by Miriam Hara | Aug 1, 2013 | Advertising, Branding, Latest, Marketing
During the course of my marketing career, I have seen many brands change their marketing strategy, marketing direction and marketing definition on an annual basis or even worse, more often than that! For those of us who have professed the art of marketing, it becomes second nature – even an unconscious behaviour – to resist jumping ship when the water gets rough. It’s crucial for a marketer to support a marketing strategy, position, a brand persona or brand style. A marketer has to stay focused on the chosen strategic direction, even when there’s a storm brewing – and stay the course.
There’s always a new idea, a new marketing strategy or a different approach available for a brand to take.
It may not be wrong, but the true question should be: Is it right for the brand at this time? Marketing is all about putting a stake in the sand. This doesn’t mean being rigid. In fact, for a brand to grow it must be fluid, it must evolve and move in a certain direction. At the same time, a marketer must allow for seamless transitions that will add to its positioning.
There are a few behaviours you can count on when you roll out a brand marketing initiative and determine your marketing strategy. It doesn’t matter if its packaging design (or redesign), an advertising campaign, product positioning or a marketing concept – here are a couple of things you can be sure of:
- Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Respectfully though, not everyone’s opinion should have equal weight.
- Many people, including colleagues, don’t like change. Just as everyone has an opinion, most resist change and will sometimes criticize what’s new or different. Change often makes people uncomfortable.
For any marketer to put a stake in the sand with their marketing strategy, and stand behind it when the going gets tough, they must do their marketing homework beforehand. Here’s how:
- Investigate! Know your market. Know who plays in your market. Know what competitive brands are out there, and what marketing strategies they use. Get out there and do store checks, get price comparisons, look at promotional initiatives, and say yes, even to a one-time Nielsen three-year trend of the market category and segment you are considering.
- Evaluate what you have now. Don’t assume it is wrong. Do your research. Talk to your target audience. Get their take on your brand and on your brand’s positioning. It doesn’t matter what you think, it matters how your brand communicates with its audience. Say yes to market research! It’s well worth the investment. (Notice I didn’t say cost!)
- Quantify the potential. Know what marketing strategy works and what doesn’t. Measure it on a scale that will allow you to accurately assess your marketing stance.
After you do your homework, you can launch your marketing initiative stocked with objective, “non-personalized” rationales. This will give you the tools you need to ward off those nay-sayers and the ones that resist change! Furthermore, you need to wait it out. It’s amazing how with a little time, a revolutionary idea, or funky package can become comfortable and the good old standby!
by Miriam Hara | Jul 15, 2013 | Branding, Business Success, Latest
Brand naming…why it’s important.
More to the point, what is required for a brand to become like the much covet name brands like Coca Cola, Nike and Apple? It seems that brand names explode in the market…and yet, most take years until they become visible and reach the market consciousness. It’s important to state here that the term brand naming refers to products, service businesses and retail stores.
There are many brand naming agencies and writers who boast of their ability of being name generators. However, whether the business that your are seeking to name is a service or a product or even a retail store, the process of naming should not be taken lightly. Once you settle on a name for your business, it’s with you for a very long time. The process of brand naming is often difficult and should at least include some sort of market research.
Brand naming is only the very first, tiny step in developing a brand. Just as a logo isn’t branding… well, becoming a brand sensation doesn’t happen because you just name it. So what do the most popular brands out there do in order to penetrate the market consciousness? Here’s my take:
1) Create a brand definition. A brand name , especially an awesome one, needs to create an emotional connection. This may be in the form of visual tonality, a tagline, a promise. Make sure that brand definition appears or is stated whenever your brand appears…each and every time.
2) Create sensation: Brand needs to ‘be’. It needs to reach far and wide. After all what’s the use having an awesome brand and you’re 1 of 3 people who know about it. If you’re not out there… then you’re winking in the dark. If you are local retail store, then you need to promote locally, sponsor events, create hype with traditional and social media campaigns such as billboard, radio or print.These, of course, are only a few suggestions.
3) Develop a connection…. or rather community: It’s becoming increasingly easier to create brand connections with your audience. Easier doesn’t make it easy or quick but it is doable. It’s important to have a long term view in developing that brand community… it has to be strategic . With the use of a succinct social media plan, your awesome brand can reach your very select target group…and yes, talk to them. Develop connections that transcends the sell cycle…
4) Be awesome! Whether it’s a business, a product or a service, being branded means that you must deliver on its promise. No brand becomes any name brand unless it speaks, acts and delivers on what it says it will.
We all know that overnight successes often takes years to happen and brands are no different. Developing and creating a brand with a brand name that has market equity takes time and strategy. It’s all in the how to create a brand, that makes it a brand name… and that’s why brand naming is important.
by Miriam Hara | Jul 5, 2013 | Advertising, Creative, Latest
What does a career in advertising really mean?
Advertising has always held some mystic for many creative and marketing types wannabes. Many people on the outside looking in think of the world of advertising as being the ultimate career in creativity. I’ll let you in on secret… in many cases, depending on what your creative type happens to be, it’s true! Advertising is the most creative aspect in marketing communications… even more so than public relations (PR) and brand marketing. Add to that, the very popular TV series of Mad Men to this caché… well, then you may very well have a rose coloured view of this career choice.
Those of us in the the field have a different and more realistic definition of advertising and what it means to be “working in” this crazy, hectic, exciting field. Through my 25 years of running a marketing creative agency, I have been fortunate to meet many interesting people and I have come to the realization that we all have certain traits and characteristics in common.
See if you too belong to the wonderful industry of advertising… can you can identify with any one of these character traits?
1) You love being around creative and the creative process: You don’t have to draw or write…You can easily be an advertising account executive.Just as long as you are part of “creating” something.
2) Passion rules the day: You love your job. In fact you can’t wait to get out of bed and to greet the day! You love the challenge of newness that every marketing mandate brings…and working out the issues. You love that what you do can potentially reach millions of people.
3) You’re an adrenaline junkie: Not death defying tricks here… only true and pure rush. Rush to meet impossible deadlines put out by most if not all advertisers…. and to ultimately excel in your creativity and performance while meeting those said impossible deadlines.
4) You think ‘What if”…constantly! Never mind about inside or outside the box. You’re a natural problem solver that always looks at the marketing brief differently. Innovation is your mind’s middle name whether it’s comes to coining a phrase or conceptualizing a storyboard or ad… you simply strive on creating breakthrough creative.
5) Work…. what’s that?: Not exactly like Character Trait #3, more like an extension. You actually have fun at what you do? In fact it’s like a calling. You think about projects, ideas and products all the time. Grocery shopping isn’t just about filling up the pantry. Rather it becomes a store-check to see what’s new and innovative in products or POP or contest promotions. If you do a lot of TV advertising, you can’t see a movie without acknowledging the camera angles,the lighting, the propping. It’s about you driving your car, noticing billboards and trying to ascertain what the brief was and if if the creative was well executed.
If you see yourself in any one of the above character traits, then advertising is in your future! I’d love to hear from any and all of you who share in the passion of creativity and advertising.
Live creatively and prosper!
by Miriam Hara | Jun 25, 2013 | Branding, Business Success, Latest
It’s hard to separate personal persona from your brand persona. If you are in charge of marketing for a brand or business you are probably passionate about what you do and how you do it. Being in charge of a brand and its performance can be intoxicating. However, like everything else in life, too much of one thing may be counterproductive. (Who said that?)
Having such a strong connection with the Brand, or as you see it your Brand, can make it very difficult to separate yourself. But you must. As a Brand Manager you are responsible for a brand’s marketing strategy by deciding what makes the most sense. You are the keeper and caretaker for brand character which involves everything from brand and logo guidelines, brand tone, brand voice and brand style… including brand body language. SO… the big question is, how do you as a brand manager separate yourself from the Brand? Chances are, during the course of your marketing career you will be fortunate enough to handle many different brands, even competitive brand. They can’t all be you! Here’s a quick checklist on how to separate yourself from your Brand.
Pleased to meet you: I have always thought of a Brand as a person. When my team and I first come on board to develop campaigns for a brand that we don’t know, we get to know it. We are respectful. We learn about its past, how it came to be, how it evolved, who its friends are and who its foes are (competitors). We discover where it lives and where its market is… and where the Brand needs to be.
Not all change is good: Understand the Brand’s character and its potential to evolve within that character and tone. Too often I have seen new Brand Managers come into an organization and change everything without any thought to the Brand’s franchise, community, marketplace or its potential. Remember it’s easy to judge what you think is right or wrong when you are new to a Brand. But making changes too soon can lead to market confusion. It takes time to nurture a Brand and for it to attain its rightful place in its community and market space. Brand making isn’t cookie cutter… sure, tactics can be interchanged, but brand personality and character need to stay the course in order to prevail and be a Brand.
Brands evolve: Take a very open view of a Brand that you’ve lived with for a long time. Just because you’ve tried a tactic in the past that hasn’t worked, doesn’t mean that same tactic with some tweaks, won’t work today. By the same token, keep your eye on the future. Find out what’s new and what’s exciting, maybe it’s just the thing to rejuvenate your Brand. Make sure you always place the Brand first and always evaluate. If a Brand is its own entity then it has its own style.
Be impartial: Separate your own likes about colour and style from those of the Brand… especially when working on brand creative. Ask yourself if the concern you have is really going to make or break the communications. Don’t strangle the creative process… and don’t confuse what you like with the Brand’s style… you will doing it a big disservice.
Be passionate. Be respectful. Be mindful.
After all, it’s all about the brand persona, Brand’s success… and yours.
by Miriam Hara | Jun 21, 2013 | Advertising, Branding, Business Success, Creative, Latest
Attention all Marketing and Brand Managers: We know our marketing and we know our brand. More importantly, we know who our target buyer, audience and groups are. That’s important and is what makes for great creative. But there’s a catch – we suffer from brand intimacy. By knowing so much through living our brand, day in and day out, we forget that our target doesn’t know our brand intimately and probably couldn’t care less. We need to make them care. The only way I know how to do that is through good advertising and communications for them… not for me. Too often in a boardroom environment decisions are made about what works and what doesn’t without market research (but that’s a post for another time!). More to the point, many day-to-day decisions or the way to go ahead on smaller projects are based on what I refer to as “internalized judgment”. Whether you’re developing a full-scale advertising campaign, billboard creative or just doing a one-off brochure, the question you need to ask when assessing your advertisement is: “Does it makes sense to someone other than myself?”
Here’s a quick checklist to make sure that your ads and communications are not a victim of brand intimacy!
Have ad sense: In other words, is it clear? Clarity is very important in any communications piece. By being brand intimate, sometimes we feel that we don’t need to “spell it out” to our audience… or we just skip the details, leaving the message too vague for our target to decipher.
Don’t talk to yourself: Take a step back and remember the first time you walked in the door to your new job and had to get to know and understand your brand. Remember how you thought about it… before intimately knowing it. This applies to judging creative ads, headline copy and even segmentation. Often companies refer to their business segments in categories driven by manufacturing or by organization divisions. Consumers don’t see these segments how business sees them. Be very cautious of this because it can make or break your brand’s success.
Fatigue syndrome: Admit it. Whenever you see your brand initiatives, whether it’s a TV ad, a billboard or a social media campaign, you pay attention. Of course you do! As you should! But understand that your niche market or mass target groups don’t. It takes time for them to even acknowledge your ad, even though they’ve seen it once or twice already. Remember, the ad fatigue syndrome effects Brand Managers, Marketing Directors, Marketing Managers and Vice Presidents of Marketing and Sales… and everyone else in the organization. But, it doesn’t affect your consumers.
So the next time your brand agency asks for your opinion on communications… don’t leave your hat on… put on your target market’s hat instead!
