Americus Reed

Work Identity and Finding your Calling, Organizational Culture Hacks

Most people lament having to do “a job.” Very few are able to tap into finding their true “calling.” In this talk, Americus Reed describes research in the areas of organizational culture and how companies can better help employees connect with their corporate values. Americus describes his own most recent research on effort, self-reflection, appraisal, and fusion—four areas that create the conduit for employees to be all they can be. How can a company build its brand from within first, making sure that those who work within the building have alignment with the mission and the values of the company? Reed takes the audience step by step through the psychological processes of how calling works, and how organizations can foster and build it over time. People will spend more than half their lives working, so figuring how to best create an environment of personal growth is key.

Understanding How to Create True Loyalty

In this talk, Americus Reed discusses the concept of “Identity Loyalty” and describes how it relates to creating a deeply emotional and lifelong connection with a customer. Identity loyalty is when a product, brand, service, or organization becomes internalized as part of who you are. In this talk, Reed describes how to create identity loyalty from scratch. How to monitor and nurture it over time and how to make sure that the brand can through word of mouth and advocacy, create a community of fierce loyalists who will protect the brand, defend it and do its marketing for free. The concept of Identity Loyalty is a powerful tool to utilize the psychology of affiliation, tribalism, and belonging to create a connection that becomes virtually impossible to sever. Reed describes this process, which is relevant to Fortune 500 companies, startups, services, and business-to-business relationships.

How Brands Accelerate Growth and Create Strong Business

In this talk, Americus Reed discusses how the power of the brand can become a force for accelerating and creating a strong business. Drawing upon decades of research and also examples from his industry experience, he takes the audience through the steps in which a product, brand, service, organization, or even a person can create an “asset” that is the value of its brand. The brand then becomes an insular device that can protect against competitive and market forces. Reed describes the psychological underpinnings of truly powerful and effective branding, and unpacks the ways in which creating a brand becomes the singular most important aspect a company should be focused on in order to ensure its existence. He also describes situations in which the brand must change to address new markets and to ensure that it remains relevant.

The New World Order of Marketing: How Consumers engage with your brand and how you have to engage with them during and after a pandemic

In this conversation Professor Reed takes you into the cutting edge logic of the Wharton School to explain the 6 key principals of the “New Consumer Engagement” paradigm. Gone are the days of one-way communication. The customer is now in an ongoing conversation with your product, service or organization and if you are not co-creating your tribe by innovative ways to enhance “Identity Loyalty,” you will be leaving money on the table, making yourself vulnerable to competitive risk exposure and not optimizing your brand as a symbol of self-expression. This strategy clearly requires a fusion of how tech innovation and marketing can converge to deliver on the new world order’s required value propositions which become much more mission critical during disruptive events like the current pandemic. Moreover, in this era of #SocialJustice, consumers can now pressure test what you believe your product, brand, service or organization stands for and will push you to reveal your “WHY”, i.e., the core values that underlie your brand and its business model and operating principals as a global citizen. Professor Reed will discuss and overview the newest approaches to this paradigm including cutting edge data collection methods, and channel and message delivery to the community of advocates you are trying to build.

Key Takeaways:

• Navel Gazing in the Pandemic: Your consumer is thinking about whether or not you are really critical in their lives, is this a danger to you? Or an opportunity?
• Transactional versus Relational focus: The Identity Loyalty Imperative will save many brands from post pandemic abandonment because self-expression is marketing nirvana and consumers are looking for connection and affiliation.
• The need to reimagine your business: You better become the Jane Goodall of your customers and understand how you fit into consumers’ lives from a 360 degree point of view, do you REALLY know what business you are in?
• Build the identity of your company from within: The authenticity of your “Why” is what rules the day. Human talent needs to be fostered around the vision and tech and marketing need to merge.
• The purpose of purpose: Taking a stand is what younger consumers expect you to do so be prepared to build and articulate your values. Even if they have nothing to do with making your widgets.
• Data is the new oil: But Data is not the same as insight. Just as knowledge is not the same as wisdom. Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. But wisdom is knowing NOT to put the tomato into a fruit salad.

Brand Crisis

Products, brands, services, and organizations spend years and tons of money building their brands. However, in the world of social media, every consumer has a super computer in their pocket called a cell phone and can become an instant “consumer vigilante” – and can essentially “undo” all of your hard work of building up your brand equity by moral outrage and Twitter storms that can go around the world before you wake up for your morning coffee. In this talk, Americus Reed describes the principles of brand crisis response. He takes the audience through the key steps and plans that need to be in place – including how, when, and where to apologize, what to say, how to validate concerns, how to show action in the right way, and how to control your narrative. In this extremely engaging conversation, Reed describes case studies and key research that point to the importance of being savvy enough to understand that the Chinese symbol for “crisis” is made up of two ideas: danger and opportunity.

Modern Techniques of Persuasion

In this talk, Americus Reed takes the audience through decades of social psychological research to understand the key principles of persuasion. He describes what they are and how to leverage them if you are a product, brand, service, or organization. Persuasion is often instantly thought of as manipulative. It isn’t. Everything we do as human organisms is meant to persuade others to consider and accept our ideas, buy our products, contribute to our movements, etc. In this highly engaging and exciting conversation, Reed describes key ideas about how to persuade, and through both examples and science and data, unpacks the power of persuasion and when it works and when it does not.