Accelerating the Inevitable: Marketing for a Post-Trust World
What does it mean for a brand to take a knee?
How does prioritizing profitability over corporate culture inevitably damage your bottom line?
Why does playing it safe and neutral, i.e. staying silent on social issues, inevitably backfire?
Because consumer values are shifting fast. A crumbling economic system, civic unrest, climate change, and now a seemingly endless pandemic are accelerating the disruption of an already unstable world. Brands are nervous. Consumers are realizing the power is in their hands to change things and they’re holding business accountable. They’re also experiencing, for the first time ever, what their values truly are. Values like justice, family, connection, our inextricable link to nature, are coming to the forefront while materialism is losing ground. More and more, consumers are holding brands accountable for ethics, integrity, community, and reliable information.
Brands that truly stand for justice, equality, environmental accountability, and community expansion will thrive. Those that don’t will inevitably decline as consumers and influencers hold them accountable with their attention and buying power. There is accelerating polarization of people away from traditional media channels and towards trusted inner circle voices. What marketers need to be shepherding today are authentic relational, long-term, and multi-directional engagement platforms where entire ecosystems have a voice and reflect out and back and become the navigational system brands need to stay relevant and innovate.
What if the true mission of marketing could be to harness the power of market demand to drive rapid, radical change.
What the world really needs from marketing today is a magical ability to forge the connections with evolving consumers necessary for business to thrive in change. Marketers need to move the entire organization from incrementally to exponentially and take the lead to lean into the role that business plays in bringing real value to the world.
In our world of marketing, we believe it’s not just about what you sell, the strategy, or the culture, it’s all of those things, plus your ecological footprint (the resources needed to make and dispose of your product), your hiring policies, the makeup of your board and leadership teams, your giving history, community outreach, and so much more. Business can be a force for transformation when it is aligned at all levels of the organization and grounded in the purpose to serve our world. As Seth Godin says, “Marketing is one of our greatest callings. It’s the work of positive change.”
The discipline of marketing is an emotionally-driven process informed, advanced, and supported by technology and data. The more connected, purposeful, and emotionally adept a marketer is, the more relevant and satisfying is the experience of a brand for the consumer. We teach people relationship skills to connect more deeply with each other and in challenging community dynamics. We teach future-casting and precognition to unlock the empathy and intuition inherent in your people to right action. We work alongside your teams to entrain behaviors, support appropriate actions, and help build an organization that thrives.
About InfiniteEdge:
InfiniteEdge is a consultancy of marketing and culture experts that helps companies build trust and navigate today’s rapidly evolving market environment, while providing all the marketing services you'd expect from a top-tier integrated agency. Invite us in to help you transition your marketing operation from reactive to responsive and develop a roadmap to help you thrive through the coming unknown.
