The radical changes in our world are actually heightening the influence of primal instincts on tribes and their individual members. Let’s look at the key factors that make this instinct so crucial for brands and marketers today.
Our complicated world/lives are making traditional business and marketing models obsolete. It’s no news that our time-starved, balance-challenged, technology-fueled lives can be messy and complicated — or that our unprecedented access to information can simultaneously create empowerment and confusion. As we are bombarded with more and more options and decisions to make within compressed timeframes, we turn more than ever to the tribe for guidance and comfort.
So it’s harder for marketers to connect with customers in meaningful, relevant ways and to understand what groups of consumers need and want at any given time. Traditional, top-down, stand-on-your-own business models are becoming inadequate and outmoded. Companies and brands are realizing that they must find new ways to engage with consumers to tap into the tribal dynamic.
Each tribe absorbs, interprets and applies information and concepts for its own purposes, then passes it along. The cross-pollination effects have profound implications for branding and marketing.
We are becoming a more “purpose-driven” society. The complexity and pace of change in our world and lives are broadening our definitions of our tribes and changing how we perceive our individual roles within this extended community. We want to feel that we are participating in a meaningful way — that we can make some difference in the world and the lives of our tribesmen.
People are becoming more aware that helping others enhances their personal well-being and happiness, as well as the good of their immediate and global tribes. This ethos is extending into consumer behaviors. In addition to volunteering and contributing to organizations that make a positive difference in people’s lives and the environment that we all share, we want to support companies and brands that are authentically contributing to the greater good by supporting community needs and environmental sustainability.