Energy Boosts to Increase Brand Awareness
Corporate Branding Strategies that Resonate with Consumers
Oct 6, 2009
The “tried and true” methods of boosting market share and maintaining interest in company branding have lost much of their luster with consumers over the last five years, say John Gerzema and Ed Lebar, branding consultants and authors of “The Trouble with Brands” in the Summer 2009 issue of the online business magazine, Strategy+Business.
Beginning approximately in 2004, researchers found significant drops in the key indicators that measure brand awareness: trust, awareness, regard, and esteem. Significant drops in consumer ratings on these indicators were found across all sectors of the economy.
Why Corporate Branding is Failing with Consumers
While admitting that the issue is complex and that many things contribute to cause a loss of consumer awareness of corporate branding, the authors isolate three main factors which they believe collectively diminish consumer desire:
- The first factor is the sheer enormity of brands in the marketplace today. Consumers are facing greater choice than ever before.
- The second is a gap in creativity when it comes to promoting a brand. Thanks to the deluge and immediacy of digital content, consumers are constantly exposed to high quality material and they have come to expect higher levels of creativity from advertisers.
- And finally, a decade of scandals and misconduct among senior executives at leading companies and other leaders in society has taken its toll on people’s ability to trust company brands. Earning a consumers’ trust is far harder and much easier to lose than ever before.
Build Brand Awareness with Energy and Momentum
While many corporate brands were losing interest with consumers, some brands were recording high marks in consumer trust and esteem. Some of the most successful brands today, such as Google, iPhone and Wikipedia, are able to communicate in a manner that resonates with consumers.
The authors refer to this quality as “energized differentiation” and have identified some key factors that marketers can use to keep their brand’s value high:
- Brands with vision inspire consumers to join in and share the goals and aspirations of the company. Vision, in this case, means a certain view of the world and provides clear direction on how to achieve it.
- Invention changes the way consumers feel and behave. Brands that are inventive create tactile and sensory associations to their product through packaging, customer service, technology or retail environments.
- Being able to inspire customer affinity is dynamism. Of the three, dynamism is the one attribute that is the most visible and emotional. Making use of internet marketing strategies, dynamism is the one quality that will get consumers talking about the product in the vast market of social networking sites.
Marketers can take these three factors and incorporate them into brand marketing strategies. To do this companies need to embrace the concept of energized differentiation and incorporate it into all aspects of the enterprise. By building an “energized value chain” within the business, marketers can keep the company brand awareness moving and gaining value in a precarious marketplace.
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