A few weeks ago, I was at the WFA’s Global Marketing Week in Toronto (#GMWTO), where I was confirmed in my thinking that marketers and brand owners face similar challenges as the insight industry: they both depend on humans to shape and build the future of their brands. David Wheldon, WFA President and CMO at RBS, put it very clearly in his state of the union for brands: “Put People First.” That means that brand marketing succeeds by building connections that fulfil enduring human needs. “Only through knowing what is of meaning and value to people will you truly find a way into their lives,” he stated rightfully. And this was clearly reflected in many of the presentations at the GMWTO.

According to Raja Rajamannar, CMO & CCO at Mastercard, the company realizes we live in an expectation economy, where people (1) are better informed, (2) are looking to be delighted (and not just to have their needs fulfilled), and (3) are seeking to be rewarded constantly. With an abundance of content available today, people are seeking for uninterrupted experiences which brands are often cut out of. Mastercard seeks to cut through this by means of establishing human connections through story making (not telling) in its nine passion points (i.e., sports, movies, music, culinary, philanthropy, travel, arts & culture, shopping, and a sustainable environment). They created four platforms around Priceless Cities, Causes, Specials and Surprises. For the latter, they created over 600,000 surprises which, according to Rajamannar, “costs less than TV campaigns and generates bigger impact,” – sic (without giving any further details).

The boardroom (or is it bored-room? 😊) first model creates a lot of meaningless and expensive NONTENT. In fact, when you ask people what they are passionate about, they will almost never mention a brand spontaneously. Because people would not care if 74% of all brands would just disappear. Instead, we need to evolve to an audience first model and relate to people’s passions! Brands should create content which only they can make. As Byron Sharp would state it: we need to create distinct memory structures and then refresh them with reach and frequency at an efficient rate that keeps these top of mind. But the distinct memory structures are the key. Finding these content white spaces, however, can only be done by generating real empathy with audiences and truly understand them.

The party was closed with the comeback marketing case of Barbie. Lisa McKnight (SVP & Global Brand General Manager at Mattel) explained how the brand went back to its original purpose and insight of founder Ruth Handler when she invented Barbie. For girls, playing with a Barbie offered them a platform of imagination, as “through the doll, a girl can be anything she wants to be.” After a prolonged period of success, the brand came to a halt as it was hardly considered a role model and no longer served its purpose. Mattel faced the mission to change the way the world perceives and talks about Barbie, and their brand management undertook three bold moves:

1. Get buy-in from parents. While girls are the users (and are often still delighted), the brand did not speak to moms. Moms needed to be reacquainted with what Barbie enables to do. The brand manifesto “You can be anything” went viral, with over 50 million views and over 718 impressions and a series of creative awards to follow.

The brand shifted from mass marketing to mass mattering, and the core of the success was that people do not buy products but buy into them. Current and future campaigns will be more inclusive, e.g., by focusing on dads – see Dads who play Barbie – because dads play a big influence in the overall development of girls.

2. The product line got a complete diversity overhaul, now including different skin tones and reflecting multiculturalism.