Online Branding

A key marketing challenge in today’s multi- channel, multi-device world is the integration of digital marketing opportunities into the traditional marketing mix. Leveraging the capabilities of the Internet’s network connectivity and interactivity to drive revenue is of paramount importance to today's marketer.

MKTG 101: Brands What is a brand? Do we need brands? Who creates brands? How do you create a brand? How do you value a brand?

brand immersion Branding in the 21 st Century brand immersion What is brand immersion? Provide and example of any moment that you felt immersed in a brand.

Branding in the 21 st Century What makes a medium or environment immersive? Persistent Interactive Socially networked Experiential Emotional Affective

What is this? Immersion via Ambient Communication: Festivals Pub talk Street stunts Internet chat rooms

3 Main Drivers Communities Advergaming Integration

Fournier on brand community Business strategy Exists to serve the people in it Strong community = strong brand Embrace conflict Mass participation (not opinion leaders) Online networks just one tool, not a community strategy If done well, it can’t be controlled

Advergaming: turning “brick” brands digital

Why advergaming? Advergames blur the distinction between entertainment and advertising. –Benefit? –Web audiences can be drawn in long enough for marketers to deliver their messages. –More improtantly, message appears „un-pushed“ Advergaming used in conjunction with a competition for prizes and product promotions stimulates a whole new realm of peer-to-peer marketing. –Benefit? –A viral explosion occurs as users share the game competition with friends and ultimately bring others into contact with your brand.

What we know of the Game- Marketing Link:  Games generate high degree of attention  Games generate comparatively long attention span  Games generate positive emotions which the player associates with the product / brand  If additional information about the product / brand is offered, it will be received favorably=> credible source!  Games decrease the propensity for critical thinking during game-play: the player will not work up counter-arguments against marketing propositions  However: Marketing propositions will be remembered longer and in greater detail if accompanied by hard data.

open questions Games as a vehicle for expression –Relationship with joys of interaction, immersion and gameplay –BUT do we forget the product? Neopets? Gameplay – advertising (tradeoff?) –Is it possible for the message to get through?

In Sum: to drive the brand…  …websites need to be more than a communication channel to customers. they must be a proposition in their own right.  …websites must be an extension of the products and services that a brand provides to its customers. as soon as content becomes digital, customers expect more from it.  …marketers must understand that as soon as content becomes digital, customers expect more from it.  …you have to allow for co-creation and create “Prosumers”.  The edge boundaries between content, advertising, and application have gone.

GROUP WORK: discuss

discuss Identify your favorite immersive branded site Analyze what makes it a powerful brand driver Present three key learning points of your analysis

But brands are not just online… integration

Miller’s Man Laws A ridiculous invention but one that obeys the branding law of the 21 st century.

Extend Marketing Space Healthy Choice has used its online games to drive people to supermarkets to actually buy its products, by offering the chance for customers to print "mystery coupons" A Hanes sweepstakes promoted the apparel company's new "tagless" t-shirt by using a tag as the virtual game piece: "Lifting" it with the mouse revealed the visitor's prize.

turning a digital brand physical

In the 21 st century, this is what your job is all about: Find ways to make your brand more experiential and hence more memorable! –careful spatial planning –live, real-time, event-based nature of the brand interaction Shift consumers’ perception and practice of what constitutes a marketing ‘space’. –Immersion marketing seeks to achieve a much more proximal relationship between consumers and brands. as theorists of the ‘experience economy’ put it: –‘the more effectively an experience engages the senses, the more memorable it will be’ (Pine and Gilmore, 1999: 59).

discuss You have been hired to lead the strategy task force for digital marketing at Buick. The marketing director is at a loss because the brand seems to be losing ground with the year old demographic.

Buick On a conceptual level, what do you suggest needs to be done. On a concrete level, develop a marketing mix to achieve the objective of brand renewal.