Brand Archives - Page 15 of 17

In News

3 Simple But Powerful Ways to Use Digital Marketing to Boost Your Brand

February 2, 2018 No Comments

By Monique Claiborne.

By focusing on a new digital strategy, TUMI broke the mold and tapped into a new source of growth.

It may not be widely recognized yet, but digital technology is probably one of the best things to happen to luxury brands in a long time, says a Boston Consulting Group study titled Digital or Die: The Choice for Luxury Brands. Luxury brands that fail to evolve their digital front risk getting left behind as digital is the inevitable, inescapable business shift of the future.

One luxury brand that has successfully used digital marketing to cement its place as a leading international business, accessory and travel lifestyle brand is TUMI. What I’ve noticed about TUMI is it has responded quickly to the fast and forceful digital takeover — unlike many dying brands — and that payoff has translated to its e-commerce business, which is in the high double digits in 2017 compared to 2016.

I had a chance to catch up with Victor Sanz, TUMI’s creative director, to understand more about the company’s digital maturity. Below are three key takeaways every company can learn from TUMI’s transformation.

1. Create a fresh customer service strategy.

Through a number of different channels, TUMI has placed a priority on its online presence to better serve its customers. In my experience, the real importance of digital to companies is not the emergence of new technology, but the important shift in customer behavior. By expanding its digital marketing reach into more upper funnel initiatives, TUMI now focuses on improving user experience on the website, both mobile and desktop.

Investing in a digital strategy focused on customers not only better equips you to efficiently respond to the changing customer, but also improves customer satisfaction and brand recognition. TUMI has shown this by improving its online merchandising strategy to create more personalized experiences for customers and further revamping its CRM to better understand customers.

2. Nurture a customer community.

Growing companies use social tools and online platforms to enable new customers to develop quickly and efficiently. TUMI has made a tremendous effort to target a younger demographic, with efforts largely geared toward engaging customers with its Women’s Assortment. The luxury brand has created more personal communications to target new and repeat customers, with a bigger focus on new customer acquisition.

Like TUMI, you can reduce the promotional component of your business and produce more segmented and targeted messages when communicating with customers. TUMI has created connections between the people within the organization and the people who buy its products. In today’s age, companies that build authentic relationships between their business and their customers can successfully generate new and sustainable customers.

3. Never stop developing.

Companies must now respond to rising customer expectations and acclimatize to the breakneck speed of technology. To meet future challenges, you must constantly develop the capability to quickly identify, evaluate and invest in the right trends at the right time.

Committed to testing and improving marketing tactics not only through products but also the user experience on its online platform, TUMI is exceeding customer expectations. TUMI will continue to focus on its ‘bread and butter’ — women and women’s products — but also dive deeper into analytics and segmentation of TUMI.com.Taking an entrepreneurial approach and establishing new agile initiatives allows you to quickly bring a new idea to the market and then iteratively improve through customer feedback.

No longer can you open new stores in high-end markets and expect consumers to automatically appear. Consumers now want omnichannel interactions and seek brand interaction. It’s no surprise luxury brands are up against tough growth challenges. If you take one thing away from TUMI’s digital transformation, it should be that the digital disruption has left many businesses spinning but revealed fantastic opportunities for higher levels of customer engagement for those that seek it. Valuing and investing in digital technologies will allow you to extend and individualize your business services beyond the physical store.

Feature Image Credit: Courtesy TUMI

By Monique Claiborne

Finance and business travel writer@askmonique

Sourced from Inc.

In News

Small Businesses Use Social Media Instead of a Website, Despite Risks

February 1, 2018 No Comments

A new survey indicates that 1 in 5 small businesses use social media in place of a website. Many assume a website is cost-prohibitive and may not consider the risks of not having one.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

More than one-third (36%) of small businesses do not have a website, according to the websites section of the fourth annual Small Business Survey conducted by Clutch, a B2B research firm. One in five small businesses (21%) selectively use social media instead of a website in an effort to engage customers.

The survey indicates that small businesses consider cost a bigger concern than the potential repercussions of not having a website.

Social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram attract small businesses by cultivating a highly engaged user base. However, relying solely on social media may be a risky strategy for businesses.

“Whenever you put all of your eggs into someone else’s basket, it’s risky,” said Judd Mercer, Creative Director of Elevated Third, a web development firm. “If Facebook changes their algorithm, there’s nothing you can do.”

Facebook recently announced changes that potentially increase the risk of using social media in place of a website. The social media platform plans to prioritise posts from family and friends over posts from brands.

This new policy may make it more difficult for small businesses to reach their audiences through social media. As a result, websites are expected to regain importance among businesses – as long as cost is not considered an obstacle.

Among small businesses that do not currently have a website, more than half (58%) plan to build one in 2018.

Some Small Businesses Say Website Cost is Prohibitive, But Others Cite Costs of $500 or Less

More than a quarter (26%) of small businesses surveyed say cost is a key factor that prevents them from having a website. However, nearly one-third of small businesses with websites (28%) report spending $500 or less.

Small businesses may not be aware that some web development agencies offer packages that defray costs by dividing website construction into multiple phases or sliding rates for small businesses. “You don’t necessarily need to launch with your first-generation website,” said Vanessa Petersen, Executive Director of Strategy at ArtVersion Interactive Agency, a web design and branding agency based in Chicago. “Maybe just start small.”

Mobile-Friendly Websites Becoming Standard
Businesses that do have websites are moving en mass to mobile friendly ones, the survey found. Over 90% of respondents said their company websites will be optimised for viewing on mobile devices by the end of this year.

In addition to the 81% of company websites that are already optimised for mobile, an additional 13% that say they plan to optimise for mobile in 2018.

Clutch’s 2018 Small Business Survey included 351 small business owners. The small businesses surveyed have between 1 and 500 employees, with 55% indicating that they have 10 or fewer employees.

To read the full report and source the survey data, click here.

In News

Advertising is Getting Good with the Gays

January 26, 2018 No Comments

The advertising industry seems to have the power to shape society’s view of gay people. And it is going hard on proving it.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

The past 15 years have seen a dramatic increase in the presence of gays in advertising. Every ad seems to be getting good with the gays.

The media has transformed the stigmatised stereotype of gays into a new, socially desirable image of stylish consumers with high-end taste.

This marketing strategy affects the way gays understand themselves and influences the meaning of gayness for society in general, explains Wan-Hsiu Sunny Tsai, assistant professor of advertising at the University of Miami School of Communication, in a study published by the Journal of Advertising.

“The findings illuminate the influential role of advertising in informing and shaping personal identities and highlights the often ignored socio-political dimension of advertising, Tsai says. “In other words, when marketers argue that no matter who they target, ‘it’s just business,’ their marketing messages actually have broader, cultural impacts on the minority community.”

According to the study, five specific strategies emerged within these minority consumers to interpret the messages catered to them:

Gay men accepted the perception of “higher disposable income of gay male households” and transformed material consumption into a definition of self-worth. “I was on many consumer panels because I fit the profile of gay men who have disposable income and travel a lot,” one participant said.
Participation in the mass market was equated to membership in mainstream society. “We got money. We contribute to the corporation. We contributed to big business. We got families. We are part of the mainstream now,” a participant said.
Targeted advertising was identified as an essential step in achieving social political inclusion. “Consumer rights and citizenship, civil rights are intricately connected. And when we express our identity as a consumer, that reinforces and strengthens our identity as a citizen,” a participant said.
Perpetuating problematic depictions of gays as effeminate men or lesbians as “sexualized femme” was tolerated in the interests of social inclusion. “I was ambivalent when watching this commercial. It’s playing up the stereotype. But for me, if you can see gay people on TV, it’s positive,” one participant said.
Participants were willing to give up something of their subcultural identity for the sake of total acceptance in society. “When we are truly accepted in the society, we will just blend in… even that might mean sacrificing our uniqueness,” a participant said.

The next logical question is, how do you target your particular message to the gay community, if you want to attract their business? We await the next study…

In News

The Media is Now the Least-Trusted Institution Globally

January 25, 2018 No Comments

So, which citizens trust their media the most? And the least?

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Let’s start with the USA. The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals that trust in the U.S. has suffered the largest-ever-recorded drop in the survey’s history among the general population. Trust among the general population fell nine points to 43, placing it in the lower quarter of the 28-country Trust Index. It is now the lowest of the 28 countries surveyed, below Russia and South Africa.

The collapse of trust in the U.S. is driven by a staggering lack of faith in government, which fell 14 points to 33 percent among the general population, and 30 points to 33 percent among the informed public. The remaining institutions of business, media and NGOs also experienced declines of 10 to 20 points. These decreases have all but eliminated last year’s 21-point trust gap between the general population and informed public in the U.S.

“The United States is enduring an unprecedented crisis of trust,” said Richard Edelman, president and CEO of Edelman. “This is the first time that a massive drop in trust has not been linked to a pressing economic issue or catastrophe like the Fukushima nuclear disaster. In fact, it’s the ultimate irony that it’s happening at a time of prosperity, with the stock market and employment rates in the U.S. at record highs. The root cause of this fall is the lack of objective facts and rational discourse.”

Conversely, China finds itself atop the Trust Index for both the general population (74) and the informed public (83). Institutions within China saw significant increases in trust led by government, which jumped eight points to 84 percent among the general population, and three points to 89 percent within the informed public. Joining China at the top of the Trust Index are India, Indonesia, UAE and Singapore.

For the first time media is the least trusted institution globally. In 22 of the 28 countries surveyed it is now distrusted. The demise of confidence in the Fourth Estate is driven primarily by a significant drop in trust in platforms, notably search engines and social media. Sixty-three percent of respondents say they do not know how to tell good journalism from rumour or falsehoods or if a piece of news was produced by a respected media organisation. The lack of faith in media has also led to an inability to identify the truth (59 percent), trust government leaders (56 percent) and trust business (42 percent).

This year saw a revival of faith in experts and decline in peers. Technical (63 percent) and academic (61 percent) experts distanced themselves as the most credible spokesperson from “a person like yourself,” which dropped six points to an all-time low of 54 percent.

“In a world where facts are under siege, credentialed sources are proving more important than ever,” said Stephen Kehoe, Global chair, Reputation. “There are credibility problems for both platforms and sources. People’s trust in them is collapsing, leaving a vacuum and an opportunity for bona fide experts to fill.”

Business is now expected to be an agent of change. The employer is the new safe house in global governance, with 72 percent of respondents saying that they trust their own company. And 64 percent believe a company can take actions that both increase profits and improve economic and social conditions in the community where it operates.

This past year saw CEO credibility rise sharply by seven points to 44 percent after a number of high-profile business leaders voiced their positions on the issues of the day. Nearly two-thirds of respondents say they want CEOs to take the lead on policy change instead of waiting for government, which now ranks significantly below business in trust in 20 markets. This show of faith comes with new expectations; building trust (69 percent) is now the No. 1 job for CEOs, surpassing producing high-quality products and services (68 percent).

“Silence is a tax on the truth,” said Edelman. “Trust is only going to be regained when the truth moves back to centre stage. Institutions must answer the public’s call for providing factually accurate, timely information and joining the public debate. Media cannot do it alone because of political and financial constraints. Every institution must contribute to the education of the populace.”

Other key findings from the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer include:

Technology (75 percent) remains the most trusted industry sector followed by Education (70 percent), professional services (68 percent) and transportation (67 percent). Financial services (54 percent) was once again the least trusted sector along with consumer packaged goods (60 percent) and automotive (62 percent).
Companies headquartered in Canada (68 percent), Switzerland (66 percent), Sweden (65 percent) and Australia (63 percent) are most trusted. The least trusted country brands are Mexico (32 percent), India (32 percent), Brazil (34 percent) and China (36 percent). Trust in brand U.S. (50 percent) dropped five points, the biggest decline of the countries surveyed.
Nearly seven in 10 respondents worry about fake news and false information being used as a weapon.
Exactly half of those surveyed indicate that they interact with mainstream media less than once a week, while 25 percent said they read no media at all because it is too upsetting. And the majority of respondents believe that news organizations are overly focused on attracting large audiences (66 percent), breaking news (65 percent) and politics (59 percent).

It’s a brave new world, and we as marketers must realise that placing any marketing cash with distrusted media outlets could mean a very big waste of our advertising spending power.

In News

Influencers are Losing Interest in Snapchat, and Are Using Other Ways to Reach Their Fans

January 24, 2018 No Comments

Snapchat seems to be sliding down the list of prefered ways for influencers to reach their fans. A new report had shown that not one influencer surveyed chose snapchat as their favourite platform.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

New research released today by Carusele and TapInfluence uncovered some surprising results about how influencers feel about various platforms heading into 2018.

Of the 790 influencers surveyed, none answered Snapchat to the question, “What is your favourite channel to use for branded content?”

Personal blogs were the favourite of 36% of respondents, followed closely by Instagram at 35% and Facebook at 12%. Twitter (9%), Pinterest (6%) and YouTube (1%) also received votes.

Even when asked to name their second favourite choice, Snapchat collected fewer than 1% of the responses, while Facebook ranked first at 26% and Instagram second at 25%.

“Two things are clear from this part of our survey,” said Jim Tobin, president of Carusele. “The first is that blogs aren’t going anywhere, which I think is a good thing for both brands and influencers. And second, Instagram’s moves over the last year or two have really outmanoeuvred Snapchat, which had been a hot platform for creators two years ago.”

Influencers also plan to be in the space for the long haul, with 97% of influencers surveyed planning to continue their work “as long as I’m able.” This despite fewer than half surveyed reporting working full time in the vocation (46%) while 24% work full time elsewhere and 13% part time elsewhere. The balance report being full time parents or caregivers.

“Our earlier research legitimised influencer marketing as a sales driver. This new research supports the fact that it remains a viable career option for content creators,” said Promise Phelon, CEO of TapInfluence.

Carusele won the 2017 Small Agency of the Year Award at the Shorty Awards. It utilises a hand-crafted network of content producers to produce premium influencer campaigns for leading brands and retailers. TapInfluence is an influencer marketplace connecting brands with social media influencers. And if they say that Snapchat is no longer cool, then it probably isn’t.

In News

Is Your Brand Crushworthy? Here are 5 Actions to Take to Make Sure It Is

January 3, 2018 No Comments

By Sunny Bonnell

One of the most important things you can do to succeed in business is to uncover how you stand out from all of your competitors. But how do you know if you’ve built a brand that’s crushworthy? And, how do you get your audience’s attention? If there’s one question I get every time I speak to potential branding clients, it’s how to evoke cult-like loyalty and carve out a meaningful place in the minds of their customer.

Here are a few tips that might just help you do so.

1. Go from ordinary to extraordinary.

Just like every superhero, every company and business has its own origin story. The tale of how you came to be is different from every other company out there, so make it your differentiator. For example, Johnny Cupcakes created the world’s first t-shirt bakery inspiring legions of fans to wait outside for days at a time to get his limited edition t-shirts. He got his start selling t-shirts out of an old, beat up Toyota Camry. Take every ordinary thing you’re doing and figure out how to make it extraordinary. It’s a sure way to attract people to your company.

2. Do your research.

As you launch a company, it’s important to make sure that you do some market research and that you look into similar companies who are offering similar services as you. Finding your own niche in the market is crucial. You need to figure out why those companies’ customers would switch over to you instead and what exactly you offer that they don’t. Study trends. Do shop-alongs. Get a focus lab together. Talk to people. Be aware of what’s going on in the market to ensure you stay ahead of the game.

3. Make your brand cohesive and consistent.

Everything you produce represents your brand – it isn’t just about making sure that your logo looks good or your website rocks. You also need to make sure that you train your staff well and that they understand the ethos of your brand. Everyone you work with should understand your unique business philosophy that underpins your company and your branding, whether that’s originality, warmth, edginess or novelty. You should make sure that this cohesiveness and understanding runs through all elements of your company, top to bottom.

4. Invest in your efforts.

You can’t build a crushworthy brand by throwing pennies at it. In fact, you need significant amounts of money to not only build a brand but to market it and make it stick over time. Startup brands we work with often invest $150,000 to $300,000 to just get their brand off the ground. These are usually funded startups and they’ve done their research. Making something crushworthy takes more than just a great idea. One of the biggest mistakes we see companies make is invest all their money in product development and then pinch pennies when it comes to their branding. Don’t be that company.

5. Give it personality.

Finally, give your brand a distinct personality. Very few people enjoy working with companies that seem huge, vague and faceless. Make sure that your social media accounts reflect who you are. If you’re a funny company, be funny on social media. A great example of this is the last Blockbuster. At Motto, we encourage our clients to show their personality through their brands. Remember that great branding is the best way to make sure that you stand out from all your competitors.

Feature Image: Johnny Cupcakes store. CREDIT: Getty Images

By Sunny Bonnell

Co-founder, Motto@sunnybonnell

Sourced from Inc.

In News

Why brand advertisers are shifting to attention-based metrics

December 6, 2017 No Comments

By Jessica Goodfellow

After a troubling year for digital advertising the world’s biggest brands are cautiously re-embracing programmatic. Although, they are now turning to attention-based metrics to better ensure brand safety and overall return on investment (ROI).

This was the consensus shared from attendees at The Drum’s recent Programmatic Punch event. Speaking on Thursday (9 November), participants in a panel that explored the growth of programmatic across apps, mobile and video said this shift towards more inventory quality assurances has been prompted in part by Procter & Gamble chief brand officer Marc Pritchard’s keynote speech earlier this year, in which he called for greater transparency in the digital supply chain, which he called “murky at best, fraudulent at worst”.

Now that media buying using programmatic technology accounts for 72% of display advertising spend in the UK, publishers, agencies and big brands are beginning to rethink the tendency to “race to the bottom” when approaching programmatic by simply chasing views or clicks.

What’s more, the walled gardens of the internet each have different standards for what denotes a ‘view’, with Facebook counting a view as three-seconds or more versus YouTube’s 30-seconds.

Facebook said last month that it doesn’t believe there is value in a one-size-fits-all currency when it comes to video viewability, instead preferring to offer advertisers flexibility to trade and buy video in a way that drives value for their business.

While Facebook’s argument is that some clients buy as cheaply as possible where other more luxury clients care about view duration, this only works to further muddy the waters of viewability, according to panel participants.

Which is where attention-based metrics come in. In traditional CPM (cost per thousand) buys, all impressions are valued equally, e.g. an impression that lasts one second on a viewer’s screen is valued the same as an impression that lasts 30 seconds. Attention-based metrics breaks that model down in order to allow advertisers to trade on how long someone watched and was engaged with their ad.

“Completed view doesn’t tell you too much, how many people are paying attention for a second, two seconds? That is the big opportunity moving forward – moving into an attention economy,” said Jon Hook, vice-president EMEA of brands and agencies at AdColony.

“That tech is there so it is up to advertisers to demand that from their partners,” he added.

In line with this, the Financial Times (FT) developed a new cost-per-hour (CPH) metric which is designed to attach value only to impressions lasting more than five seconds whilst the user is engaged with the page and, therefore, to deliver greater brand impact for each dollar of advertising spend.

CPH was informed by research which showed that brand awareness, uplift and association all increase the longer an ad is in view.

While attention-based metrics is not a new concept, adoption rates have been slow. However, Aurelia Noel, global digital partner at Carat, revealed that there is a demand for this fledgling type of trading from “more mature advertisers”, naming Diageo, Mondelez and Heineken as examples of the type of brands who are recognising the difference between viewability and attention.

“At end of the day this year was the year of brand safety and viewability…In video especially, a lot of inventory still cant be tracked, neither by IAS or others. Outside of just changing the way we measure our campaigns, we also need to change the way we plan and manage our campaigns,” Noel added.

Responding to this, Clementina Piazza, programmatic director of Integral Ad Science (IAS), said video is a “very tricky area” to agree on standards, and that in-app is “even trickier”.

“It is about time [we brought] all of those available solutions together and understanding what are the limitations of the available solution and how the interpreting solution can react to those. It is an IAS technology challenge but also a challenge overall with regards to how many environments support it,” Piazza said.

Noel also believes that advertisers are not harnessing ‘moments’ – that is when is the best time to connect with a customer.

“Even when we have the right moments, the creative falls short because we are not taking advantage of creative optimisation, whether in display or video,” she added.

By Jessica Goodfellow

The Drum’s media reporter covering everything from publishing, TV, social media, radio and technology.

All by Jessica

Sourced from THEDRUM

In News

Marketing to millennials: Should brands spend money?

November 17, 2017 No Comments

By Shawn Lim

As social media increasingly becomes the tool of choice for millennials, is it sensible for brands and marketers to base their marketing strategy around user-generated content on these platforms and not invest any money into their strategy?

According to Rohit Sharma, founder and chief executive of Pokkt, a mobile video advertising and app monetisation platform for game developers, he tells The Drum that even though the millennial generation is extremely plugged into social, many companies are plunging headfirst into social without understanding that social simply cannot function as a standalone strategy as it must be incorporated as part of an integrated strategy.

“It is akin to functioning with tunnel vision, or with blinkers on – you end up overlooking other channels that could deliver greater reach, engagement, and which ultimately drive the bottom line,” he adds.

Sharma believes that social is prized for how easily it lends itself to native and while there are channels that might do this just as well, or even better. For example, he says by engaging the user in a mini-game within a game, in-game advertising is the perfect example of native, with a far higher guarantee that the user will actually see and interact with content, instead of simply scrolling past as they might do on a social feed. “Furthermore, the nature of the games in question often allow for short, predictable breaks – easy spaces for advertisers to communicate their message without being annoying or interruptive,” he adds.

However, there are some brands who buck the trend by putting their trust into social media. Take GlampingCity for example, a company that combines glamour and camping for people who want a hotel-style accommodation, but with the feel of outdoor camping.

Its entry into Singapore was initially met with scepticism, but the trend slowly caught on when the company started posting picturesque photos on its Instagram page, taken by its staff and local social media influencers that it collaborates with.

Aside from its Instagram page and a website, GlampingCity does not have any budget allocated for ad spend and marketing strategy, according to founder Ryan Lam, adding that glamping caught on fast in Singapore through word of mouth and social media because people were posting about their experiences with it.

Lam, who was speaking to The Drum on the sidelines of the 2017 ACI Asia Business Summit in Singapore, also reveals that 50% of the photos on the company’s Instagram page is from his own team. “This business is very new, so we have not approached anyone (influencer) yet, all of our collaborations and partnerships, it all came naturally. I spent zero dollars on marketing. I only spent on logistics. The publicity came naturally.”

“I don’t plan to pay influencers, the genuine ones, maybe, not those that are looking to do it for their own benefit,” he adds.

Bart Mroz, co-founder and CEO of Sumo Heavy, a ecommerce consulting company, tells The Drum that he agrees with GlampingCity’s social media heavy strategy as he feels that social should be a main priority for the production, distribution and syndication of content when it comes to marketing to millennials as they are changing the ways brands market.

Brands like Sephora and Nike, have also been successful in marketing to millennials by using Instagram to post visually stunning photos that clearly reflects brand identity and draws users in, according to Mroz, noting that Nike has become the 19th most followed account and the fifth most used hashtag, while Sephora has increased its engagement rate and now boasts nearly 13 million followers.

Mroz however, adds that in order to effectively use social media, brands still need to put money into these platforms. “You won’t see the needle move much if you don’t invest. Marketers need to shift their spending from traditional channels like TV, print, and PPC to social media. For example, Facebook and Instagram are both strong channels because of their high engagement rates, robust targeting options, and popularity with this demographic.”

Noting that 41% of millennials use Facebook every day, which makes it still the number one marketing channel, and that Instagram and Snapchat are catching up because the platforms are very different in style and have features that attracting more millennials, Mroz says: “Therefore, brands should still focus on Facebook, but pay much more attention to platforms like Instagram and Snapchat to better engage with this target audience in the long-run.”

Feature Image: Ryan Lam, founder of GlampingCity. Photo by: Institute on Consumer Insights

By Shawn Lim

Shawn Lim is a reporter at The Drum, covering industry news around the Asia Pacific region with a focus on Singapore and Southeast Asia. Based in Singapore, he has worked across photography, video and online, covering a range of subjects including current affairs and sports.

Before Game of Thrones, he was a huge Breaking Bad fan. He does CrossFit and yoga to stay healthy.

Sourced from THEDRUM

In News

A Winning Brand Requires Telling a Never-Ending Story About Your Business

November 16, 2017 No Comments

By Charles Franklin

By now, most of us realize the importance of branding for a business. It helps current and prospective customers identify your product or service. Branding also helps establish your business’ presence in a crowded world. Few books explore the “why” behind this logic, however. That’s where A Winning Brand: How to build a Powerful, Personal Brand in Today’s Modern, Digital World begins. The book explores the reasons every business (and really every person) needs to invest in sharing the best version of its brand with the world.

What is A Winning Brand About?

The wisdom behind A Winning Brand came to Kraig Kleeman at one of the lowest points in his life. He was experiencing a medical crisis and struggling through the relationships in his life. At the time, Kleeman didn’t have a social media presence.

His luck would change when he changed his strategy. Kleeman transformed into a new brand, “The World’s Greatest Cold Caller”, leveraging his skill in cold calling. As he started to promote the value behind his new brand, people took notice. They started calling him “The World’s Greatest Cold Caller” and Kleeman never looked back. The more value he offered as a sales consultant, the more clients he had. The more clients he had, the more they told others. He had successfully become a winning brand.

This cycle of success is what every business should strive for. Many businesses, however, miss the mark. They focus too much on why their brand doesn’t work. They don’t consider the value that people derive from that brand. The value people derive from your brand is the key asset, not the fancy graphics or pretty colors. That is the point Kleeman is making. Business owners need to invest in value before they consider any other aspect of the brand.

The value of your brand is created when you understand the two most important parts of a brand, the promise and the customer’s perspective. Kleeman’s book starts the process to help readers add even more value to their planning

Kleeman, known as The World’s Greatest Cold Caller, is a sales consultant, author, speaker, and the host of Kraig Kleeman TV, a YouTube channel featuring sales instruction. Known for his love of rock and clothing featuring a peace sign, he created a unique brand and sales system, which serves as the foundation of his techniques today. Kleeman’s system, the Must-React system, has been credited with helping sales professionals earn millions in revenue. Kleeman also used his skills to develop a million-dollar company, Express Direct, from scratch.

What Was Best About A Winning Brand?

A Winning Brand is a great read that really reinforces the need for reflection and experimentation with your branding. Many business owners assume that branding is a once-and-done process. It’s not. Branding, as Kleeman emphasizes, again and again, is a story, an evolving story. Evolving with that story requires reflection and bold experimentation. Without reflection and experimentation, your brand is at risk of losing relevance, value, and ultimately, profit.

What Could Have Been Done Differently?

“A Winning Brand” dismisses the assumption that you have to be a certain type of person to have a brand. Kleeman would disagree with this perceived barrier. We all have a brand and we establish (or destroy) that brand with our everyday actions. To address this reality, the book does a great job of helping to connect personal branding goals with the social media channels — LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc. — most appropriate to amplify them. This approach could be extended a bit further, however into other aspects of the business. For example, what kind of customer service, etc. best amplifies a personal brand?

Why Read A Winning Brand?

If you are a business owner in the first stages of creating your brand or in the process of refreshing your brand, A Winning Brand covers the essential planning questions you need to address. Once you’ve completed planning for your brand, A Winning Brand also details social media strategies (particularly on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) for transforming those plans into a functional strategy. Learning to build a winning brand position for your business (or your own personal brand) is one of the key takeaways from this book. It is not enough to build a brand, Kleeman’s book suggests. Branding in the always-connected, always-moving world requires a balance between evolving your brand’s message for your audience and staying true to the values that you want to follow for the life of your brand.

By Charles Franklin

Sourced from Small Business TRENDS

In News

Facebook follows Google to enable advertisers to evaluate their campaigns with new cross-platform ad tool

October 6, 2017 No Comments

By Taruka Srivastav.

Facebook has introduced Facebook Cross-Platform Brand Lift in the US and UK which along with Nielsen Total Brand Effect with Lift will help advertisers optimize their Facebook and TV campaigns using actionable results according to a blog post.

The platform will see Facebook will match rival Google which launched Brand Lift for TV some years back in order to help marketers understand how YouTube campaigns can impact metrics such as awareness.

Facebook’s advertising partners who are expanding from digital advertising into cross-media campaigns will be able to leverage Facebook Cross-Platform Brand Lift solution.

Margo Arton, senior director of Ad Effectiveness at BuzzFeed said: “Now that Buzzfeed has begun to diversify our media strategies to include both Television and Digital, having the option to leverage solutions such as Facebook’s Cross-Platform Brand Lift and Nielsen Total Brand Effect with Lift presents a great opportunity.”

“We look forward to using cross-platform brand lift measurement to both receive valuable insights about our multi-media campaign performance in a single reporting surface, and also to optimize campaign elements such as spend and creative across both platforms.”

Facebook cited an example of household brand Shark’s campaign which was deemed a success as measured by Nielsen Total Brand Effect with Lift.

Ajay Kapoor, VP, Digital Transformation & Strategy, SharkNinja said: “We proved that Facebook video ads are a natural complement to TV campaigns. We experienced better brand results among people who saw ads on both versus just TV or Facebook alone. We saw the ‘better together’ impact first-hand. Facebook and TV are powerful individually, but deliver a stronger message to our audience when used in tandem.”