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WHY MARKETINGNEEDS TO BE BRAVEIN 2016

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F or sometime now, brand owners have been talking about taking risks in order to grow their brands. At Spikes Asia 2015, this trend was

more than evident. Courage and risk was listed as the key ingredients of successful branding. Spikes Asia is the largest festival that honors creative thinking in Asia. In the 2015 edition, 4351 entries from 23 countries contested for top honors. Yet, just a handful of them actually finished on the metals tally. The quest to create successful campaigns is not a new one, yet why do so many campaigns fail to scale new heights and make a lasting impact on people?

Apart from the usual maze of solving a business problem, integrated team-work, stakeholder alignment, execution co-ordination and mid-size budgets there were three key themes that winning campaigns embraced. These are timeless themes, but there is enough evidence to suggest that these work in the new world of communication

1. Bravery in branding

Bravery never fails to make an impression, however, the challenge for brands is to make the right impression and not be brave for no reason. Smart teams take the right risk in a campaign. This act of bravery can come at any point of the marketing process. It could be a ‘brave new proposition’ or a new ‘outrageous form of promotion’. These days there is enough evidence of how the bold approach works better than the safety first style of yesterday. This is an era of marketing where differentiation and stand out have a higher chance of acceptance and success. The safe brand that did not ruffle any category norms stand to lose ground faster than the innovative ones.

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Winning campaigns tend to pave a new path through business complexities and leave a lasting impression on the audience. They mesmerize and touch their audience’s heart in special ways. These campaigns are indeed acts of bravery because they challenge existing category and cultural norms and emerge triumphant by creating new marketing model for others to follow. An airline brand in Australia demonstrates how bravery can make a big difference to a brand that struggled to stand out. The campaign theme was creatively used across a range of touch-points (including tv/online/offline/ experiential) to make a big impression.

INFREQUENT FLYER CLUB

ACES FINALIST MARCH 2015

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2. Campaigns are not past memories but fresh approaches

Wisdom of the past is important but ideas from the brand’s past need to be strongly discouraged. Every campaign must be a step forward for the brand. It should add another dimension to existing brand appeal. As categories get more competitive, brands cannot stand out in consume minds by out-shouting each other, they can do so, only by injecting freshness into old connections. Saying the same joke twice does not make an audience laugh more, in-fact the audience starts feeling sorry for the limitation on show. Retelling a brand’s past does not merit new work. It only need more media money to rerun the old work.

Winning campaigns opened up a range of new repositories and avenues for brands to express their unique point of view. A new idea helps a brand rise above its own past and script a new reality. A 43 years old Taiwanese brand is probably the best example of this theme.

HOUSE OF LITTLE MOMENTS CAMPAIGN

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3. We are what we measure

The emphasis on campaign measurement was another key theme across marketers and agencies. The success of online as a medium can be attributed to the medium’s ability to measure and calculate its worth. Brand teams often debate that campaign results are not directly proportionate to brand results hence it is a good-to-have. That is perfectly true and it is largely due to campaigns being temporary by nature.

However, campaigns provide crucial learning for the future and that is the reason why modern brands are measuring campaigns in newer ways. They lay emphasis on social impact and not just social results. Since campaigns are created to influence people, its effects are deeper than immediate sales. They work in more ways than the obvious one of driving sales.

Most of the Spikes winning campaigns reported data beyond sales and reach. Even participation and engagement are old metrics these days. Brands are not just thinking out of the box they are going way beyond the box of flat ideas and bringing concepts to life. Campaigns are being valued (beyond what can be measured). Matsukoroid is probably a fitting example of how brands can make an impact in popular culture.

MATSUKO ROID

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LEARNING FOR BRANDS

1. Be brave with the brief. Set objectives around the business challenges. Memorable campaigns consistently turn challenging objectives into creative solutions.

2. Fresh approaches lead to fresh ideas. Even old ideas can be rolled out differently these days. Using a brand’s past to create something new is a good trick worth trying but telling old stories can hurt.

3. Remember, predictable KPI’s produce predictive campaigns’ and brands get stuck in the sea of sameness. The new benchmark is to create social value and campaign acceptance across a wider segment of society and not just the core brand targ

Sajju Ambat (MD, STRATA) is a brand strategist and communication consultant.

The Editor

The Purpose Group

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own