How do you know when your brand has truly arrived? When your brand has completed its path of enlightenment and reached a state of “brand nirvana”? This is a question I put to some colleagues recently. One measurement that we all agreed to is when a brand becomes a form of currency, more appealing to your target audience than currency itself. Let me explain what I mean with some examples.
A couple of years ago my team was planning a campaign for our company (“epost.ca”:http://www.epost.ca/) and we wanted to include compelling prizing that would drive interest in signing up for our service. We wanted something more original than just giving away cash so we engaged our agency at the time and got back advice that we eventually used. No surprise to anyone, it was “iTunes”:http://www.itunes.com/ downloads, “iPod”:http://www.apple.com/ipod/ giveaways and for a grand prize, a “Mini Cooper”:http://www.mini.ca/.
Each of these product brands we felt had a value in the eyes of our target audiences which would exceed their cash value equivalent. This hunch seemed to be confirmed in our campaign results. After we ran that campaign I started to notice how many other organizations were using these exact same products as giveaways in their campaigns. That was almost two years ago.
Today, you can’t swing a cat without hitting someone giving away a free iPod or iTunes downloads or a chance to win a Mini Cooper for signing up for their service or buying their products. Haven’t noticed? Go to your favourite search engine and punch in “ipod giveaway” and watch what happens. I got “over 2.2 million results on Google”:http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=ipod+giveaway. As marketers, we copy this idea because *we want cash with better branding.* It’s kind of like hanging out with the cool kids in high school. We believe that our brands will increase in value by their association with what I’ll call “currency” brands.
This takes me back to my hypothesis. I hypothesize that you have truly reached brand nirvana when the value of your product is so well understood and generally desired that its market value exceeds its cash value in people’s minds. I ask you, what higher attainment could a brand achieve?
Category: Branding
I got a tip from someone at one of the big banks who swears they’re not submitting this to bad-mouth one of their competitors, merely to point out a particularly bad online customer experience.
We’ll take them at their word because looking at hsbc.ca right now does bring some questions to mind…
There was not enough love for the latest CMA(Canadian Marketing Association) National Convention and Trade Show which took place last week in Montreal on One Degree. In the interest of full disclosure, I sat on the organizing committee for this amazing three-day event, and here’s my (somewhat biased) perspective:
The theme of this year’s CMA Conference was “Next:” – with the core message being, “what do marketers need to be on the look-out for.” I was very fortunate to also win a coveted speaking slot, where I let loose on the digital marketing space and all of the opportunities marketers seem to not be paying enough attention to. My presentation was called _The Brand is Flat: How Brand Democratization is Going to Change Your Business…For The Better,_ and it was followed by One Degree contributor, “Bill Sweetman”:http://www.onedegree.ca/category/bill-sweetman, who presented a stellar perspective with: _Impatience Is A Virtue: The Rise of the On Demand Consumer._