Steve Barnett

Reset our assumptions: Playing With Emerging Rules

Digital communications have not only changed the rules of the marketing game, but have created an environment where the rules are being made up as we play. Add a global recession to the mix and these emerging guidelines are changing even more rapidly. The old rules provided for targeting high margin consumer segments, creating compelling one-way messages, assuming interest on the part of targeted consumers, and working with well-known marketing consultants and advertising agencies. Margins are decreasing, dialogue replaces one-way, interest is flagging and marketers/advertisers are not confident. Worst of all, media is fragmenting and online marketing is mostly hit or miss. This presentation is based on research I have conducted on online consumption patterns for younger consumers. The new emergent rules challenge our assumptions about marketing and communication rules, especially for younger consumers:

  • Younger consumers expect interaction not one-way messages – they want to participate in marketing (example: BMW online videos created by consumers)
  • Younger consumers want to know about the company not just the product (example: how “green” is Coca Cola, does Starbucks buy “fair trade” coffee
  • Younger consumers want to design their own product (example: Nike’s website that allows input into athletic shoe appearance)
  • Younger consumers check “objective” rating websites for critiques of products and services (example: Chicago Intercontinental hotel bookings reduced by one bad online review)
  • Younger consumers use social networking sites and messaging sites for the latest trends (example: Twitter for movie reviews)
  • Younger consumers resent ads that intrude on their online space (example: auto ads on home page)

These changes suggest emergent rules (that in turn will be quickly replaced) – Allow consumer input, don’t brag about the brand, monitor rating sites, and so on. I will suggest a number of these rules as well as ways to anticipate the next round of change and emergence, using ethnographic methods not traditional marketing research strategies.

About Steve Barnett

Steve Barnett has an international reputation for his expertise in consumer and market strategy, branding and business strategy development, (especially in the financial, automobile, clothing and consumer package goods, large scale retail, energy, pharmaceutical industries) and risk analysis. Steve’s insights and accomplishments have been published in business books (including “The Nissan Report”) and periodicals including Advertising Age, American Demographics, and European Management Journal (most recently a co-authored article on future China scenarios for The Financial Times). He is currently a Senior Research Fellow at The Wharton School. 

Steve is available as an expert witness for cases dealing with consumer issues, products and branding, advertising, consumer research, and business strategy. He has specific expertise in the automobile industry, package goods, electric and gas utilities, and business consulting. He is President of BardoConsulting where he designs and directs consumer research and strategy projects that use both ethnographic methods and real-time software data analysis. He works with global clients such as Proctor & Gamble, Pepsi, Colgate, Pfizer, Heineken, Cadbury Schweppes, Saatchi & Saatchi, Universal Studios, the U.S. Navy and Cap Gemini. 

Steve is President of Consumer Research & Insights at SmartRevenue where he has combined research with the latest technologies to provide a complete picture of consumer behavior and values, including Wal*Mart and Home Depot. Steve’s prior practice as Senior Partner at OgilvyOne (part of Ogilvy & Mather) included developing scenario-driven Internet branding, positioning, and customer segmenting strategies (using interactive direct marketing techniques and eCRM) for start-up dotcoms as well as for global companies moving business online, including American Express, Jaguar, BP Amoco, Kimberly-Clark, IBM, TerraLycos, Kodak, Pfizer, and Motorola. He developed the strategy for the American Express Blue Card site as well as innovative ways to attract new customers to the Blue Card via interactive techniques. 

Steve was previously Vice President and Director of Global Consumer Strategic Development for three years at Citigroup’s Consumer Bank. He was responsible for integrating consumer research with scenario planning to provide actionable on- and off-line tools for customer retention and acquisition, branding differentiation, new product development, and service initiatives in Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Prior to Citibank, he was Managing Director of Global Business Network, a scenario planning consultancy. For five years, he created and managed the New York office while directing consumer-based scenario plans and risk analyses for key clients such as: Ernst & Young, AARP financial network, Volvo, Nissan, Fiat, AT&T, IBM, L’Oreal, Nike, and Nokia, among others.  Before joining GBN, Steve was Director of Product Strategy and Product Development for Nissan North America. He created the auto company’s first scenario planning and strategy department that played a key role in repositioning Nissan and Infiniti vehicles for the 80s and 90s, especially given growing environmental concerns and increasing competition. 

Steve received his Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of Chicago and has taught at Princeton, Brown, MIT, and The Wharton School. Steve is a pioneer is business anthropology, starting an ethnographic observation firm – The Cultural Analysis Group in the early 80s – focusing on consumer energy-related behavior and values. He has testified on the automobile industry, transportation mix, and energy consumption before the California Energy Commission and the US Congress. He was an advisor to the OECD on consumer trends and environmental issues. He has published books and articles on the implications of global consumer culture, American cultural trends, energy use, corporate responsibility, Asian modernization (most recently, China Futures, Financial Times, 9/23/05) and the next iteration of consumer science (most recently, “Build Brand and Leadership Through Anthropology and Scenario Planning” in The Change Champion’s Fieldguide, Best Practice Publications 2003.) His next book, Consuming Beliefs, is forthcoming from The Wharton School Press in 2007. Steve hosts an Internet radio environmental program (with and audience of ~100,000), The Paradise Parking Lot, and appears in the documentary, In Debt We Trust. 

He is on the Advisory Boards of several companies, as well as the Editorial Board of the Advertising and Society Review, and Whole Earth magazine. Steve is an advisor to RainTrust, an organization devoted to preserving the Amazon rainforest. He is part of the thought-leadership network of the Global Business Network. Steve has been a member of the faculty of the World Economic Forum.