Excerpt taken from Converge’s interview with our Managing Director, Neil Davidson:
HeyHuman started five years ago – the world was changing, brands were changing, and people were changing (and all of them still are), but agencies? Same old, same old.
Neil questioned, “What could be done to change the way agencies work . . . so they could effect change in the way brands behaved?” HeyHuman is an attempt at an answer. The company may be structured by classic relationship strategy and creative skillsets, but team members are not siloed in their roles. Anyone can contribute to the client relationship building, to strategy development, to the creative piece . . . the work is done through collaboration.
How is branding different today? Neil notes that the relationships between people and brands are shallower and more fleeting than in the past. Brand loyalty is tenuous. Brand LOVE is rare. Brands that are thriving in today’s marketplace connect with people in more human ways than legacy brands have in the past.
How can brands better connect with their customers? Neil discovered that what a brand could do depended on its category. Some categories, like sporting or alcohol brands engender high, positive emotional engagement. People are likely to feel less-connected/neutral to negative with other categories; e.g. financial services.
A new brand in a category where people are less connected may benefit by projecting more human-centric content in its marketing communications. HeyHuman relies on behavioral sciences and neuroscience to identify ways to reinforce connections with people, and develop more connective content.
Neil presented “Advertising Detox: How to Reduce Cognitive Load” at the 2019 South by Southwest Conference in Austin, TX, where he and HeyHuman’s neuroscience consultant, Aoife McGuinness, utilized brain monitoring equipment to “demonstrate the cognitive effects of different forms of advertising.” His company applies this knowledge with its clients, with the goal of “creating effective content that stimulates rather than drains [potential customer’s] brains.”
Read the full interview from Converge here.