Yes, these are tough times. Yes, there is now a growing tribe of pundits who are dispensing advice on how to deal with the downturn. Many are predicting worse times ahead, and an equal number are expecting things to get better.
Whatever the future is going to hold, one thing is really true: the future isn’t what it used to be. So if you are starting out or have a fledgling brand, how do you keep it in the minds of the people you are seeking to attract without compromising your rapidly shrinking budget?
 |
| Rupin Jayal |
The key is to try to infiltrate rather than seek to invade people’s minds. This means going beyond the conventional – the so-called ‘unconventional’ brand communication methods. Events, promotions, and in-store activities are all great channels of communication, but are also getting overcrowded. The challenge is to reach out to people in a highly cost-effective way beyond these channels. However, to be really cost-effective, one also has to create new languages of communication which maximize the impact of each channel. I am sure many DARE readers have received emails that show interesting ways to use shopping/carry bags. In a crowded market, if your retail outlet is fighting for mind space amongst a plethora of competing brands and other attractions and if your carry bag stands out, then people will be interested in checking you out, generating invaluable footfalls.
For a client who wanted to dissuade people from illegally entering their country, we created a street play that was performed 120 times. Critical to the success of the play was creating characters that audiences could easily identify with and hence connect with. Even details like names of characters, the language, and the visual identity for all the printed material had to be carefully thought through, ensuring a balance between the seriousness of the message and the degree of informality required to make sure that the message was not seen to be overly authoritarian.
However, infiltrating does not mean covering every available space with your brand. It means finding opportunities to reach out to the people you are seeking to address at a time when they may be receptive, and then to attract them with a message that provokes a response relevant to your brand. Like a disposable nappy brand that sets up nappy changing places in malls, where you don’t just change nappies but you can order them for home delivery; you can sit in a cool place with soothing music, and you could even have all your packages delivered there.
The essence lies in understanding what role you can play for people. You might discover that by finding a lateral way to play that role you could actually create a very memorable moment in the day of the lives of your key customers. This means understanding what people expect from the product or service you are providing, and then finding a way to use this to reach out to them. For example, a service station that wants to score a point over its competitors could offer to regularly have their key clients’ cars cleaned on weekends for free. There are retail brands that offer (through a tie-up) free bridal make-up services for clients during the marriage season. And then there is the well-known case of a bookstore brand that encourages you to sit awhile, read a book with a steaming cup of coffee, without any pressure to buy.
But it isn’t just about providing a role that translates into some kind of free service. Creating controversy that focuses on your brand and sometimes forces a revaluation of it by people who have taken it for granted for a long time, can create a tsunami of interest. How you deal with a crisis can actually strengthen the bonds between you and the people you seek to attract. An automobile brand in India, faced with a car that was less than perfect, created a strong customer relationship program and just stayed in touch with all those who had bought the car and kept them updated when improvements were made (apart from incorporating the improvements for free).
Having a clearly articulated brand point of view helps because, particularly in troubled times, people do seek reference points with even greater intensity than during good times. By taking on social issues and championing a cause, brands can begin to play a larger role than just a commercial one (as Tata Tea seems to be seeking to do with its current TV commercial). However, the critical thing is not to treat this as purely a marketing strategy. Picking up a major social cause does place a far higher onus on the brand to truly be sincere about it rather than merely appearing to be so. If pursued with genuine fervor the brand’s actions alone generate interest – as Anita Roddick did when she created Body Shop. The brand got talked about and thus created a far larger and more differentiated space for itself than could have been achieved by just conventional advertising or promotions alone. Google is another great example of a brand built without expending vast sums of money even when it went up against what was a fairly well-entrenched competitor (Yahoo!).
 |
Another way to generate attention for your brand is to create landmarks. In a smaller town, bereft of greenery, owning the best-tended green space could be one simple way of ensuring your brand is well known as well as giving back to the people you wish to attract to it. Contributing to civic maintenance while creating a landmark would be a simple way to attract eyes to your brand. For example, taking up a stretch of road and ensuring that it is always well lit, well surfaced, with help on standby, could very quickly ensure that the stretch is referred to by the name of your brand. Naturally the services and experience you provide would need to have something to do with your brand’s category. This is not about ‘noble cause’, but ways to bring attention to your brand without paying inordinate amounts for it; hence, the need to always have a clear link between the activity and your brand.
Apple, by having enthusiasts rather than just sales assistants to man its stores, leverages the store experience to speak volumes for the brand. The retail experience (as many of us have experienced firsthand) is less than overwhelming a lot of times. This is an area where possibly having fewer outlets but manned by enthusiastic staff could create many positive ‘moments of truth’ that could translate into invaluable word of mouth. While many appreciate the importance of where the actual purchase transaction takes place, not enough effort is made to actually differentiate the experience. The actual point of purchase is a very important medium of communication. It is also a place where investments are already made towards distribution and display. Often the communication solutions at this point tend to follow category rules that result in weak differentiation. The key is to cause abruption and thus create interest, for example, placing communication next to complimentary categories suggesting simple combinations for the housewife in a food store. This does not necessarily mean getting into cross-category tie-ups, but merely placing communication for your brand in categories that are complimentary. Another opportunity is the ‘temporary’ store, particularly in these times when the downturn is freeing up retail space. Think of it as a mobile exhibition, but acting as an actual retail space. This could give your brand presence and open up temporary channels without having to invest in fixed brand spaces. In fact, it could be an interesting idea for a new business.
 |
A space that could generate word of mouth and increase the visibility of your brand is providing skill upgrades or acquiring new skills in using your brand for enhanced results. Preferably at the place of purchase the aim would be to help people use your brand in a more effective way. The object would also be to create brand advocates through this process; thus, actively pushing word of mouth. Depending on the category, it could also build attitudinal loyalty rather than mere behavioral or ‘expediency loyalty’. This would be both because the brand has delivered value by upgrading the ability of people to use it, thereby increasing the strength of the benefits delivered by it, thus increasing its differentiation in their minds. In addition, it would convert mere users into skilled proselytizers. Beyond this, communities could be built and the current trend towards social networking leveraged.
In sum, there are significant opportunities to use various means to powerfully promote your brand without spending large sums of money in one-way mass media advertising. The areas outlined in this article are:
1. Provide a micro-service to customers that acts as a lateral and vivid means to create brand space in people’s minds.
2. Create a provocative point of view that generates conviction, espouses a cause, or generates controversy.
3. Create landmarks.
4. Leverage points of distribution, for example, the case of Apple.
5. Upgrade brand usage skills.
The point is to extract moments of meaningful communication that would actually enrich your brand’s relationship with people without necessarily expending large sums of money to do it. So the current downturn might actually enable brands to create an upturn in the quality and depth of their relationship with people and build greater mind space that will ensure that ‘when the going gets tough, the tough build brands’.
The author is Director-Strategic Planning at M&C Saatchi.
Subscribe to this comment's feed
written by hiphone, September 14, 2010
written by Gucci outlet, July 03, 2010
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
