Brands need to be in the business of hope and community if they’re to truly foster trust with their customers in this new world of Covid-normal, says Salesforce’s global chief marketing officer.

Personalisation has never been important in the way brands provide experiences to their customers. And in a world where digital is the primary vehicle of engagement, and data is exchanged, customer expectations on how personalised experiences need to be are higher than ever.

Fast-growing, independent telco, Mate, has signed up with SourseAI to synthesise Mate’s customer data and combine it with market data. The results include defined audience segments, characterised personas and customer and market behaviour insights as the basis for a brand refresh, customer engagement strategies and product development.

​Kmart has joined other retailers by invigorating its online content to engage customers with a series of ‘masterclasses’. The classes also market its expanding furniture range – another response to customers’ increasingly indoor lives.

When Julie Mathers founded ecommerce business, Flora & Fauna, in 2014 after a lengthy career in retail, she did so with the intention of creating a business that was both better and kinder.

Ever-increasing competition in products and services means brands must appeal to customers on every level to maintain their loyalty.

Comparison services provider, iSelect, has highlighted Australia’s Consumer Data Right (CDR) legislation as its next big customer growth opportunity and an instrumental part of its five-year strategy.

More than three-quarters of digital marketers are finding customer expectations harder to meet than a year ago, according to the latest State of Marketing Report from customer relationship management (CRM) platform, Salesforce.

Refining the customer journey, embedding a new marketing cloud platform and elevating voice of customer and Net Promoter Score programs are top priorities for the new chief experience officer at BlueFit gyms.

Augmented reality (AR) is increasingly being used by brands wanting to engage customers at home or in other spaces to which they can easily relate. June saw brands such as Big W, KFC and Corona launch AR experiences to help customers interact with products in the comfort of home, compete for prizes in a game or even be confronted with their unpleasant, augmented ‘plastic reality’.

Building out a unified view of customers and creating increasingly personalised experiences is firmly in the sites of Australian finance and consumer products comparison website, Canstar, thanks to adoption of a customer data platform (CDP).

During the height of the Covid pandemic last year, some 87 per cent of consumers tended to remain with brands they knew, according to the 9th annual Australian customer loyalty and loyalty program research study, For Love or Money 2021.

Personalisation is a cornerstone of delivering relevant and real-time experiences to customer that count. In our latest Food for Thought series with leading marketers, we asked three brands: What does personalisation mean for your marketing mix and how does it drive better customer experience?