1.
2014:
10 Things That Will
Matter for Brands

2.
WHAT’S INSIDE
3/
MAKE 2014 MATTER
10 THINGS THAT WILL MATTER FOR BRANDS
4/
#1 TWITTER TAKEOVER
5/
#2 RELEVANT RETAIL
6/
#3 RISE OF THE CXO
7/
#4 COLLABORATIVE ECONOMY
8/
#5 USER EXPERIENCE WRIT LARGE
9/
#6 THE NEXT IPHONE THAT’S NOT AN IPHONE
10/
#7 OWNED MEDIA STRATEGIES FOR CONTENT MARKETING
11/
#8 REAL TIME CONVERSATION
12/
#9 BIG DATA GETS SMALL
13/
#10 STORYTELLING
14/
TALK TO JACK

3.
Make 2014 Matter
It’s an exciting time to work in the world of brands.
That’s not just because there are new technologies
and tools emerging all the time to help marketers
better understand, communicate and build relationships
with their customers—it’s also because there’s such a
strong (stronger than ever?) recognition of the impact
that creativity, brand and experience have in fueling
business growth.
To that point, a great line from this year’s Cannes
Festival of Creativity was this simple assertion by
Coke’s CMO, Joe Tripodi: “We believe there’s a direct
line of sight between creativity and performance in
the marketplace.”
Innovation abounds, and there are lots of trends that
will matter for brands in the year to come. We can’t
talk about all of them, but in the pages that follow
we’ve called out the ten we think should matter most
to brands in 2014.
What will all this mean for brands? That depends, of
course, on the brand, and on how brave its in-house
team and agency partners are willing to be.
Liz Bigham
2014: 10 Things That Will Matter for Brands
/3

4.
#1
Twitter
Takeover
With Twitter’s IPO a recent memory and many of us royally
sick of the 24/7 news coverage, it might not feel like we
need to call out Twitter as a “trend”. Yet two important things
will happen in 2014.
First, in the year to come, Twitter will likely go mainstream
in a big way. It currently has about 232 million active users
(and some 600 million inactive); look for active users to
grow significantly as it evolves from the quirky nerd of the
social media world to top of the pack. Twitter is already the
preferred social media network among teens; according to
multiple studies, it’s more popular than Facebook among
this age group.1 As go teens, so go the rest of us (although,
having said that, one of my favorite Wall Street Journal
stories this year was about a hugely influential grandmother
on Twitter, @grannyny, so look for Twitter to perform as well
with hipster grandmas).
Second, Twitter will continue to reap the benefits of some
very advertising-friendly decisions. It bought Vine. It continues
to be open to outside developers working to find new
applications for Twitter. It added photos and Vine videos to
its Twitter feed, and advertisers are already experimenting
(for better and worse) with the new possibilities. And even
though it’s already far more mobile-advertising ready than
the competition, it’s reported to be rolling out still more
new mobile ad products. This March, Twitter predicted ad
revenue in 2014 will top $1 billion—could it be even more?
2014: 10 Things That Will Matter for Brands
/4

5.
#2
Relevant
Retail
Retail has been changed forever by e-commerce and always
connected consumers. But the intriguing retail trend in 2014 isn’t
doom-and-gloom (think “showrooming”, or cost-conscious consumers
looking in-store and then buying online)—it’s the very positive
evidence of brands figuring out how to make retail more relevant
to consumers.
Relevant retail comprises experiences that are built around giving
shoppers what they want—and can only get in the physical store
setting or a direct brand-to-customer interaction. Think expert staff,
inspiring interactive technology and the chance to touch and feel
products before making the purchase. Big box retailers still struggle
with achieving this mix but can find inspiration from brands as
2
diverse as Burberry, IKEA and Warby Parker.
Still other brands are achieving relevant retail through what
Contagious calls “experiential vending machines” like the one L’Oréal
Paris installed in a New York City subway station. As a woman
approaches the machine, cameras and sensors in its mirrors detect
her coloring and outfit and recommend eye, lip and nail products she
can buy on the spot with a credit card.
According to Contagious, “The appetite for new, ‘intelligent’ vending
machines, which feature sensors, Wi-Fi-connectivity and LCD screens,
is growing… [and will reach] 2.33 million [units] by 2016, predicts
global market research firm TechNavio.”
2014: 10 Things That Will Matter for Brands
/5

6.
#3
Rise of
the CXO
In their excellent book on customer experience, Harley
Manning and Kerry Bodine assert that in the near future,
“literally every company will compete on the basis of
customer experience. In fact, they already do—most just
don’t realize what that really means, what’s at stake, or
how to do it well.” 3
Companies are increasingly aware that experience is critical
to business success. Nine out of ten consumers say that
they choose brands on the basis of the overall experience;
six in ten say they’ll pay more for a brand that offers a
unique experience.4 Better experience has been correlated
to higher purchase intent, decreased customer churn and
greater word of mouth awareness. And over a five-year
period, companies with superior experiences beat so-called
“experience laggards”—and the S&P 500 Index—on stock
performance.5
Inevitably, as companies begin to invest in experience,
they will look to experts inside their companies (as well as
partners outside) to lead experience. The Chief Experience
Officer, or CXO, will be on the rise in 2014 for a simple
reason: by leading customer experience, CXOs help
companies make more money (ka-ching!) and have a
big role to play moving forward.
2014: 10 Things That Will Matter for Brands
/6

7.
#4
Collaborative
Economy
Odds are, if you asked ten people to define “collaborative economy,”
you’d get ten different answers. But that’s less an indication of
confusion than it is of rich possibilities. Building from the basic
premise of shared access rather than exclusive ownership, often
enabled by technology and peer communities, what unites the many
visions of collaborative economy is this: new pathways to growth for
virtually any kind of brand.
The most familiar forms of collaborative economy comprise the shared
use/shared investment approach familiar from car-sharing brands like
Zipcar (and now Hertz’s 24/7 and GM’s Relayrides), peer-to-peer
accommodation companies like Airbnb, or (a current favorite among
my over-scheduled friends), the chore outsourcing network TaskRabbit.
Collaborative economies can also include the kinds of open
marketplaces that are helping niche as well as mainstream brands
achieve growth by collaborating with like-minded brands: think
the new marketplace from TOMS shoes and Staples opening its
e-commerce site to outside companies. Jeremiah Owyang estimates a
76% increase in collaborative marketplaces in 2013.6
Finally, 3D printing: it’s the most immediately relevant innovation in
the collaborative economy world. It got a lot of press in 2013 but
will certainly begin to have more mainstream impact in the year to
come. For example, HP says it will enter the 3D marketplace in 2014,
opening up the possibility that 3D will begin to shift normative models
of fabrication and distribution in a big way.7
2014: 10 Things That Will Matter for Brands
/7

8.
#5
User
Experience
Writ Large
As a term, “user experience” has its roots in the internet—as do most
things nowadays—and speaks to the profound leap in quality that
occurred in the mid-1990s as web strategists began to define success
around actual user interaction and behaviors versus static web features
and design. Think of it as an outside-in approach (experience defined
around users) versus inside out (experience defined by brand).
Increasingly, brands are applying a user experience approach on a
grander scale, applying its lessons outside the web. That’s evident in
the rising interest in customer experience as a category of investment
and in enlisting experience leaders like CXOs (see trend #3 above).
One area that’s especially intriguing moving into 2014 is the
application of user experience thinking around product design and
brand extensions. Why? Because this is where it’s clearest that brands
are seeking first to understand their customers’ lives and then to develop
product offerings that actually meet their needs.
An example now being tested in the Big Apple: American Express
partnered with Verifone to enable its customers to use their rewards
points to pay for cab rides in New York City.8 In the short term, this
is a convenient way for customers to use rewards points, which often
languish unused; longer term, it’s opening up much broader possibilities
for the brand to encourage frequent, small uses in
mobile settings.
Another example: Heineken is testing a home draft beer machine
concept in Italy and France, designed by renowned Marc Newson and
called “The Sub”. 9 Think of it as “Nespresso for designer beer”—that
is, re-imagining how a common consumer product is delivered, made
and consumed in the home, as Nespresso did when it introduced
single-serving capsules some five years ago. For Heineken, since the
vast majority of beer consumption occurs in home, re-thinking this
experience around native consumer behaviors makes
incredibly good sense.
2014: 10 Things That Will Matter for Brands
/8

9.
#6
The Next
iPhone
That s Not
An iPhone
By the 2013 holiday shopping season, Sony and Microsoft will
be waging an epic battle for market share as each releases a
game-changing new console: respectively, the PlayStation 4 and
Xbox One. This will play out in a big way for brands in 2014 and
beyond. It’s hugely important for a variety of reasons.
First, neither has released a major update of its console in almost
a decade—and each is expanding computing power ten-fold (yes,
you read that correctly).
But second—and what truly makes this so important for brands—
the possibilities of the new platforms go far beyond gaming. Xbox
One in particular has been pitched to the advertising community
as potentially revolutionizing media consumption by bringing
together everything—TV, gaming, the web, Skype, you name it—
in one connected, always-on, gesture-controlled device.
Inevitably, a change this significant in hardware will have a big
ripple effect on the media experience itself. Think of how much
change was wrought on content when smart phones like the
iPhone went mainstream. The impact of PlayStation 4 and Xbox
One may be similar.
2014: 10 Things That Will Matter for Brands
/9

10.
#7
Owned Media
Strategies
for Content
Marketing
“Content marketing” may sound as thrilling as a root canal, but it’s
considered by many CMOs (78% according to one study) to be
“the future of marketing”. Yet only half of those surveyed had strong
content marketing strategies in place—suggesting both a need and an
10
opportunity for brands in 2014.
First, the “what” of content marketing: it’s custom media that’s
developed to initiate a conversation with customers, new or existing.
Next, the “why”: in a market that’s both competitive and endlessly
noisy, it’s critical to have a reason to talk with customers, especially if
the conversation is around educating and adding value to their lives.
Inbound marketing initiatives built around content are important for all
brands, but they’re considered especially effective in the B2B space.
The big question for brands is the “how”. Too often brands focus
simply on the distribution channels—and that’s tempting when there
are so many exciting things happening in the social media space. But
arguably, the big opportunity for content marketing lies in the owned
media space—that is, in developing unique brand experiences that
engage customers more deeply, and that in turn generate a lot of word
of mouth and ancillary user-generated content.
In 2014, the content marketing trend should be a more strategic use
of owned media like event marketing—since 67% of B2B marketers
surveyed said events are the most effective tactic for content marketing—
enhanced by a rigorous review of process and readiness for sharing
content (see trend #8 below) as well as a commitment to great
storytelling (see trend #10 below).
2014: 10 Things That Will Matter for Brands /10

11.
#8
Real Time
Conversation
One of the biggest surprise marketing coups of 2013—Oreo’s
timely tweet during the Super Bowl blackout in February—
will evolve and grow up as a big trend for 2014: real time
marketing—or better yet, real time conversation.
In the most basic sense, real time marketing is about responding
quickly to events as they happen, hijacking a big moment in time
that millions of people are already watching or talking about
(thus Oreo’s genius “You can still dunk in the dark” Tweet
during the Super Bowl).
What does it take to turn a creative response around so quickly
to an unforeseeable event? (As opposed to, say, the endless,
long-planned and mostly unsuccessful attempts by brands to ride
the coattails of the much-anticipated royal birth in July?) A lot
of discipline and what many brands describe as a “newsroom”
approach with staff and agencies deployed accordingly—and in
fact that’s exactly what Tide’s brand team calls its rapid response
11
team: a newsdesk.
The bigger opportunity in real time marketing is less about
cute or too obvious tie-ins to events in culture and more about
initiating conversations where brands have something relevant
to contribute—connected, of course, to things consumers care
about. Interestingly, among the brands doing well in this category:
General Electric, which creates surprisingly relatable content
celebrating little-known holidays like National Inventors’ Day and
International Day of Radiology (nerds of the world, unite!) as an
opening for talking about how innovative technology makes
12
life better.
2014: 10 Things That Will Matter for Brands /11

12.
#9
Big Data
Gets Small
With all the stories in 2013 about wearable devices—which mostly
means Google Glass, but also Oakley Smart Glass, the Samsung
Galaxy Gear Smart Watch, GoPro cameras and other products—it’s
inevitable that in 2014 we’ll see opportunities for brands to use big data
in a very targeted way to enhance individual customer experiences.
How? Big data helps brands use unthinkable quantities of consumer
information to see the big picture, to unearth trends and identify
opportunities that will grow their businesses. That’s great for brands,
of course, but it’s not always evident how this will help consumers.
Doesn’t it seem like objections about privacy issues escalate in direction
proportion to the perception that big data and data mining are just
about being sold more stuff or advertised to in more intrusive ways?
Here’s the thing: brands can also use data to enhance consumer
experience—precisely by going very small. By marrying big data
insights to better understand customer experience with the pin-prick
localization that comes from consumers equipped with wearable
devices, brands can be truly brilliant at improving experience for
individual customers. Retailers and service-driven brands like hotels,
airlines and banks can use Google Glass and its ilk to offer enhanced
guidance: imagine assembling a lamp with help from the retailer at
home on your wearable device, or a concierge that anticipates your
needs, or airline and banking service that doesn’t feel impersonal.
“Big data” tends to occupy most of the conversation in marketing circles,
particularly when holding company leaders make big pronouncements
about advertising agencies becoming data companies, but the real story
in 2014 should be brands using data to get up close and personal with
consumers in ways that actually make experience better.13
2014: 10 Things That Will Matter for Brands /12

13.
#10
Storytelling
Storytelling is so old, it’s new. It’s what we’ve always done to build
brands. It’s truly transmedia. How we tell stories will (and must) always
change, but being good at storytelling is tablestakes for our industry. If
you’re not good at storytelling, it’s time to find a new job.
Storytelling was one of the big buzzwords at Cannes this year, and
some of the most awarded entries (think Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches, or
P&G’s Proud Sponsor of Moms) were masterpieces of the art.
Moving into 2014, there are exciting developments at our disposal in
the craft of storytelling for brands. Digital and social are ever more
nimble and native to consumers’ daily experience—and the web is
more rife with visual storytelling tools than ever. Think Vine, short-form
Instagram videos, Snapchat and the addition of pictures and videos to
Twitter’s feed (see trend #1). Skewing to the visual plays to the simple
fact (the bane of copywriters everywhere) that people process visual
information 60,000 times faster than they do written words.14
We waste a lot of time worrying about the categorization of what we
create, but storytelling is a greater uniter than the media touchpoints that
divide us. As Steven Althaus of BMW said at Cannes, “I beg us as an
industry to stop talking about traditional and nontraditional. Everything
is just a way of telling a story. We’re all storytellers here.”
The bottom line for brands in 2014: balance a back-to-basics approach
to storytelling (i.e., be great at it) with a stronger understanding of how
all the touchpoints in the broader brand story fit together.
2014: 10 Things That Will Matter for Brands /13

14.
Talk to Jack
Footnotes
1. http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Twitter-Better-Than-Facebook-TargetingTeens/1010336
http://www.pewinternet.org/Press-Releases/2013/Teens-Social-Media-andPrivacy.aspx
http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-testing-mobile-app-install-ads-2013-11
http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Twitter-Forecast-Up-After-Strong-MobileShowing/1009763
Contact: Liz Bigham
E: liz_bigham@jackmorton.com
T: +1 212 401 7212
2. http://www.slideshare.net/jackmortonWW/jack-retail-experience
http://www.slideshare.net/jackmortonWW/helen-graney-jack-mortonworldwide-submitted-30th-august-2013-v7-slideshare
https://www.contagious.io/articles/subway-style
http://www.slideshare.net/jackmortonWW/jack-retail-experience
http://www.slideshare.net/jackmortonWW/helen-graney-jack-mortonworldwide-submitted-30th-august-2013-v7-slideshare
https://www.contagious.io/articles/subway-style
Read our blog at blog.jackmorton.com
Follow us on twitter @jackmorton
Visit us online at jackmorton.com
3. Harley Manning and Kerry Bodine, Outside In: The Power of Putting the
Customer at the Center of Your Business (2012).
4. Best Experience Brands: A Global Study by Jack Morton” (2013): http://www.
slideshare.net/jackmortonWW/best-experience-brands
5. Watermark Consulting Analysis of CXi and Stock Performance, cited in
Outside In.
6. http://www.toms.com/marketplace
http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/cab/abn/y13/m11/i07/s02
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2013/11/07/collaborative-economystrategy-marketplaces-expand-brands-with-a-community/
7. http://www.zdnet.com/hp-gearing-up-to-enter-3d-printing-market-by-2014report-7000022397/
8. http://about.americanexpress.com/news/pr/2013/grab-a-cab-ride-with-points.
aspx
9. http://adage.com/article/creativity-pick-of-the-day/heineken-introducesdesigner-home-draft-system/244866/
About Jack Morton
Jack Morton Worldwide is a global brand experience agency with offices
on five continents. Our agency culture promotes breakthrough ideas about
how experiences connect brands and people—in person, online, at retail
and through the power of digital and word of mouth influence. We work
with clients to create powerful and effective experiences that engage
customers and consumers, launch products, align employees and build
strong experience brands. Ranked at the top of our field, we’ve earned
hundreds of awards for creativity, execution and effectiveness.
© Jack Morton Worldwide 2013
10. http://www.ragan.com/Main/Articles/Infographic_Content_marketing_trends_
for_2014_47524.aspx#
11. http://www.ana.net/blogs/show/id/25506
12. https://twitter.com/generalelectric
13. http://digiday.com/agencies/martin-sorrell-wpp-isnt-an-advertising-company/
14. http://www.prnewsonline.com/water-cooler/2013/11/01/break-out-thecrystal-ball-20-marketing-trends-for-2014-infographic/
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JACK
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