Branding a product is critical in the Social Media Age. Social media has made it simple to create and to share engaging content. Each day, the average person hears between 3000-4000 messages. This has created a marketplace of great scale in which markets change quickly. People have a great need to share with their friends. This is another challenge that a social media marketer must take into account. Reed’s Law teaches us that a network that begins as 2 quickly becomes 1,092. The great challenge is how to create a product that sticks out in a crowd and is selected by the marketplace.
Our goal as marketers is for people to select our product, from all the other products. Branding is critical in this sea of content. Branding is a complicated process. To simplify it, I think branding comes down to asking a few basic questions.
What are the ATTRIBUTES of my brand? There are many beer companies and thousands of brands that multiplying each day. One evening, when his work day ended, a beer advertiser went to a neighborhood bar. He heard two beer drinkers arguing—“This beer tastes great”—“No, it’s less filling”. Overhearing this argument explained to the advertiser how he should brand his client’s beer. This beer brand became an icon through attribute advertising.
What are the BENEFITS to my brand? The leading detergent brand claims that it cleans the whitest. To brand this detergent in India, a nation that has a water shortage, this same brand devised a process in which less water would be needed to clean. By branding according to attribute this detergent became absolutely beloved in India. A nation whose women place a premium on the whiteness of their wash.
What is the Use or Benefits of my brand? In the 1980’s, a sneaker and an NBA player both became brand icons by branding the sneaker as the best sneaker to play basket ball in. The tag line of the brand was “It must be the sneakers”.
How does the User position the brand? An R & B singer wanted to transition herself from blues and gospel R &B to dance music. The singer accomplished this by branding herself as the “stylish brand”. This singer did this by creating music with an immersive, pinging club beat, and by creating videos that featured many attractive male and female dancers, doing very creative and stylish dance routines. Her target was a demographic that prided itself on stylishness. The singer used stylishness to create a personal relationship with her demographic. This is how great brands are created. Brands are created by creating personal relationships with their followers. The ultimate key to world-class branding is to ask who your customers are.
Dean Hambleton
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