Creating Loyal Brands : Themes Of The Week...

So much content, so little time...

A weekly round-up of the themes and posts I found particularly interesting or useful.

The impact of the digital world was again center-stage this week, with advice on how businesses need to re-organize, and on bringing together strategy and brand narrative, as well a look at how big data can enable better decision-making.

Getting it together...
Several posts explored how the new realities of business require a much more collaborative approach.

The Imminent Shift from Social to Digital Engagement showed how the connected customer is using multiple screens and channels to interact with a brand, and why this demands an integrated approach to deliver a cohesive customer experience.
The Six Characteristics of Companies That Are Winning the Digital Game highlighted the leadership capabilities and decisions that are required to compete in today's digital world.
The snappily-titled Why Companies Should Put Values First - And How They Can Do It Without Sacrificing Growth urged CEOs to adopt a values-led approach, to unlock the potential of their employees and avoid greater regulation.
Why I Made My Payments Startup An Open Company looked at the benefits of being transparent, and openly collaborating with customers, through the eyes of a founder and CEO.
While The Only CEO Who Matters served as a reminder that the "greatest assets companies possess are not their buildings, brands, or backgrounds. It's their customers."

The owl and the pussycat...
In a world with ever-greater transparency and competition, a brand's strategy and narrative need to be closely aligned.

The Connection Between Strategy and Story offered a thoughtful piece on how the choices that strategy entails and the meaning that story provides need to come together to create a strongly differentiated brand.
Dove: The Most Impressive Brand Builder in the Last 15 Years? provided a case study of strategy and story working together to create a major success story.
Lady Gaga Playbook: How to Turn Your Customers into Fanatic Followers examined how this pop artist had brought together her story with a clear strategy to build a fanatical group of consumers.
While Creative Newsroom: Brand Storytelling at the Speed of Social looked at how the strategic imperative for real-time engagement makes it more important for brands to understand and articulate their brand story.

Oh Big Data, you enable me...
With all the hype surrounding Big Data, several posts explored how it's real power comes in enabling people to make better decisions.

What big data means for marketing decision making argued that the big opportunity lies in using data to inform, rather than to drive decisions.
Little Data Makes Big Data More Powerful urged organizations to use data to enable their customers to make better decisions themselves, instead of trying to figure it out for them.
The coming era of 'on-demand' marketing highlighted how the combination of emerging technologies and big data are raising customer expectations for relevant, personalized, value-creating, and always available interactions.
While The Value of Big Data Isn't the Data argued that human insights have to be extracted from the data at machine scale, if decision-making is really to be enabled, and suggested how.

Finally, Talking Kellogg's offered an interesting interview with the CMO on keeping the snap, crackle and pop with consumers today, and tomorrow.

Enjoy... 

Businesssimon uwins