2022’s biggest trend: taking consumers back in time
With great brands comes great responsibility. This year is going to see more pressure on brands to become more socially responsible, with 86% of consumers placing it as a key factor when evaluating brands as trustworthy. But while you move forward with your products, services, and overall values, it’s important to know how to effectively communicate them to your audience. Here are our top insights and tips for approaching social responsibility in your brand storytelling.
Transparency is key
It may seem obvious to be honest with your audience, but when you’re trying to cut through the noise of your competitors, it can be easy to exaggerate your mission to tackle social issues. It can also be tempting to only share the good things about what your brand is doing. Both of these are slippery slopes towards receiving a negative backlash and losing your audiences’ trust. Even if you’re making all the right steps to take responsibility for social issues, it’s crucial to get the messaging right.
Tip: Share what you’re doing well and your plans to improve. But keep it realistic – if it sounds too good to be true, audiences won’t be afraid to do their own digging.
Insight: Trust also drives growth. According to The Drum, 81% say trust is a deciding factor in their purchase journey, while The Edelman Trust 10 report found that people reward trusted brands with advocacy (61%), purchase (57%), loyalty (43%), and engagement (31%).
Keep it relevant and consistent
When tailoring marketing, it’s usually good practice to think about the timing and relevancy when creating your content and campaigns. It’s not unusual to use trends, national days, and seasonal topics to do so. However, when approaching social and climate issue related topics and trends, it’s important to not only keep it relevant, but consistent too.
Our Head of Content at Shoot the Moon, Laurie Foxon explains: “Marketing your brand’s social responsibility isn’t just about selling products. It should be a genuine effort to encourage social change through a consistent, ongoing conversation – raising awareness of a social issue and educating consumers on how to tackle it (even better if your products can facilitate this).”
Tip: Make social responsibility a part of your core values that can be seen in everything you do. This will help maintain consistency across all of your brand storytelling, from your social and website content to your OOH campaigns and packaging. So, if you’re advocating equality and diversity in the workplace, audiences can truly believe it.
Engage your audience
While it’s great taking responsibility and making change, it’s also important to inspire your audience to get involved.
Here are some engaging ways you can do that:
1. Create infographics to visually explain complicated concepts. For example, simplifying your manufacturing and recycling processes could be a good way to help consumers understand exactly what it means to purchase your products.
2. Share tips and guides through educating blogs and engaging short-form video content.
3. Use your packaging to tell a story, engage with the brand or simply find out information. For example, if you’re using sustainable packaging, why not make it into an interactive experience to educate your audience on how to recycle?
Key Takeaways
When approaching social responsibility in 2022, it all comes down to consistency, honesty, and transparency. Mastering these elements will drive your brand’s success from a trust perspective and will have a direct impact on brand engagement and purchase intentions.
If you’d like to find out how the stm_grp can help you on your mission, get in touch and we can talk through your goals.
References
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