It is undeniable that you “Google” the meaning of a word you are unfamiliar with.
Probably, you had “Xeroxed” a lot of things at one point in time.
A more righteous expression can’t be found anywhere else. “Googled” refers to a search engine, and “Xeroxed” is a brand new way to refer to a photocopy. When you look closely, the word “Xeroxed” is not a verb, it’s a noun, even interestingly, it’s a brand, but it’s most commonly used for photocopies. The same is true for the word “Googled”. It is interesting to witness how a search engine’s function became its identity. That’s the impact a brand creates which helps a customer to associate the activities with the brand. Here, many times, a customer also isn’t aware of how their subconscious minds replace activity with brand names. Blame the brand for gaining such remarkable mindshare.
The gaining practically starts from the time a brand initiates its brand awareness campaign. Today, four out of five brands already know the importance awareness holds and the boost it offers in developing a brand identity. A good brand identity separates it from the crowd and places it at the top of the desirable list. Once a brand establishes its image in the eyes of a customer, there’s no turning back. Having said this, let’s not forget how tough it is for a brand to set its image – it’s an entire process to achieve the objective.
Objective
To begin with awareness, the objective is the key. In most cases, companies who haven’t laid out their brand objectives or goals, struggle to create awareness compared to those who do so. Here, conveying a clear brand message requires a lot more than strategies. In this case, targeting works the best. That’s where a brand zooms in and detects the customer’s behavior.
For?
“For” refers to the target audience. Defining them is mandatory so that the entire plan can be woven around them. Going with the same concept, many brand owners go deeper and do microtargeting. They develop a strategy based on the behavior of the target audience. For example, products such as sports drinks, target individuals with an active cum athletic lifestyle. In this way, the brand gets a clear idea of what it should strive for and build the entire marketing mechanism accordingly.
Why?
Marketers and brand owners sometimes use awareness to enhance their performance marketing efforts. These brand owners insist on frequent sign-ups, downloads, and likes. Signing up for them isn’t referred to as conversion, it’s merely a way to test a customer’s awareness through logins and website visits. These metrics are the only ones that can be used to determine and measure a brand’s awareness in e-commerce. These brands, at least, have a clear objective, such that they are not overly reliant on signups to become premium users. Their goal is traffic, and their goal is to be seen. That is how they define brand awareness.
How do others do it?
Evidently, there are many firms present in the market who have spent big bucks and established awareness. Whereas, there are many who have revived themselves in a completely old or through a new market. One thing common among them is that they know what their objective is.
Observe and understand the following brands whose eye on targeting and sheer scannability of customer behavior led them to create a huge impact.
Coca-Cola
For a picnic or a house party, “coke” simply means Coca-Cola. Clearly, the firm has established its mark globally. However, there were some countries where the brand was a new chapter. Mexico had very little knowledge of Coca-Cola, and the market was mostly dominated by the local cola and soft drink manufacturers. Coca-Cola researched the customer’s habits and found that teens’ and young adults’ usage of mobile phones is increasing rapidly. The brand hatched an idea to target teens and start an online campaign. They micro-scanned their targeting and churned some information on youth’s culture. After determining the struggle faced by teens for wi-fi, the brand connected with tech-savvy kids and partnered with mobile experts. They enabled the campaign videos to have high-quality resolution with low broadband needs so that everyone can add on to the views on Youtube.
What can you do?
Also nicknamed Coke Light, Coca-Cola used knowledge and contextual marketing. With the same emphasis, pre-roll ads acted as a cherry on top. Here, search knowledge marketing is a popular tactic that is opted to gain an online presence. These paid strategies were displayed on Yahoo by Coca-Cola, where banners were personalized for each user.
Contextual marketing and pre-roll ads
The famous campaign “Share a Coke” started by Coca-Cola is a form of pre-roll ads to lend awareness among millennials. They roped in Bruno Marks and encouraged the customers to “share a coke” with him. This strategy paired nicely with the contextual promotion technique of teens and the millennials, by shooting ads on mobile browsers related to users’ searches. The campaign turned out to be a great hit among Mexicans and garnered a spotlight once again.
RedBull
October 2012 is a long time back and a month where one of the iconic brand awareness campaigns was created. Redbull did something similar where it focused on communicating its message, “it gives you wings.” Yes, they really went high, 128,000 feet above the ground! The brand roped in Felix Baumgartner, a skydiver, and aimed to set the highest skydive record.
Felix was sent in a capsule named Red Bull Stratos and was dropped from the stratosphere, no wonder they called it Red Bull Stratos.
What can you do?
Content Marketing
You just saw how the brand connected the essence of having an energy drink with a daredevil stunt. This was streamed live which gained millions of eyeballs. The campaign took content marketing to new heights. For e-commerce brands who solely rely on the word, “online” can create iconic campaigns with the help of powerful content which people remember. You don’t have to drop dead from 23 miles high, just know what hits and triggers the audience so that they remember your name.
Brand Activation
If you haven’t noticed it yet, Redbull basically activated their brand in a setting that makes sense for the product. This is a form of approaching people personally without actually doing so. The act shook the audience and changed their monotonous thinking pattern forever. In this way, the brand left every individual with a touch and hence activated their brains to remember the name, if not purchase. Such strategies are a lethal way to crack the competitors and enter the market with a bang!
Just do it
You all know that the first step in a customer’s journey is “brand awareness.” It’s a foundation for the entire building – brand image. The weaker the foundation, the less able the building will be to reach heights. We emphasize brand awareness because it acquires customers’ attention. Regardless of whether they purchase, they will be able to remember your business quickly. It will be like how you remember Nike with “Just do it.”
One catch: We have shown you the value of establishing name and trust with awareness techniques, but how will you execute them? Successful brand awareness straddles the fine line between aggressive branding that is almost guaranteed to irk others. Very neatly, we draw the line for you. Over the past decade, we have not only promoted the brands but also elevated them on the domestic and international fronts. All they had to do was contact us. And so can you!
