When launching your brand and introducing your company to the world, a successful first impression is imperative. Wondering where to start? We answer the question, “What is brand activation,” discuss its importance, and explore the six types of brand activation.
Brand activation is the culmination of marketing campaigns, events, and client interactions that directly transpire through your brand. As a result, your main objective includes producing awareness and building consumer loyalty with your target audience demographics such as any prospects, customers, and employees.
While brand activation components may overlap with your overall branding strategy, brand activation always concentrates on a particular experience devoted to publicly boosting your brand, whereas your strategy pertains to marketing the company in its entirety.
Brand activation is a pivotal and effective way to introduce your organization to prospects, but more importantly, to build trust and personalization between your brand and your audience.
The top three reasons why this component is crucial to your overall branding strategy are:
· Brand activation campaigns strengthen client relationships.
· Public activation campaigns engage the market and bridge the gap between company and consumer.
· Brand activation can create ripple effects that result in prospects sharing your brand with a larger audience.
As the food and beverage industry starkly contracts the automotive industry, there is no single brand activation approach. With different markets, industries, and client demands, it is best to follow a brand activation type that best suits your needs. Below, we explore the six main types of brand activation.
Experiential marketing centers around legitimacy and engagement through branded experiences. As a result, the objective is to garner customer awareness and loyalty through impactful events in lieu of projecting flashy gimmicks that captures an audience only to quickly lose interest once the façade drops.
Essentially, an effective experiential marketing campaign abides by the following three C’s:
· Concentrate on your customers and prospects.
· Convey your brand.
· Connect your brand with your customers and prospects through a mutual touchpoint.
Although it may prove difficult to attract the interest of busy bystanders and compete with the multitude of distractions, a successful experiential marketing campaign can yield fruitful results tenfold.
Types of experiential marketing brand activation campaigns could include:
· Product showcases: Allows the user a hands-on experience to learn what it can do.
· Mobile marketing: Utilizes augmented reality, videos, QR codes, location-based interaction, and/or gamification.
· Retail installations: Promotes discovery, convenience, and community.
In-store events are a classic option to launch your brand. Whether you cater the event with cupcakes, host a cook-off, emcee a raffle, or implement an inventory scavenger hunt, in-store events create a fun and engaging opportunity for people to learn about your new company and your culture while having an experience with you.
Although this brand activation type requires thorough planning including setting up, determining foot traffic, marketing for the event, considering any areas of liability, and promoting other in-store specials, the payoff is rewarding.
Costco, Sam’s Club, and BJs are experts at maximizing sampling campaigns. With multiple sampling booths almost around every corner, consumers can’t help but snack while they shop, especially when it’s on the company’s dime. Not only do 35% of customers purchase a product they enjoyed a free sample of, but data also shows that 24% of consumers will instead replace existing items on their shopping list with the sampled product. As a result, not only does a sampling campaign boost your brand awareness, but it could also put you ahead of your competition.
It is important to note that sampling campaigns work, but it’s a lot of work. Therefore, you must deliberately focus on your campaign strategy to ensure you have enough supplies, the correct permits (if applicable), adequate staff, and a clear plan to garner brand activation.
If you fail to prove to consumers that you care about them (not their money), you will fail to earn and retain their trust. Therefore, to show customer loyalty, promotions serve as a unique, authentic, and engaging brand activation platform.
Additional benefits of promotions include:
· It influences consumers in a way that benefits them too (meeting a celebrity, contributing to a humanitarian cause, etc.).
· The event and brand activation platform generates leads who know more about your company.
· Promotions boost customer engagement and loyalty.
Regardless of your industry, there are hundreds of opportunities for your organization to participate in promotions. From boosting your brand activation launch by partnering with a local animal shelter to sponsoring a 5K run that supports cancer research emceed by an esteemed actor or accredited athlete, get creative in how you will sincerely engage with your community and build a bridge of customer trust.
Another type of brand activation is through social media – especially through contests and movements. Does your business focus on your locals? Create a social media contest where viewers must complete a local sightseeing adventure and take selfies with your company as the hashtag!
Alternatively, if your company targets national leads, create a social media movement to see how they can best capture your brand. For example, the cookie company known as Crumbl is taking their campaign across the United States. With their gourmet cookies practically selling themselves, their marketing approach is a fresh take on baked goods.
The Silicon Review reports:
“From the beginning, Crumbl’s Mission has been to bring friends and family together over a box of the best cookies in the world – that mission still drives us today; two and a half years later. All Crumblcrazed fans are served gourmet cookies, made fast, fresh, and warm. … Crumbl stores are unique. The brand’s open-kitchen concept is all about transparency – customers can see their Crumbl Crew mix, bake, and prepare fresh cookies from start to finish!”
Social media is taking over the world of media and entertainment, especially YouTube platforms. Many viewers spend hours watching influencers review everything from restaurants and makeup to baby products and cell phones.
Influencer marketing is so successful it was reported that 71% of marketers revealed the interest and conversions garnered from authentic leads increased as a direct result of influencer marketing. Furthermore, it is also supported that influencer marketing is more effective than other sources.
In a world recovering from a year of social distancing and quarantine, online activity has never been higher. As a result, it is equally important to focus on your digital marketing campaigns.
To properly convey your brand in the world of digital marketing, you must contribute to the following components:
· Define your intended audience, demographics, and main key performance indicators (KPIs).
· Determine which digital marketing channels best cater to your industry and audience.
· Develop compelling and purposeful content that shows knowledge of your services, industry, and customer needs.
· Effectively implement SEO strategies to help your website appear higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).
· Create an effective sales funnel strategy that helps convert prospects into dedicated customers.
· Present a complete, aesthetically pleasing, and accurate website for users to navigate.
· Expand your audience outreach with effective pay-per-click (PPC) and ad campaigns.
If you are new to brand activation but want to make sure your business is introduced the best way possible, we can help. At Perspectiva, we offer a full suite of strategic and promotional planning services to help brands connect and engage with their audience and grow business right from the start.
As experts in experiential marketing, our full-service promotional agency will create an effective promotional execution that will help you turn bystanders and prospects into loyal customers. From research, brand assessment, and competitive analysis to insights generation and planning, we will be with you from brand activation and beyond.
If you are ready to partner with our team and get your brand up and running, contact us today! We are eager to help with your brand activation strategy regardless of where you are at in the process.
