Outthinkers #53—Emmanuel Probst: Branding Hacks to Stay Competitive
Emmanuel Probst is Global Lead, Brand Thought-Leadership at Ipsos, adjunct professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, and the author of Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller Brand Hacks: How to Build Brands by Fulfilling the Human Quest for Meaning
Emmanuel’s background combines over 16 years of market research and marketing experience with strong academic achievements.
At Ipsos, Emmanuel supports numerous Fortune 500 companies by providing them with a full understanding of their customer’s journey. His clients span across a wide range of industries, including consumer packaged goods, retail, financial services, advertising agencies and media outlets.
Emmanuel also teaches Consumer Market Research at UCLA and writes about consumer psychology for numerous publications.
He holds an MBA in Marketing from the University of Hull, United Kingdom and a Doctorate in Consumer Psychology from the University of Nottingham Trent, United Kingdom.
In this podcast, he shares:
- In what ways B2B branding and B2C branding are different, and in what ways they are the same
- Why brands are increasingly finding they need to compete on purpose rather than the uniqueness of their product
- Why to be effective at competing the ecosystem-based future we will need to think about activating a community of companies, bound by a common purpose, to deliver experiences rather than outcomes
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"What people care about is find something that is fulfilling and something that contributes to building their personality and who they and their family and their world. And brands can help with this. What feels really important to me is the hero is the audience whom becomes the consumer. The hero is not the brand."
-Emmanuel Probst
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Episode Timeline:
00:00—Introducing Emmanuel + The topic of today’s episode
2:35—What is your definition of strategy?
2:57—You write a lot about meaning, can you define what you mean by meaning?
5:20—Is brand purpose different than meaning?
8:38—While the principles we've talked can work on the B2B side, they are more consumer-focused. How do you make them work to your advantage in B2B?
10:39—A brand often has a customer brand and an employer brand—do you think establishing an "ecosystem" brand to appeal to potential partners?
13:11—How do you approach segmenting the different needs various partners may have?
17:09—Is developing a brand for an ecosystem different than developing a brand for a product or company?
21:20—We're shifting towards attracting partners that can help complement the overall customer experience, not just product. What are your thoughts on that?
23:45—Do you have any last thoughts you'd like to share?
24:34—Where can people follow you and your work?
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Additional Resources:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmanuelprobst
Thank you to our guests, thank you to our executive producer, Karina Reyes, our editor, Zach Ness, and the rest of the team. If you like what you heard, please follow, download, and subscribe. I'm your host, Kaihan Krippendorff. Thank you for listening.
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