Best in Brand & Innovation for January

Every month we bring you the best articles we find in brand, innovation, and creativity.

This month’s list gives insight to a psychologist’s expertise on how to make your brand stand out even if it’s unfamiliar, what consumer’s are looking for in 2018 (hint: it involves being more authentic), how longer dedicated hours in your field of work can increase creativity and much more.

I Buy, Therefore I Am: The Psychology Behind Why We Choose Our Favorite Brands – Huffington Post

Favorite brands help create personal brands. Often brands are chosen because they represent something we see in ourselves or want to obtain. The more a customer identifies with a brand, the less likely they are to switch to a different brand. In order to build “unbreakable” customer relationships, the editor outlines five things businesses can do now.  “Understanding the underlying psychological mechanisms that motivate consumers to choose, stay, and advocate for brands is a critical endeavor in creating competitive advantage.”

Dr. Paul Warner

Three reasons to think twice before injecting AI into your branding – Medium

Artificial Intelligence is a hot topic and businesses are racing to make room for it in their marketing materials and incorporate it into routines. However, “within science and technology companies, the use of AI as a label, has been problematic” writes author Steve Miller. He then goes on to give three reasons to be cautious about “over-adoption of this term in industry.” His reasons consist of repeating history when we’ve already seen a period of reduced funding and interest in AI research, educating the public by giving the correct terminology to job titles/AI functions so that AI doesn’t end up being perceived as magic. And lastly, he argues, semantics. Miller also gives the counter argument, that evolving with the times is a huge part of staying relevant.

Steve Miller @F1uff

 

How this senior marketing exec is using his psychology doctorate to promote an ‘unknown’ brand – CNBC

Adrian Britten is the global director of communications and brand at MS Amlin. As a licensed psychologist he  knows that in order to get the word out about MS Amlin, they have to be able to talk about who they are. So he looks for marketing opportunities that allow the company to do just that. The goal is to create a “degree of attention or (psychological) processing” that is meaningful enough to spark interest.

Lucy Handley @lucyhandley 

 

Fashion in 2018 – Getting Personal– Business of Fashion

According to the BoF-McKinsey Global Fashion survey, personalisation is the number one trend in 2018. And a more tailored experience from online businesses has become an expectation. While social media helps buildSet featured image personal brands, many consumers are “tired of the facades people often project” and desire authenticity. They want brands that align with their values–brands with a purpose. One way companies can benefit from these desires is to “refocus on their strengths and value proposition” and set themselves apart whenever possible.

BOF Team and Mckinsey & Co. @BoF

 

Adverts which use the same music over and over are most effective, scientists find – iNews

Scientists at Goldsmiths University of London have found that using the same piece of music year after year ensures people remember a brand. In particular, radio adverts using “classical music were especially successful at getting people’s brains to engage” with the brand or product, according to measurements of brain activity.” writes author Adam Sherwin. However, finding a “likeable” song could be key.

Adam Sherwin @adamsherwin10

 

More than ever, brands need to get into your heads – Gulf News

Brands are more important now than ever before–thanks to a growing middle class and many new markets. And the most successful brands use creativity in advertising to catch the attention of people who are inundated with options and often indifferent. To get into the minds of the viewers at this time when it’s increasingly harder to do so, marketers should elicit an emotion, create content that aligns with how people feel, choose names wisely, seek brand-building outside of the internet, and find out what each demographic is passionate about.

Scott Goodson @scottfrog

 

What the Psychology of Persuasion Shows Us About Getting Influencer Marketing Right – Skyword

To guide customers to a brand, marketers can use the six universal principles of persuasion: reciprocity, scarcity, authority, consistency, liking, and consensus. Influencer marketing paired with social media is a new concept but influential marketing has been around for quite some time. Author Nicola Brown uses watchmaker Daniel Wellington to explore how successful a marketing campaign can be when social media and influencer marketing are paired.

Nicola Brown @NicolaThinks

 

The secret to creativity – according to science – theconversation.com

“Creative inspiration is notoriously elusive.” writes Valerie van Mulukom as she explores if training creativity or inducing a state of creativity is even possible. The phases of creative imagination are “divergent thinking”, the ability to think of a wide variety of ideas connected to a main problem or topic and intuitive thinking which is fast and automatic. To evaluate the usefulness for ideas, “convergent thinking” takes place. And this is all supported by analytical thinking which allows us to choose which idea is the right one. However, the longer you work and explore a field, the more intuitively you’ll be at coming up with ideas and will become quicker to select the right one. So in the end it’s not necessarily about finding inspiration as it is about spending quality time in an area of thinking. “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”

Valerie van Mulukom

 

Three Different Networks Determine Your Level of Creativity – SANVADA

Recent research has found that the more creative someone is, the more connections there are within the salience network of the brain which extracts significant information from the environment, the default network of the brain which is responsible for impulsive imagination and thinking and the executive control network which is ideal for both cognitive assessment and control functions. Researchers studied the fluctuations of blood flow in the brain to determine creativity. Currently, analysts are working to discover if the action of the brain can change as people hone in and work on specific skills.

Alvin Munene