpected and can add a dose of delight to your audience’s day.

Spotify has been a champion of this in recent years. Its B2B marketing focuses on CMOs, finding creative ways to positively disrupt their workdays. In its last campaign, it made a music video coded and experienced entirely within an Excel media plan, which was emailed to its hyper targeted audience. By taking the everyday visual language of marketing and giving it a twist, Spotify entertained its audience in a surprising way and proved how to connect with customers.

Turn up in the real world

With social and digital taking so much of the limelight nowadays, it can be all too easy to forget that consumers are also going about their lives in the real world. Taking your brand offline can be impactful, offering entertainment in the everyday. That’s exactly what Monzo did when it partnered with Greggs to create a sausage roll-dispensing ATM in the heart of Newcastle. This activation caused a buzz on social media, and had people queuing in the city centre for Monzo and Greggs products.

Turn up in their interests

It might seem like we’re stating the obvious, but consumers are interested in a lot more than what brands are selling. From sport to gaming, music to TV, consumers are most engaged when they’re absorbed in their passions. If you can find an authentic place for your brand or product in their past time, hobbies or interests, you can integrate yourself into their world.

There are a reported 1.17 billion gamers playing online around the world. Obviously, this is a huge market to tap into. Gamers are focused with their attention well and truly on the screen. If approached in the right way, this can be an effective opportunity. Instead of interrupting the experiences, you should incorporate yourself into the gaming experience. So, when Wendy’s realised that the in-game restaurant stored frozen burgers, they found their way in – because “Wendy’s doesn’t do frozen beef,” it created a new game mode where it tasked players to destroy Team Burger.

Similarly, Burger King got gamers changing their nicknames to different Whopper ingredients, flooding the leaderboards with their product.

Turn up everywhere (within reason)

Sometimes, there’s a reason to put your brand everywhere. If done in a considered way, it can show how your product is relevant to a wide market.

When the V&A Museum wanted to broaden its appeal and prove that it has something for everyone in its collections, it showed up with clever activations that targeted specific people across the country. From sneakers to model making, tattooing to bookmarks, the V&A turned up in niche magazines, second-hand clothes shops, golf courses and more to demonstrate how it fits with culture everywhere.

The authenticity issue

In traditional channels like OOH or TV, customers are expecting advertising – it’s a universally-accepted compromise. But when they’re going about their everyday, it’s all the more important to make sure that your messaging and creative isn’t completely disrupting their experience. You need to make sure that you’re making the experience better.

It’s a double-edged sword. Get it right, and you could find you’re getting new love from your customers. Get it wrong, and they might never forgive you.

But the added benefit of an activation done well on an unexpected channel is that it won’t be constrained by that channel. A great idea can live beyond specific channels when it picks up PR or gets shared organically. The Monzo x Greggs activation might only have been directly experienced by 100 people – but hundreds of thousands have seen it on social media. The potential amplification of just a single activation is what makes this so opportunistic for your brand or product.

Conclusion

So, how do you take your first steps to going where your customers are?

First, you’ve got to find where they are. Ask yourself, how well do you know your customers? What are their interests? What other brands do they use and associate with? Put in the research to ensure you understand your audience, and find unique insights that only someone like them would know.

Then, make sure you turn up authentically. Find the natural crossover between your brand and their lives. Don’t interrupt their experience: make it better, easier, more exciting. Show them you know them.

If you’re interested in exploring new channels and connecting with your audience in more meaningful and impactful ways, get in touch with our Strategy Director, Mark, to talk through what we can do for you.