The Anatomy of Brand Marketing | In III Parts
The world of Brand Marketing is a bit of an unknown to many, despite how long it’s been around, its popularity, and its effectiveness.
To us, it’s involuntary, we know exactly how to connect brands with their target consumers in a meaningful way that delivers on the strategic initiative and agreed-upon objectives, goals, and clearly defined metrics.
Building a comprehensive and fluid experiential marketing campaign or program is a highly detailed, multi-faceted process that addresses every possible angle and outcome.
Brand Development | Part 1
Brand development marketing is the process in which we collaborate with clients to align on the strategic initiative before it is flipped into a formal Messaging Map.
In this stage, all over-arching campaign narratives are landed. Like-minded thoughts are grouped together, naturally eliminating the superfluous and non-connected.
Once the initiative is identified, our clients’ goals are placed at the center, which often include:
Brand Introduction
Build Awareness
Customer Acquisition
Consumer Engagement
Launch of a New, Product, Service or Offering
Loyalty
New Points of Distribution
Product Focus
Brand development stands firm on the next step:
Map to the customer experience
This is a no-fail system that eliminates glaring inconsistencies or discrepancies.
Ensures when each individual element comes together — nuances, objectives, offering, target audience — it forms a firm structure and guardrail.
Gain consensus to ensure everyone agrees — publicly and privately.
The moment you've been waiting for...
Striking creative that complements and up-levels, as opposed to leads, competes, or sends an unintended message.
Cautionary Tale
If the creative is the driver — while it might look shiny and catch eyes — the chances are the program or campaign will lack the cohesion and substance required to pull off effectively.
Each creative element must be specific in use and intention in order to move into production.
Multiple creative reviews are held.
New and revised assets are integrated into the approval process.
Once greenlit, items are moved into production.
The Outcome
When all brand aspects are aligned and clearly defined, the aim of the output is achieved:
an experience that emotionally resonates with the geo-target, is sticky and leaves a lasting impression that generates awareness leading to accelerated adoption.
With creative concepting, clear messaging, consistency, and strong execution — brand awareness is conveyed in a unique and everlasting way.
Brand Strategy | Part II
With the customer journey at the epicenter, a clear path to production is paved via a custom crafted and curated marketing strategy.
Here the magic begins to take hold of its sparkle in the form of a cohesive and creative concept that serves as the impetus for an effective, memorable branding experience.
Live marketing possesses a unique aspect
It touches attendees who continue to espouse what they experienced all while continually bringing new consumers into the brand. Organically, a community of advocates continues to build. This leads to positive, sustainable momentum and impact lasting long after we call ‘strike’.
For this reason, it is integral to keep one eye focused on the landed strategic initiative and the other on every element of the build. During this process, we continually augment, update, and edit to ensure what exists is the most current and accurate representation of future activation.
Spec Out Program Needs
Capture program objectives, desires, and expectations to include: duration, timing, vibe, vision, and the ideal picture of success.
Output
A skeleton that once populated serves as the structure for the program architecture.
Provide Market Specific Expertise
Glean client’s knowledge as the subject matter expert.
Activate production and in-market teams.
Immerse ourselves in identified markets and capture every nuance, detail, need, and requirement.
Blend and marry with creative, brand, and customer experience design elements.
Output
Millions of data points and a potentially paralyzing (for others, maybe) amount of information. Once distilled down and examined next to the program needs, they serve as the main content for the construction of the program architecture roadmap.
Build Program Architecture
Flip concept into pre-production.
Develop step-by-step deliverable schedule of actions and owners for each aspect of the program.
Continue to build, update and edit to ensure what exists is the most current and accurate representation of the future activation.
Output
Continually refine and routinely update playbook — Program Architecture Roadmap, North Star, Bible, Holy Grail — whatever the preferred term is. This resource is integral and instrumental to ensure our favorite thing happens every-single-time: flawless high-value production that exceeds client expectations along with our own.
Procure and Organize
Prepare for launch by wrangling, managing and wrapping up every aspect.
Develop and populate production workbook: vendor, deliverable schedule, purchasing, tracking, shipping lists.
File for permits, track, follow-up, obtain.
Secure equipment, partners, talent, storage facilities.
Track creative, catering, load-in, load-out times and every other minuscule detail.
Output
A program that ebbs and flows accordingly to ensure all facets of activation are accurate.
Evaluate and Refine
Refer to the program architecture roadmap.
Marry it against all documents and assets.
Check in with every collaborator: agency team, clients, specialized partners.
Ensure all materials reflect the plan, are accurate and up to date.
Amend program roadmap architecture accordingly.
Sweep for any open items, needs, changes, until every item syncs up with its adjacency and is closed or has a future solution.
Output
A playbook for success.
Programs like people have their own personality and ebb, flow, wax, and wane. As a creative branding agency, with expertise in experience design, we remain fluid and nimble to achieve the priorities of the client by providing a myriad of solutions and the know-how and hustle to bring it to life.
Brand Activations | Part III
With the customer journey at the epicenter, a clear path to production is paved via a custom crafted and curated marketing strategy.
Meticulously, every detail is examined, talked about, tested, tried and talked about some more to ensure everything is in flow and each branding moment — obvious or esoteric — organically vibes with each other and most importantly. attendees. Working in tandem with our partners to find solutions and pathways for every detail eliminates surprises — the bad kind.
Brand Strategy has now morphed into Brand Activation via the fully customized hand-crafted consumer engagement marketing blueprint or playbook, also fondly known as the program architecture roadmap.
Heading to market means arriving on-site days in advance to get a firsthand look at how the customer journey plays out.
During this process, we’re able to verify that all details are accounted for. Every production partner is visited to ensure alignment and gain or ask for clarity. Working in real-time with our partners — caterers, fabricators, suppliers — allows space for any last-minute changes before show time.
From inception to execution, our agency designs experiences with marketing solutions that compel consumers to stop, stay, engage, enjoy, and talk about it afterward to their nearest and dearest. Ultimately, attendees organically evolve into advocates that create a community of the like-minded. Without meaningful awareness, acquisition is just wishful thinking.
We’re believers — it comes along with the territory — it would be impossible to love something without a deep confidence in its impact. The largest number of recommendations of what to do, think, and adopt is still handled the old-fashioned way: person-to-person.
How fitting, that the end is where we began. Experiential marketing takes connecting further. It’s the whole package: an aesthetically enticing experience whereby consumer engagement beckons and adoption happens.
Consumer engagement is a rich, meaningful way to mobilize a group of people and harness the collective interest of the like-minded to produce desired results.
Feel free to ask any of our clients♥️.
