Social Media Archives : Page 3 of 3 : Persona Design

Social Media – How to Choose the Right Fit for Your Brand for Effective ROI

August 3, 2012/0 Comments/in Brand Relevance, Brand Strategy, Business, Communication, Customer Engagement, Facebook, Google+, Interactive Marketing, Market Demographics, Marketing, Mobile, Online Marketing, Pinterest, Return On Investment, Social Engagement, Social Media, Target Market, Twitter /by Lorraine Carter

Social media adoption figures have sky rocketed in Ireland in the last few years. The Irish market has shown an engagement with social networks that is among the highest in Europe. We are the 4th heaviest users of social media in the EU, the 2nd highest users of Linkedin after the USA, and 1 of every 5 minutes we spend online is spent on social networks.

In contrast Irish businesses have been relatively slow to adopt social media as a tool to engage with this very active online audience and to leverage it effectively for commercial return.

We have spoken before about the value of social media for building brand awareness online. Implementing a social media strategy for business takes an investment of time and resources. To maximize the return on this investment, it is vital that businesses understand and select the right social media fit for their brand and design content that suits the activity typical of each individual network and their brands relevant target audience. Selecting the right type of social network for your brand requires a number of considerations.

Which social networks suit your brand?

With so many social networks available it is important to pick the type that best fits with your brand image/personality/values etc., your product type, and that has the highest propensity of target market users. Remember, different social networks serve different purposes and target different markets.

For consumer brands operating in Ireland the focus must include Facebook. In both Ireland and worldwide Facebook continues to dominate where consumers spend their time online. It is still a less relevant platform though for B2B interaction compared to other options available.

Twitter should also be considered. Penetration numbers with Irish audiences mean that members of your target audience can be found in that space too but engagement style is quite different to Facebook. Twitter is also a very valuable B2B platform, again depending on your target audience.

YouTube is the second largest social media site after Facebook and the second largest search engine after Google making it one of the hottest social media platforms. It’s an ideal platform B2B or B2C to expand your content marketing and grow your brand awareness, when used appropriately. It also brings your brand alive in a more personal way, in terms of getting a sense of your brand personality.

Linkedin is the professional social media network and very business orientated. With 591,000 Irish users it is a must for any professionally orientated brand serving a B2B market. This audience is typically older, educated and has higher incomes. Three quarters of Linkedin members have a college or university degree. Two thirds are over thirty-five and seven out of ten earn over $60k/€50k.

Pinterest is a more recent social media platform to show significant and very rapid growth globally as well as in Ireland and has passed out Twitter in the US in term of frequency of online activity. It should definitely be considered by brands that have compelling visual content; particularly if they also sell consumer products relating to food, the home, arts & crafts, style & fashion, vacations & travel, inspiration & education etc. It has a very strong female usage bias in the US but is more equally balanced between the genders in the UK.

Google+ is growing at an increasingly fast rate, particularly among males in the 25 – 35 age. It has increased its audience share in Ireland by 13% since the beginning of the year and this looks set to continue.

Where are your brands target customers?

Pick the appropriate social network that contains the maximum number of your brands target audience.

With over 2,093,900 Facebook users in Ireland, 68.5% of the population, it is safe to say that Facebook should be a focus for any consumer brands looking to increase target awareness online, particularly within the Irish market. The same applies with Twitter, who have over 180,000 Irish members and growing daily.

Facebook is more popular among Irish females and the average age of a Facebook user is 30.5 years. While the highest portion of Facebook users are in the 15-35 age bracket, the 55+ is growing at the highest rate.

Why do they use social media and when are they most active?

Depending on your audience type and relevant platform, they are largely using social media for their personal entertainment. However professional platforms like Linkedin are business orientated and used for multiple professionally related reasons e.g. information sources/sharing, building professional profiles and brand awareness, networking and recruitment etc.

This is important to remember when exploring how best to target your online customers. No social demographic wants to read content that is entirely promotional or irrelevant to their interests. All media strives to produce interesting, entertaining, and compelling content and social media should be exactly the same.

Understanding what your target audience is doing online makes it easier to target them with messages that catch their attention and stimulate interaction. Entertaining content typically gets most attention and is usually the most widely shared.

Latest figures from American markets show a growing trend amongst audiences to use social networks, particularly Facebook and Youtube, while watching television and sporting events. Audiences are looking to interact and share their experience in real time.

On the other hand Linkedin often hits peak use at lunchtime in the US through to the afternoon for viewing public profiles, while engaging from their desks, and mobile usage peaks after dinner in the evening as users think about their personal/business goals etc.

It is important for marketers to become skilled in engaging in conversations about hot topics in order to generate relevant customer interest online. Brands who join in conversations and do not simply try to self promote typically create far more valuable interactions with their online audience.

What content will resonate with your audience?

Monitoring the online conversations of target audiences can provide valuable insight into the type of information that engages brand/customer interactions most.

Compelling Content is Key

When it comes to content for social networks it is not one fit for all. Each social network will have unique audience interactions requiring its own brand strategy. Tone, content type, and audience demographic vary between networks. Brands who push the same content on all their social media profiles are wasting a valuable opportunity to increase target awareness.

Posts should be tailored to the fit each individual social network. If your brand uses Facebook to promote sales and promotions then consider using Twitter as a customer services tool. Like any marketing campaign it is important to gage reactions and adjust your social media campaign accordingly.

• Does your brand have a social media strategy?

• Is your brand active in a social network that maximizes target audience reach?

• Can we help you to tailor your online activity to maximize your ROI in social media marketing?

5 Ways to Improve Online Brand Risk Management

July 2, 2012/0 Comments/in Brand Reputation, Brand Risk Management, Brand Strategy, Social Engagement, Social Media /by Lorraine Carter

Strong brands are built by fostering relationships built on trust with your target audience. This process takes a great deal of time and effort on the part of the brand custodian or company. If something happens to break this trust, the fall out and subsequent impact on your customer’s perceptions of your brand can happen at an alarming rate and potentially be devastating.

The potential positive impact of social networking on increasing brand awareness and building brand equity is indisputable. Research shows 94% of corporates use social media and 85% say that it’s given their business more exposure (source MBA programmes). Brands strive for increased interaction with their target audience as they build relationships with their customers and customers look to online channels to extend their brand experience. While online touch points offer huge benefits to brand development they do so while adding considerable complexity to brand risk management.

Managing Brand Risk Online

The essence of successful brand risk management lies in taking a proactive approach to preempting potential threats or compromise to the brand and putting in place contingency plans to mitigate any problems that may arise. Online brand activities are far more challenging to control because so much of the communication taking place about the brand is done by external stakeholders; consumers, commenter’s, competitors etc.

While companies cannot control what others say about their brand online, steps can be taken to monitor, manage, reduce potential risks and positively influence the online activities that shape the brand’s reputation.

1. Internal Management Platform

The integration of an effective internal management platform is important to ensure that those managing company online brand accounts do so in a structured, focused and controlled manner, one that fits into the overall brand strategy.

Cadbury’s Crème Egg Facebook page is accessed by an audience of 2.3m which is as much made up of a younger audience as it is by adults. The brand has a responsibility to ensure its younger audience is protected. Those who manage Cadbury’s social media accounts encourage user-generated content and monitor activity in a way that posts and Tweets are always kept appropriate, engaging, and brand relevant

2. Streamline Multiple Profiles

The greater the number of online profiles a brand has e.g YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Linkedin and Google+ etc. the greater the level of potential risk to brands. When conversations are spread out across multiple social channels, it is easy for companies to quickly loose track of what is being said about their brand. It’s also often difficult to keep track of which profiles have been updated and if videos and content have uploaded correctly. Brands should be selective in their use of social media applications and focus on the platforms which best suit the needs of their target audience and fit within the brand’s communication strategy.

3. Social Media Monitoring Platform

Social media’s most damaging potential impact is on reputation. The wider the brand’s social media reach, the higher the need to balance the benefits and risks of social media engagement in order to effectively protect the social media perception and reputation of the brand. Software and online programmes, can be employed which not only enable users to effectively monitor and manage the conversations and engagement taking place around their brand but also allows them to co-ordinate social media strategy and activity across multiple platforms. Lack of structure and monitoring of conversations in this way leaves companies particularly open to the greatest of risks.

4. Be Proactive: Respond Quickly & Effectively When Issues Arise

The potential to rapidly spread negative word of mouth online can be hugely threatening to a brand if issues arise. The lightning speed at which things happen in the social space is something that all companies need to be fully aware of when putting their social media strategies in place. The team or individual responsible, in a company, for interacting on the brand’s social media profiles needs to be capable of quickly monitoring and effectively dealing with any issues that arise.

5. Employee Training

While you may be risk averse in your general business strategy does the same apply to how you and your employees engage in social media? Social media activity needs to be considered when outlining acceptable behaviour expected of employees. If they are perceived as representatives of your brand or somehow connected to your brand then how they interact online can be viewed as a reflection of your brand. Educating your employees on the potential repercussions of their online behaviour on the brand, empowering them to be positive brand ambassadors online and training them in how to be vigilant about social media both personally and for your business can reduce risks to your brand.

[Tweet issued by Chrysler after the following tweet sent by an employee: “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f***ing drive,” read the tweet of a Chrysler employee though the F-word was uncensored]

Online Risk Assessment

As with offline brand risk assessment, the various risks associated with social media use need to be identified and quantified before contingency plans can be put in place. Your brand risk assessment strategy needs to take into account the likelihood and potential damage resulting from negative online occurrences such as employee defamation, negative consumer feedback, as well as any other risks to which social media use exposes a brand. Risk assessment also involves identifying the controls that are already in place, together with those which should be introduced to reduce any other jeopardizing elements.

It is critical that brands expand current risk management policies to include social media. Once risks have been identified, it should be apparent whether, and where, the brands risk management strategy needs to be expanded in order to better address the risks associated with communicating online.

• Does your brand have a strategy specific to its online activity?

• Do you have a contingency plan in place to deal with the potential repercussions of negative online brand communications?

• Have you assessed the current risks affecting your brand’s social media activity?

• Are your employees training in business-specific social media management?

5 Ways to WOW Your Customers by Using Social Media

June 5, 2012/0 Comments/in Brand Strategy, Branding, Customer Engagement, Facebook, Interactive Marketing, Social Engagement, Social Media /by Lorraine Carter

Do you WOW your customers? A company that creates a positive brand experience for their customers, particularly one that goes beyond consumer expectations, is richly rewarded by increased brand loyalty and expanding profitability.

Social Media offers companies the perfect platform to enrich the customer brand experience and empower the customer to help the brand meet its key business drivers.

Social Media not only offers another touch point for consumer brand interaction, it also enables companies to create the ultimate brand experience by wowing their customers beyond their typical brand expectations. Companies who don’t offer a social media touch-point to their customers risk of loosing valuable customers and potential profits.

Last week we spoke about finding what makes your brand stand out from its competitors. Now find out how social media can help your brand to WOW your customers in 5 keys steps.

1. Offer Them Something Exclusive

Online consumers are demanding. In order to be willing to interact with brand’s online they expect to be offered something beyond what they can experience offline. Offering your social customer’s something that goes beyond their physical purchase leaves them with an enriched brand experience and typically develops a stronger attachment to the brand.

Wowing your customers can be done by offering them access to exclusive online competitions, games unique to their social media profiles, or special offers and discounts offered exclusively to online fans. Exclusive social media posts not only keeps them engaged and motivated but it helps to develop strong brand loyalty when customers feel they are being rewarded for their extended brand interaction.

Burberry is a great example of how brands can engage with their online audiences. The culmination of Burberry’s social media use was seen last September with the unveiling of its 2012 collection exclusively to its Twitter and Instagram followers right before it hit the runway. The show was also live streamed on Burberry’s YouTube channel and shared behind-the-scenes footage.

Since then, Burberry’s following has grown to over 800,000 on Twitter and over 11.6 million on Facebook, while it’s YouTube channel has received over 12 million views. Was the return on social media investment worth it? I am sure Burberry think so; their profits rose 21% in the 12 months since the launch of their social media strategy.

2. Offer Your Followers a ‘Behind-the-scenes’ View

Sharing videos, images and your brand story provides consumers with a clear picture of your brand, shapes their perceptions of your brand identity and humanizes your brand thereby helping it build stronger, lasting relationships.

Sharing these intimate details offers a sense of inclusion to consumers, reaffirming their affinity with the brand and its values. Brands such as Ford use their social networks to share information with fans about the history of the company and their plans for the future, giving fans a sense of inclusion and understand of the brand.

The Four Seasons has created individual Twitter accounts for each of its local hotels from New York to Sharm El Sheikh. The Four Seasons Twitter accounts interact with followers and share their pictures. In addition to a friendly and ‘human’ approach to its interaction, the accounts also share tips on places to visit in their respective cities. The social media team is a direct reflection of customer service that you’re going to find inside any Four Seasons hotel.

3. React and Respond

Online consumers like to share, be it a compliment or a complaint. By providing a brand with a social media profile you are giving your customers the space they need to share their experience. Critically, your customers are already in a position to shape and influence each other’s experience of your brand by commenting on their own pages.

Having a centralized space that encourages comments allows you to monitor and addresses your consumer’s reaction to your brand much more responsively. Letting your customers know when you appreciate their positive comments, or quickly trying to address and solve their negative experiences allows you to offer them enriched experience of your brand beyond the point of sale, giving your customer a renewed sense of value.

Remember, be it positive or negative commentary, the online customer can spread the word far faster and with far greater reach than those offline. Managing their online commentary can be key to maintaining strong customer loyalty and increased profitability potential.

Social Media channels are fast becoming the customer-query space of choice. Utilizing Facebook and Twitter to provide customer service has proven to be beneficial for both customer and company alike. Addressing customer queries promptly in a visible space displays to the world the importance of your customers to your brand.

Dutch airline KLM recently launched their 24/7 customer support on Twitter and Facebook. Customer queries are answered promptly in real time at no cost to the customer and without valuable time wasted on call-waiting.

They used a highly engaging “Live Replies” campaign, on the day of launch when they responded to tweets with a small army of staff in an airplane hanger holding up signs!

4. Showing Them You Value Their Suggestions

Customers are very comfortable in offering suggestions via social networks. Not only do brands receive relevant feedback but they often also receive ideas for new products.

Brands such as VitaminWater used a Facebook app to ask their fans for feedback and suggestions from which they developed a new flavour for their product mix. This is a win win situation. Fans feel relevant, valued, appreciated by the brand, and the brand ends up with a new product for their mix.

5. Reward Them For Their Loyalty

Brands like USA Network reward their five million+ online fans and followers by allowing them to earn points for simply watching videos, chatting, playing games and reposting content to Twitter and Facebook. Rewards can be redeemable for tangible and virtual goods, like show-branded merchandise and goods such as gift cards for major retailers.

What this means for businesses.

Online consumers are demanding. And they want more than ever before; more experience, more engagement, more rewards and more reasons to connect with each other and brands through social media.

By leveraging social media, a company can add to their consumer’s overall brand experience in a meaningful way and a customer that has been wowed can become fierce brand advocates for a company. Loyal online customers can help meet key business drivers for a company, like better customer support, faster innovation and increased demand and awareness.

The voice and value of social media positively influences purchase behavior, adoption rates and brand perception. It helps to build the consumer’s affinity with the brand and can create a highly targeted branding experience. Consumers become willing advocates and brand champions for the brand they love.

• Does your brand strategy incorporate online marketing / social media?

• Are your customer’s wowed by your online branding activity?

• How are you building brand loyalty online?

8 Top Tips for Building Your Brand Impact on Facebook Timeline

May 3, 2012/0 Comments/in Brand Strategy, Customer Engagement, Facebook, Online Marketing, Social Media /by Lorraine Carter

Now that Facebook has rolled out their Timeline format to all business page users it’s a prime opportunity to capitalize on all the benefits the new layout offers your brand.

1. Your Cover Image:

Facebook’s cover image really enables a business/brand to capture its audience’s attention and make a strong impression with immediate impact. For brands this offers an opportunity to communicate your brand’s personality in an imaginative way and really leverage your core brand message.

However, remember to read the Facebook guidelines when customizing your cover imagery. You can use this space to let your audience know what you are about but you cannot include promotional writing or a call to action on the cover photo. In short your cover image requires some more creative thinking to grab your key target markets attention while reaffirming your core brand message in a somewhat more subtle way. Cover images should be 851 x 315 pixels. Profile thumbnails should be 180 x 180 pixels

2. Get Visual:

The new layout reduces the visibility of text posts but really highlights image and video content. For some businesses this may mean you need to change the way you post your brand information on Facebook.

The huge popularity of imagery orientated social platforms like Pinterest and Instagram confirm the mass attraction and powerful impact of visual content so start getting great visual content onto your timeline and raise the profile of your brand (products or services) through imagery where ever possible. A note of caution, make sure your selected imagery is relevant to, or congruent with your core brand message and your audiences interests.

3. Directly Reach Your Audience:

The new timeline allows your customers to talk directly to you using private messages and most importantly it allows you to respond. It is critical that you have someone checking your Facebook page frequently to make a timely response. A query ignored could be a sale lost or worse still, compromise your brand.

4. Milestone Your Brand:

While your brand may have only recently joined Facebook, its story may have begun years ago. The new Milestone feature allows you to go back through the years, prior to you joining, and add landmark information and visuals, such as the year you were founded, significant new developments, the look of your brand through the years etc. This enables you to really share your brand’s story and build strong imagery communicating your brand’s development.

5. Highlight What’s Important:

While it is important to post regularly on your page, some posts may be more important than others and require greater exposure. You can now ‘pin’ posts, which means that that post will remain at the top of your Facebook timeline for the entire week. Other posts can be ‘highlighted’ which means they are given wider display space and therefore stand out more.

If you have a special offer, top tips, important news or an impending event, pinning it or highlighting it commands great visual impact thereby saving you the need to make multiple posts just to gain your audience’s attention.

6. Benchmark Your Brand:

While your administrator can view your page insights and find out how many visitors the page receives, the new timeline also allows you to view some insights from your competitors’ pages. Simply go to their page, click their ‘likes’ and you will see some basic insights regarding their visitor analytics.

7. Monitor and Control the Conversation:

While it is important that your customers can post on your wall and create a conversation around your brand, it is equally important that what they post is appropriate. Deleting negative comments is never advised but the new timeline allows you to approve posts before they are displayed on your company’s Facebook wall.

8. Attention to Apps:

Landing page welcome apps no longer apply to the timeline but Facebook has provided the space to feature apps on your page. If your brand has a Youtube channel app, a competition app, etc the new Timeline enables you to display them on the top of your page.

We have already looked at how social media mistakes can damage your brand, however, managed correctly the role social media can play in shaping your brand’s identity, raising its online profile and enhancing customer engagement is undeniable.

• Does your brand’s Facebook page make the most of all the new features?

• Do you have a social networking strategy to help build your brand?

• Are your social media profiles fully utilized to support your brand communication strategy?

Armed and Dangerous: How Misuse of Social Media Can Damage Your Brand

April 6, 2012/0 Comments/in Branding, Business, Communication, Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Engagement, Social Media, Technology /by Lorraine Carter

Digital disruption seems to be taking over businesses across Ireland and worldwide. Companies are jumping on the social media bandwagon in their thousands with little apparent thought for brand strategy or brand management. And why is this? The answer for most, it seems, does not extend far beyond ‘because other businesses are online and so are our customers’. Here in lies the problem.

The decision as to whether online marketing or social media is right for your business is a strategic one, if it ties into the marketing and ultimate business strategy of your company. However, this appears to be something evading many companies who are setting up social media profiles for their brands/businesses with little regard as to what role they are deemed to play, how these profiles will help drive the profitability of the business and how congruent their activity is with their brand.

When employed correctly social media can be an extremely powerful marketing tool for your business. It can be an effective method of building strong customer relationships, adding brand value, reinforcing strong brand imagery, gathering valuable customer feedback and, particularly for small and medium companies, it can provide great exposure for your company that may be prohibitively expensive using more traditional marketing tools.

In the wrong hands, social media can be hugely detrimental to your brand image, company reputation and even cause you to loose revenue for your business.

In January of this year McDonalds attempted to create a social media campaign on Twitter which aimed to have the public spread their positive stories about the McDonalds brand using the hashtag #McDStories. In their naivety, McDonalds did not take into account that on social networks the company cannot control the brand message spread by the public.

What was intended as campaign to develop positive connotations about the McDonalds brand was quickly hi-jacked by disgruntled customers who spread their McD horror stories at such a rate that it trended worldwide.

While feedback should always be welcomed by businesses, the ability to respond to negative feedback and positively spin the situation is paramount to building the brand customer relationship.

The choice of Twitter as an application proved to be a poor one for McDonalds when used in this capacity. The ability for thousands to comment at once made it impossible for McDonalds to appropriately respond.

This week alone saw a monumental social media mistake suffered by one Irish company hoping to employ Facebook as a means to generate more fans and promote their business offers online.

Denis Mahony Motors in Dublin offered anyone who liked their Facebook page over the last few days of March, entry into a draw to win a new Mercedes if they shared the competition with their Facebook friends.

The contest was to end on Sunday 1st April. What initially seemed to be a huge success (the company’s Facebook fans rocketed in numbers during the days leading up to 1st April), proved to be a colossal PR disaster for the business when they announced on Sunday that the stunt was an April Fools prank.

What Denis Mahony Motors failed to take into account is that no customer wants to feel they have been made a fool of, particularly in front of their friends, which is essentially what happened to those who spread the company’s contest message.

Sunday saw fans of the page drop from 10,000 to 5,000 in less than 20 minutes and disgruntled former-fans quickly took to the company’s Facebook wall to voice their anger.

The company subsequently recognized their mistake, apologized and offered a new competition with vouchers to be won and discounts on cars for a month. However for many potential customers the damage has been done, not to mention the negative press that a mistake like this gains on online blogs and forums.

The big mistake made by Denis Mahony Motors is in not understanding the nature of Facebook interactions. Unlike other social networks Facebook is very much personal with the majority of communication taking place between friends. Had this campaign been run on Twitter then perhaps the backlash would have been less severe. What began as a social media stunt ultimately cost the company potential sales and damaged their brand’s reputation.

On the other hand IKEA ran a very successful April Fools prank. IKEA alerted customers to a “fake” product recall, saying it had sold some the incorrect left-handed allen keys 01-01-2012 and 31-03-2012. “To exchange your incorrect allen key, we’ve provided a swap box at the store entrance, 1st April”.

The advert ran in the press and online gaining the brand huge “positive” publicity and viral media exposure and as it spread. To date one of those blogs, where it was posted, has had 929,025 views alone, not to mention all the sharing through Facebook and Twitter. It even got endorsements across multiple other channels for being in the top 5 best April Fools pranks this year!

Many company leaders and their employees have personal profiles online in various social media channels for communicating with friends, but that does not mean they know how to effectively use them to positively increase their company brand image and profitability for their business. Online interaction at a personal level is invariably very different to that in a brand / business capacity. We all know how to use a scissors but that does not mean we can all be successful hairdressers without proper training.

A social media strategy is one which ties into your overall brand strategy and marketing plan for your company, one which contains realistic expectations of what social media can achieve for your business, and one which is managed by someone with the necessary marketing and technological skills to run the campaign successfully.

Once a campaign has run its course your business should have a stronger social media presence and an expanded fan base of eager and engaged potential customers.

As you embrace the opportunities online marketing and social media poses for your brand, it might prudent to reflect on where you may need some help, to ensure your activities produce positive outcomes for your brand and your target audience and ultimately support the profitable growth of your business.

• Do you understand all the rules that apply when designing and implementing a successful social media campaign for your brand?

• Have you thought about how social media fits into your marketing strategy?

• Have you identified where online your customers are most active and how you can reach them?

QR Codes – A Hot Trend for Cross Platform Marketing to Grow Your Brand

May 18, 2011/0 Comments/in Advertising, Apparel, Brand Collateral, Branding, Business, Communication, Customer Engagement, EProducts, Estate Agents, Innovation, Integrated Marketing, Interactive Marketing, Market Insights, Market Research, Marketing, Mobile, Online Marketing, Packaging, Packaging Design, Pharmaceutical Industry, Professional Services, Publishers, QR Code Readers, QR Codes, Retailers, Return On Investment, Smart Phones, Social Engagement, Social Media, Target Market, Technology, Tourism, Trends, Wayfinding Systems /by Lorraine Carter

A QR Code (short for Quick Response) is a specific matrix barcode, storing information in both the vertical and horizontal directions, readable by dedicated QR barcode readers and smart phones / camera phones.

QR Codes were originally developed in 1994 and used in the vehicle manufacturing industry for tracking parts etc, but are now being used very successfully in integrated marketing campaigns across the globe. The technology has seen a huge uptake in Japan and South Korea.

A smart phone user can now scan one of these QR Codes in magazines, newspapers, on transport and billboards, business cards, products, packaging, on a PC, TV or cinema screen and it can take the user to a URL (webpage), video, send them a text message, save a vCard or event to the users contact book or calendar and even compose an email. QR Codes effectively create a direct link between the physical world and online arena.

While the adoption of QR Codes in some markets has been slower to take off, the technology is gaining some serious traction in the smartphone market. Ireland has some of the highest smart phone penetration rates in Europe with an estimated 1.3 million users.

Indeed many Android, Nokia, and Blackberry phones come with QR Code readers pre-installed and iphone has a large selection of free downloadable QR Code reader apps available in iTunes. QR reader software is now available for most mobile platforms.

For any savvy business owners, brand custodians and marketeers, QR Codes are of particular interest as they give them the “ability to measure response rates with a high degree of precision” allowing for easier ROI (return on investment) calculation, thus helping assess effective spend in marketing budgets.

Examples of QR Codes Used to Promote & Grow Your Brand:

1. Food & Drink Producers:

QR Codes on packaging, leaflets, posters, vehicle livery, advertising and indoor displays can be used to launch an event or provide information relating to online promotions, Facebook competitions, information about where food/drink/beverages have been grown and produced, consumption suggestions together with recipes and serving suggestions on your brand’s web site.

2. Professional Services:

Add QR Codes to your business cards, stationery, newsletters, white papers, videos and presentations etc. to provide customers with a direct link to additional information about your business and new services, launch a conferences or announce a seminar, identify calendar fixtures (scan the code and save the date, time and place of an event), LinkedIn page and more in-depth news updates.

3. Pharmaceutical Industry:

Use QR Codes to drive your target audience (professionals or consumers) towards accessing more in-depth information specifically about health, therapies, OTC brands, products, usage, white papers, research and development, innovation, responsibility, mission, investors, media releases, seminars, conferences, careers etc.

4. Retailers:

Retailers can use QR Codes printed in window displays or on brand promotion collateral with special offers delivered to the consumers smart phone when scanned, together with appliance/product instructions, new product launches, competitions, Facebook incentives etc. They can also use QR Codes on clothing tags, books, electronic goods and toys. QR Codes can also be used on staff uniforms, name tags and signage.

5. Publishers:

Whether you are producing books, magazines, newspapers or newsletters you can add interactive elements online to support and enhance your hard copy content making your brand material more valuable and a front of mind brand, as a “go-to-resource” for your consumers e.g. more in-depth article analysis, video content and interviews, interactive entertainment guide, sports clips/profiles, interactive exhibition reviews etc.

6. Tourism & Wayfinding Systems:

Restaurateurs, hotels, guest houses, cities, countries (Tourism Ireland) you can use QR Codes on posters, advertising to promote and bring your audience directly to your destination and give them an interactive “feel or experience” using video etc., for what you have to offer, together with incentives such as discount or promotional/ticket codes. QR Codes can also be used to interpret natural and historical points of interest in museums, walking tours and on nature trails, adding to or enhancing the user experience through the signs.

7. Estate Agents:

Put a QR Code beside each property listed, or on “For Sale” signs, and interested customers can scan the relevant code supplying them with information such as GPS coordinates, a Google Map with directions, house plans, property features, launch a video or photo tour of the property etc.

8. Politicians & Celebrities:

Use QR Codes in appropriate locations or in relevant media so the target audience can scan and see the VIP speak about their policies or promote an upcoming event, movie or participate in an interview etc.

Some recent examples of effective use of QR Codes include the following.

In January 2011, the Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum launched a line of branded museum t-shirts and apparel which featured museum brand logos and designs on the fronts and a QR Code screened on the right back shoulder, which directed to the museum’s web site or artist interviews.

The U.S. Army Garrison Yongsan in Seoul, South Korea became the first Army organisation to use QR Codes for official media campaigns in January this year.

The Japanese are using QR Codes in cemeteries on grave stones as a way to remember and share more information about their loved ones and unite mourners !

The Lviv Tourism Movement (Ukraine) have placed QR Codes on more than 80 tourism objects helping individual tourists easily access information about the city.

Sun-Maid, that iconic centennial brand, has used QR Codes on its canister and six-pack raisin packaging in a bid to increase brand loyalty/awareness and give it the competitive edge.

In a promotional tie with the Dreamworks animated movie “Kung Fu Panda 2”, debuting later this month, they are using QR Codes to take consumers to a mobile website where they can enter a contest to potentially win the grand prize, a trip for four to Zoo Atlanta. Top winners will get VIP treatment at the Zoos Giant Panda centre and the company will also give out “Kung Fu Panda 2” toys to 100 other sweepstakes winners. Sun-Maid raisins are a favourite brand for kids, so the “Kung Fu Panda 2” cross-promotion is a natural tie-in.

As a brand awareness, marketing and business growth tool QR Codes offer almost limitless innovation and opportunities, with definitive measurability. Be it a teaser, guerrilla marketing campaign, event management or information resource, the list is endless !

Some examples of QR Code readers for your smart phones include:

iphone: Qrafter, i-nigma QR Code Reader

Blackberry: QR Code Scanner, ScanLife 2D Code Reader, ATT Code Scanner

Android: Barcode Scanner

How would you like to leverage the use of QR Codes to grow your brand and increase your sales ?

Give us a call, we’d love to hear your thoughts and share some of our more exciting ideas to make your brand grow and come alive !

16 Tips to Writing a Hot Design Brief to Get the Biggest Bang for Your Buck

April 18, 2011/0 Comments/in Brand Collateral, Brand Design Brief, Brand Profiling & Positioning, Brand Style Guides, Branding, Copywriting, Focus Groups, Graphic Design, Illustration, Market Demographics, Market Insights, Market Psychographics, Market Research, Marketing, Online Marketing, Packaging, Packaging Design, Professional Photography, Project Planning, Social Media, Target Market, Web Design & Development /by Lorraine Carter

Over the years I have seen a lot of different brand design briefs of all shapes and sizes from the brilliant to simply dreadful, with too many in-between lacking sufficient substance to really get the best potential return for the resources invested.

Why is the brand design brief so important ? This might sound obvious, but you need to know what you’re aiming for to hit the goal ! In short it’s a critical factor in ensuring your brand design project is successful and you get a real return on your investment.

Think who, what, where, when, why and how ? Your brief should be, to some extent, an extension of your business strategy. It should reflect the desired commercial endeavours of your business and provide all the detailed information necessary to understand your business dynamics in depth and should clearly define the results you want to achieve i.e. the commercial objectives of the project.

In many cases over the years we’ve had to write the client brief, following in-depth discussions, questioning and probing, to ensure project clarity on all fronts, which the client has then endorsed and signed off before the project commences.

The following are some tips on how, and what to include, to write a great brand design brief so you can get the best return for your money. The questions posed should give you roughly 80% of your brief content with the remainder resulting from and thorough an in-depth discussion with your chosen brand design agency.

1. What does your business/organisation do ?

Be clear and concise, providing as much detail as possible. Avoid industry jargon and don’t assume your chosen brand design company knows your company or market intimately.

2. What are your business/organisation goals and why ?

How do these goals relate to the brand design project ?

3. What are your primary communication objectives and why ?

Are your trying to create greater brand/product awareness or sell more product ?

4. How do you differ from your competitors ?

Be objective and tangible in the description of your differences.

What are their advantages and disadvantages compared to your business/product/organisation ?

5. Do you have industry, market or category insights ?

Are they up-to-date ? It is essential to share this information with your brand design partners so they can develop an in-depth understanding of your needs. Have you completed formal/informal market research into to your market, product etc. ?

6. Do you need brand profiling and positioning work ?

This will provide the strategic direction for your marketing activities, distinction within your business’s market and drive the inspiration for the creative delivery of your marketing messages.

7. Are you revamping, relaunching your business/product/organisation or launching a completely new product/venture to market ?

If revamping or relaunching, how does your old offering compare with the new ? Does your brand/business/product/organsiation have an existing brand style guide ?

8. Who is your primary target market ?

What are their demographics and psychographics ? Describe them in detail.

If you have a secondary market or multiple audiences ? List them in terms of priority.

9. Have you considered the text content required for your project ?

Do you need professional copywriting input ? How many languages do you need and do you need professional translation services ? A printed brochure or website will have an entirely different requirement and writing style to a brand packaging design project. Compile some raw copy where possible, even in short bullet form, to give some indication of your text content requirements.

10. Does your business, industry, market or organization have legal mandatory information which must be included in all your communications ?

Does your product or market have mandatory information such as colour coding which must be used in specific ways, on or in, your communications e.g. European egg packaging has EU colour coding for designated egg sizes ? If so, it is essential you provide all this information fully proofed, up front with clear guidelines on usage.

11. Do you need commissioned professional photography or illustration ?

Does your project have specific visual content which should be included ? If so why and what is it ?

12. What is the full remit of your brand design requirements ?

Does it have a printed requirement (product design, stationery, brochures, display or exhibition stands, vehicle livery, direct mail, packaging, point of sale etc. all of which is your brand collateral) ? Does it have an online marketing requirement (website, ezine newsletter, Facebook presence, LinkedIn presence, Twitter etc.) ? Do you need a branded digital showreel, video or sales presentation using, for example, Power Point or Keynote ?

13. Do you have industry or market category benchmarks ?

If so what are they ? Are these industry, cultural or category standards ? Your brand design team needs to know as much as possible to understand what is mandatory, what has worked/not worked to date and where they can aim to exceed and excel, to be distinctly different for long term competitive advantage.

14. Do you need market research or focus group activity to test your new brand design outputs ?

Don’t proceed with your launch on a hunch or worse still, your own personal preferences. Your personal preferences are not relevant if they don’t mirror those of your target market and even if they do you should still test and measure !

15. What is your budget ?

Your chosen brand design experts need to know what your limitations and budget boundaries are to avoid a valuable waste of time and resources. They need to understand where and how they can achieve the best return for your money.

16. What is your lead time or deadline for launch to market ?

Develop a detailed schedule with key milestones indicated e.g. consultation, concept development, market research, testing, photography, production, delivery and launch to market etc. Be realistic in your expectations. Unnecessary mistakes can be made if a complex project is rushed to market prematurely. Alternatively if the project must hit the market by a critical date then be upfront and honest. Some elements may need to be dropped or postponed to another occasion and a simpler solution offered to meet the deadline.

If you need a new name for a product, business or organization most of this information is just as essential for a brand name origination brief too.

Tip:

Try not to be too prescriptive on the aesthetic aspects of the brand design brief. You want to get the best out of your chosen brand design team so you need to give them room to manoeuvre creatively.

Do you have anything else you’d like to add to these tips ?

Drop us a line, we’d love to hear your thoughts.

Top 4 Brand Design Trends for Profitable Success

April 1, 2011/0 Comments/in Branding, Customer Engagement, Graphic Design, Innovation, Marketing, Online Marketing, Packaging, Social Media /by Lorraine Carter

1. Brand Design Trends

Consumers have higher expectations and are much more demanding in their need for brand authenticity and integrity. Their trust must earned and sustained on a daily basis. Brands must engage emotionally with their customers if they really want to connect with nurtured longevity because consumers feel they own and have rights to freely offer opinions on the brands in their world. Never before has business collaborated so openly with their customers and the internet has provided an explosive platform on which to do it in a heart beat with heartfelt meaning!

This open platform of communication is also changing the parameters of brand design. Awareness of design among the general population has never been higher and will continue to grow. Remember the GAP fiasco in 2010. Success depends on a much broader range of criteria including flexibility, transparency, innovation, engagement and ethical design that cohesively supports communication and sharing across multiple channels and marketplaces.

Online design must delivery as much on functionality as it does on brand aesthetics. Splash, flash and animation don’t necessarily deliver as effectively across all channels and increasing mobile connectivity requires functional, fluid, light interface designs with optimized content and clear navigation.

2. Brand Social Media Trends

The most volatile, fast paced and ever changing of arenas. Social users are increasingly bombarded with content across multiple channels which means consequently they will become progressively more discriminate about the content they allow into their streams. Relentless promotions and excessive activity from brands can become overwhelming and irritating which in turn causes users to hide, filter or unsubscribe from brand updates as they endeavour to prioritise what’s really meaningful to them and who they want to hear from.

Brands will have to earn the right with quality content and/or rewards to be allowed or accepted into consumer’s streams. Truly compelling content will get noticed, “liked” and redistributed generating additional ripples into the marketplace. Shrewd brand managers will need to focus on engaging their market with relevant interchange and conversation together with supporting platforms in which their customers can express their opinions.

Also as increasing volumes of interaction take place on mobile devices, brand design interfaces will need to integrate this requirement seamlessly and congruently into all their platforms or channels of engagement.

3. Brand Packaging Design Trends

Packaging will increasingly need to deliver and exceed expectations in terms of functionality coupled with effective and aesthetically appropriate brand design. Todays consumers are shopping experts both on and offline. They share and make buying decisions based on other consumers opinions and ratings too.

In retail supermarkets, brand designers have mere seconds to grab the attention of their target market and tempt them into trying or buying new products. New technologies can have even greater impact on the initial buying decision and ongoing repeat purchase e.g. where the packaging enhances the user experience or product longevity.

Reusable and sustainable packaging are increasingly important to environmentally conscious consumers and both issues can be an integral part of the brand message and indeed extend the brand message beyond the life of the product. Consumers are more thoughtful in their buying habits, considering not just the immediate product benefits but where and how the products are created and how they impact on the environment long term.

4. Brand Authenticity & Purpose

Social purpose as a personal and business value is an integral part of society today and brands will need to work harder to make it central to how they do business and as part of their brand activity and brand story. Consumers don’t just buy products on face value, they look at how companies operate.

Genuine validity is critical as brand custodians look to see how they can support society with true commitment. Brands must stand for something and engage emotionally with their target audiences which means brand design must also be beneficial in multiple ways including a expressing a real social conscience for true success.

Is your brand authentically engaging with it target audience ?

Does your brand have an opinion which connects with real emotion to its target market ?

Does your brand have an integrated policy for sustainability ?

Are you aware of how social media can and does impact your brand ?

Are you engaging strategically and thoughtfully for long term success ?

Drop us a line, we’d love to hear your feedback, opinion and thoughts !

Branding with Authenticity to Achieve Massively Increased Market Share

March 16, 2011/0 Comments/in Advertising, Branding, Innovation, Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Media /by Lorraine Carter

Last night I had the pleasure of meeting Mike Hemingway and listening to his riveting presentation about ‘The Dove Real Beauty Campaign, The Impact & The Aftermath’.

Firstly for those of you who don’t know, Mike Hemingway took over the worldwide Unilever Dove business in 2004, leading the team that created the famous Dove “Real Beauty” campaign. This now iconic work led to immediate sales increases, whilst pioneering new concepts in “brand equity innovation” and “new” mass media engagement and communication.

In Mike’s opinion mass market advertising is largely dead. It lacks integrity and authenticity which with the rise of social media is increasingly important to consumers. They have opinions, freely express them and expect their brands to engage honestly. A brand can’t merely espouse values anymore, it must be truly authentic.

In Mike Hemingway’s opinion, if businesses don’t have real emotion and integrity they don’t deserve to be in business or survive anymore.

Mike really emphasised Dove’s brand values and challenged more traditional thinking about brands, saying “a brand is an opinion about your category that the consumer must find both personal and important”. “A brand must express emotion and fall in love with its customer”, “treat them with respect, know them intimately, talk to them about what they want to talk about”.

Dove’s mission was to broaden the definition of beauty. In researching their market, Mike and his team discovered some disturbing statistics which has since fueled the foundations for all their brand building and engagement strategies.

Perhaps unsurprisingly women feel at their least beautiful during or after childbirth, menopause and puberty. However more worryingly the majority of female children, teenagers and women are unhappy with multiple aspects of their bodies all the time.

Every woman has a right to feel beautiful but the stereotypes the beauty industry has fed them for decades has made them feel otherwise in order to sell product. Over the decades, media has distorted and brain washed us to have a very narrow idea of how women should look, to be considered attractive or beautiful e.g. they have to be slim, have beautiful skin, style their hair and makeup a certain way etc.

Research found:

• only 2% of women like their appearance

• 68% of women feel worse after reading Cosmo

• a child of 15 will on average see 500 images a day of stereo typical beauty

• 60% of young girls at home using Facebook are hiding because they feel inadequate

but most disturbing and worst of all,

• unhappiness with the body typically starts at the age of 3 !

With the western notion of beauty, little girls are now future targets before they are barely out of nappies. No wonder such a colossal percentage of young girls are growing up with eating disorders and massive self esteem issues.

Whether you are a consumer of Dove products or not, we are all aware of the incredibly powerful images, messages and emotions the brand has evoked. The women used in all the Dove campaigns were real women with real bodies, not size 0 models, and they all fitted within their healthy BMI indexes.

In engaging with its market Dove has redefined beauty and the beauty imagery used within the public domain. Dove didn’t start something, it gave a voice to a surge of feeling that was already there.

With raised awareness through a combination of print campaigns, videos and viral media, supported by unsolicited PR, Dove successfully created an international storm to government level, which still resonates with as much relevance today.

The longevity of the Dove brand campaigns is a testament to Mike and his teams success, truly experts in branding.

How does your brand really engage with its consumers ?

Does it stand for something that matters ?

Does it have an opinion ?

Does it express emotion ?

What opinion do your consumers have about your brand ?

Get in touch, we’d love to hear your thoughts . . .

Top 10 Tips To Get or Keep Your Brand On Track

January 24, 2011/0 Comments/in Branding, Customer Engagement, Customer Service, Graphic Design, Marketing, Online Marketing, Packaging, Social Media /by Lorraine Carter

1. Understand and know everything you can about your ideal customer. What makes them tick. What they love and what they hate. Have a bulls eye focus to meet their needs. Then tailor your brand to be irresistibly desirable to them. To be their number one product or service of choice.

2. Is your brand distinctive, different and memorable ? Does it really stand out from the crowd or is it just another “me too” blending into the morass of mediocrity ? Does your brand have meaningful individuality with the same values that stand for something important to your target customer ? Stand out within your market and align your brand values to your customer values if you want to get their attention and sustain it.

3. Have you reviewed your brand strategy, or action plan to put your brand to work ? This is your brand communications system that provides structure and guidance for all points of contact within your business, both internally and externally with your customers. It needs to be monitored, measured for effectiveness and regularly updated to meet the changing needs of your market.

4. Do you have a brand social media strategy to directly communicate with and exchange opinions and ideas with your customers. Develop your online marketing strategy to communicate with your customers in the channels in which they predominantly use. Deploy your tactics consistently. Your brand’s customers are talking about you even you aren’t participating. Be actively part of the conversation. Influence discussions, give your customers reasons to return to you.

5. Learn from your customers feedback, opinions and preferences and then innovate your brand and develop your new product offerings to meet their changing needs. Drive your NPD creatively to meet their preferences, pleasantly surprise them, keep your offering fresh and relevant if you want loyal customers and raving brand advocates.

6. Be prepared to engaged your brand with your customers in multiple channels both on and offline. Mass marketing is largely a thing of the past. Your brand needs to fluidly and congruently communicate with its market at a much more focussed and personal level, almost one-to-one at times, using parallel tactics on and offline (through traditional and new media) where appropriate.

7. Is your brand identity design fresh and “up-to-date” pertinent to your brands market ? Does it have longevity and reflect your current brand story ? Make sure it looks current and contemporary wherever it sits on the scale of appropriateness and relevance to its industry category and target customer.

8. Keep your brand designs looking fresh and relevant be they product or service. Is your brand collateral moving with the times or, better still, a leading innovator in your brand category. Reappraise all your brand design materials critically and objectively e.g. web site, Facebook page, LinkedIn presence, ezines and newsletters, packaging design, brochures, leaflets, vehicle livery, exhibition stands, branded power point presentations, movies, video and showreels. Do they reflect your brand story and deliver both on the aesthetics of your brand design and in their functional effectiveness ? Are they delivering perceived value ?

9. Are your customer facing staff enhancing the impression of your brand ? Are they behaving and communicating in a way that consistently supports and amplifies your customer brand experience and brand personality ? They are your brand ambassadors and how they dress, talk and present themselves in person or on the phone has a significant impact (positively or negatively) on your brand. Choose the right people carefully and support them with regular training and incentivize them to enrich your brand promise.

10. Never overlook, under resource or under estimate the importance of your brand customer service. Your customer service experience can make or break your brand. Todays customers are highly mobile and sophisticated.They can and do very quickly talk publicly about your brand and their personal experience with it. Ensure you have an outstanding brand customer service strategy for meeting your customers needs at all times.

These brand tips are by no means exhaustive so if you have anything you’d like to add or feel deserves inclusion please don’t hesitate to come back to us. We’d love to hear your thoughts and comments.

All the very best in growing your brands into even more profitable and thriving power houses in the year ahead.

About

Case Studies

Check It Out