The Markitects - Sustainable

We believe sustainable behavior change is like any type of innovation.

It needs to cascade from the 10-15% niche of early adopters to the mass-consumer. From convinced idealists to more indifferent pragmatists.

Marketing skills are vital to help reach scale beyond the current niche of eco-conscious consumers. We see our job as marketers to make positive use of all the marketing science. We know how to reach the mass consumer. in order to have a significant impact on the planet, a fact-based / scientific doom & gloom approach doesn't trigger action.

We need to inspire the indifferent. Ignite the desire. Habit change must be AND sustainable AND sexy.

In a globalized world, multinationals are continuously competing for our attention. With limited resources, eco-friendly alternatives need to use the most advanced and clever strategies to achieve stopping power & conversion, mostly without big budgets. Now sustainable entrepreneurs don’t like the M-word. But they do want to reach the masses fast. Marketing is a tool to get there.

So we now call it “Change acceleration” from now on.

We believe sustainable behavior change is like any type of innovation.

It needs to cascade from the 10-15% niche of early adopters to the mass-consumer. From convinced idealists to more indifferent pragmatists.

We need to inspire the indifferent. Ignite the desire. Habit change must be AND sustainable AND sexy.

So we now call it “Change acceleration” from now on.

Acquisition or Adoption marketing

Innovation adoption is slow. It follows a curve, reaches early adopters first, then diffuses towards peers and eventually the majority or mass consumer. In order to help clients reach that tipping point as soon as possible, tools & arguments to reach each group will need to be adapted: The masses tend to be less engaged, distracted. They need reassurance, reviews and good customer service. Factors have been identified to accelerate the adoption of an innovation.

Brand vs. Product Marketing

Customer-centricity is well known, but tech clients still tend to love their products and being passionate, talk too much science / geeky features. In an attention-economy, brands need to inspire. Even B2B or HCP buyers are humans. Consumer marketing can be applied to more functional buying processes. Human decision-making (where 80+% of decisions are made before the first conversation) encounters the same marketing issues than B2C brands.

Behavioral science for better decisions

The science of how we take decisions allow brands to refine the ways they convince (or "nudge") us. Patterns of consumer behaviour reveal underlying mechanisms that can then be activated effectively. Choice architecture, psychology of scarcity, timely prompts, social pressure: interventions at key steps of the conversion funnel were found to reduce the gap between intention and action by staggering 20% on average.

Content or Inbound marketing

Marketing moved from push to pull. One-size-fits-all mass marketing campaigns can be useful, but intrusive overcommunication and budget waste has made Marketing evolve to personalised 121 marketing: relevant, contextual and valuable. Yes, customers expect value (“what’s in it for me?”) from every touch by a brand. And since 80+% of decisions are made online, valuable content became key to brand-building and credibility.

Cause Marketing or Purpose

Beyond philanthropic responsibility, companies with a strong Purpose inspire consumers more. "Think Different" has become the reason why Apple attracts rebels. Buying an Apple badges me as unconventional, even though other brands might be functionally better. Consumers (not only millennials) expect brands to match their values. Using Dilts’ ‘logical levels’, we reverse-engineer brand positionings based on context, behaviour, values, vision and mission.

Corporate brand development

A marketing strategy that doesn’t apply only to a specific product and customer, but needs to address to the multiplicity of stakeholders. A corporate brand must inspire both investors / B2B clients / B2C consumers / buyers and non-seeking prospects. And in a global online world, it needs to be unique not only in 1 geography, but across all social media platforms. Corporate brands that can answer all these constraints without being complex, that is the question.

Change Management

Often coined for intra-company work to push change, we are convinced that it has more to do with the adoption of new products / services / habits. As discussed in our Sustainable chapter, we’d like to rebaptise Marketing into “change acceleration”. Why? Well, marketing is has been (mis)used to invent unneeded needs, to stimulate overconsumption, contributing to ressource issues. But Marketing is a tool, it can be used to stimulate change “for good”.

CX or Customer Experience

Consumer expectations are fed by the most advanced and responsive brands (GAFA, start-ups, digital pure players). So like it or not, the brand experience needs to respond to rising expectations (be recognised, remember what I ordered, act upon what I told Customer service yesterday, free retour handling, etc.) In a sharing economy, we don’t share normal / average experience anymore. We only talk about bad experiences or super-overdelivery.

Consumer marketing

Our wide experience in consumer-facing industries (aka FMCG) developed our B2C reflexes. A frequent question from non-FMCG companies is to become part of the team ad interim, to inject consumer-thinking across company touch points. We worked in Telecom, B2B, Healthcare, Non-Profit, Government Institutions, Banking, Start-ups or Citizen Movements. Marketing questions tend to be similar, but B2C brands evolved more rapidly under pressure.

Prevention Marketing

We love cars, but we don't enjoy buying an insurance. We love the sun, but we hated putting on sunscreen. We love our planet, but not really sure about wanting to stop flying to prevent climate change. The question is : what if we could make prevention inspiring & desirable? Without making it regressive/negative/fearful. We know from Greta that doom & loom approaches work to get some awareness, but knowledge only doesn't bring us humans into action.

Differentiated Marketing

Personalisation, contextual, stakeholder needs. The diffusion of innovation theories say that early adopters will be driven by different motivations, react to different messages and go through conversion funnels at different speed / ease than a busy / non-interested / hurried / distracted “late”-mass consumer (~the tipping point to success). "Go where the people are" is a marketing mantra : where people's heart lies, where they surf, click or block.

Differentiation

"To be irreplaceable, you need to be different", Coco Chanel. Own a territory. Claim an irreplaceable part of people's brain. Explain your unique value to the world. If your positioning is clear, you'll spend less in media, be less copiable. We help our clients to become lighthouse brand identities, to break out of commodity-type communication and do what's needed to reinvent themselves, remain fresh, edgy, relevant to their audience.

Data is the new fuel

Do I generate data-precision to use digital to tailor my brand messages for each level of engagement? Do you own data to personalise your relationship to end-users? Do you track people's behavior at every touch? GDPR asks us to be vigilant, respectful and non-instrusive, hence more creative! Data allows contextual sequences and scenarios to send the right message to the right person at the right time. It's the "new normal" that's being expected.

Digital Marketing

Some say there’s no such thing anymore, ALL marketing is digital. We work with expert partners to digitally transform business models. This type of collaboration is quite appreciated, as even with all algorithms or MarTech stacks, you still need to ask the right strategic questions. That’s where the architect comes in, being technology-neutral, we ensure that all work remains strategic and on-brand. Beyond OR, CTR or programmatic tricks, we build brands!

Green Marketing

Being driven by sustainability at the core of our company, we could argue the same point as the previous one. The objective is that ALL marketing/businesses become sustainable, cradle-to-cradle, regenerative and positive. If Marketing "for good" becomes a key tool of change acceleration, it's the end of cosmetic greenwashing. We believe in AND AND decisions : brands must be profitable AND have a positive impact. More in our “sustainable” tab.

Growth Hacking

Digital allowed small start-ups compete with large corporations. Online tools enabled them to "hack" growth with low budgets, to find daring / creative ways to target their audiences and build relationships without traditional media campaigns. We like to serve both NGOs, SMEs or start-ups without budgets, as they force us to explore non-traditional approaches to achieve awareness and ultimately conversion. Keeps us awake!

HCP Marketing

Doctors, be it general practitioners (GP), pharmacists or specialists (gynaecologists) shouldn't be marketed to as science-hungry B2B buyers (in technical / product focused way). Strange as it sounds, HCPs are humans too: predictably irrational/emotional. From omnichannel and digital transformation to launch implementation, micro-learning selling tools and yes, even high level medical writing (KOL-ghostwriting).

Social Media Marketing

Think instagrammable 1^st: Campaigns, CX, products or services need to be designed with “sharing-in-mind”. What makes it worth sharing on Facebook, TikTok or Instagram? How to we influence opinion formers on Twitter or Linkedin? Content strategies to stand out in crowded feeds, stay on-brand, deliver value to my stakeholders ("what's in it for me?" for each persona). How to set up content-factories to fill the year's conversations?

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