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.

This week included conversations around the best way to grow brands in today's connected world, the role brands should play in sustainability, and the challenges of content marketing.

Building for the future...
With technology enabling an ever more competitive marketplace, inspiring and engaging customers provides the foundation for building durable brands.

Build A Movement, Not a Campaign, And You'll Ignite Passion In Your Brand's True Believers urged marketers to invest time and effort in building a network of advocates for their brand.
CMOs: Let's Give Up On Advertising And Do These 6 Things Instead argued that advocacy is becoming more important than advertising and traditional marketing, and offered practical advice on identifying advocates, and working with them.
Why the best way to grow your brand is to focus on "We" explored how genuinely serving a community through content and engagement has become the most effective means of building brands.
Why Collaborating With Customers Is The Future Of Marketing Optimization... showed why creating real value for customers from their personal data is the foundation for building brands in the future.
While Your Company Needs An Enemy, And Here's The Data To Prove It argued for positioning your brand against an idea or belief, to create loyalty among consumers who are looking for a brand they can proudly support.

We are the world...
Brands cannot survive in societies that fail, so they have to be a part of a shift to a more sustainable future.

Fewer Consumers, More Heroes urged brands to use the power of storytelling to inspire people to create change.
10 Qualities That You Need To Create A Sustainable Brand explored what's required for a brand to operate more sustainably as well as encourage people to live that way.
Consumers Prefer Brands Associated With Good Causes provided more evidence that doing good is increasingly just good business.
While Ikea's sustainable instinct showed why this global retailer believes embracing sustainability has become a "must-do" for any company.

Show me the content...
With traditional advertising increasingly being filtered out, several posts explored the role of content in influencing and engaging customers.

The Content "IS" the Ad urged marketers to develop helpful content that emotionally connects with their audiences, and encourages conversation and sharing.
Marketers Are Not Publishing Enough Content argued that brands need to create a lot of high quality content, that's relevant and in context.
A Strategic Map for Better Use of Content Marketing Technologies looked at how brands can use technology to improve their content marketing process.
7 Major Brands That Win Hearts and Customers with Clever Web Copywriting provided some useful examples of engaging content, that also represents the exact personality of the brand.
While How Your Brand Can Create, Track, And Learn To Love Big Content highlighted the need for marketers to understand how much content they have, what type it is, where it is, and how it is performing.

Finally, with the seemingly never-ending rise of smartphones and tablets, The Mobile Shopping Life Cycle provided a useful framework to help marketers adapt. 

Enjoy...