Brands in the Ecosystem of Product are facing content quality degradation: the digital experience that they work so hard to craft is not coming through when the story telling is being delegated to retailers.
Since man began to barter, through the evolution of commerce and until the age of the internet, companies focused their efforts on first crafting a story and then bringing that story to life directly to their consumer. Success for the organization was proper training and materials for these folks. The story of our products was delivered with a relatively high rate of quality and accuracy because we were there to witness our consumers experience it: our sales floor teams immersed the consumer in our brands and directly gaged the feedback and our contact center, closer in proximity of message to “corporate” was a catch-all and fail safe used for reinforcement for the consumer who called in.
As the wave of the internet reached our shores, the corresponding tide raised many boats! Seemingly overnight, ‘cost of sale’ and the effort to reach masses with information plummeted with digital commerce and media quickly being adopted as the corporate preference. This change in internal cost structure for brands has downstream impacts: less and less showrooms, more and more ‘digital baskets.’
For organizations on the manufacturer end of the ‘ecosystem of product’ (Effectus defines the ecosystem of product as manufacturers, distributors, retailers and other supporting organizations) gone are the days of brand sales teams. What they do best is make their product, and thus, “expert” sales and distribution channels are leveraged for a large portion of go-to-market. We told our own stories in the past; others are now telling it on our behalf. This shift in brand-consumer relationships, centered around changing the way the consumer experiences your product, pre-purchase towards mostly (if not 100%) digital has some unintended consequences: the quality of the story being told.
People buy from organizations and brands whom they trust. In today’s environment, being able to experience a product in person is a challenge. Excellent content quality is then one of the few levers that brands have left to try to build that trust and connection with their consumers.
Explore the infographic below explaining the impacts and root causes of the gap between brands and their consumers.
