Blog | IOVIA

Almost unclassifiable: what brands need is not consultants but laboratory partners

The problem with many consultants is they still operate like it’s the 20th century. Consultants bring specialized knowledge but they’re always not in the trenches with you when you have to apply that knowledge to drive results. And the bottom line for brands is they...

Brand communities are the ultimate social media

Marketers spend a lot of time thinking about the motivations of the people they’re trying to reach. Identifying motivations of specific consumer types and then targeting them with specific messages, products and opportunities is standard stuff. And it’s...

Consumers are people too: a brief guide to motivation

We need to think about consumers, brand fans, and potential community participants as people. It’s sometimes easy to forget they are just like the mostly-well-meaning, flawed, ambitious, insecure, time-strapped individuals we see around us each day. The more we...

What’s the why: the key question for your brand community planning

Find the purpose for your community. Not your purpose. The purpose. You have to satisfy both the needs of your brand and the needs of the participants who you hope to work with. It’s important to remember: almost nobody has enough time these days and in the digital...

Why brand communities fail

Communities form in the wild all the time. Shared interests, shared passions, an unspoken desire to belong, a catalytic event. All these things can bring people together and form the basis for a community to form and grow. But for a brand community, to get your...

The unsustainable Copenhagen Fashion Summit

Recently, Heidi and I had an opportunity to attend the 2019 Copenhagen Fashion Summit, which bills itself as the world’s leading business event focused on sustainability. While it’s not a typical conference for IOVIA, we have team members passionate about fashion and...

What if you had to start again?

What if you didn’t have sunk costs in TV and radio advertising buys? Or in long term agency commitments? Or in technology subscriptions and freelance contracts and analytics platforms and social media ads and influencer contracts? What if your entire marketing budget...

What kind of relationship do you want with your consumers?

Imagine you’re on vacation and stop in a small store to shop for souvenirs. You may say hello to the person working behind the counter, get their advice on what to buy. You may chat a bit about the town or get a recommendation for lunch. It’s pleasant. But when you...

A new gig economy?

The first idea. Depending on who you talk to, the gig economy was supposed to be the end of everything – especially reliable income and benefits for workers and families – or the start of something new, a global marketplace where an individual’s options for career...

What if there are no shortcuts?

What if you can’t ‘growth hack’ your way to brand awareness, and user and customer growth? What if building relationships with your fans and consumers took as much time and care as building relationships with real people? What if hiring big name influencers with...

Participation commentary