What is Movement Marketing?
In Movement marketing, the brand actually tries to create market initiatives around their visions rather than their portfolios’ products. That’s why it is also known as Cultural Movement Marketing. The result of this can lead to a long term marketing strategy that will not only allow the brand to capture and dominate market share but also change the world.
Movement marketing is not a very new concept but has become common and prominent as brands are looking for new ways to connect with their customers.
The term Movement Marketing was first coined by Scott Goodson in 1999, founder of the world’s first cultural movement marketing company, StrawberryFrog.
It’s more of an idea that is very society-centric regarding how the brand can do good. That’s one of the reasons why Movement marketing resonates with most people. It speaks about general social issues like Global poverty and discrimination based on various factors rather than just promoting their skincare products or apparel. While traditional marketing starts their story with the product and pushes it upon the culture – movement marketing does the exact opposite. Thus, this marketing type reaches customers with an authentic story instead of a sales pitch and promotions. The response received for this type of marketing is also great as it connects with the customers.
- Pepsi is running a campaign in which it asks to contribute to society through its Project Refresh Campaign and urging its customers to Do something good for them.
- Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign featured women with love handles, wrinkles and caught them off guard when the ads started running worldwide. It started the talks about body image and self-esteem.
- WWF’s “The Earth Hour” is also one of the examples. Based on a simple idea that is turning off the lights for 1 hour to take a stand against climate change. Started in Australia, with 2.2 million individuals and more than 2,000 businesses participating. Just a year later, it became a global sustainability movement with more than 50 million people across 35 countries joining hands. And here the leading media was the people themselves.
These very different companies with similar social and cultural goals, all tied together with one common marketing thread: Movement Marketing.
Why would you opt for a customer when you can have a loyal brand advocate?
Social media has changed the marketing strategies and all good social media campaigns utilize Movement Marketing. Social media has drastically enhanced people’s ability to connect and share experiences about your company – whether good or bad. Movement marketing helps in turning your customers into an army of loyal brand advocates.
With the help of the Internet, Social Media, and Mobile technology, the entire world is the audience. Movement Marketing unites business with social movements to mobilize an audience via their shared brand experiences.
Movement Marketing Action Steps:
- DISCOVER the passion and the cultural movement of the business.
- LEARN about the movement and try adding value selflessly.
- EVOLVE the company’s culture internally and then promote it outside the organization by aligning the brand with the movement’s goals.
- SUSTAIN the movement internally and externally and add value uniquely. Practising 80/20 rule in which adding value is 80% of the time and offering the product/service as its solution 20% of the time.
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