intuitive

marketing
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Whether it’s a new social media site like Foursquare or Groupon, new smart phone apps like
Price Check by Amazon, or the introduction of pop-up retail locations, one thing is certain:
the world around us is changing at an accelerated rate and therefore reshaping consumer
behavior and lifestyles and how consumers interact with brands. Why then would marketing
practices remain conventional? It’s time for marketers to seriously consider leveraging the
power of intuitive marketing to keep their brands fresh, relevant and engaging or run the risk
of being left behind.

Intuitive Marketing is based on
having a deep understanding
of your brand and a deep
understanding of your consumer,
all to facilitate speed of decision-
making and action.
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INTUITIVE MARKETING: TAKE ACTION now
IT’S TIME TO DEPLOY INTUITIVE MARKETING
As a marketer, intuitive marketing will allow you to make
decisions more quickly, execute and change directions
more often, know when to test and when not to test, and
more fully and quickly deliver on market opportunities and
consumer needs.
why is this an imperative now? because marketing
is at an important inflection point.
First, the world in which we operate is moving faster
than ever. The marketplace, retailers, and consumers
don’t set their clock to marketers’ annual marketing
plan timelines. Brands today need to react more quickly
and be more flexible, which means decisions need to be
made more quickly. The marketplace and consumers
reward speed and change. According to “Brand Bubble,”
brands that demonstrate movement and energy have
a higher market value and appreciation by consumers,
demonstrated in usage and preference growth. “The more
energy a brand has… establishes a direct link between
brand momentum and creativity, financial earnings, and
stock performance.”1 Finally, partly in answer to today’s
marketplace environment, Forrester released a report in late
2009 introducing the idea of “adaptive brand marketing,”
an approach to marketing management that is “nimbler
and more real-time oriented.”
Second, consumers can be heavily engaged with brands. It’s
no longer about command and control. Case in point - the
#3 Facebook page in 2009 was for the brand Nutella – only
behind President Obama and Coke in the number one and
two positions, respectively – and was created by a consumer
fan.2 The PR value of this alone is worth more than the
brand’s $300,000 media budget for the year – all generated
by a consumer. Pabst Blue Ribbon is another good example
– essentially a lost brand until a sub-culture of bike
messengers and others took over the brand and made it
their beer of choice.3 So, if consumers are going to drive your
brand, you better get close to them. It requires developing a
relationship, something that can’t be accomplished through
an Attitudes & Usage study.
Third, marketers are being asked to reach further with
the same or fewer dollars. We’ve never had more tools in
our toolbox to engage with our consumer. It’s hard to do
it all, so we must make effective choices. That requires
understanding your targets well and what apertures are
best to interact with them. And with mediums changing
quickly that allow for frequent learning, we need to be quick
and flexible in deploying our marketing strategies.
We need to get comfortable with making intuitive
decisions. We also need to understand that these
decisions are not based on feelings alone, but
rather these feelings are made up of deep, rational
understanding.
Finally, the understanding of how we make decisions has
grown to support the importance of the non-rational. It’s
not uncommon to accept this in terms of how consumers
make decisions, but we seem to resist this common
knowledge when it comes to the business world. This isn’t
to say that data analysis doesn’t have its place; it’s to say
that making gut decisions has its place, too. Frankly, given
the environment we operate in, we don’t have time to test
every decision we encounter. We need to get comfortable
with making intuitive decisions. We also need to understand
that these decisions are not based on feelings alone,
but rather these feelings are made up of deep, rational
understanding. As noted in How We Decide, “…feelings
aren’t simply reflections of hard-wired animal instincts….
Instead, human emotions are rooted in predictions of highly
flexible brain cells, which are constantly adjusting their
connections to reflect reality. Every time you make a mistake
or encounter something new, your brain cells are busy
changing themselves. Our emotions are deeply empirical.”4
HOW DO You get started with intuitive marketing?
FIRST, DEFINE THE BRAND. You must be clear on your
brand’s mission, its true north. What problem are you
solving for the consumer? How are you distinctively
delivering against this need? What are your guiding
principles in doing so? What choice are you making in
what you will own and stand for in the hearts and minds of
consumers? How will you authentically deliver against this
promise?
SECOND, BECOME ONE WITH THE BRAND. If you’re not in
love with your brand, then you are working on the wrong
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INTUITIVE MARKETING: TAKE ACTION now
brand. If you don’t love it, how do you expect consumers to?
Ms. Lisa Bradner of Forrester Research calls for the creation
of brand advocates who “really need to be in charge of the
heart and soul of what the brand stands for.”5 We agree
wholeheartedly. The closer you are to the brand and take in
its meaning, the easier it will be to determine activities that
are the right fit for the brand and its consumers.
THIRD, UNDERSTAND YOUR CONSUMER, INTIMATELY. You
won’t become “intuitive” through research reports and
data tables. To get intimate with a consumer, you have to
interact with them directly. Think about online dating. Most
couples don’t decide to get married before they actually
meet face to face. As noted in an article in Psychology
Today, “People never fall in love with categories…. because
only [a] real interpersonal process can create the feeling
of love. Love is created and maintained by the process of
meaningful communications. Online dating cannot do so.”6
That means getting out of the safety of the office and
interacting with consumers face to face. Conduct
ethnographies with your core consumers – go into their
homes, participate in their daily lives. Execute a sampling
event where you can directly talk to your consumers, hear
about their lives, and get direct feedback on your product.
Be in conversation with your consumers utilizing new
technologies such as Facebook and Twitter. Or, do what
Wal-Mart did and create a consumer advocacy group – in
Wal-Mart’s case called “elevenmoms” made up of mom
bloggers – that helps them better understand their needs.7
Force yourself to play “a day in the life” of your consumer
– make it an adult “consumer field trip” of sorts. There
are many ways of bringing your consumer to life – most

Footnotes:
1. The Brand Bubble: The
Looming Crisis in Brand Value
and How to Avoid It, by John
Gerzema and Ed Lebar, San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008, p.
35, 51, 54.
2. “Nutella: Web Giant,” by Todd
Wasserman, Brand Week, March
14, 2009.
3. Brand Hijack, by Alex
Wipperfürth, New York: Penguine
Group, 2005, p. 22-23.
4. How We Decide, by Johah
Lehrer, Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, 2009, p. 39, 41.
5. “Why It’s Time to Do Away With
the Brand Manager,” by Jack
Neff, Ad Age, October 12, 2009.
6. “Why Online Dating is a Poor
Way to Find Love,” by Ken Sun,
Psychology Today, July 29, 2010.
7. “Moms Say Marketers Ignore
Their Needs” by Jessica Hogue,
Brand Week, May 5, 2009.
8. “We Had to Own the Mistakes,”
Adi Ignatius, Harvard Business
Review, July-August 2010.
9. “Big ‘G’ Identity,” The Hub
Magazine, July/August 2009.
INTUITIVE MARKETING: TAKE ACTION now
importantly, engage with them so you can truly know them.
FOURTH, MAKE IT REAL. For this all to work, it needs
to be supported with a change in culture and a change
in procedure. Leaders need to give latitude for quick
decisions, either allowing for quick check-ins or pushing
down authority. Get clear on what decisions can be made
with “gut data.” A $20 million media plan may need more
data and support vs. a $100,000 marketing test. Finally, set
aside a percentage of your budget to allow for experiments
as your organization gets more comfortable with intuitive
marketing.
here are two examples of brands that demonstrate
that these principles can be put to use.
BRAND KNOWLEDGE, MOVE QUICKLY. It might not be that
surprising that when Starbuck’s needed to retrench and
redirect, the company fell back on the person who knew
the company best – Howard Schulz, the founder. With
his knowledge of the company and its original intent, the
company made several quick decisions to put it on a path
towards recovery. Mr. Schulz himself said, “I knew where
all the bones were buried, so I could move quickly” and
“there were a number of things I did that perhaps a new
CEO couldn’t have done because he wouldn’t have had the
license I had.” Schulz invested to remind employees about
what the company and the brand stood for, reinvesting in
the culture. To remind store managers about the company’s
character and values, Schulz took 10,000 of them to New
Leaders need to give latitude for quick
decisions, either allowing for quick
check-ins or pushing down authority.
Orleans to do community service. “We reinvested in our
people, we reinvested in innovation, and we reinvested
in the values for the company. Another CEO would have
focused solely on cutting costs.”8 Starbucks likely would not
have rebounded as well as it has if it weren’t for Schulz’s
knowledge of the brand and the company. His brand
knowledge was critical to the company moving quickly to
refocus and realign on priorities.
CONSUMER KNOWLEDGE, MOVE QUICKLY. Back in 2003,
General Mills conducted a test – they compared the decision
outcome of internal company consumer understanding
vs. more formal advertising market research. For an
advertising campaign that marketed to ten-year olds,
General Mills crafted hypotheses on the considered ad
executions based solely on internal insight of the target
and then went about conducting the formal market
research. The findings – their gut was right. The formal
research confirmed their intuitions, and according to Mark
Addicks, General Mills’s Chief Marketing Officer, “The only
difference was money and time.”9 It just goes to show that
an informed gut can allow companies to make decisions
quickly.
The future of marketing demands speed.
Why not utilize our own innate nature to help
us succeed in this new world?
 Anthem Worldwide, a Schawk Strategic Design Company, is an
integrated global network that provides innovative solutions
to articulate, unify and manage brand impact. Anthem creates
compelling brand experiences by aligning its strategic, creative
and executional talent worldwide with the business needs of
companies seeking a competitive advantage. Anthem offers a full
range of branding and design services. For more information on
Anthem, please visit http://www.anthemww.com.

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By Kathy Oneto, Vice President, Brand Strategy trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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INTUITIVE MARKETING: TAKE ACTION now