Did you realise that there are around 4,200 world religions available to our 7,400,000,000 human inhabitants? One universal consistency, illustrated across our research irrespective of religion, time, category and geography, is the importance of families and loved ones. A very close second is the thriving for new positive experiences and time on our passions. The epicentre of what matters is new positive experiences and passions shared with those we love.

Around 2.5 Billion people use social media to tell their story (approximately a third of the world – Statista), and this is solidly growing year on year.  Which makes it somewhat logical to see the explosion of brands using influencer marketing.

In a focus group I moderated last week with 16–18 year olds, a young guy was only on Instagram due to his wake-boarding sponsorship, and others noted their rising skepticism to friends raving about clothing and other brands — “were they paid or given freebees to give such rave reviews!?” Influencer marketing is growing!

However, perhaps the answer is brands being less about ‘LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME’ towards ‘we are as passionate as you about what you care about and want to help you to tell your story.’

Delivering a positive product and experience beyond measuring net promoter score for management reporting, towards strategies to actually encourage real people to share positive word-of-mouth advocacy without need for payment for positive promotion to friends, family and followers. Word-of-mouth has always and will always be the most powerful form of marketing.

Opportunity also exists to innovate to better connect with and support the stories of real people, build tribes and encourage them to share the word because they want to – think Nike Run Club and Playstation Community Forum, Lego Ideas and BeautyTalk.

WANT MORE!? Read the full ‘7.4 Billion Stories’