Marketing uses the word “relevance” to describe how a brand is attuned to what customers want. Relevancy is about the search for meaning, not the search for mindshare. As insightful as the word ‘relevancy’ sounds, most marketers remain vague about how it can be created, and remain mute about when it is not possible to create it.
It is unlikely that relevancy could have saved the horse drawn carriage, or the telegraph – but it could have saved their businesses. Products are not the source of relevancy and neither is the media used to promote it. Brands are where relevancy resides, and creating it depends on how well the brand can evolve its offerings to address societal transformation.
Relevancy Is About The Age We Live In
Relevancy isn’t about amplifying your social media footprint, any more than it was about town criers in the Agricultural Age. Relevancy is about serving a real need at a time when it matters.
We are currently living in the 4TH Industrial Age (also known as the Digital Age), where technology not only has enriched our lives in many ways; it has also made the world wildly complex and difficult to navigate. This time in our history is marked by exponentially expanding technologies such as robotics, AI, nanotechnology, quantum computing, biotechnology, and autonomous vehicles – and yes, exploding social media.
Despite the ability to be more connected and efficient than ever, we find ourselves stressed, overwhelmed, increasingly isolated; often adrift without a sense of personal purpose. The rapid disruption of many established industries has meant that even the most intelligent and conscientious brands struggle to remain relevant—while others, inundated with too much information to make sense of, can’t figure out how to make reasonably right decisions at all.
The coming age will certainly be increasingly global, but it also will reassign the roles of humans in their own culture. Setting aside the real possibility of ecological and environmental disasters, war and other catastrophes for the moment, the trend is for less physical and location-dependent activities, and more intellectual work. Brands that create space for this and make it easier and more satisfying will be the brands that are relevant.
Relevance is Not Created.
There is a common myth that brands who are losing customers need to “create relevance” – and fast! Unfortunately, relevance is not something that is created, any more than the meaning it contains. Relevance can be amplified, uncovered, shared, communicated, and emphasized. It cannot be created where it did not already exist – because – again – relevancy is about the brand, not the products or offerings.
When a brand is facing apparent obsolescence, ideally it can identify a core nugget of relevance that it can re-launch into the world in a more relevant form. Harley-Davidson is a prime example of this – and is now facing a second opportunity to reinvent itself as its core customers age out. It may be that the Harley brand is due for a new product offering, that aligns with its relevancy of freedom, power and Americana, but isn’t a motorcycle at all.
These nuggets of relevancy are less about the form the product takes, and all about the emotional need the brand fulfills. Most of us are familiar with the story of Kodak, which was highly invested in the form of its products – film. So when digital came along, Kodak missed the boat. What we know now is that Kodak wasn’t selling film. Kodak was selling memories. A shift in form could have maintained the brand’s relevance.
Relevancy is All About the Customer – Until It Isn’t
It might sound as though relevancy is about altering a brand or its appeal to suit a particular audience. It is not. When a brand stands for something – from Kodak’s “creating memories” to Harley’s “freedom, power and Americana” – it has brand affinity. The question isn’t: “How can we change this brand to fit current markets?” It is: “How can we adapt our offerings to fill the needs that are arising in today’s world – in a way our brand is uniquely able to do?”
A relevant brand listens to its customers. It also knows customers don’t always know what they want or need. The relevant brand knows itself first and foremost. This is what giants like Apple and Amazon have done. Relevant innovation doesn’t react to customer trends – it sets them. It is, above all, true to its purpose, and detached from the form that will take in the future. Relevant brands don’t react. They lead.