Content Channels – From Control to Proliferation
Brand owners should shift their focus from trying to ‘sell’, to gaining endorsement and evangelism for their branded content. ‘Branded content’ is anything that is created by or, significantly on behalf of a brand; this could be an advert, product website, Twitter feed, Facebook post, blog review, mobile app, mash-up video and so on. A successful … Read more
The Brand Engagement Cycle
In my recent post on ‘Friendtelligence – Engagement is the New Awareness‘ I put forward the view that brand engagement needs to be the key objective for brand owners and that delivering positive engagement experiences facilitates endorsement, word-of-mouth proliferation and evangelism of the brand message. I wanted to develop this thinking by presenting a model for … Read more
‘Friendtelligence’ – Engagement is the New Awareness
The Internet has changed Marketing – from consumers feeling that they needed to have heard of a brand to even consider it, to consideration being driven by recommendation and endorsement. Mass awareness has been replaced by positive word of mouth and viral sharing. Knowing what drives a market, what consumers really want and expect, and … Read more
Starbucks’ New Branding Over Simplifies
Don’t get me wrong, I’m the first to advocate simple, iconic branding. The danger with simplification though is that it often, unwittingly, results in the removal of core components of a brand’s identity. Has the Starbucks brand logo redesign revealed last week fallen into this trap? Firstly, I have to question the motivation for conducting … Read more
Brand Evolution
One of the key challenges facing Marketers is how to ‘create’ brands, and consequently how to build ‘value’ in those brands over time. Yet a brand doesn’t merely come into being. It must ‘evolve’ through stages in a process developing from a ‘Concept’, becoming a ‘Product’ and eventually reaching the status of a ‘Brand’. But … Read more
Brand Flux and the 5th ‘P’ of Marketing
The historic definition of a brand was one of consistency. The basic premise of what constituted a “brand” was the constant repetition of messages and behaviour to form a promise of future behaviour in the mind of the consumer. The limited media channels available and negligible opportunities for customer feedback or interaction meant that the … Read more
