Feb 14, 2013
First, let's start with a question:
What is your company’s approach to building brands?
How do you build brands in the digital age?
How do you translate brand strategies into digital activation?
Today’s brand strategies must, at minimum, articulate what consumers can expect from your product/service: how these strategies and expressions differentiate your brand from the competition and how your brand assumes relevance among target audiences. I believe these imperatives take on a new meaning in the age of the digitally empowered consumer.
Today’s consumers no longer serve as passive recipients of brand messages. Instead, they engage with your brand, and often help create it—sharing with peers and acting as critics or champions for brands. They have rapidly adopted digital, mobile and social technologies. These new realities have changed expectations of what a brand represents, what it offers, and how it responds to specific needs.
Successful brands must know the whole consumer – not just who buys or uses their brand, but who these individuals are: their social, digital and technology needs/preferences as well as their geo-demographic makeup. We help brands understand consumers by mapping consumer journeys and points of intersection with your brand. We are able to apply a powerful combination of data and tools created expressly for the purpose of deeper brand engagement. Increasingly, the critical points of leverage in this brand-consumer relationship are digital.
I believe that for brands to succeed in today’s disruptive, dynamic world they must adapt their brand model to understand and synchronize all components and connections of their brand ecosystem: it’s not just the brand identity and positioning a marketer creates. It must be inclusive of the customers, the data that brand interactions create, the communities they inhabit – real and digital, their media channels, as well as the products, services and communications created by the brand. All these create the brand. The goal is not just the unified experience, but rather business growth through careful integration and management of these elements.
Successful brands drive this through meaningful, sustainable always-on connections that grow and evolve with time. A traditional brand markets top-down We understand that marketing today must take a “ground-up” approach.
How do we take this ground up a approach to translate brand strategy into digital services? Through our unique service model of (1) brand planning, (2) brand experience, (3) brand management and (4) brand intelligence. We create brands that are always on, consistent, and elevates your differentiated promise in this connected, digital age.
1. Brand Planning:
We believe a brand extends beyond value propositions and products; it’s based on a complex value exchange with a consumer. We call this the “shared ideal” – a deeply held set of beliefs shared by both parties. It’s the foundation for authentic connections.
Consumer research and insights drive planning
Shared ideal development–the brand’s ideal realized through brand purpose
Brand role analysis – the role of the brand in people’s lives – how it meets both functional requirements and satisfies emotional needs
Brand architecture – how the brand’s ideal is brought to life
2. Brand Experience:
Consumers don’t look to brands for just products, but also some sense of identity and lifestyle enrichment. The brands we bring into our lives help shape our identity. We build brand experiences that bring value to everyday interactions. Rather than adding to the clutter, we create storied content that resonates while growing over time.
We evaluate and help manage communications/functionality across platforms (including e-commerce)
Manage/develop mobile applications and sites
Create digital campaigns utilizing appropriate media
Content development that can be directed to the right platform/channel/media
3. Brand Management:
A brand is a living entity built on connections between the brand and the consumer and shared amongst consumers. We help your brand grow sustainably through responsive, engaging and personalized brand management.
Content programming
Community management
e-CRM programs
Platform growth and maintenance
4. Brand Intelligence:
It’s the foundation of all we do. Intelligence helps us understand the lifeblood that flows within a brand that informs our strategy. It allows us to build tailored experiences, and ensures we manage brands responsively.
We harness our Listening Platform to gain and maintain an understanding of what people think and say about your brand
Data analysis to correlate behavior and communications
Search –optimizing paid and organic search and managing investment
Brands are able to express their essence, and deliver tools, platforms and content to assist and enable informed, engaged consumers. Increasingly, brands are digital entities, defined by their site, social, mobile and overall digital actions and expressions.
