Brand Experience: 7 essentials of shaping a brand campaign

 

In developing a brand strategy and implementing it in real things that customers and partners see, it’s essential to unify what your brand says and looks like and how it shapes the consumer’s experience. Strategy drives the language, design, and marketing channels. Here are some of the essentials that we look at in our brand process to form expectations for our team and our clients.

1. Why are we launching this branding effort?

When clients want to launch a new brand or a major rebranding effort, the usual driver is a need to get somewhere — to shift perceptions or gain recognition in a broader market. We want to articulate this fairly precisely because it determines the pathway to achieving the end results. We often push clients to see what’s realistic so we can help them succeed. Upscaling your brand may be desirable, but only if you have the assets to do it.

2. Who are we talking to, and what do we want them to know?

You have to know up front who the audience is. Define the personas, the types of customers, what they want, and how you can meet their needs. Find out where they are online and in the physical world, what they are reading or viewing, how you can reach them. The medium really is the message.

3. What’s already out there?

Research, research, and more research will tell you what the trends are and what’s happening in the market. This doesn’t always mean an exhaustive, 200-page report. A solid review of websites and trends in the market you’re after will build a clear picture of your customers and competitors.

4. What’s the key aspect of the brand that has the most value?

What makes the brand stand out? How can you best define the value it brings to the market you’ve identified? This is so important and can be the secret sauce that elevates your brand to another level while building the foundation for a creative platform.

5. How can we build the creative platform around this approach?

This is the most challenging part. We probably can envision multiple ways to define the brand, but what’s the best approach to build awareness? Successful strategy rests on analysis of all the elements of the research, so you have to build a brand that reflects this. Using everything you know allows you to invent a variety of approaches and see what sticks.

6. How do we measure great ideas to see if they work?

This is where testing and review come in. You’ve got to make sure the audience you’re after really gets it. If they are lost, then you’re lost. Take time to see what will work in which medium in the real world.

7. How do we launch the new brand to get folks to know who we are?

This needs to be examined at the very beginning of the branding process. What’s the budget, who is our audience, and how can we best reach them with the dollars we have? In some cases it could be a massive email campaign to customers backed by a social media presence. In others it’s a press release and a brand event to grab media attention. All the research and brainstorming dovetail here to create an effective approach to bringing your brand to life in the world of your customers.