This year’s Starcom Media Futures report has found Australian businesses had reached 90 per cent adoption of advanced CX practice – versus the 2017 figure of 55 per cent.
However the ‘expectation gap’ between companies and consumers has widened, with marketers rating themselves more than twice as high (106 per cent ) as consumers in delivering great customer experiences (CX).
The 2018 Starcom Media Futures report was released today and is reportedly the only report of its kind that uses a combination of consumer and industry research with marketers and media owners.
‘The Power of Positivity’ was identified as the single biggest factor influencing consumer behaviour and CX in the report. The biggest influence on positive experiences is ‘personal relevance’ with 81 per cent of very positive experiences being very personally relevant.
People who had a ‘very positive’ experience are 10 times more likely to choose a brand than those who had a ‘fairly positive’ experience.
The report found that real life experiences with brands are 2.4 times more likely to be very positive. Just 32 per cent of experiences were as a result of paid media, meaning that marketers and media need to rethink the role of all media across paid, owned, earned and shared to created powerful connected experiences.
Media Futures has identified “return on experience” (ROE), as an additional measure that works in tandem with return on investment (ROI). ROE, which combines business and human outcomes, is the most valuable measurement for brand choice.
“We can now quantify the value of real life connected experiences through ROE. Connected end-to- end experiences through paid, owned, earned and shared are 1.5 x more likely to be very positive. The underlying cause of the expectation gap is in missing the fundamental drivers of human behaviour – the power of positive customer experiences,” Starcom Australia CEO Toby Barbour said.
“We have evolved our approach to Media Futures, focusing primarily on understanding human motivation, and applying our insights to close the gap between what people want, and what brands need to drive long term growth.
“Our focus for client investment will be working to close the expectation gap by satisfying the tension between what people want and what brands need to create connected experiences that drive human and business outcomes. The ROE framework will be a key indicator of success,” he said.
The 25-year old Media Futures study has changed its methodology due to the rapid rise in the scope and breadth of media available to marketers over the last decade. The study uses “real time experience tracking” to analyse what experiences impact customer behaviour – not just what people did, but also how it made them feel towards brands and what changed as a result.
