What’s worse than marketing? One answer is wasting marketing investment on Brand Messaging that is irrelevant, or even worse, culturally disconnected.
I had the chance to speak with Joanna Hutchins on Let’s Talk Limbic Sparks. We discussed her decades of experience leading global and local brands in Asia and other parts of the world, and how she helped fuel their success with deep understanding of local customers.
Joanna says:
“There's no amount of media spend that can compensate for a poor execution that doesn't emotionally connect.”
Joanna shares many lessoned learned throughout her career, including launching the Dove brand in China about 20 years ago. It could have been a disaster. Instead, she and her team conducted in-home customer insights research before launch. They discovered that the product was not a good fit with the cultural norms, and that the core advertising message was not only irrelevant, it was a turn off in the local culture.
Now, Dove is the number one body wash brand in Asia. Joanna shared, “It was a huge combination of getting the product right, getting the messaging right, getting the claims right, by linking it to local culture.”
Hear the whole story, and more…
You’ll also hear about:
⚡️ Why just looking at data on a chart is not enough to understand your customers
⚡️ The imperative of discovering emotional insights to create emotional connections
⚡️ The risks of an over-reliance on performance marketing
Joanna also shares:
“As marketing becomes more and more about data, there's no substitute for actually getting close to human beings and understanding how they think, behave, and what matters to them.”
Today, Joanna is EVP, Marketing, Innovation & Sustainability at Royal Greenland, the world's largest wild caught seafood company. In our discussion she shares lots of insight and stories from her work around the globe - that you can use to ensure your brand is culturally relevant.
I welcome you to enjoy this episode!
You can hear episodes, subscribe and rate Let’s Talk Limbic Sparks on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Enjoy!
Thanks for being here,
-Kevin
As the Chief Strategist & Founder of Limbic Brand Evolution, my focus is strengthening the emotional connections between brands and consumers with Limbic Sparks® Brand Strategy. It overcomes the limitations of traditional brand strategy by putting behavioral science understanding and emotional insight at the center of how brands spark desire. As the host of the Let’s Talk Limbic Sparks podcast (on Spotify, Apple and wherever you listen to podcasts), you’ll hear discussions I have with brand leaders who reveal how they’re driving business growth with emotional insights.