Harnessing Brand Love for Sustained Growth and Success

Marketers are continuously seeking ways to strengthen brand affinity, drive purchase intent, and ultimately, foster lasting connections with consumers. In this pursuit, the value of consumer insights cannot be overstated. Specifically, insights into Brand Love hold an immense potential for marketers looking to elevate their brand strategies to new heights.

Brand Love is a catalyst for growth.

Brand Love represents the emotional connection between consumer and brand that goes beyond mere satisfaction or preference, signifying a deeper connection that drives repeat purchases behavior, loyalty, and, at its strongest form, advocacy. By tapping into Brand Love, marketers gain invaluable insights into consumer sentiment, purchase drivers, and behaviors, enabling them to develop strategies that resonate with consumers in a profound, authentic way.

Brand Love insights help marketers shape strategies that fuel growth:

1. By understanding what drives brand affinity and the emotional connections consumers have with brands, marketers can tailor the customer journey to address consumer needs effectively and develop strategies that put the consumer at the center. This consumer-centric approach leads to more meaningful interactions, fostering brand loyalty and driving long-term engagement.
2. One-size-fits all marketing approaches have little impact on today’s consumers. Brand Love insights enable marketers to deliver personalized and relevant experiences that resonate with consumers on an emotional level. Whether through tailored messaging, customized offers, or fitting partnerships with other brands, engagement that feels personalized fosters deeper connections and drives customer satisfaction, retention, and lifetime value.
3. In today’s crowded competitive landscape, differentiation is key. Brand Love insights offer a unique view into consumer preferences, needs, and pain points, revealing market gaps that brands can capitalize on for a competitive edge. With these insights, marketers can identify where competitors have an advantage and pinpoint their own brand’s differentiators or opportunities for improvement to stand out in the marketplace.
4. Effective resource allocation is crucial for maximizing ROI and driving sustainable growth. Brand Love insights provide marketers with the data-driven intelligence they need to allocate resources strategically. By identifying the initiatives, themes, products, etc. that resonate most with their target audience, marketers focus resources where they will yield the greatest return and contribute to overall brand performance.

Marketers on a mission to build their brand and nurture consumers need to move beyond surface-level insights and delve into the hearts and minds of consumers. By understanding Brand Love and harnessing the emotional bond between consumers and brands, they can drive meaningful connections, foster brand loyalty, and spur sustainable growth.

Collage Group’s cultural insights engine provides deep insights into Brand Love. Our proprietary measurement for cultural fluency, Brand Cultural Fluency Quotient (B-CFQ), provides brands with actionable insights for increasing brand favorability and purchase intent, ultimately driving Brand Love.

In our upcoming Brand Love Dashboard, part of our Consumer360 feature, we’ll be doubling-down on putting actionable Brand Love insights at marketers’ fingertips. In a dedicated dashboard, marketers will be able to explore new insights about Brand Love and delve into bi-demographic audiences to discover new opportunities for growth. Stay tuned for our release announcement or schedule a demo now to get a sneak peek at the Brand Love Dashboard in our fluen.ci app.

We are introducing a new series of quarterly posts to summarize updates to our solutions, including the fluen.ci (SM) app, and give a sneak peek into exciting additions coming soon.

We announced the launch of fluen.ci at our Cultural Fluency Summit in New York less than six months ago. At the Summit, we had the opportunity to share a preview of the exciting features we planned to empower marketers to confidently act on insights with instant access to fresh data that intersects cultural, demographic, and brand insights for actionability, all in the context of a beautiful, dynamic user experience.

We are pleased to share an update on all the new features and enhancements we introduced to our solutions in Q1.

Head-to-Head Brand Dashboard

Trustworthy competitive intelligence is hard to find because the comparison of brand data may involve varying methodologies, data sources, and baselines. At Collage Group, we use a consistent baseline in our methodology, ensuring consistency and data accuracy across all our research and instant insights. This means that you can take action on our new Head–to-Head Dashboard’s competitive insights with confidence. The dashboard can be pre-loaded with a thousand brands you can compare side-by-side to quickly spot opportunities, threats, and inspiration. That’s 499,500 different combinations of comparisons!

With the Head-to-Head Dashboard, you will be able to:

1. Benchmark your brand against competitors and industry leaders within the context of your brand’s performance
2. Spot significant differences or promising opportunities that can inform your strategies for product bundling, product development, messaging and positioning, pricing, etc.
3. Identify gaps in your branding and messaging strategy and take immediate corrective action with culture-driven insights

Industry Dashboard

Another way fluen.ci is putting competitive insights at your fingertips is the brand new Industry Dashboard that provides you with a category-level view at brand-specific consumer sentiment. Customers love using the Industry Dashboard to get a first look at an industry to understand the position of competing brands on the market, then dive into deeper research with other Brand360 dashboards and content in the Insights Hub to determine where, and how, brands can improve their reach and visibility.

Use the Industry Dashboard to:

1. Quickly discern the competitive landscape within a category
2. Gauge competing brands’ reach across diverse segments
3. Kick-start research into an industry before diving into rich content
4. Evaluate partnership opportunities

We are just getting started with industry insights. Next, we want to help you understand trends in an industry and across consumer spend.

Enhanced Search on Insights Hub

One of the biggest challenges our members have shared with us is the difficulty of navigating through 12+ years’ worth of research and content. To address this feedback, we rebuilt our search engine on the Insights Hub and enhanced the interface displaying search results. We’ve seen how these changes have sped up users’ ability to find relevant content and take action on insights confidently and more quickly. We’ll have some exciting new enhancements on Insights Hub coming in Q2 as well!

Audience Insights

We launched our custom Audience Insights solution to help brands go deeper into the cultural insights and psychographics of any segment, audience, or persona. This solution goes beyond bi-demographic data to intersect cultural, demographic, and brand insights and reveals an unparalleled depth of understanding about any group of consumers.

Our Members can consult Collage Group’s in-house experts to develop audiences or provide us with existing ones derived from their typing tools or segmentation frameworks.

More brands and insights for you

At the beginning of the year, we updated our survey methodology to allow for the best representation of brand data within its category and in our B-CFQ measurement. We’re also excited to share that we are on track to survey 1,000 brands in 2024, at least twice a year, to provide you with new insights and give you the ability to trend data in fluen.ci. With more frequent updates to industry and category data, you’ll have access to even fresher insights that reflect changes within the market over time.

We are excited to launch these new features to help you act confidently on insights and increase your relevance with today’s consumers to grow your business. Keep an eye out for our email announcements for the newest fluen.ci releases!

As we continue to navigate uncertainty, polarity, and speed of technology, it is increasingly important to understand how best to manage emotions to drive connection and loyalty with consumers. Marketing leaders across industries are all working to gain a competitive edge in understanding and influencing consumer behavior, but need to understand that there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach.

Your brand must connect with and engage diverse and complex consumers across segments. Because if you do not, you are missing out on key consumers that are imperative for brand growth now and in the future.

What Surprised Us

Conventional wisdom is that the best ad steer clear of polarization altogether. This isn’t the case – in fact our research shows that 45% of the top ads actually polarize people both on emotions and on relevance of the ad to the consumer. Differing opinions on an ad’s content, its emotional resonance, or the people and issues it showcases don’t inherently diminish its effectiveness.

Understanding Emotional Polarization

With 72% of Americans advocating for brand engagement in social and political issues, the landscape demands attention. Various demographic segments express even higher expectations, signaling a shift towards values-driven consumerism. However, navigating emotional polarization doesn’t necessarily diminish performance.

The best ads use polarization in two ways: First, through the Halo Effect, by embracing common experiences underlying the expression of different cultural specifics, for example of multigenerational families, or love of sport. And second through the Kindling Effect, by resolving challenging diverging emotional responses in favor of the brand and its role in enabling resolution of these tensions.

Lessons Learned from Case Studies

Navigating emotional disagreement is a more delicate balance for brands. Just 18% of the top-performing ads are highly polarized on emotions. However, it is possible to turn negative sentiment to your advantage by leveraging the Kindling Effect, which harnesses powerful emotions triggered by an ad, to motivate consumer actions.

In examining case studies, we saw Bud Light’s attempt at transgender inclusivity resulted in backlash due to perceived inauthenticity in response to backlash. Conversely, the NFL’s ad featuring rising star Diana Flores navigated gender inequity successfully, driving enjoyment and minimizing backlash.

Interested in a deeper dive across brand activations? We would love to share with you! Partner with us and learn more.

Unlocking Cultural Insights with fluen.ci(SM)

Our fluen.ci application offers instant access to actionable cultural insights. With dynamic dashboards and category packages, fluen.ci empowers brands to understand consumer perceptions, identify strengths and weaknesses, and develop growth strategies tailored to diverse audiences.

Understanding and navigating emotional polarization is essential for brands seeking authentic connections with consumers. Contact us today to gain additional, valuable insights and actionable strategies to thrive in today’s complex marketplace.

The American consumer spends an enormous amount of time on digital media platforms. Whether it’s scrolling through social feeds, streaming videos, or tuning into podcasts, these digital spaces offer human connection, entertainment, and education. And in response, brands worldwide are evolving.

As a marketer, you’re presented with a unique opportunity to enthrall and engage your audience. Yet, to stand out, you must be ready to address the following questions

• What platforms are your consumers using to access media content?
• What are the reasons behind their choices in media consumption?
• How can you authentically engage with your target consumer across diverse channels?

To help, Collage Group has conducted multiple surveys across diverse America. The key findings and insights from this research are presented in this article. Gain a new perspective on how Americans across different age groups, ethnicities, and LGBTQ+ identities engage with digital media. From this, you’ll be able to refine your digital media strategy to one that aligns with the habits and preferences of your diverse consumer base. Heighten brand awareness and cultivate brand affection within diverse America. Are you ready?

• Create an Effective Media Strategy That Involves Three Key Channels 
• How to Create a Digital Media Strategy That Resonates With the LGBTQ+ Community
• How to Create a Digital Media Strategy That Resonates With Multicultural America
• How to Create a Digital Media Strategy That Engages Consumers Across Generations?

Crafting a Three-Pronged Digital Media Strategy for Maximum Impact

Collage Group has identified three key media channels that are essential for the success of any given digital media strategy. These channels are:

• Social media
• Video 
• Audio

Consumer behavior and habits for each channel are examined. From here, you’ll learn the unique preferences across generations, ethnicities, and LGBTQ+ consumers. Armed with these insights, you’ll be able to craft a digital media campaign, one that captures the attention of your diverse consumers.

How to Create a Digital Media Strategy That Resonates With the LGBTQ+ Community

(This section draws from those insights given by Collage Group’s 2023 Multicultural Consumer Media Habits and Channels survey.)

LGBTQ+ Americans are digital media power users. They dominate social media, online streaming, and audio platforms.

With this in mind, Collage Group meticulously analyzed the engagement patterns within this community across the three pivotal media channels. These trends unveil invaluable insights for brands, paving the way for a dynamic and captivating media strategy.

Social Media Strategy: Unveiling Key Insights and Actionable Steps for LGBTQ+ Empowerment

59% of LGBTQ+ consumers spend at least 3 hours per day on social media, compared to 45% for non-LGBTQ+ consumers. Clearly, LGBTQ+ individuals are fervent social media enthusiasts. TikTok and Instagram stand out as their favorite platforms.

Our Head-to-Head brand dashboard can be pre-loaded with a thousand brands you can view side-by-side to quickly spot opportunities, threats, and inspiration. That’s 499,500 different combinations of comparisons!

We know the pain—“quick intel” turns into a dive down the data rabbit hole with little actionable insights to help you make decisions. We are doing everything we can to help your brands engage diverse America.

All Collage Group Members now have access to their brand and a category competitor, at a minimum.

Check out a sample of this latest feature as we compare two brands: 7 Eleven vs. Circle K and how they are both performing against the category average.

As a member, you can get started with your Head-to-Head Dashboard today to:

1. Identify gaps in your branding and messaging strategy and take immediate corrective action with culture-driven insights
2. Benchmark your brand against competitors and industry leaders within the context of your brand’s performance
3. Spot significant differences or promising opportunities that can inform your strategies for product bundling, product development, messaging and positioning, pricing, etc.

Learn more about fluen.ci.