The Interaction Field – Vivaldi https://vivaldigroup.com/en Writing the Next Chapter in Business and Brands Tue, 27 Jun 2023 22:00:39 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.22 A Force of Attraction: How You Can Create More Gravitational Pull for Your Brand https://vivaldigroup.com/en/blogs/a-force-of-attraction-how-you-can-create-more-gravitational-pull-for-your-brand/ Thu, 21 Oct 2021 11:26:01 +0000 http://vivaldigroup.com/en/?post_type=blogs&p=6153 The relationship brands have with their consumers is going through a revolution. A new consumer contract is being written and it’s not the brands who are leading the way. It’s their consumers. Social, cultural and technological trends have changed consumer behaviours and expectations beyond recognition. And the revolution is still ongoing. This is challenging companies […]

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The relationship brands have with their consumers is going through a revolution. A new consumer contract is being written and it’s not the brands who are leading the way. It’s their consumers.

Social, cultural and technological trends have changed consumer behaviours and expectations beyond recognition. And the revolution is still ongoing. This is challenging companies in every aspect of their business and brand strategies. They need to be able to respond quickly with innovative approaches to customer experiences and marketing communications.

If your brand and marketing communications still centre around pushing out messages to potential customers, you’re going to be left behind. In today’s marketplace, the ability to engage consumers and pull them into your sphere of influence is vital for any brand that wants to maximise growth.

Those who understand how to create this irresistible force of attraction – or Gravitational Pull – between brand and consumer will succeed in the modern digital-first world. However, while some brands have undeniably got it, many others are struggling. In this article we’ll share some valuable insights, uncovering the nature of Gravitational Pull, its impact on brands and how you can evolve your marketing communications in order to create it.

What is Gravitational Pull?

Gravitational Pull is created when a brand acts, communicates and creates experiences in ways that allow people to more deeply connect with its mission, vision and values.

The theory draws on the concepts of attention, relevance and network effects to create a deep consumer affinity with the brand. Brands with gravitational pull deeply empathise with the reasons why a person has turned to them for a solution, and understand how to create a connection on a deeper, emotional level.

This results in a level of customer loyalty and advocacy with the brand that naturally pulls more and more people into their orbit. With powerful brands we often see consumers not only freely share their love for it with others but also defend the brand when it comes under scrutiny or receives criticism.

Gravitational pull doesn’t just attract people to brands, it helps to retain them as customers. Customers will look to the brands that are most relevant in their lives for new solutions as the need arises. Brands that integrate well into people’s lives are harder to switch away from. This can be a result of compelling ease of use, or it can be the effect of different elements working together. Apple is a familiar example. Their products work well together. Once you have the phone, the laptop is worth considering. Once you have those an Apple Watch looks like a good purchase. And when it comes to replacing your phone? Well, it’s so much nicer when everything works together, isn’t it? Why suffer the inconvenience of switching to a different platform?

This level of engagement may have been difficult to quantify in the past. However the data-driven nature of digital communications means we can start to learn how to track this phenomena in real time and even predict its impact on the bottom line.

The Impact of Gravitational Pull

For Les Binet, one of the godfathers of marketing effectiveness, really smart marketers focus on building ‘memory structures’ that bias consumers’ behaviours into the future. This builds the brand long-term, creating a natural preference for it that can then be converted efficiently into revenues through smart activations.

Binet recently unveiled the results of six years’ worth of research that has started to create some data-driven evidence pointing towards the effectiveness of creating gravitational pull. His work shows a connection between a brand’s share of organic search (arguably a proxy for an aspect of gravitational pull), and future market share.

This reveals that share of online search is a key indicator of brand power, both in the short and long term. Perhaps most interestingly this long-term prediction can also act as an early warning system for brands. An example of this is appliances brand LG. LG’s share of search fell and, in turn, both search volume and then market share followed a downward trajectory.

Binet’s research starts to reveal a key financial correlation between having an effective gravitational pull and market share. However it doesn’t explain how to create the phenomenon.

How to Create Gravitational Pull

So, how can you create the conditions required to enable the deeper level of connection with consumers that will help you to evolve as a brand, stay relevant and navigate in a rapidly changing marketplace? There are three key principles underlying this.

1. Understand That Everything is Brand

Nike bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world

The conditions for creating gravitational pull are rooted deep within the organisation and brand’s reason for being. The core of the brand – its mission, vision and values – are what give it weight, creating the ability to draw people into its orbit.

For this to happen, there needs to be absolute clarity in the brand’s DNA. If a brand has an unclear purpose, is relying on smoke and mirrors, or hasn’t truly developed these foundational aspects of its structure, consumers will sense the disconnect and won’t invite themselves in.

There is perhaps no better example of gravitational pull being baked into the DNA than Nike. Nike’s brand mission states that ‘if you have a body, you are an athlete’ and this organising principle runs through all its activations.

While the brand is associated with professional performance, it also bridges the gap to connect with culture. For many people, when you wear Nike you are associating with and saying something much deeper about your own values.

When Nike hired Colin Kaepernick for their 30th anniversary ‘Just Do It’ campaign they upped the ante even further. Using Kaepernick, who took the knee during the national anthem before NFL games to protest police brutality, put what the brand believed in front and centre.
The campaign ran with the strapline “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.” Some hated the bold brand position and burned their trainers. However, many more loved it and became even more connected to the brand because of their shared values. The gamble also paid off commercially. Nike’s stock soared over the following year, seeing a five percent increase over the next twelve months.

2. Connect brand strategy seamlessly to all customer interactions

If brand is the interface of your business strategy, it needs to be fully represented in all your customer interactions. Creating a gravitational pull relies on a seamless connection between brand and every interaction, experience and communication.

All too often there are fractures in this process and it takes time to interpret and translate the brand strategy. Marketers can often get very tactical very quickly and do not align closely enough to the brand strategy. They need to consider their long- term marketing strategy to communicate the brand strategy.

Each and every touch point matters and has the power to either build or erode the brand’s ability to create the pull. Take, for example, when the same social media post is shared across multiple channels without thinking about the appropriate activation and voice for that channel. People switch off or even worse think negatively about the brand and its ability to engage effectively with them.

Apple Genius Bar

Now look again at Apple. The queues around the block for each new release and the hyped up audiences focused on their every announcement are no happy accident. They are carefully planned and hard earned.

At the heart of Apple’s success is a relentless focus on creating consistency across the brand experience. As a result, they can sell more smartphones and at a higher margin than others in the sector. It’s purely because of the power of the brand.

The emotional connection pulling you into the brand is baked into every touchpoint. When they advertise, the ads focus on showing the consumer the unique value proposition, as opposed to telling them about it. It is also realised through the in-store experience. The Genius bar makes you feel empowered and its radical reshaping of the in-store experience, emphasising Apple’s disruptive spirit. And the brand journey continues when you get home with the premium unpackaging experience.

3. Shorten the distance between you and your customers

The greater the distance a magnet is away from its target, the less its ability to create attraction. So, getting closer to your consumers seems a no brainer. In fact, many brands will say they do this already.

However, relatively few understand how to build fluid organic relationships that pull customers in. Even more challenging is how to activate and empower consumers to be advocates who share the brand mission, vision and values more broadly.

CMOs need to think more empathetically about their consumers. They need to understand their wants, needs, expectations and purchasing motivations in order to create better connections, interactions and experiences with consumers, not for them.

By doing this and increasing the impact consumers can have on the brand, you stimulate powerful advocacy and pull consumers deep into the brand ecosystem.

Lego diversity

Take Lego, for example. This remarkable brand has topped the Superbrands ranking of the U.K.’s strongest consumer brands for the last two years. In such a fickle fast moving industry this is an enormous feat.

Their success is, in part, due to an organisational culture of customer-centricity. Their deep understanding of their consumers’ motivations means the brand does not frame itself as a toy company. Instead their business is built around the concept of ‘free play’, opening up the opportunity to create interactions across a broader range of contexts, from gaming to theme parks and film franchises.

The brand has adapted to the social age brilliantly, creating engaging content across all platforms. As one of the most digitally engaged brands in the world, it is the second most watched brand channel on YouTube with a large proportion of the content created by participants.

User-generated content extends their reach. The ‘Beyond the Brick’ fan YouTube channel, for example, was created by two teenagers and features the incredible Lego creations of builders from across the globe. The channel has grown to worldwide phenomena with over 530,000 subscribers and over 200 million views.

Another source of Lego’s enormous gravitational pull comes from its Lego Ideas platform where users can submit, comment and vote on ideas for Lego products. By shortening the distance between the brand and their most valuable consumers, Lego not only created a continuous dialogue but gained a valuable source of amazing consumer insight.

It is Lego’s ability to connect with its customers in diverse and meaningful ways that contributes to creating such ardent brand advocates. Lego’s customers are keen to join up, contribute and become fully enmeshed in the brand.

Evolving Your Strategic Approach

How can brands begin to build gravitational pull? All brands exist somewhere along a spectrum when it comes to how they engage with their customers and their understanding of creating gravitational pull. Their communication models range from the simple outbound communications of traditional push marketing, and ladder up to the multichannel, participative brand communities of platform business models and interaction fields.

It’s easy to admire the skill and dexterity of brands like Lego, but if you’re a CMO tasked with emulating their success it can feel overwhelming. However, there are ways to progress, gaining sophistication along your evolutionary journey, at a sustainable pace. To understand this, let’s look at each of the communication models in turn. Placing your own organisation’s evolution along this spectrum can show you how far you have come, and provide pointers for the next steps to take.

1. Outbound Communications

Outbound Comms

Outbound communicators are engaged in traditional push marketing strategies. These companies commonly have a one-way communication model and haven’t framed their offering in a social way. They share product or service messages with customers, but offer limited opportunities for consumers to interact.

This is probably a model of communications that most brands believe they need to move away from, since it is often characterized as a simple and out-dated broadcast model. Whilst this approach can no longer be the long-term option for any modern brand, there is still a role for direct outbound communications, and a sensible evolution for a legacy business attempting to modernise how its brand engages with people is to stop broadcasting and start personalising outbound communications using what you already know about your customers to build a better relationship. In this way you build a strong foundation for more relevant approaches.

To build up the brand and evolve the consumer relationship, it may be time to start thinking about a back and forth communication system for customers.

2. Two Way Dialogue

Two-Way Comms

Adding a layer of interaction with customers allows for two way dialogue. Two-way communication allows a company to start better understanding how their product or service solves a problem for their customer.

A company needs to have some way to allow customers to speak back to enter two- way communication. This could involve cultivating a presence on social media to open up conversations with customers and providing mechanisms for customer feedback.

There are two key challenges with implementing two-way dialogue well. The first is operational – you need to have the scale of organisation and operation to be able to field customer requests and solve issues for them. Your social media managers will need to have the skills and resources of customer support agents. The second is to do with delivering brand experience – the quality and tone of your interactions has to reinforce your brand.

3. Encouraging Sharing

Enoucraging Sharing

When a brand understands how and where customer interactions are happening they can actively support the sharing of information and ideas and become a facilitator within their category.

In this mode of communication, the brand understands its role in the lives of its top consumers in order to add value to this core group. While this community and interaction are not owned by the brand, their participation is valued in a way that allows the brand to get closer to its customers.

At this stage, it is beneficial for a brand to start thinking about social influence and creating the motivation for consumers to become brand advocates. This allows the brand to evolve once again in order to extend their reach in the ecosystem.

Organisations who wish to operate at this level can move things along by actively providing opportunities and spaces for people to share. That can be by encouraging creative use of products and services and inviting people to showcase their own results, and by ensuring that sharing buttons, hashtags, events and channels are in place and well publicized so that people can be confident that they will find the right audience. Actively engaging with professional influencers can play an important role in this kind of communications strategy.

4. Audience Voice

Audience Voice

Customers like to share their experiences. In order to benefit from these interactions, brands must understand where they are happening and actively participate.

By supporting and encouraging customers to continue to connect and communicate, brands can start to build social currency at this level. Creating platforms for consumers to share their ideas, both with the brand and with like- minded individuals, creates loyalty and advocacy that starts to draw in more and more people. The Lego case study we mentioned earlier is a great example of how passionate consumer brand advocates can become part of the product development lifecycle.

To get to this stage, your brand needs a strong marketing communication strategy. The focus must be on the ability to share not only within the brand’s nucleus but also externally, thereby creating a community. Having too narrow an information-sharing system at this stage will slow velocity and make it difficult to create that pull.

Your brand must have clear framing, branding and definition to continue to hear and be the audience’s voice. After these factors have been solidified and are owned by the entire organization your brand can start moving into the interaction field.

5. Participant in Brand Community

Participant In Brand Community

The world is created through interactions. By connecting people, information and data we can create higher quality and more consistent interactions that build brand value past a simple product or service.

In this final stage, your brand is creating an interaction field pulling in the nucleus, ecosystem and even other brands to assist in interactions and information sharing. Having other brands in the interaction field will help improve the ecosystem size and create velocity.

Your brand needs to be at the core of, and a direct participant in (if not the owner of), the interaction field. A direct line of communication between the brand and the interaction field must exist where active and consistent participation encourages sharing, both internally and externally.

Conclusion

In a challenging marketplace where everything is in flux, the need to connect with your consumers remains constant. However, as we’ve seen, how we connect and the relationships we create needs to evolve.

The concept of gravitational pull gives us a way to design an overarching marketing strategy that creates deeper, more profitable connections with our customers.

As American astronomer Andrea M Ghez puts it: “Gravity wins over all other known forces.”

In order to succeed, organisations must make sure gravitational pull originates deep within the brand and is connected to all interactions. They also need to shorten the distance between the brand and its customers.

This is what Vivaldi does and we’d love to have a conversation with you about it. Contact us.

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Reframing Problems to Solve Tough Issues with Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg https://vivaldigroup.com/en/blogs/event-with-thomas-wedell-wedellsborg/ Thu, 25 Mar 2021 20:54:54 +0000 http://vivaldigroup.com/en/?post_type=blogs&p=6038 Are you solving the right problems? Have you or your colleagues ever worked hard on something, only to find out you were focusing on the wrong problem entirely? The consequences are severe: Leaders fight the wrong strategic battles. Teams spend their energy on low-impact work. Startups build products that nobody wants. Organizations implement “solutions” that […]

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Are you solving the right problems? Have you or your colleagues ever worked hard on something, only to find out you were focusing on the wrong problem entirely? The consequences are severe: Leaders fight the wrong strategic battles. Teams spend their energy on low-impact work. Startups build products that nobody wants. Organizations implement “solutions” that somehow make things worse, not better. Everywhere you look, the waste is staggering. Thomas Wedell-Wedelsborg, a globally recognized expert on problem solving and innovation joined our CEO, Erich Joachimsthaler, to discuss the framework for individuals and organizations to solve the right problems. 

Here are some key principles from Thomas Wedell-Wedelsborg: 

  1. The challenge is to solve unarticulated needs from consumers and the answer lies in framing the problem. The methodology taught at school or work for problem-solving often involves only two components namely, analysis and then solving it. However, the missing link here is ‘framing the problem’ and the missing skill is a higher-level ability to recognize the right problems.

“The job of the innovator or the problem solver is not to solve or analyze the problem but take a step further back and identify what is the right problem to solve. The core skill is to make sure we solve the right problems through framing and reframing them correctly. – Thomas Wedell-Wedelsborg

2. The problem-solving loop continues even after your business is successful. Thomas references the classic failures of Nokia as an example. Stephen Elop, Nokia’s ex-CEO addressed his team about their failures in solving the wrong problem and focusing on making better hardware phones whereas Apple successfully built an ecosystem. This was a missed opportunity that ultimately led to Nokia’s demise.

“It’s not a linear process, don’t just define the problem, then go solve it. It is a loop between the three elements (framing, analyzing, and solving). This continues even after you have a successful business.” – Thomas Wedell-Wedelsborg

3. Organizations and individuals don’t live in isolation, they live in context and context is constantly changing. Organizations must question if they are exposed to what’s going on in their consumer’s world and the measures necessary to incorporate that information into their decision-making. As an individual, it is important to evaluate what you are spending your time on to absorb new information and what’s going on in the marketplace. 

“[Understanding context] places a much greater emphasis on organizations and your listening apparatus, not just your mentality of trying to make sure what’s going on but how you actually do it.” – Thomas Wedell-Wedelsborg

Here are the three simple steps to solve problems more effectively: 

  • Get one or two people you work with to understand what you are talking about. It is very helpful to work with a colleague on a problem together. It is an individual skill but it is that much harder to do without the cooperation, understanding, and perspective of another team member who understands what you are talking about.
  • If you really want to be successful, you need to start thinking about problem creation. Even when there is no potential problem in sight, examine possible implications where you’re going in and completely breaking new ground.
  • Consideration of rapid changes in business model innovation demands a higher level of reflection. Before diving into problem-solving, understand what is happening in the ecosystem and identify any missed opportunities, reevaluate the roles of other participants.

Conclusion

As business models evolve and we move towards a more digital future, traditional problem-solving methodologies might no longer be successful. Thomas’s three-step framework – Frame, Reframe, Move Forward – unearths not only how to identify the right problems but how business leaders can solve them to unlock success. Developing a sharp problem-solving acumen is not only instrumental for solving customer pain points but also making breakthrough innovation. 

Watch the full event here: 

6:05: Reframing: How to solve the right problem

9:50: How to reframe to solve consumer problems

12:45: Success of Domino’s

13:40: Using technology to solve a problem

16:45: How Barkbox succeeded

22:30: How interaction field aligns with problem-solving

30:25: Problem-solving is a loop

44:47: Advice for effective problem solving

This segment was part of The Interaction Field Series of our LinkedIn Live Events. Please connect with us on our LinkedIn page to stay updated with our upcoming conversations.

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Ask Vivaldi: Our New LinkedIn Live Event Series https://vivaldigroup.com/en/events/ask-vivaldi-linkedin-live-series/ Wed, 14 Oct 2020 16:32:11 +0000 http://vivaldigroup.com/en/?post_type=events&p=5724 Get to know and ask questions to Vivaldi’s global brand and business leaders  Join us for weekly conversations that range from, how brands can thrive in a COVID era, to the disruptors emerging in a virtual economy, to how companies are trailblazing a road towards commitment to sustainability. In our new LinkedIn Live series, our […]

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Get to know and ask questions to Vivaldi’s global brand and business leaders 

Join us for weekly conversations that range from, how brands can thrive in a COVID era, to the disruptors emerging in a virtual economy, to how companies are trailblazing a road towards commitment to sustainability. In our new LinkedIn Live series, our strategy consultants, creatives, and virtual problem solvers from around the world dive deep on topics core to business. Follow along on LinkedIn and get to know our team! 

Let us know what’s on your mind here and we might cover it on our next edition of “Ask Vivaldi.” 

Below find our past events: 

Past Events:

Thursday, October 15th – 11:00am EDT

Tuesday, October 6th – 11:00am EDT

  • Topic: Trends in Communications Strategy
  • Questions: What can brands actually learn from the last 6 months to take forward into future communications strategy?
  • Participants: Jane Hovey, Kelly Dempsey, & Tallulah Dyer

Thursday, October 1st – 11:00am EDT

  • Topic: Securing Innovation Opportunities 
  • Questions: Why do so many businesses fail with their approach to innovation? How can businesses better leverage changes in culture & technology to improve innovation?
  • Participants: Lee Powney
  • Host: Dave Birss 

Thursday, August 20th – 9:30am EDT 

Tuesday, August 18th – 9:30am EDT 

  • Topic: Customer Centricity
  • Questions: What does customer-first approach mean in the platform economy? Why the quality is even more important than the quantity of interactions? 
  • Participants: Ben Kuenzle & Jennie Hoppe 
  • Host: Dave Birss 

Thursday, August 13th – 9:30am EDT  

  • Topic: Sources of Inspiration  
  • Questions: What disruptors are catching your attention? How has Fortnite changed the landscape of esports? Who are the leaders in adopting their business that relied on live interactions to virtual interactions? 
  • Participants: Tom Ajello
  • Host: Dave Birss 

Tuesday, August 11th – 9:30am EDT 

  • Topic: Rethinking Education 
  • Questions: How is Covid-19 changing the world of education? Are we seeing a rise of those people that are very good at self directed learning? 
  • Participants: Anne Olderog & Tracy Huser 
  • Host: Dave Birss 

Thursday, July 31st – 9:30am EDT

Stay Tuned for Upcoming Events! 

 

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“The Interaction Field” Book Launch Week Recap https://vivaldigroup.com/en/blogs/the-interaction-field-book-launch-week-recap/ Wed, 23 Sep 2020 15:12:25 +0000 http://vivaldigroup.com/en/?post_type=blogs&p=5857 In the week Erich Joachimsthaler launched his new book ‘The Interaction Field,’ Vivaldi hosted four industry thought leaders to discuss a model for how companies can adapt and flourish in the current challenging business landscape. We have reached an inflection point right now, not least due to the pandemic, which has accelerated digitization and companies need to consider a different, […]

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In the week Erich Joachimsthaler launched his new book ‘The Interaction Field,’ Vivaldi hosted four industry thought leaders to discuss a model for how companies can adapt and flourish in the current challenging business landscape.

We have reached an inflection point right now, not least due to the pandemic, which has accelerated digitization and companies need to consider a different, more agile strategic approach and different business models not only to survive but also to grow. Here are the four recommendations about innovation, transformation, value creation, and cultivation that our experts left us with:

INFLECTION POINTS – YOUR BUSINESS IS NOT DESTINED TO FAIL  

Innovative companies need to discover when and how to pivot their businesses, especially in the current social and economic climate. Building resilience for companies against the known and the unknown requires planning techniques and leadership recommendations. Rita McGrath gave us insights into avenues of innovation opportunity, the centricity of trust in value creation, and salvation from the discovery-driven approach.

 

THE INVERTED FIRM – PLATFORM IS THE NEW NORM 

As consumerism migrates online en masse as a result of the inflection point, businesses turn to digital transformation as an imminent need. The movement promotes the idea of the inverted firm and how Platform Strategies can allow swift responsiveness and adaptation. Geoff Parker gave us insights into looking at scaling your business with a different lens, how traditional metrics of evaluating business growth may not apply in the platform economy, and how businesses can learn to operate in this Post-COVID world.

 

BRINGING STRATEGY BACK TO LIFE  

Transforming to the digital platform through the inverted firm presents new obstacles that the old practice of Strategy does not address. Harvard Business School professor with research emphasis on corporate strategy, industry analysis, and global competition, David Collis invited us to think about the different value types and what strategy really is today. He shared insights into modernizing strategy, tackling digitalization problems, and how value should not just be about capture but also creation and realization to achieve business success.

 

IS YOUR BUSINESS SMART ENOUGH TO GROW? 

Growing your company while acclimating your business to the digital platform may seem impossible, but you may come out a champion if you know the paths to get there. The key element of what helps the best companies grow today is taking advantage of internal and external levers to position themselves for explosive growth. Tiffani Bova taught us the importance of focusing on getting the job done, fostering company culture, working with competitors, and the positive business outcomes of social responsibility.

 

CONCLUSION 

Adapting to the modernization and digitalization of businesses requires new approaches, leadership, and strategies— especially in the pandemic era. Identifying inflection points is critical for leadership to steer the ship towards innovation through phased trial and error. As businesses join the digital platform economy, shifting traditional to digital strategies provides new opportunities for production alterations, rapid reception, and customer reach. With a growing progressive audience, thinking in different value structuring types will allow businesses to become resilient as the landscape continually evolves. Growing during digital development may seem daunting, but by positioning your business in the ecosystem through co-opetition and customer co-creation, your business will successfully transform and dominate the field.

This was the recap of The Interaction Field Series of our LinkedIn Live Events. Please connect with us on our LinkedIn page to stay updated with our upcoming conversations.

 

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Interaction Fields: Redefining Customer Engagement    https://vivaldigroup.com/en/blogs/interaction-fields-redefining-customer-engagement/ Tue, 08 Sep 2020 12:05:16 +0000 http://vivaldigroup.com/en/?post_type=blogs&p=5788 Eighty-seven percent of customers who have a positive experience with a brand will make another purchase — versus only 17% who had a negative experience. Everyone knows that experience matters. But some businesses have yet to recognise that expectations of experience have changed. Service with a smile is no longer the point, and incremental improvements to customer journeys are not enough. Transforming customer experience to meet customer […]

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Eighty-seven percent of customers who have a positive experience with a brand will make another purchase — versus only 17% who had a negative experience. Everyone knowthat experience mattersBut some businesses have yet to recognise that expectations of experience have changedService with a smile is no longer the point, and incremental improvements to customer journeys are not enough. Transforming customer experience to meet customer expectations demands business transformation that goes beyond improving customer engagement to enlists an entire network of ecosystem relationships to deliver customer value. 

Here’s just one example: Vitality, the health insurer, has thought more broadly about consumer health beyond traditional healthcare delivery. Creating an ecosystem of fitness and nutrition providers to improve customer health habits works out better for the customer, Vitality, and the other providers  all whilst increasing loyalty and engagement. 

This is what we call an interaction field – where value is created through a network of business and brand relationships and realised through customer participationTo compete in the 21st Century, leading businesses will transform themselves, their relationships and their interaction field to create value for their brand’s customers. 

When you consider the overwhelming cost of customer acquisition, it’s easy to see why companies are investing in ways to grow loyalty through experience. From checking the status of online orders to making decisions about your healthcare, there are millions of brand interactions each day. This allows participants in the whole ecosystem to improve the way services and products are consumed and delivered. Brands that harness the power of positive experience generate excitement in their audience, but they may not do it alone 

Companies are actively creating opportunities that scan beyond the business walls, pulling together interested partners, vendors and collaboration platforms to encourage customers to spend more and stay longer. A recent study by Gallup shows that companies that have active efforts around improving their performance management systems are seeing 26% jumps in marginIt’s impossible to point to a single action taken by brands that are providing an improved customer experience. Instead, companies are finding partnerships in unexpected places — and taking advantage of the value this interaction field brings for internal operations and for customers. 

Prospective buyers are regularly looking for trust cues. These cues help ensure that purchases from a specific brand will result in true value. Consumers are more likely to trust websites and mobile applications that are associated with a known brand. This type of authentic interaction often grows organically over time for major brands. Deep engagements are not out of reach for smaller organizations, either. 

Today’s consumers expect to have a degree of participation in their interactions with brands. This encourages business leaders to find ways to ensure consistency to the brand message and business standards. Finding strategic opportunities to engage in customer interactions is a powerful competitive advantage for your brand. 

Look Beyond Your Business Ecosystem for Opportunities for Change 

Business ecosystems are often built on years of interactions between vendors, partners and your brand. Business transformation requires looking for partnerships or ways to shift the paradigm so you can outpace the competition. This could mean bringing together multiple vendors to brainstorm new service delivery models. Another option includes pulling together data to improve insights and provide greater transparency into your processes. 

Companies that are able to successfully drive change are those that will create interactions with business partners to improve product and service consistency. Your business partners and vendors are an integral component of your business ecosystem. These companies offer unique opportunities for collaboration and conversation between your brand and your customers. 

Adopt a More Fluid and Agile View of Competitive Advantage 

In a world where products are reviewed on a regular basis, a competitive advantage no longer relies only on micro improvements or lowered costs. Brands need a holistic view of competitive advantage, one that provides weight to all customer interactions. Managing these interactions requires extensive trust from the community. This trust must be earned over time and through positive brand-to-consumer engagements. 

According to Frédéric Mazzella, CEO of BlaBlaCar France, “The building block of society — interpersonal trust — has been transformed from a scarce (one) to an abundant one. Our potential to create value is also transformed.” This shift provides brands with a powerful competitive advantage if business leaders redesign customer interactions. Use this as an opportunity to reinforce brand principles and satisfy consumer needs. 

One key way to enhance your business is to work with your suppliers to create a shared ecosystem that benefits each partner. When companies see that you are truly looking for ways to enhance both business models, it opens the floodgates for collaboration. By designing programs that add value to each entity, you are often able to define options that will expand market opportunities. This reduces the need to pry away small pockets of market share from competitors. 

John Deere is redefining their market through partnerships with IoT device leaders. These interactions allow the brand to reach outside the realms of equipment manufacturing. Tractors and other heavy equipment helped the brand grow to serve a global impact. Now, these machines are now used to gather proximity data that can be utilized by companies throughout their ecosystem. The additional information helps farmers be more productive in their efforts. These engagements also increase the overall productivity of the system by encouraging greater interactions between market partners. 

Explore Ways to Create Cultural Context 

One way to explain this connectivity is through the idea of interaction fields. Interaction fields create a gravitational pull of interactions that draw consumers closer to your brand. Creating this type of interaction field requires a strong understanding of psychology and behavioral economics. This understanding allows you to build a frame of reference for your brand that will entice consumers to deeper interactions. 

Defining an interaction field often requires deeper analysis and reinvention of business processes to aid customer engagement. This often goes far beyond brand messaging or traditional marketing campaigns to process transformation. A few of the considerations for brand strategists include: 

  • The motivation of key audience segments 
  • Ties that can be woven between the brand and audiences 
  • The collective intelligence that is likely to influence prospective buyers 
  • Identification of idea carriers: influencers, mavens and individuals with strong personal networks 
  • General stickiness of the idea being shared, resulting in quality interactions with audience members 
  • Tight definition of context, allowing ideas to be spread within close personal networks 
  • The personal social currency that participants gain by sharing your brand or message 

Customers must be satisfied with the value delivered by your brand before they are willing to recommend products to their network. These recommendations are incredibly valuable as they expand your brand’s circle of influence. The success of this effort is often defined by a brand’s ability to create an exchange of value with customers. 

Providing real and substantial value to customers can take a variety of forms. This could include improving the quality of life or improving a customer’s ability to make decisions. You can also find that reducing costs, energy and time of a product or service helps consumers engage with your brand. 

It’s vital to expand these customer interactions from surface emotional attachments to a particular brand or business. The concept of an interaction field connotes a more collaborative approach to brand development. This allows customers to have a voice in defining the future value provided by the brand. 

Successful brands will not only provide value to their customers, but they will also derive value from customer interactions and participation. This happens as the brand is fully integrated into the daily life of consumers. This alliance between brand and customer creates a full circle of benefits that provides significant advantages to all parties. 

We ALL Live in an Interaction Field 

Creating shared value and social benefit through an interaction field may be a new concept for business leaders. However, a closer analysis of your day-to-day personal interactions with various brands may quickly allow the idea to resonate. Collaboration is encouraged between complementary brands, participation and a free flow of engagement with consumers. 

Brands can truly disrupt the current status quo and define new market opportunities for growth with these strategies. Consider the connected nature of your daily life, where individual smart devices and mobile applications mesh together seamlessly. These streamlined activities seem to simply fade into the background while saving time and adding perceived value to your life. 

There are digital trails left throughout your day. This can include data captured by Google maps or mobile traffic apps or ordering your favorite coffee online. These interactions are proof that we are living our lives in interaction fields — defined by our trusted and favorite brands. 

Defining Interaction Fields for Your Brand 

Finding ways to enhance these opportunities requires brands to focus on the quality and frequency of potential interactions. Brands are using a mix of experience design and social engagement to accomplish this task. Strategists look for ways to quantify the value that brands deliver to their audience. This allows businesses to amplify the impact of their message to reach a broader and more diverse base. 

Brands need to define a full ecosystem experience that offers benefits to each of the participants and allows for evolving conversations. Look beyond artificial barriers or boundaries and instead look for alternatives that offer a holistic view of the business ecosystem. Look for ways to deliver value to customers, prospects, vendors and your brand. Think less of conserving a monopoly, and this is where you will find true and lasting competitive advantage. 

There are no easy step-by-step checklists that allow brands to define a more collaborative approach to marketing and experience design. Customer interactions can be influenced by many factors, creating a complex, connected ecosystem between brands, competitors and audiences. Vivaldi Group has deep experience drilling to the heart of business strategy. We look for the defining factors that will provide your brand with measurable and sustainable growth. Contact our team to schedule an initial consultation or workshop at hello@vivaldigroup.com. You can also call 212-965-0900 to see how platform thinking and interaction fields can be used within your business

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The Interaction Field Event Series: Conversations with leading business leaders & thinkers https://vivaldigroup.com/en/events/the-interaction-field-series/ Sat, 15 Aug 2020 15:17:55 +0000 http://vivaldigroup.com/en/?post_type=events&p=5725 A look back at our very exciting and insightful book launch event! Change is the only constant in business today. The rise of platforms, changing consumer expectations, and companies with almost no tangible assets are dominating the business landscape.  In the world of connectivity, it’s about collaboration, interaction, participation, and connection.    Our CEO and Founder Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler recently released his new […]

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A look back at our very exciting and insightful book launch event!

Change is the only constant in business today. The rise of platforms, changing consumer expectations, and companies with almost no tangible assets are dominating the business landscape.  In the world of connectivity, it’s about collaboration, interaction, participation, and connection 

Our CEO and Founder Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler recently released his new book, The Interaction Field: The Revolutionary New Way to Create Shared Value for Businesses, Customers and Society.  The book presents a new business model and operating model for the future – one that creates shared value for all. Companies that embrace this new model – called interaction field companies – generate, facilitate, and benefit from interactions and data exchanges among multiple people and groups–from customers and stakeholders, but also from those you wouldn’t expect to be in the mix, like suppliers, software developers, regulators, and even competitors. And everyone in the field works together to solve big, industry-wide, or complex and unpredictable societal problems. 

Inspired by our latest thinking, Vivaldi is hosting a series of conversations with leading business leaders and thinkers in the field of strategy and marketing to discuss value creation and debate how strategy rules and innovation playbooks are being rewritten by today’s leading companies. In the world of connectivity, it’s about collaboration, interaction, participation, and connection. 

Join our LinkedIn Live series and be part of a conversation with Dr. Joachimsthaler and leading business leaders and thinkers on how business strategy still needs to evolve. Leave inspired and ready to bring change to your business.   

Past events: 

Thursday, April 15th– 11:00am ET. RSVP here

  • Topic: How to Humanize Digital Transformation with Martin Lindstrom
  • Moderator: Dave Birss
  • Panelists: Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler, Martin Lindstrom

Friday, March 19th– 12:00pm ET. Watch the event here

  • Topic: Reframing Problems to Solve Tough Issues with Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg
  • Moderator: Dave Birss
  • Panelists: Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler, Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg

Thursday, March 4th– 10:00am ET. Click here to view event recap.  

  • Topic: Tech is Not the Answer, or is it? A Conversation on the Applications & Consequences of Blockchain and AI 
  • Moderator: Francesco Pagano
  • Panelists: Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler, Fabian Westerheide, and Frederik Gregaard 

Thursday, December 17th – 11:00am ET. Watch the event here. 

  • Topic: Beth Comstock on Leading with Imagination in Uncertain Times
  • Participants: Beth Comstock and Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler
  • Host: David Birss

Friday, December 11th – 12:30pm ED. Watch the event here

  • Topic: What Drives Breakthrough Innovators with Melissa Schilling
  • Participants: Melissa Schilling and Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler
  • Host: David Birss

Thursday, December 3rd  – 11:30am EDT. 

  • Topic: How Brand & Culture Powers Great Companies with Denise Lee Yohn
  • Participants: Denise Lee Yohn and Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler
  • Host: David Birss

Tuesday, November 10th – 11:00am EDT – See event here.

  • Topic: How Joy of Work Creates Employee Shared Value with Bruce Daisley
  • Participants: Bruce Daisley and Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler
  • Host: David Birss
  • Watch the full conversation here.
  • Read more about the discussion here.

Thursday, November 5th – 9:30am EDT – See event here.

  • Topic: Discover a smarter, different perspective with Danny Hest CEO of TOGO Group
  • Participants: Danny Hest, Larry Lucas, and Tom Ajello
  • Host: David Birss
  • Watch the full conversation here.
  • Read more about the discussion here.

Thursday, October 29th – 12:00pm EDT – See event here.

  • Topic: Cracking Complexity: Solve Challenges Fast with Syntegrity CEO David Komlos
  • Participants: David Komlos and Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler
  • Host: David Birss
  • Watch the full conversation here.
  • Read more about the discussion here.

Wednesday, October 7th – 11:00am EDT – See event here.

  • Topic: Book Launch Celebration: A Q&A with Author Erich Joachimsthaler 
  • Participants: Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler 
  • Host: Jenny Rooney, Communities Director + Chair of the CMO Network at Forbes
  • Watch the full conversation here.
  • Read more about the discussion here.

Friday, September 18th – 11:00am EDT – See event here.

  • Topic: Intelligent Growth: A Conversation with Salesforce Evangelist Tiffani Bova
  • Participants: Tiffani Bova & Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler 
  • Host: Dave Birss 
  • Watch the full conversation here.
  • Read more about the discussion here.

Thursday, September 17th – 11:00am EDT – See event here.

  • Topic: Is Strategy Really Dead?: A Conversation with Harvard Professor David Collis
  • Participants: David Collis, Ph.D. & Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler 
  • Host: Dave Birss 
  • Watch the full conversation here.
  • Read more about the discussion here.

Wednesday, September 16th – 12:00pm EDT – See event here.

  • Topic: Inverted Firm: A Conversation with Platform Strategy Scholar Geoffrey Parker
  • Participants: Geoffrey Parker & Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler 
  • Host: Dave Birss 
  • Watch the full conversation here.
  • Read more about the discussion here.

Monday, September 14th – 9:30am EDT – See event here.

  • Topic: Inflection Points: A Conversation with Rita McGrath 
  • Participants: Rita McGrath & Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler 
  • Host: Dave Birss 
  • Watch the full conversation here.
  • Read more about the discussion here.

Thursday, September 3rd – 11:00am EDT – See event here.

  • Topic: The Brand Imperative: A Conversation with Kevin Lane Keller, Dartmouth 
  • Participants: Kevin Lane Keller & Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler 
  • Host: Dave Birss 
  • Watch the full conversation here.
  • Read more about the discussion here.

Thursday, August 27th – 11:00am EDT – See event here.

  • Topic: From Transactions to Interactions: An Interview with Party City’s Julie Roehm 
  • Participants: Julie Roehm & Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler 
  • Host: Dave Birss
  • Watch the full conversation here
  • Read more about the discussion here.

Tuesday, July 14th – 10am EDT – See event here.

  • Topic: Hope is not a Strategy: Three ways to Evolve your Strategic Planning in a Time of Crisis 
  • Participants: Dr. Peter Evans & Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler  
  • Host: Anne Knecht 
  • Watch the full conversation here.
  • Read more about the discussion here.

Tuesday, August 4th – 10am EDT – See event here.

  • Topic: Get Ahead of the Game: What Brands Can Learn from Esports
  • Participants: William Collis, Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler & Tom Ajello  
  • Host: Dave Birss 
  • Watch the full conversation here.
  • Read more about the discussion here.

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Event Recap: What Brands Can Learn from Esports https://vivaldigroup.com/en/blogs/the-business-of-esports/ Tue, 04 Aug 2020 20:25:30 +0000 http://vivaldigroup.com/en/?post_type=blogs&p=5694 This Tuesday, August 4th,  Vivaldi invited advisory board member and author of “The Book of Esports,” William Collis to join our CEO, Erich Joachimsthaler, Chief Creative & Digital Officer, Tom Ajello and host, Dave Birss on a discussion of the $27 billion-dollar Esports industry and what brand strategy tactics can be learned from Esports. Click here to watch the full LinkedIn Live event and below […]

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This Tuesday, August 4th,  Vivaldi invited advisory board member and author of “The Book of Esports,” William Collis to join our CEO, Erich Joachimsthaler, Chief Creative & Digital Officer, Tom Ajello and host, Dave Birss on a discussion of the $27 billion-dollar Esports industry and what brand strategy tactics can be learned from Esports.

Click here to watch the full LinkedIn Live event and below find key highlights of the discussions: 

Why Esports matter from the following three perspectives: 

  • Personal Perspective: 50% of kids today are playing competitive video games. As Tom Ajello discussed from his perspective as a parent, kids rely on these games to connect and chat with their friends. Video games provide a platform for kids to participate and learn social behavior.  
  • Demographic Perspective: Esports as a demographic is an incremental consumer. Many of its users are people that don’t activate or monetize in other types of channels because more of these games are looking more like social networks and platforms. 
  • Brand Perspective: Esports companies are purely digital brands building for the next generation of digital consumers. They are highly innovative and build clever and nuanced approaches for customer acquisition and retention that any business can learn and benefit from.  

Common Misconceptions of Esports 

It’s a larger business than people think. Esports is a $27 billion-dollar industry that continues to scale, attract and retain new participants.  

Competitive gaming looks more like professional sports than it does kids sitting in a basement. They require casting, analysts, coaching, and production and for players at high levels, demand an extraordinary amount of skill. There are also massive tournaments that draw in hundreds of millions of users – some of the top Esports events will get more viewers than the Superbowl.  

Esports Effectively Engage with Fringe Consumers 

There exists many strategies to manage consumers who already have high affinity and loyalty to the brand. The challenge that Esports has solved is with engaging the people at the fringes, those who are not yet directly involved in Esports. The key is – while conventional brands are built through communications and messaging, modern brands are built through interactions. From becoming a social platform to hosting live concerts and events, the Esports industry has mastered the creation of value through interactions.  

GoPro’s Adoption of Esports Brand Strategy 

GoPro applied Esports principles to connect and engage with its audience as its entire business model is about discovering content and sharing it with others. The value of GoPro is not in the camera itself but in the community, GoPro has built around its product. Just as Esports companies make it easy and effective to share gaming moments with others, GoPro makes it easy and convenient to share action and adventure videos made by its users.    

Implications for the future of advertising within Esports 

The traditional sense of control that marketers have elsewhere is lost in the world of Esports. This is because so much of Esports is about long unfiltered messaging that occurs on livestreams for 4 or 5 hours, as opposed to the conventional 30 second ad spot. The combination of everything being interactive, the prevalence of social media, and content as unfiltered viewer messaging makes loss of marketing control inevitable.  

As William Collis said, “You really lose control of the message as soon as it leaves your mouth. And so, you need a different set of tools and activations for a more modern approach to brand building.” 

 The Esports industry is too big of an opportunity to ignore – click here to watch the full event. 

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Is Your Brand Ready for the Post-COVID World? https://vivaldigroup.com/en/blogs/brand-ready-for-post-covid-world/ Fri, 31 Jul 2020 17:49:26 +0000 http://vivaldigroup.com/en/?post_type=blogs&p=5673 “You’re no longer just solving for a better car. You need to solve for mobility. And in order to solve for mobility, you can’t do it alone. You need to do it with partners. I call them participants in ‘the interaction field’. If you really want to integrate in the life of consumers, you can’t […]

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“You’re no longer just solving for a better car. You need to solve for mobility. And in order to solve for mobility, you can’t do it alone. You need to do it with partners. I call them participants in ‘the interaction field’. If you really want to integrate in the life of consumers, you can’t do it just by selling a particular product you need to sell. You need to connect in a number of ways.”

In July, our CEO Erich Joachimsthaler spoke with ETBrandEquity.com to break down the new rules of branding in a post-COVID world. He also discussed the importance of creating shared value for everyone, rather than exclusively for customers. Read the full article here.

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Get Ahead of the Game: What can brands learn from the business of Esports? https://vivaldigroup.com/en/events/linkedin-live-esports/ Fri, 31 Jul 2020 16:16:47 +0000 http://vivaldigroup.com/en/?post_type=events&p=5668 Join four leading figures in the worlds of brand strategy, esports and the creative industries to discover how the $27 Billion esports industry creates value for its audiences and the broader ecosystem. Learn how the Esports model of participation in an interaction field is relevant for all 21st century brands wishing to create gravitational pull […]

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Join four leading figures in the worlds of brand strategy, esports and the creative industries to discover how the $27 Billion esports industry creates value for its audiences and the broader ecosystem. Learn how the Esports model of participation in an interaction field is relevant for all 21st century brands wishing to create gravitational pull with their customers.

Take away strategies and tactics to create meaningful customer experiences, so your brand will not only survive, but thrive in the Platform Economy.

On this day, William Collis, Vivaldi Advisory Board Member, will also celebrate the launch of his newest book: “The Book of Esports”.

This is also a great opportunity to hear from Erich Joachimsthaler, Vivaldi Founder & CEO, talking about his upcoming book: “The Interaction Field.”

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Future Generali’s ‘Masters Speak’ session with Vivaldi Founder & CEO https://vivaldigroup.com/en/blogs/future-generalis-masters-speak-session/ Fri, 24 Jul 2020 16:27:43 +0000 http://vivaldigroup.com/en/?post_type=blogs&p=5630 It is undeniable that the way we do business and build brands is changing in this COVID-19 world. But how do we leverage the modern era of connectivity to evolve and innovate in this new world? In Future Generali’s ‘Masters Speak’ session, our Founder and CEO, Erich Joachimsthaler Ph.D. discussed his Interaction Field model and its context […]

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It is undeniable that the way we do business and build brands is changing in this COVID-19 world. But how do we leverage the modern era of connectivity to evolve and innovate in this new world?

In Future Generali’s ‘Masters Speak’ session, our Founder and CEO, Erich Joachimsthaler Ph.D. discussed his Interaction Field model and its context within the new Era of Shared Value.

A few key insights:

  • From tangible to intangible assets.
    • From the 1970s to the 2000s, there has been a fundamental shift from business focusing on tangible assets to intangible assets. The revolution of branding means that it now takes on a strategic perspective, capturing intangible asset value that companies are creating.
  • Connectivity is the driver of change.
    • The evolving ways in which we build brands and businesses are shaped by the Eras of Connectivity – from Information (search, e-commerce), to People (mobile, social media), to Everything (IoT, 5G, AI).
  • The new era of connectivity breaks down walls.
    • This new era, the Era of Shared Value (for everyone, not just customers), revolutionizes the way we do business. We are moving away from a World of Walls and into a World of Webs – from competition to collaboration and interaction.
  • We are all living in an Interaction Field.
    • Customers are participants in the field instead of recipients of a product, and value is created for everyone involved. By leveraging network, virality and learning effects, the Interaction Field model enables a business to not just communicate, but deliver its purpose.

Hear more of Erich’s insights on the Future Generali ‘Masters Speak’ session on Facebook here.

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