CMO Council Report: Learn What Your Customer Cares About

A new report from the CMO Council finds those who truly understand, make sense of, and track how culture defines and alters the context in which their brands exist over time are the most successful.

When you think about some of the world’s most admired brands—Coca-Cola, Nike, Red Bull, for example—they all share the ability to remain relevant, authentic, and unique in a rapidly evolving and culturally complex global market.

Based on interviews with CMOs at some of the world’s largest organizations, a new report from the CMO Council attempts to shed some light on how that works and to make sense of how culture defines and alters the context in which brands exist over time are the most.

“The key finding of this report is that it not only about understanding your individual customer, or understanding the insights and the information that we’re looking at,” said Liz Miller, the CMO Council’s SVP of marketing. “It is also about really understanding the cultural context in which a customer lives, and understanding the social and economic values that our customers care about so that we can create authentic experiences and engagement.”

To do so effectively, CMO Council advises brands to:

1. Develop a deep understanding of consumers they want to have a relationship with.
2. Have a clear brand purpose in terms of the unique role the brand plays in helping to improve the lives of those consumers the brand cares about most.
3. Create a brand engagement model that is based on attraction, in which the customer is drawn to the brand by choice.

“CMOs have to look at and identify cultural drivers,” Miller told CMO.com. “But the real value is in translating that into relevance and authenticity for the brand.”

Click here for the full findings (short registration required).