The ROI of Brand
Lately, we’ve been getting the question: what’s the ROI of Brand? It’s not a bad question. You should be thinking about how impactful your investments are going to be. No, not a bad question at all, but it is a really tough question to answer.
Asking what the ROI of Brand is like asking what the ROI of you is —the total sum of your personality, gut decisions, moral compass, and even your preference for rock or hip hop. Sure, you can point to tangible positive examples of why it’s great to be you; however, like brand, it’s a little ethereal.
But we can say that good things happen when all the pieces that make up your animus pull together naturally, i.e., when you’re you. And, on the flip side, when you do something out of character, there’s a higher potential for not good things happening. A brand is the same. Good things happen when it acts within its character, and when it goes against that character, its ecosystem, it tends to fail.
There’s plenty we can point to that shows why this is. But let’s stick with the analogy of the ROI of your character. Think about how your friends and family react to you being you: they support you, cheer you on, pitch in, and get excited for you all because they’re emotionally invested in you. Like your friends and family, consumers have an emotional investment in brands. One that’s pretty valuable:
We find that customers become more valuable at each step of a predictable “emotional connection pathway” as they transition from (1) being unconnected to (2) being highly satisfied to (3) perceiving brand differentiation to (4) being fully connected.Although customers exhibit increasing connection at each step, their value increases dramatically when they reach the fourth step: Fully connected customers are 52% more valuable, on average, than those who are just highly satisfied. - HBR
So, when a brand does something that feels off, we react like a family member or friend to you doing something out of character. Think about it: we’ve all had that moment where we looked at a campaign, a new innovation, a piece of design, or heck, a tweet and thought, “What were they thinking?!” followed by, “Kinda disappointed.” However, when a brand does something in character, it reinforces the excitement and connection, and good things happen.
What does it look like when a brand acts in character? Look no further than REI Opt Outside.
REI believes “that it’s in the wild, untamed and natural places that we find our best selves, so our purpose is to awaken a lifelong love of the outdoors, for all.” This guiding belief dictates its character, informing not only things like its comms and the products it stocks but also how it treats its employees. #OptOutside, is a great example. With OptOutside, REI closes its stores so its employees can get out to nature on Black Friday. It’s a natural output from a brand with its character, as you can draw a straight line from its belief to its behavior. And that’s what good brands do. The ROI? Opt Outside was a massive hit:
The company said the brand’s social media impressions went up 7,000%, with 2.7 billion media impressions in 24 hours, while overall the campaign attracted 6.7 billion media impressions, 1.2 billion social impressions, and got more than 1.4 million people to spend the day outdoors. Meanwhile, more than 150 other companies joined REI to close their doors on Black Friday, and hundreds of state parks opened up for free. - Fast Company
So, what’s the ROI of Brand? When you act in accordance with your brand, you create excitement, connection, and, eventually, brand love and loyalty. You can move from cost per click and start thinking about lifetime value, gaining not just purchases but advocacy
Are you interested in getting a return on your brand? Let’s chat about how we can define and codify your “character,” making it easy to develop your own Opt Outsides.
