Brand Growth Hacking—A New Approach to Building Brands in the Data-Driven Era

Over the next few installments, we will introduce Dentsu Inc.'s proposed methodology, "Brand Growth Hack," as a new approach to nurturing brands in the data-driven era, drawing on practical experience. This "Brand Growth Hack" concept supports business growth from the perspective of "discovering and nurturing customers." It is a creative marketing process that leverages diverse data and technology to "find" customers, "nurture" them through new brand experiences, and "optimize" investment allocation for initiatives—all while increasing customer numbers and strengthening their relationship with the brand.

As this is the first installment, we'll introduce the background and overview of why such a brand nurturing approach is possible.

Ⅰ The IT Revolution in Marketing: More Than Just Efficiency

Since around 2012, when the era of big data began, more companies have introduced advanced IT systems into marketing. The primary goals are improving operational efficiency and optimizing digital initiatives. However, what is less widely known is that the benefits of implementation cannot be fully captured solely from an efficiency perspective. The true benefit lies in the ability to leverage diverse data, ideas, and technology to "understand customers," collaborate across various "departments," and create new brand experiences through creative marketing activities.

II. Using Data to Build Brands by "Starting Small and Scaling Up"

For example, you can identify your next target audience using data analysis from your CRM (Customer Relationship Management, here referring to the database managing existing customer information). Then, conduct test trials with relatively low-budget digital initiatives. If effective, you can launch a targeted TV commercial to make a significant impact. (Before presenting specific examples, the diagram below summarizes the flow from customer acquisition to CRM.)

One of our clients, a financial institution, experienced slowing contract growth. While their main target customer segment (hereafter referred to as Type A) represented the volume zone, its recent growth rate had declined. Analysis of the client's customer data (CRM data) revealed another customer segment (hereafter referred to as Type B) that, though not in the volume zone, showed a high recent growth rate.

First, to test whether Type B customers would indeed continue growing, a low-cost digital trial was conducted. Content targeting Type B customers was placed on the company's website to measure changes in contract rates. The result showed an increase in contract rates, leading to the conclusion that this customer type could become a future target. Consequently, TV commercials previously aimed at Type A customers were reoriented towards Type B customers, successfully achieving significant customer growth. This strategy is illustrated below.

Thus, even without conducting web surveys to find new targets, effectively utilizing existing CRM data and conducting test trials of digital initiatives can enable planning for TV commercials. Marketing IT enables not just efficiency, but creative marketing activities that understand customers, collaborate across departments, and deliver results.

Ⅲ A New Brand Development Approach Leveraging Data: "Find," "Nurture," "Optimize"

In future installments, we'll continue introducing "Brand Growth Hack" work—leveraging (hacking) "Data, idea, technology, and story" to make marketing activities creative, discover and nurture high-value customers, and significantly grow brands. The keywords are "Find," "Nurture," and "Organize."

Three Core Services of 'Dentsu Inc. Brand Growth Hack'

① Discover: Find high-value customers using various data analysis techniques
Beyond traditional methods like web surveys and group interviews, numerous data analysis techniques exist to better understand customers and discover high-value prospects. While the earlier example used CRM data to identify budding customers, we also handle actual behavioral data—such as purchase data, customer data, social media data, and integrated mass/digital data—in multifaceted, composite, and time-series ways. This allows us to find high-value customers missed by conventional surveys alone.

② Nurture: Transform Prospects into New Customers and Existing Customers into High-Value Customers Through New Brand Experiences
Marketing digitization enables collaboration among CRM, digital, TV advertising, and other marketing teams to deliver new brand experiences. By actively integrating diverse data and technologies from mass media, digital, retail, and CRM, we nurture customers through test trials.

③ Align: Optimize investment allocation, set KPIs, and implement PDCA cycles
For marketing teams to collaborate effectively, it's essential to optimize investment allocation for each activity and visualize contributions to sales. Centralizing diverse marketing activity data enables optimal allocation of mass and digital advertising budgets, KPI setting, and the operation of all marketing activities on a PDCA platform.

Starting next time, we'll introduce the specific details of "Find," "Nurture," and "Optimize."

Part 2: "Hacking Customer Discovery with Diverse Data." Stay tuned!