-: David, welcome.
Does the current business environment, in your opinion,
require marketers to think differently,
to think more strategically,
perhaps about precision branding?
-: I do think so, and some of our recent work
has illuminated some really tremendous opportunities
for clients to get sharper
about how they approach branding investment.
For example, a couple of new findings include
every dollar that a client takes out
of brand marketing budgets now,
we find that they may have to reinvest $2 in the future
to regain the lost market share.
We're also finding that the investments
that a brand makes for a brand in one demand occasion
may not actually play to the strength of another occasion,
and so clients need to be thinking about
which demand occasions really matter for them strategically,
and potentially focusing more of their investments
in the ones where they have a right to win,
and maybe even pulling back in places
where they're either already winning so handily
they don't need to invest,
or where they have more of a lagging approach
and will never be able to catch up.
So that precision branding idea is getting very sharp
about where it makes sense to allocate your investment,
and then having the fortitude and confidence to do that
over multiple years with the right kinds
of milestones and measurements behind you.
-: Let's talk about gen AI, it's the hot topic.
What role do you see it playing
in helping brands to not just reach,
but engage their audiences,
but also the tech is moving so quickly?
David: Yeah.
-: How do you stay on top of that?
-: I think there's really a great opportunity
with precision branding to be thinking about
different demand occasions, different audiences
needing different messages or content,
and that need for more content then is served by gen AI
where the cost of delivering versions
or different messages, and different creative elements
has dropped hopefully in the future.
So I think there's really that promise
of a targeted precise marketing campaign
that's scientific and rigorous, I think,
is supported by gen AI at the helm of building out
scalable content that allows you to do it.
-: Who's doing precision branding well?
What does best practice look like?
-: Well, you've heard of many of the ones doing it well
by virtue of the fact that they are so good at branding.
So, you know, the household names
that are so good at this include Apple, you know,
Amazon, others that are
really high, they're champions within their field,
they've over invested for years,
and then now have reaped the fruits
of those investments over time.
We also find that in a digital world, you know,
many of you may see that
there's that new brand on Instagram
that's targeted to your niche or to your friend group.
That's an example of what probably in the past
could not have possibly been economic,
but now brands might be able to play in niches
leveraging digital tools and precision branding components
to get in there and become a really well known brand
for that specific area of expertise.
-: So what can smaller businesses learn from those big ones,
how to do it well?
-: I think one key thing is: understand
where you have a right to win, with what audience,
with what kind of demand occasion, or need,
and really focus more of your investments
into that demand space.
Too often, brands might take a 1970s playbook
of a broad mass campaign, and a digital challenger
might really need to overspend in a much smaller area
in order to really capture the mind share
of an audience within that territory.
-: David, thank you so much.
-: Of course.