Several industry leaders are already racing and trying to consolidate their place in the metaverse. Tech giants like Microsoft purchasing Activision Blizzard for $75B and Take-Two's plan on acquiring Zynga for $13B shows that gaming is the first step into the new era of the web. What is the new Black? The internet is a breathing living thing that evolves with its users. Currently a group of well funded and tech driven minds are working on the next project: rebuilding the web on the foundation of cryptocurrency and blockchain aka Web3. Let us take a walk back as to what the previous two versions did. Web1.0 (1990s) brought in online publishing and introduced e-commerce, while Web2.0 (2000s) enhanced the options of sharing content and platforms. Web3 aims to reform transactions and the economy around digital assets. Evolution in progress Blockchain and crypto has been existing for over a decade but recently showed how they are the new ways to monetized new kinds of organization and assets. The rise of NFTs and Facebook's Meta have accelerated the attention and cash flow to the creation of this all encompassing virtual world. The evolution of the Web is usually seen from the software perspective but it is the hardware that will also finally shape the experience of it (personal computer for Web1 and smartphones for Web2) Progress to the next stage will depend on the ever-improving GPUs, photorealistic 3D engines, AI driven content, cloud space and 5G as well as a better understood and sophisticated blockchain infrastructure. Many companies are competing for the next hardware wave with AR/VR glasses as the main key; Extended reality (XR) will be the new black. Larger than just a gaming experience Did you know that there are approximately 2.5 billion gamers in the world who spend a good chunk of their time in a virtual world? The gaming culture has changed drastically over time, where innovations and updates are more consumer centric, creating subcultures of their own. In-game purchases, events and similar attractions make this industry a solid $150 billion market. Gamers have been introduced to digital currency and digital ownership way before it was a norm, and free-to-play garners more attention, this has spread the culture in all types of platforms. In one month, an average Roblox daily user is spending more than $5 a month on the platform. By creating verifiable digital scarcity for virtual goods using NFTs or integrating cryptocurrency as a payment method expands the scope of brands to build a track record in the digital economies in the metaverse. Many gaming companies have shown interest in adopting blockchain technology and NFTs in their system and even though it is not exactly welcomed by the gaming community, it will be seen that iconic IPs that have been existing for generations like Nintendo, will be adopted for the new Web. This gives brands a huge opening to adapt their powerful stories and characters for the new Web era to engage their fanbase. Just like how Adidas has joined the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection, starting the trend of collaborating and adding new content in Web3, NFTs can be the potential IP equivalent in the coming future. It is pretty early to call out and pinpoint exactly how this new era is to unfold. While ideally metaverse is to have free interoperability and decentralized powers, allow people to collaborate and pool resources, it is hard not to say that industry leaders will try to dominate it. But it is proved that gaming could initiate the Meta and influence how Web3 will turn out to be.

Scroll... Tap... Swipe... ... and then you scroll some more. Our eyes and our attention is tethered to these small and large screens equally. Which is why we can spend hours on Tiktok, Instagram Reels, or just binge watch television series, season after season. No wonder, from frustrated parents to tired professionals, we all just want to give our eyes a long needed break. What happens when you close your eyes and just listen? You engage... You connect deeply. As you ease into the intro or the voice of your favourite podcast host, or just listen to a sweet jazz riff playing, audio cuts straight to the emotion and makes you, the listener, open your heart and mind to this medium that is as old as time itself. This 'new normal' There's no medium that has adapted to this new normal better than audio. It is no accident that audio has quickly gained traction and that audio identity and ad spend are ever increasing when it comes to audio. The powerful trio, OTA (Over the Air) Audio, podcasts, digital audio are now delivering what both consumers and marketers have long been craving: a more meaningful connection. Research shows that audio identity spurs more emotions than any other medium, and in the age of measurement, real-time insights and analytics, audio has become an integral part of any advertiser's arsenal. Audio ad spend rose 10.4% in 2020 compared to 2019. Podcast spending will hit a fantastic $1 billion in 2021. And why is this sudden shift happening? It's simple, audio has kept all the emotion and impact it’s always had while adding measurability and versatility that match the moment. Let's turn up the volume! Listen to your Audio Identity... 2020, we all had our entire lives and routines shifted around, and this led to some very definitive and permanent disruptions in our day to day lives. People stuck at home started spending more time listening to podcasts and personalized music. Your favorite playlists and podcasts became as essential to you as masks and sanitizers. One thing is certain, audio will be a permanent solace for the lot of us, just as it has been for the past century, but now audio finally has taken center stage. We know the genres we like more evocatively, the styles and the variations. We know why we like that particular artist because they either pump up our moods during those downer phases, or they just enable us to get in a relaxed state of mind after a long day at work. Screenless finally is catching up If you dread your next Zoom meeting, you're not alone. Screen fatigue is real, but we are yet craving content that we can enjoy without being locked in and tiring our eyes. That's the great thing about audio; it moves with you wherever you go. Think about it- you could be driving the car, walking the dog, or doing grocery shopping, but with a trusted pair of earbuds, your choice of audio moves along with you. But even though you're on the move, it means that your full attention is on the audio. Emotions are evoked - you're yet intently listening. That's the beauty of audio. It's a beautiful medium that you can multitask effectively with. Audio just gets you in the right mood, regardless of where you are at mentally. The heart and the brain are biologically connected. Neuroscience helps us determine how people respond to content and stimuli by measuring variations in heart rate. This measure of engagement is called immersion. And studies show that the more someone is immersed in content, the more they will recall and take action. Meeting Consumers at the moments that matter Immersion is a blend of attention and emotional connection. That’s why the power trio of integrated audio is driving immersive experiences, beating out even TV and social media. Audio can evoke the right emotions, pique our interest, and stop us in our tracks (or in our driveways) with deeply connected and quite often emotional experiences. Brand awareness ads in podcasts jumped from 25% in 2016 to 45% in 2020. Talking is the new clickety click While audio consumption is on the rise, so is voice. We now can control our doors, amplifiers, lights, computers and even our phones with voice instructions. And more so, now brands can even talk back to us. Voice assistants that used to just play music or deliver the weather now offer interactive brand-to-consumer experiences. Brands are embracing the speaker-as-touchpoint phenomenon, adding voice-triggered ads to their audio campaigns. That paves the way for some amazing new opportunities with shoppable sonic interactions. Your bottom line Sonic branding tends to stir up emotions, and if crafted correctly, can lead to brand associations that are meaningful and impactful to the end consumer. In a world of visual chaos, audio is a 'breath of fresh air'. It is the place brands need to be, to enable them to stand out from the noise. Audio is trusted above all other media - more than TV, more than social media, and even more than Google...

At the Unmarketing Agency, we've always encouraged different thought processes, because we've always felt that collaborating within the difference of thoughts and ideas is what strengthens us, and not what limits us. The whole Elon Musk putting up a whopping $43 billion to outright purchase Twitter, delist them, and run them as a private entity, all in the name of free speech, has stirred up controversy from 'free speech' advocates, to 'tax the rich', to 'eliminate billionaires' and so on and so forth. But in my perspective, everyone is missing a deeply fundamental point - Elon Musk was amongst the first generation of internet users, and of that extension, entrepreneurs that were created in that space. To him, the internet is a whole lot different than most of the younger generations who grew up with the internet as a part and parcel of their lives... Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 There was an old culture from Web 1.0 (pre-90s) to Web 2.0 - pre Facebook, AOL, eBay, etc (pre-2005s), that had a very strong free speech culture. Let me explain from my personal perspective. During this time, I had just left Dubai, United Arab Emirates, graduated from high school, and moved to Boston and then subsequently New York, but the explosion in exposure to new concepts, ideologies and thought processes left me in awe. Most of this was from the early internet companies like mIRC, Kazaa, Napster, ICQ and a whole lot more. You have to understand that from the 90s to early 2000s, Dubai was at best a small town, the landmark structures it is currently known for, were starting to build, but it was yet a fairly small community. I knew all my neighbours in my locality by name, by character and by reputation. Walking down to the corner grocery store, the bakery and even the bank involved interacting with people I knew either personally or at least by name. The Dubai then, was not the flashy metropolis people aspire to go to today. More so, Dubai was also pretty closed off at that time. Ramadan meant you wouldn't dare to be seen out in public, eating or even drinking water. You had to be careful of what you said, free speech was not a reality in early Dubai days, and the danger was that everyone knew you, so there was no anonymity, no cover to articulate your views without the danger of repercussions. So when I suddenly found myself in Boston, I was shocked to see that censorship was gaining momentum. Religious conservatives sought to ban rap, hip-hop and heavy metal, for as simplistic reasons as they 'felt' those music genres were satanic. Violent games (even though they were heavily pixelated) were considered bad influences on our youth, and dangerous to the future of our society. Anything that affected the so-called moral fabric of American society (at that time), including porn, music videos, etc had to be banned. Free speech of Web 1.0 For me as a foreign kid in the land of the dreams, home of the brave, this was more of a culture shock. You see, I grew up watching movies on how Americans fought against all odds for what they believed in, so suddenly realizing that they weren't all that different from the rest of us, was a huge slap in the face. But for us Gen Xers, the saving grace of that time was the internet. Programs like mIRC, ICQ, were lifelines for us. To us, the internet represented the best of the human spirit and ingenuity, a new frontier, a new world. To us, the internet would be the evolution of our kind, of our species, allowing us to aim for the stars. But first starting at our home world, evolving our thought processes, making us more attuned to new ideas, new frames of thought, new ways of thinking... The internet was supposed to usher in the next evolution of mankind. But... while it did all of that, it allowed us to truly be ourselves. While we would wear avatars in the online world, use usernames like sapiothinker999, we were truly being ourselves. For those people who were outcasts in the real world, and the so called geeks and nerds, we congregated online, exchanged ideas, thoughts, notions ... anything and everything. The internet originally was meant to be open source, a liberated space where all of us could freely think without fears of repercussions and worrying about the other camp. Free speech to us, was the freedom to be yourself, so we fiercely protected that ideal with a ferocious zeal. Elon, being amongst some of those early entrepreneurs of the golden internet age, free speech to him is not what free speech today is perceived to be. As he says, "Creating a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely supportive to the future of civilization." And he is not wrong... The world has fundamentally changed... It's not that the principle of 'free speech' has changed, or is no longer valid - it definitely is. It's that the practical issues that uphold those principles are hugely different, because the world is different today, and is presented with a larger set of challenges that are more complicated to uphold than it was in the 'heyday' of the internet. The internet is no longer that frontier where you go to be free. Today, it literally is where the entire world is. The internet is so ubiquitous, that it's as common as electricity in our days. Culture wars are now being fought on the internet, in the same way culture wars were fought in the news channels, television shows and courtrooms of yesterday. Upholding free speech in this environment is not only challenging, its an imperative. Why? You are not only standing against some religious conservative nut, or someone trying to mandate the information you are fed- you are now fighting against everyone. All because the other side is trying to take away the rights of those who think different from themselves. We've had this discussion amongst friends, and even amongst our colleagues. All our left wing friends are convinced that the algorithms unfairly favour the right wing, misogynistic patriarchy, and they have tons of evidence that show this happening. All our centrist/right wing friends are convinced that the algorithms unfairly favour the Marxist, LGBTQIA+, Anti-government, anti-business agenda, and they also have tons of evidence that show this happening. These egregious violations cannot stand- they both say, it is a danger for free speech. But whose free speech? I think us Gen Xers understand this fundamentally, but what we should be talking about, is how internet culture has changed since its inception. Donald Trump was not banned from various tech platforms because they didn't agree with his politics. His politics have been pretty clear from the start. Donald Trump was banned from politics because his actions on the platform threatened the whole integrity of the platform. 'Free speech' is a cognitive construct: it does not have a physical reality, but our combined powers of human intelligence and perception, has imagined it as a fundamental right. Every nation has a limitation to 'free-speech', for example in Germany, 'free-speech' is allowed, but definitely with no Nazi undertones. This is why the notion of free speech varies with cultures, and quite possibly with time. Today universally, free speech is without spamming for example. The algorithms that these tech platforms run on, do not have a fundamental bias - they are algorithms, or mathematical formulae, and quite honestly most of these tech platforms do not really care about your political bias. If they didn't spend so much time and resources, continuously adding pointless new features to fix our conflicts, they'd be releasing new features that would better our society. Elon Musk realizes that, a company that is, at best a platform where we articulate our thoughts in public for the world to see, cannot be run in the conventional capitalistic sense. It needs to be a private entity, run for the sole purpose it was created for. For us to post memes, quotes, thoughts and most importantly to be an idea exchange platform between cultures, people and groups. Now if Elon Musk can get us to that point, possibly bringing back the heyday of the internet glory days, hell he's got my support...

Human advertisement Time and again it is preached to tailor ad campaigns where the customer is the hero, where ideas and discussions are encouraged, stereotypes are dismissed, and brand is the highlight instead of the product. It may not sound that rationale as the product is what the customers are after right? What we fail to see is that our customers are humans first, whose decisions are guided by their emotions initially. So connecting to them in ways more than just the product, results in higher chances of conversions. Ads are a great outlet to showcase your brand personality and what it truly stands for. By letting your audience know you, your ideals and goals, you may create a relatable brand personality for the target groups to agree with. Plus it is understood that living personalities are better connected with and leave lasting impressions than the product itself. Many brands have tried and tested this method, usually ending up with good results. In this article, we’re going to see different marketing campaigns that have been speaking volumes in volumes. Netflix This American streaming service and production company has established themselves very well all over the world. We know Netflix not only by their logo, but their sounds as well. Sounds that are specific to the brand play a major role in their personality, which is why sonic branding is a scope not to be forgotten. For example, Apple’s notification ping or Windows logging out. I am sure it played in your head while reading this. Their ad campaign played that sonic branding card, and said that everyday scenarios can be a start of a great movie or series, if one can recognise them. See how they just related good movies and stories to “Tudum”? Dove A personal care brand that believes beauty should be a source of confidence, and not anxiety. As the age long saying goes, beauty is pain, this brand stands to defy that and change the definition of beauty. The Dove Self-Esteem Project fights for the younger generation who are constantly bombarded with social media fantasies and unrealistic beauty standards. This is a concerning issue seeing how today's generation battle with insecurities, affecting their overall mental and physical health. Highlighting their agenda and opinions humanises the brand, creating a following that supports and stands by them. Sinyi The 2021 Cannes winning campaign got people talking, challenging their mindset and the norm of questioning marriage. Such is the power of good marketing campaigns. This campaign was made keeping in mind the growing trend of divorce in Taiwan which ranks 1st in Asia and 2nd in the world. This is not good for real estate business since newly wed couples are their main target group. While the campaign will not bring an overnight change, it is a long term shift in the mindset of the people. Before its release, an online debate about “the age of doubting marriage” was launched by the agency. The ad garnered 14 million likes in a week and more than 40 news outlets in Taiwan reported on the film and numerous local celebrities shared it on their own social media, creating millions of dollars’ worth of exposure. Heineken A beloved beer brand took the pandemic and launched a series of ads in its own cheeky and humorous way. #socialiseresponsibly ads were positive, hopeful and witty as they showcased different problems and scenarios faced in the past two years. From virtual meetings, the longing of being out, to in-person gatherings, Heineken has shown that it is not the end of the world. It also openly advocated vaccines which has affected its brand following both negatively and positively. But hey! As long as you have a loyal group who believes in you, you are not alone. Apple Needing no introduction, this aspiring brand has established itself so well that now, their campaigns are powered by the customer itself. Introducing #shotoniphone where the world took this challenge to showcase the product. Instagram itself has more than 15 million posts on it. It built a community where the users felt as a part of the brand, increasing brand retention to 90%. At the same time, UGC also establishes trust and credibility of the product because people trust real users and their reviews. Showcasing their top-notch product, real content from real users, brand awareness and social media; they ticked all the boxes in the right way resulting in increased sales. Axe We are all too familiar with the axe effect. Initially it depicted women swooning over men who used the product, but conversation of toxic masculinity and sexist stereotypes led them to abandon the tagline in 2016. Now there is a refreshing take on the tag, where they have adapted to the mindset of today's consumer, bringing in inclusivity and positive attraction. (see what I did there?) This new Axe Effect depicted in “The Walk” draws attention from a broad range of people and a dog too! The entire video is active, warm, positive and definity humorous. Today, people are not only confined to one type of attraction therefore the open minded concept chucks out the sexist stereotype, a good riddance. It definitely takes advantage of the time when everyone is finally stepping out after the pandemic. Conclusion Your marketing campaigns connect you to your target audience, and deeper connections lead to loyal followers which in turn convert to sales. It is a no brainer that what you portray will determine what you attract, therefore keep it real, simple and human.

Someone had mentioned that Covid is like a toxic ex that you cannot get rid of, and truer words have never been spoken. This relationship had break-ups and make-ups in waves, in both crests and troughs, each much worse than the previous. Now we have completed our second anniversary with the onset of the third wave. By now we should have adapted to it, (because the show must go on!) and have our own techniques to deal with it. That is my role today, a good friend who is willing to give ‘relationship advice’ which you will hopefully listen to... Online makes it easy Looking back, the way things would work will not yield the same results today so it is imperative to understand what has changed. Every brand has a specific target audience which changes in due course of time. The past two years brought a radical change in the preferences and priorities of humans in general. We have moved from a semi digital market to AI centered formulas, which are expected to take lead in the coming future. So the first “DO” is to move online as soon and as smoothly as possible. Gone are the days when customers would come looking for you, now brands have to look and ‘target’ their customers. A website and social media can be the first step to the internet, but it doesn’t have to be the only way. Content (like what I am trying), Email and SEO are some of the few ways to keep the steam engine rolling. If you are new to this approach, refer to our blog on social media, it's fresh out of the bakery. Personality matters… Now that we have established the channel of communication, let us see how we should communicate. Marketing, ads and outreach means that you will need to connect with your audiences, hence keeping the brand and the campaign emotional helps to strike a chord with your target group. The story or message that you want to say should reflect the brand or its ideals more than the product. Keeping an online presence with strong brand personality is bound to create a loyal following, though it is a long procedure needing constant effort. Solidifying your brand perceptions and ideals will help target groups relating to your brand. If you want to create a brand that is a greater human experience then check out our blog on story and it’s telling. How to keep the conversation going We have spoken DOs in terms of Brand, but conversions happen with products right? So what are the DOs for products? We have already established brand sensitivity among the consumers and they are price sensitive as well. If you are in the competitive market then no matter how huge the following, your prices will be affected by your competitors. Enter +1 marketing where you highlight your strength, specially in comparison to other players in the market. It is important to show what sets you apart from the rest. What more do you have to offer which others cannot. If you are eco-friendly, supporting local business or catering to people in various languages, it is important to highlight your strength; because Consumers expect brands to fit into their lives, and not the other way around. One has to understand the trends and expectations of their audience, complete with market research to ace that +1 marketing. Keep in touch While you are trying to establish a brand through emotional resonance, one must not wait to create campaigns that are meaningful. Ad campaigns that are data and story driven, meaningful and economically viable, should not be an occasional occurrence. Agreed that hoping on trends and influencers give it that oomph, make it look sparkly, but all that glitters is not gold. So take a pause on the appearance and give each campaign a level of depth for the audience to swim into, something to think and ponder about later. Another approach is to keep the campaign close to real life i.e., to bring it down to the common people, highlighting their lifestyle and situations, keeping it real. This will make it easier for your audience to relate and maybe take your conversions higher This is the third season of Keeping Up with the Covid-19; and by now we should be prepared for it. Adapting to changes and trying to ace the campaign is not any easy feat, especially when there are too many to please; experience, time and patience is imperative. Good Luck!

If you look around, almost everyone is busy tapping on or staring at a cellphone. Everyone is somehow consuming multiple data and information, consciously or not. TV advertisements, hoardings and radio are not the only way to place your brand in front of your target audience, and is definitely not that effective either. In today’s digital age, one way to be prevalent in your audience's mind is via digital advertising, especially in social media platforms. About half of the world is present and active on different social platforms, which totals to about 4.2 billion active users. On an average, people spend 2 hours 24 mins on Facebook itself and let’s not even start on Youtube, Instagram and Twitter. So, if this year's marketing plans do not include social media, this opportunity is slipping right past your fingertips. What’s so good about social media? Marketing doesn’t just include promotions and advertisement; it is about communicating effectively so that your customers and target audience understand the brand and its products, or even its core message. Social Media is a platform that allows customers to talk and share about their thoughts, giving you a sneak preview into how the brand is perceived. It provides a channel to engage and build a direct relationship with your target customer. The rich communication options available in social media, enable your brand to stay on top of their mind. 70% of social media users log in to their accounts at least once a day. Sounds like something you want right? To be the first thing that strikes someone’s mind. Well, the key is to be relevant and social media is one way to keep up with ongoing trends. These platforms are built in a way that humanizes the brand, help you portray the brand character, create a following, promote content and get viral, plus we know that it is inherently addictive. Social Media Marketing is not only used for promotions, it is a way to gain insights. They have their own systems that give you data on how your brand is doing, if it is gaining or losing traction, how your customers are engaging with your page (very important) and finally how your competitors are performing. Your Armoury Okay, now I shall ask you to name different social media handles… You probably came up with Facebook and Twitter instantly, and on further thought maybe Pinterest, Quora and Instagram? But did you know that this is just the tip of the iceberg? What most know of social media is basically social networking sites but there are multiple types of social platforms to get your brand out there. Each platform is beneficial to different types of business, so if you want to market well you have to see what platform suits your business. Let’s first dive into the types: The First one is the most common and often mistaken to be the sole form of social media. Say hello to networking sites. This is created to connect to your family, friends and maybe make some new ones. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter connect and allow users to put their thoughts out. Users generate their own content, post for either private or public audiences, create groups to share their interests and have discussions. Basically, it's purpose is to network and get to know people. Next are image sharing sites like Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and Imgur. There are video options in these sites but the majority of their traffic is based on pictures. It is again User Generated Content based but the conversation is over a picture. A picture can speak a thousand words and these sites take advantage of that particular fact, to showcase ideas and products more visually than via loads of text. Video sharing media like YouTube, Vimeo and Tiktok need no introduction. These sites keep the user engaged with trendy short videos or vlogs or even series. Consumption of video content has been revolutionized ever since YouTube entered the scene. Community Blogs are one way to push your original content out. Sometimes pictures and videos are not enough and not everyone is ready to run their own blog, hence the existence of shared community blogs like Medium and Tumblr. While there is communication, sharing of knowledge and discussions on other sites, Quora and Reddit is the go-to place for answers. These sites help in engaging conversations and proper informative discussions, where the information is considered almost legit. Anyone can ask questions and someone in the community will provide a legitimate answer. Social review sites are checked more than you imagined it would be. 91% of 18–34-year-old trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation while 93% of consumers say that online reviews color their purchase decisions. Reviews are proof of services and products to other potential customers. Yelp, TripAdvisor and Google My Business allows consumers to leave or read reviews. What to carry to the Battlefield? Since we know that social media is a powerful weapon for marketing, let's see which type of social media suits which business model, to enable you to effectively utilize social media for your business. Business to Business (B2B Social Marketing) As a business to business model, you aim to connect with other businesses as well as your target decision makers. This can be a little tricky because your business contacts may have different goals and needs than an average consumer does, but the goal in social media is not to sell; it is to humanise and create awareness. Social media can be used to produce and push out content, where you can easily educate and build trust in the market or community. By gaining a following, you look more trustworthy and credible, making others want to connect or establish trade with you. So what do you choose from the armoury? Linkedin: Built in 2002, this is The Networking site for any professional. Let me tell you why. First, there are more than 55 million companies listed in LinkedIn, so it won't be that tough to reach out to any type of business based locally/globally or in your target industry. Second, according to LinkedIn, out of all its users 180 million are just senior level influencers; say hello to establishing professional networks directly with decision makers. Facebook/Meta: This site needs no introduction. While it may seem as a great outlet for B2C, you would be surprised to hear that business decision-makers spend 74% more time on facebook than an average user; out of 2.38 billion users, 74% of the people say that they use Facebook for professional purposes. So it would be a great idea to maybe have a facebook business page, engage in your niche groups, and be a part of the overall community because eventually that is what Facebook is about. Twitter: Most of the business celebrities tweet on a regular basis just to keep their followers engaged. The stock market can be shaken by a single tweet, such is the power of 280 characters. While instagram and snapchat appeals to the younger crowd, Twitters comprises more of the mature audience, with 63% of its users between the age group of 35-65 years. 12% of the worldwide population use twitter to get their news, while there are 70 million accounts who follow twitter topics to stay up-to-date with the relevant discussions. Youtube: 80% of US marketeers are confident that youtube videos convert. The growing numbers of users in youtube foreshadows that in the future to come, consumers will stop subscribing to pay for TV services. It is a great place to create content visually, gather subscribers and collaborate with other businesses or accounts. Content like product demos, brand stories, vlogs and how-tos circulate like wildfire, while long videos (generally 15 mins) outperform shorter ones. Slideshare: You may wonder how Slideshare is a part of this article. In case you have missed it, Slideshare is now a part of LinkedIn Media, so now you don’t just have a banner ad, but an entire presentation specifically curated for your audience embedded in your LinkedIn post. This platform receives five times the traffic from business professionals than any other platform, with 1,140 slides viewed per second. Business to Consumer (B2C Social Marketing) Connecting directly to your customers, reverting back to their feedback and creating content for a huge group of people can seem like a mammoth of a task. Business to consumer models are more customer centric which makes social media a key outreach method in this digital age. So where exactly do you start? Facebook: The original social networking site is the obvious contender for the B2C businesses. Facebook is where most of the world is active and engaging, the king of social media used by 59% of social media users. Relationships can flourish well as you have a direct reach to your audience and the average time spent by a US user is 33 mins. It is seen that young adults prefer using this site as 65% of the users are below the age of 35. So while creating ads on facebook, make sure you tailor it for your audience. Instagram: This photo based social media has intelligently used the power of pictures, making 42% of the world log in several times a day. So any business that needs to connect and stay relevant can use instagram to boost their social presence. In terms of demographics, according to Statista, more than half of the global users are younger than the age of 34. This is the originating platform for influencer marketing, where an average business account has a 1.68% monthly growth in account followers. Tiktok: This is the app that has set the world on fire since its inception in 2017. Due to the pandemic, the app has grown to be the third most popular social media platform, creating a huge market for SMEs. The app is filled with GenZ users, about 60% who in time, will come to be the largest generation of all. The interface of this app makes you explore not only the people you know but also content of different topics and people which makes the discoverability much better than other apps. Snapchat: Is your target audience around the millennial generation? Well then snapchat is the app for you. While it can’t compete with instagram and facebook, doing business in snapchat is not a bad idea if your goal aligns with their users. With 238 million users in the year 2020, snapchat is an undermined space for marketing. So go create a business account and start your marketing campaign, for users are now spending 35% more time on the Discover section of the app, where users can see content created by other business and public accounts. Twitter: As explained before, this social networking site can make or break the world in just a few words, which if used wisely can be a huge boost to your business. With 187 million monetizable daily active users, having a b2c account would ensure a decent following and customer base. The app boast of being the #1 platform for discovery where 79% of the users seek to discover what is new. So if marketed right, your reach can be amplified to several folds, reaching many curious customers. Youtube: With 38 million active channels, out of which 22000 have a million subscribers, Youtube is still an unsaturated market, used second most after facebook. This social platform allows you to interact through more content that is not static and more creatively expressed. 40.6% of Youtube watchtime happens on the mobile while the largest user age group is 15-35 years old. There are many ways to keep your audience engaged, like educational videos or animated infographics, AMSRs and experiential videos. It is important to note that videos of higher quality tend to get viewed more if the topic interests the audience. Pinterest: This app is another platform which encourages the use and sharing of visual information. Here the competition is light, with 500,000 business accounts, compared to 70 million user accounts. Between 2019 to 2020, the number of Genz users have increased by 40% indicating that the app is to rise in the coming years. The fact that most of your pins will be re-pinned and shared more, gives hope that the social outreach will be quite high if directed properly. 25% of social media marketers are using pinterest which again makes this an unmined field, as 90% of weekly Pinners make purchase decisions based on Pinterest. Are we ready to march on? Social media is a direct and useful approach to marketing, but it is not always easy. It takes time and expertise to figure out your audience, understand them and eventually gain their trust. But once you have your base and research fool proof, you are literally a click away from growing and expanding your business influence in the ever growing market.

Flat design, is one of the biggest buzzwords in today's design stage. And especially today, a lot of companies are moving into flat design. From logos, to user interfaces, and even to general communication material, flat design has become more or less ubiquitous. Let's start with the logos. Companies spend a lot of money making sure their brand is easily recognizable, and that their audiences associate a higher value with it. So much so that this particular trend of design that was very unassuming, suddenly gained a lot of popularity and fast. In terms of logos, most people don't stare at logos for a particularly long time, and the average time for noticing and observing your logo is only 3 seconds. Less is more Walter Isaacson, formerly Managing Editor of Time magazine, once quoted Steve Jobs: ‘for Steve, less is always more, simpler is always better’. We all know this saying, first popularized by minimalist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, which has been transformed into a platitude by advertisers, TV shows, and even corporate America as it tries to pitch an alternative reality to consumerism. Enough about philosophy. In design, 'less is more' is achieved through only using elements that are required to achieve a specific objective. Similar to minimalism, flat design communicates to a broader reach of audience through simplicity and straightforward design. Not to mention that it is hugely applicable for use on any screens, or any platforms be it print or digital. Compare it to its weird cousin skeuomorphism, flat design focuses more on usability than familiarity. It all stems from a very basic fact, humans are able to decipher visual cues far more easily, than being given complicated designs to understand what we are looking at. By minimizing the design language, you are automatically removing the distractions that would otherwise come in the way of you communicating your message. Is Google responsible for flat design? While Google definitely popularized this type of design and made it mainstream, it wasn't the first into the foray of flat design. Ironically it was Microsoft that was the pioneer, after the Scandinavian folks actually made it a thing. First Microsoft executed it not so effectively with Windows 8, but then Google and then Apple made it a universal language, because it was a part of our day to day lives. Which leads us to the next question, how do you distinguish flat design from other types of designs? Bright but muted colours Bright colours are generally used to make elements stand out from the rest of the noise (which is why muted colours and bright colours make a killer combination). It's actually quite simple when you think about it. The bright colours draw your attention, and if you have multiple bright colours in the same space, they generally compete for attention. One bright colour vs a background muted colour, gives you the impression of a foreground vs a background effect. The foreground is always attention grabbing and in focus, the background complements the foreground by allowing it to take center stage. Flat design is harmonious Flat design was built as an answer to skeuomorphism, but it takes the best elements of both skeuomorphism and minimalism and brings them together as a killer combination. Not only that, flat design is approachable to users and oddly relatable. It's all about creating that visual zen, which is enabled by a lot of white space and significantly reduced clutter. Flat design improves readability Flat design allows users to consume content with ease, irrespective of whether the content is on a mobile, desktop or television format. Accompany any flat design with a clear copy, the message is driven home and it enables your users to grasp any content. Minimalism move over, Flat is here to stay Minimalism was an art, architecture and design form, well before the web was even invented. But what flat design takes from minimalism is its razor focus on efficiency. If it's not required, chuck it! Distractions are never a part of the equation with flat design, it has to be simple, legible, and most of all it has no embellishments. Flat design is endlessly adaptable The reason why flat design is so popular is its adaptability. With a flat logo, you are not restricted to the choice of background that you can use, the intricacies of the design itself allow it to be used extensibility over a variety of backgrounds, colours, designs, etc. The Famous artist Edgar Degas once said, "Art is not what you see, but what you make others see." This all goes in hand with our screens becoming more and more high definition. With an increased resolution, comes a more crisper image, and with most of the other design styles, that makes it difficult to scale and to be representative of the technological advances we are undergoing today. Flat design might eventually be replaced by something in the future, that's the nature of most design styles, but in our view flat design is just a reincarnation of its print ancestry in our digital lives. And in all honesty, it's nothing new, it's just a repurposed, digitized version of minimalism.

Warning - User Experience may very well be contagious It's been years since I have executed a myriad of user experience projects, and I warn you, you very well risk the chance of being infected. Now if you are still reading, let's go on. But remember, I did warn you... Do you remember the time you had your first drink? The first time you kissed someone you cared about? The first taste of a medium rare steak, or a great burger? The first time you got hired? Picture those various situations, visualize them, and remember that at no point were you able to get back to your original state after that momentous event. It quite simply changed you in irreparable ways. Everything varies, and in this circumstance, so does the symptoms. Some (luckily) are immune to the infection of UX, and manage to go through life following the crowd. But some of us are infected, never to return to a state of normalcy again. Now I know you must be confused, after all its not like I am actually talking about an infection (like Covid-19), or am I? The infection I am talking about is the tainted lens that us UX professionals view our lives through. Think of it as an Instagram Filter. Only problem, it's always on and always working. I liken it to an invisible augmented reality screen, that shows me information and analyses even when I don't want it to. And I realised this when I figured that UX (User Experience for you novices), plays a massive role in my purchase decisions. Add in a touch of nice design, branding, and I'm almost generally a converted customer. It's annoying. From the car I drive, to the laptop I use, to the headphones I wear, and even to the mobile I use on a daily basis, I tend to evaluate everything from a UX perspective. And I realised I was different, because I would go so neck deep in research, you'd think I was buying myself a house when in reality, all I was buying was a nice Faber Castell ink pen. Most of my friends would purchase products just because the rest of the group had it. Or better yet, the majority would purchase products just to outclass the products that the rest of the group had. If one had an iPhone 10, the next would buy the iPhone 11 the moment it was released. Purchase decisions were so simple for them, it was all about who had the newest gadget. But for me, the unfortunate outlier, I wanted to know every detail of the product I was purchasing, and it had to have a definitive cost to benefit analysis before I even made a purchase. How I got the bug that is UX The year is 2004, I had just winded up an early startup, and exited from it due to some disputes with my partner. All my money had gone into the business, and I needed to find a job pronto. Plus I had a baby on the way, barely 4 months before she would come into the world and I didn't have the luxury of choice. A friend from a prayer group, recommended me to a senior IT manager in one of the largest multinational companies in Dubai, he liked me and he started me as a system administrator for the group. My job was simple, manage their gigantic server farms, networks and whatever else the job entailed. 2 months down the line I found myself working with Sun Microsystems Blade Servers and Cisco networking products, and I remember thinking for something as complicated as a Blade Server, the instructions and videos on the website (remember it was 2004), were so comprehensive that they simplified the process immensely. Here I was used to fixing and installing desktop computers and all of a sudden I was installing large servers and it was actually easier than building a desktop computer from scratch. But not only that, while the servers were so easy and seamless to work with, in contrast the Cisco systems (both edge switches and the core switches) were a nightmare to work with. The GUI for the management console was cumbersome and very, very annoying. A job that shouldn't have taken more than an hour stretched to 5 hours, and even then it was never done in a single day. And this was not only a problem that I faced, it was a problem that every system administrator faced in the 78 locations we had around the world. And so began my first foray into User Experience. By that time I was the Assistant IT Director for the whole group, and we commissioned a project to simplify the overall deployment process and management of the Cisco switches. I was hooked immediately. Working with the Software Developers, I quickly realised that the tech part was not so much the problem, but it was the layout and the interface that needed to be completely revamped to work for our organization. Now remember I was a virgin in the User Experience world, and at that time UX was yet a fairly nascent field. I had absolutely no clue about terms such as usability, heuristics, user centered design and so on and so forth. But eventually like all things good, it ended up being a rabbit hole and I went down through the deep end. Now you might be thinking, this 'disease' is actually quite harmless. I didn't hear about UX from some guru, but I learned about it's application through a problem, and from then on nothing ever truly stayed the same. But I understood how UX could impact every moment of everyone's lives. And how important it is. From the microwave you use, to the elevator buttons, to the car interfaces when you drive. And many professions are just like that. I know copywriters who can't read a newspaper without pointing out copy errors, or film makers who can't enjoy a film without being critical (I do fall in that category too). The fact is you start noticing things that other people just don't see, and it's infectious and it starts colouring your daily lives. That is very normal. But with UX it's different. We get frustrated not with ourselves, but instinctively put blame on the manufacturers, when a washing machine is overly complicated to use, and our patience or threshold for poorly designed interfaces is so much less than your average populace. Having to use something that is poorly designed especially when there aren't a multitude of options, gets even more frustrating. It was so much easier when I was clueless about UX and it's applications, it made my life so much simpler. Why are there so many buttons? Like take my microwave for example. For something that is literally made to quickly heat up food, you would expect it to be already optimized for that very application. Wrong, most microwaves have a plethora of buttons, and this all could be solved by just two buttons. Instead almost all microwave manufacturers place so many buttons that the average consumer would rarely use. And especially in the age of the swipe and multitouch interface, the microwave interfaces have not changed since they've been invented in 1955. So how can we solve these problems? We have to make User Experience more accessible to the masses, so much so that it has to become a part of our everyday vernacular. User Experience makes it sound so technical, I mean it is a lot better than its previous iteration (HCI, which is Human Computer Interaction). I think maybe a rebrand is in order, how about Human Experiences? But maybe its not a branding problem, maybe we need to make Design Thinking a part and parcel of our education system. To me Design Thinking is a solution based approach, and it challenges all assumptions made. Design Thinking is an iterative process in which we seek to understand the user, challenge assumptions, and redefine problems in an attempt to identify alternative strategies and solutions that might not be instantly apparent with our initial level of understanding. The simple way to explain it is that we the designers, or the manufacturers have to completely remove ourselves from the equation. The end user is front and center, and it involves a deep understanding of the motivations of the user that we are designing the product for. Now remember earlier that I said UX is like a disease? Well like any disease it needs to spread rampantly. It needs to be so common, that the push back from frustrated end users make manufacturers take User Experience seriously. Simply because they should stop designing such crap. And maybe, just maybe I can finally stop being frustrated about the smallest things because good and practical design might just become commonplace.

Why I consider Dune to be a masterpiece It's the year 1995, I'm a strapping 12-year-old who was a massive introvert. So much so that friends were hard to come by, not because I didn't want any, but because my family travelled about a lot. So friends to me were a luxury, books were my solace. My mother being an English teacher would bring a bunch of books home, so that I would brush up and be eloquent in communicating through the medium of the English language. In February 1995, my mom brings this hardcover book, which showed this weird creature that you see in the image above, the sandworm. A couple of chapters in, I was hooked, and then went on the spiral into Marvel Comics, Star Wars, Star Trek and Sci-Fi universes that I so passionately adored and admired. But Dune was the first one, and as they say, you always remember your first. When it was announced that renowned director Denis Villeneuve was hitched to bring the Dune Universe to life, I was over the moon. Like Denis, this was a book that I got hooked on during my teenage years, and for decades I have consumed every single piece of the extensive books that are associated with the Dune Universe. I watched the first film by Daniel Lynch (1984) in 1999, and the three-part mini-series in 2000. For a Sci-Fi fan who has loved comics all of his life, I always wondered, why no one bothered to readapt the Dune books for the large screen. Enter Hans Zimmer One of the most respected and prolific music composers of our time, Hans Zimmer was also a fan of Dune. Shocking I know, I honestly never expected it. “We both read it as teenagers, but we didn’t make the movie with hindsight of age and wisdom,” Zimmer said in a recent interview with IndieWire. “As soon as we started, we were transported back in time … and I did music with the recklessness and craziness that only a teenager has. Just whatever came to me. And one of the other things was that it’s hard to explain musical concepts, but we’d finish each other’s sentences, because we have both been making this movie in our heads for 40 years.” The sonic landscape of Dune is a masterpiece, from the house Atreides that has a familiar yet comforting signature of the bagpipes from the Scottish Highlands to the House Harkonnen which is ominous and threatening, to the Sardukar who mimicked the throat singing signatures of the tribes of Mongolia and finally the 'Song of the Sisters', that signified the entrance of the witches of the Bene Gesserit. Each had a familiar tone, that was attributed so cleverly and so powerfully to familiar/unfamiliar overtones of our current human history. Sounds that bridged the familiar while yet being ethereal In fact, most of the sounds were created through some of the first experiments by working with musician and sculptor and welder Chas Smith, whose studio is a resonating chamber, so a lot of the sounds originated from there. The sounds were all-encompassing, it enveloped you so subtly, that it took me a second time watching the film to truly appreciate it. But the beauty of that experience is that its core DNA was the sonic signatures that you automatically associated with the houses, with the political dalliances and its associated counterparts. "The sound of 'Dune' wraps itself around you in a way that I haven’t ever experienced before, and now you finally get to hear it," Zimmer said. Along with synthesizers, the Dune score consists of disparate elements like scraping metal, Indian bamboo flutes, Irish whistles, Scottish Bagpipes, Mongolian throat singing, a juddering drum phrase, seismic rumbles of distorted guitar, and a war horn that is actually a cello, and finally singing that defies Western musical notation. It is both unorthodox and provocative, as you would expect from an imaginary world that defies the natural conventions of what we associate as normal. In fact, Zimmer turned down an offer to work on Nolan’s last film Tenet to focus his energies on Dune. In a way, Zimmer said, he has been working on this soundtrack ever since he first read the novel as a teen. “I’ve been thinking about ‘Dune’ for nearly 50 years," he said. "So I took it very seriously.” The score is so ambitious and so comprehensive that it is truly one of the most powerful and profound pieces of Hans Zimmer's entire career. People watch a plethora of content today, from movies to television shows and not only that, we tend to binge watch things. Sonic and music have always been known as powerful drivers of content—an expressive enabler that makes this artificial, imaginary world come to life. Now you as a brand, or as its brand manager look only at the visuals, the branding language, the designs, the advertising campaigns, but truly, have you considered how powerful and impactful would layering a sonic signature be to your brand? An all-encompassing signature from visuals, branding, motion identity and most importantly sonic identity can propel your brand forward, and truly make it a living brand. Because after all, if you are touched and affected by every sense through which you experience the world, wouldn't that impact your lives so much more, make that brand all the more meaningful to you? We in advertising, talk about changing the game through experiences, memorable stories and so much more. And this is not only for brands, this is for TV shows, events, and definitely movies. Affect the totality of the senses of your consumers, you are now offering them an experience, a memory and a connection that they never thought they needed in their lives. If you need help in crafting that signature story and that sonic identity that really drives your customers up the wall, contact us and we'd be only too glad to assist you.

What do stories have to do with advertising? Capturing your audience's attention is no easy feat. Netflix knows this, which is why their TV shows are cleverly crafted to encourage binge-watching. You know this, dare I say every one of us has that one show, which was or is our guilty pleasure, that we end up watching episode after episode, until the season itself is over, leaving us craving for the next season. So what is it, that keeps us hooked, keeps us wanting more? It's storytelling. We like to think of ourselves as logical beings, and we are to some extent, but we are also emotive beings, and it is that emotion that drives us to live our lives to the fullest of our abilities. It's the emotion that connects us so viscerally to each other. Stories are able to communicate complex messages in very specific and emotional ways. Stories make things memorable, it's the primary driver of how we communicate with one another, so in that measure, brands that are trying to connect with their customers on a deeply fundamental level, should use stories powerfully and profoundly. So what separates a powerful story from a mediocre one? We've worked with numerous brands to help them craft their stories to communicate their message to their consumers, and this is a conundrum that we have seen repeat itself over and over again. In order to start, you need to truly understand your customer. Step 1: Develop your Customer Personas Developing Customer Personas is not rocket science. It may sound complicated, but it isn't. If you have the tiniest inclination towards who your ideal customer ought to be, a persona makes them relatable and accessible to you. So, let's say you are a real estate company, that develops ultra-premium luxury apartments. You already know that the income segment of your ideal customer is $x and above. Develop the character further, be creative. Assign them an identity, imagine what their day-to-day life is like. Flesh it out further. Do they have a family? What are their interests? What are their primary motivations to buy an ultra-premium luxury apartment? By developing your character and going deeper, you start to see patterns form, you start to realise that there are key motivations that drive their decision making. But don't stop there, add more personas that fit the profile of your target customers, make them different from each other. And eventually, you will start to see patterns coalesce and form. Customer Personas provide a tremendous value and insight that is more qualitative than quantitative, it helps you understand your customer's needs and motivations and how you can help them. Step 2: Start with the skeleton of the story You don't need to go into massive detail in order to craft a story that is memorable, but you need to have an idea of the flow of the story. This is where you craft the 'what' and the 'who'. What is the story or the primary message that you are communicating, and who are you communicating it to? A story to succeed has to have three primary parts: It needs to be relatable It needs to be emotional Finally, it needs to have a cohesive flow The character or the hero has to be relatable to the audience. It means that he/she has to be grounded in reality. In terms of the story, its relatability allows people to empathize with the plot, characters, and themes in a way that its core message appeals to your target consumer. Emotions are another key driver. Humor always breaks the ice, and it doesn't hurt to inject a bit of humour into your story. It's about creating a story that evokes powerful emotions. It can be a 'feel-good' story that slots your brand into that experience, or it can be a story that enables us to relate better to the characters in the advertisement, it could be a story about connection, it could be about a good many things, but as long as it forms meaning for the viewer, it has fulfilled its purpose. Finally, the flow. Stories always start with a conflict, a problem that the hero or heroine is facing, a process or a journey to resolve that problem, and then the final resolution. That cohesive flow allows the user to easily digest the message that is being communicated, simply and powerfully. Step 3: Choose a protagonist carefully Remember when we did the exercise of the customer personas and the detail that you had to go into in order to properly flesh out the character? In the same way, you need to do that with your primary protagonist. The hero or heroine is the face that you associate the story with, and for that reason, you need to choose a character that the audience can relate to immediately. The character has to be appealing, people should vouch for him/her and feel strongly for what they are going through. The character has to be well-defined and intriguing enough to leave an impression in the audiences' minds. Step 4: Place the most interesting elements at the beginning of your story As with a good article, or a book, you have a hook that draws the reader in. So is the same with a story. You need to have a compelling enough introduction that keeps people watching till the end of the advert. Especially in the age of Youtube ads where the skip button is the most clicked button on the internet today, it's ever so important to have the introduction be so compelling that the viewer chooses not to click the skip button and watch the next 30 secs of the ad, and then the next 30 seconds and so on and so forth. The first 5 seconds of any advertisement is highly critical and plays a massive role in drawing the viewer in. Step 5: Create some sort of "conflict" Why I hear you asking. Conflict is the easiest way to keep an audience hooked. Everyone wants to know the conclusion, they want the resolution, and hence, they will watch until they feel that the conflict is resolved. But how much conflict do you create, and is there something like too much conflict? The conflict doesn't need to be drawn out, but it is important for the protagonist to fail at whatever they are trying to achieve. If they get what they are looking for immediately, there is no story for the viewer to follow. When you add to these differing perspectives, opinions and obstacles, you create a "follow-through" path that the viewers are eager to see resolved, because they are already invested in the protagonist's story. Step 6: Find the sweet spot between telling the story and listening Now imagine you are in a room full of people, and you are narrating your story. But here's the catch, none of them are listening to you. Will you be able to tell your story after all? Nope. There is a symbiotic relationship between telling your story and keeping your viewership hooked. Most of the time the nuances can be found in the silence. Use your visual landscape to your advantage, and tell the story viscerally through the accompanying visuals and associated emotions. Identify those obstacles we talked earlier about, and understand why those obstacles are meaningful to your viewer, why does it keep them hooked? You need to understand your viewer's attention span, their likes and dislikes, what is their primary motivation and why the protagonist's story is meaningful for them. Remember the personas, this is where it all comes together. Step 7: Keep it Real There's an argument that people watch TV to escape from their reality, and there's some truth in that. However, TV shows have to be based on reality for people to feel connected. Even Sci-Fi shows and movies are deeply human, in being emotional. Remember we said that humans are emotional beings? People are driven by emotion, and a story grounded in that emotional reality is profound and meaningful to your viewers. We all have a "sixth" sense when we have a gut feeling that someone is not being authentic. This is even more prevalent in the stories that brands put out. Twitter is rife with people making fun of brands that fake authenticity, and it backfires on them massively. Do not steal other people's ideas, or stories, they are deeply personal, neither should you come across as a brand that is trying to impress them. Many others have done the same before you, and they have failed miserably. Staying true to your brand, its personality and what it stands for is fundamental to the art of story-telling. If your brand embodies thinking out of the box, don't be afraid to be funny or humorous. If you're a hospital or a healthcare organization, people need to know that their lives and their health are safe in your hands. People are drawn to products from brands that speak to them, that they feel connected to, so don't feel afraid to show them who you really are as a brand. Leaving a lasting, memorable impression Brand storytelling is an art. And it's an art form that many tout to be experts in. To be a good storyteller, you need to understand life and its nuances. To be a good storyteller, you need to have a story to tell. Luckily for all of us, life is filled with those stories that connect us and unite us in ways that we just couldn't fathom. If you need inspiration, turn to your team, involve them in the process. This is a great exercise for team building, and ramping up inspirational stories amongst one another. Finally, if you're stuck, we've created stories that are impactful for a number of brands across the globe, and we'd be more than happy to assist you, contact us if you need help.

Data driven storytelling: The transmutation of quantitative data into qualitative experiences What is a story? To understand the story, we must first understand life. To tell a story, we must understand life and then have something to say about it. Life is not a journey, it is a struggle. As said by Robert McKee. A story is how we make sense of life. We live our life in the middle of scenes and acts all intersecting each other, characters interacting and defining our circumstance. Circumstance intersecting itself and defining character. As William Shakespeare put it, "The world's a stage and we are all playing our part." “You may have heard the world is made up of atoms and molecules, but it's really made up of stories. When you sit with an individual that's been here, you can give quantitative data a qualitative overlay.”, William Turner Everything now is data driven. In our present world, this statement runs high on the scale of profound knowledge. Everything now is data driven. Apps, websites, supermarkets, schools, hospitals, games, social networks, everything is collecting some sort of data as it is the most important resource in the postmodern era. Consumer behavior, market data and all that jargon really fills up a lot of magazines. Yet, the story and its telling is more important than ever. Every business now has a key person employed in their workforce. The Analyst. The role of the analyst is to understand and advise the direction of decisions for maximum impact and in turn profit. Let’s take an example of a character called Noob Noob. Now Noob Noob has just had a break up and to fill the iron fisted void, has turned to a song called Oceans he had first heard by John Butler, half a decade back. After all that was his go to song to feel better ever since. Of late he had been going to that same song quite a lot. He clicks on the youtube app to go to that song and as he clicks on the link, he is greeted by a 10 second video of a beautifully crafted spanish guitar being played by a person without a care in the world. Noob Noob is mesmerised at the free flowing carefree nature of the man in contrast to his own resilient conflict. Struck with a stroke of creative aspiration, he has a mental checklist of things that, on being met, act as triggers for small bursts of dopamine that, in an otherwise miserable scene, bring him joy. He continues on to the video and after 7 minutes or so, is empowered to tell his own story. So he goes on to amazon and buys himself a guitar that is supposedly going to be delivered to him in a day. He thinks he is getting it for a steal because of the high discount percentage that is shown on amazon after markup. Afterall it is the most productive use of time: learning a musical instrument. One day he will write a breakup song just like Taylor Swift. Seems like today, he won. Great going Noob Noob. Let’s think about this process a little more. Noob Noob is a human character whose decisions, no matter how logical, are still affected by emotion. For Noob Noob, his story is powerful, relevant and the story that is closest to him. His emotional conflict leads him to find a resolution that leads him to purchase an instrument that will help him express himself to relieve himself of an internal struggle. At the moment, for Noob Noob, life is not a journey, it's a struggle. He is trying to understand the ‘who, what, why, where and how’ of his own conflict. Now Noob Noob may not have thought of purchasing the guitar in the beginning of the day because the guitar as a product had no relevance to him in his story or his struggle but given his current emotional struggle, a slight nudge from a aspiration and a possible avenue of release, purchasing this product is a no brainer. The product that started out irrelevant in his lifestyle is now more than a guitar. It is his friend that helps him express and continue his story, through his difficult time. A quantitative analysis would generate the data that this person is visiting the same link multiple times, after the link, he visits some other pages, motivated by the content that is designed to rouse interest and aspiration and although he closes the purchase link more times than ever, because his logical centers tell him otherwise, he still has his heart clawing away behind his thoughts. On a qualitative approach, the analyst decodes this quantitative data to try and recreate the archetypical story of similar individuals and applies the takeaway to guide business decisions of the guitar company that ended up selling their guitar to Noob Noob in the first place. Noob Noob's emotional state had made him act in a certain way that generated quantitative data. Consider it like this, the emotional data was encoded into a series of timestamped digital flags. The analyst sees a pattern in this and studies other relevant sources to decode this data to understand the motivational datapoints, understanding these motivational data points across multiple sources gives him a hypothesis. He is effectively creating a projected storyline for a group of consumers going through similar experiences. He takes this story and advises the branding team to create content that resonates with this archetypical group. The content is designed to hit the right spots for the viewer as it offers the resolution that they are seeking on a deeper story level. The guitar company has effectively used the analyst to transform their product through the power of storytelling into something more than just a lifeless instrument. They have made it a character in someone’s story. The brand goes on to becoming a cult for everyone through shared experiences because who hasn't gone through a heartbreak, right? Your brand is a part of a greater human experience. In present times, with the burst of content creation and brands struggling to stay relevant every day. Story is more important and difficult than ever. I remember a few years back I was having a debate with a friend over a simple question. Does product/ content move the market or does the market flow according to the content/ product. Honestly, the way I see it, there are two things that matter. The story, and the telling. The product and the consumer are the characters in that universe. If you want to go deeper into the world of data driven storytelling that incorporates more than just simple audio visual content, then choose the red pill and get in touch with us.

Both focus closely on the user, or the consumer, but are they really two sides of the same coin? If so how are they closely related? If not, what's the difference? User Experience while complicated in it's process, is rather quite simple. Imagine a product, what's associated with that product, what's your experience with that product? User Experience is literally an all emcompassing 'everything' that's associated with your product. User experience is a journey a user goes through in order to reach their goals with your product. User experience is all about interactions — no matter what touchpoints users interact with, and all touchpoints have to be seamless in their interactions with the user. Brand Experience Data is an important aspect of understanding experience, whether it is in user experience or in brand experience. However, data guides our design decisions, helps us understand the users motivations, but data alone is not enough to build great design. A data driven approach does not lead to product success. Some may argue with me on this, but its a fact. Having the right vision, brand story and visuals that support your data are more important than the data itself. And this is where brand experience comes in. Brand experience caters to the user, even before they are a user, and even before there are users. It relies on visuals and our senses to communicate a particular message and goal that when a user comes in, its fairly obvious to them, what that message is. Couple this with designs, visuals, colours, fonts and logos you now have various palettes that communicate differently for different brands, even though virtually they could be misconstrued as the same product. So is Branding essential to User Experience and vice versa? Branding and User Experience are generally considered seperate disciplines, that intersect only when there's a website build or a mobile application build. I'd argue that the intersection should happen way earlier. Both branding and user experience focus on the exact same thing; the customer. While the brand experience caters to the customer, before they even are one, the user experience caters to the customers interactions with the product or the brand. But if we have to hit customers consistently through all touchpoints, User Experience and Branding have to intersect to deliver elements like the Brand Promise (how the brand looks, speaks and acts), brand consistency, brand identity and brand imagery. Let's take an example. Imagine you've identified your brand archetype as being an explorer. You know that brand behaviour is ambitious, independent and pioneering, how can we ensure that all touchpoints (online and offline), communicate the characteristics of that archetype clearly to the customer? Back in the day of push advertising, we'd design newspapers adverts or television advertisements that communicate those aspects front and center to the customer. There your brand behaviour was an exhibition, it wasn't a one on one engagement with the customer. In today's online age, when a customer visits your website or your mobile application, they are directly engaging with your brand. And every point of interaction with your website will directly influence the customers' perception of your brand. Your brand is formed primarily, not by what your company says about itself, but what the company does. Jeff Bezos, Amazon Inc. Incorporating your brand values to your website is not a luxury, its a necessity. Nike infuses their brand values by offering shoes that are completely customizable to their customers tastes, whims and fancies. This not only plays into empowering users, but also shows their innovation and, in the end, the customer gets a product that is more authentic to their own style. What are Nike's brand values? Empowering Innovative Authentic So how do you connect your User Experience and Brand Experience together? You need to connect the dots between the real experience that your customers go through, and the brand promise you put out there. Cohesively integrating the two disciplines involve: Defining your brand promise What is your brand promise and how do you communicate it on your interactive touchpoints? It shouldn't be just a video saying,"Hey we are Brand X, and our promise to you is this!". It should be cooked into your design and should be a key influencer of your product decisions. It's a metric or a ruler that you continously measure yourself against. Are you as a brand fulfilling your promise to your users? What is your objective? Your objective should be clearly communicated to your users, and your users should feel it when they are using your product. This is what leads to a greater retention of customers, brand advocacy and ultimately brand loyalty. Collect and analyze user feedback and criticism How can you measure feedback if you don't collect it first. Make sure your product has enough ways for users to address their concerns, it doesn't need to be a feedback form at the end of the day, but it could be a simple Facebook Messenger or Twitter engagement tool on your website. Your customers need to feel their feedback is important to you, and that you are looking into their concerns. Combining your branding and your user experience is an important part of your brand or product development. Both disciplines are equally important and shouldn't exist in their own silos. Understanding the brand promise, attributes and archetype helps inform interactions on the site. Understanding the users helps us make sure that the interactions and features will be valuable, useful and usable. Our aim as marketers should be to delight our customers, and we can only do that by working together across the multifacted divisions of the marketing universe. To learn more about how we approach user experience and branding experience, contact us now.