Dear marketing industry, please read…

There is a good chance that you’ve never, at any point in your life, given serious thought to doing any of the following: 

Taken a toilet bleach’s customer journey. Co-created with your laundry detergent. Said “hello” to a new gin. Met your supermarket in the Metaverse. 

Why? Because you live in the real world. Not in some adland make believe. And you’re a real human. Not a consumer or demographic.

Being real isn’t easy. If it was, every agency and their (office) dog would be doing it. But many seem to have forgotten what real people want or need. What really matters to them. 

It’s probably why 75% of brands could disappear, and no one would care.

Well, we’re leading busy lives aren’t we? Rightly consumed with the eternal dramas of love, death, money etc. We’re either too busy, too indifferent, or just too lazy to care about brands. 

Brands need people more than people need brands. 

Reality is, in our technology-obsessed, data-driven world, it’s easy to forget we’re still human with real needs, emotions and desires. Everything has changed, but nothing has changed. 

Let’s be clear, we’re not saying some people aren’t real. We’re saying some work isn’t real. Talking and acting in ways that bear no relation to real life. To be truly authentic, brands need to be relevant and relatable.

Take Dove. They found that 68% of their audience felt advertising set an unrealistic standard of beauty that most women could ever achieve. So, they changed their mission, marketing strategy and the status quo, with ‘Real Beauty’. Dove created a campaign that helped people identify themselves by promoting the beauty of real people, showing how beauty ads distort reality. 

As of today, Dove continues to grow an eco-system by promoting Real Beauty all over the world, and a brand that is valued at 5.1 billion USD. 

Airbnb followed a similar path. Shifting their marketing strategy from performance to people through the belief that Airbnb can be much more than a marketplace that merely connects guests and hosts. Being seen as the servant, not the master. As a result, Airbnb now has over 6 million listings worldwide – that’s more than the top five hotel brands combined. 

Meanwhile, data showed that the home electronics category was dominated by over-blown claims and manufacturing hype. People just wanted the truth. To address this, Hisense created a whole new positioning: Let’s Get Real. Repositioning the brand for the American market and setting out their promise to bring premium tech to the people. One they’ve yet to break. 

To be truly authentic, we need to look past the hype and half-truths. But what is real in today’s customer-centric world? 

Real is standing in people’s shoes. Solving their problems, not ours. In ways that work best for them.

Real is making stuff people want, not making people want stuff.

Real is talking to people in their language, not adspeak. Speaking with them, not at them. 

Real is delivering services, benefits and solutions that add value to their lives, not noise.

Brands don’t need to change the world. They just need to change someone’s world. By being relevant, reliable, and real.

So, let’s make a New Year’s Resolution. More honesty. More truth. Less hyperbole. Less hubris. 

It’s easier to be real than bullshit. Real gets people to believe in brands, not just buy from them. It’s not just a necessity to make marketing real. It’s our collective responsibility in the year ahead.