Corporate Eye

...compare, compete, excel

Brand

The New Retail Experience

barcode scanner retail price checkingToday’s retail experience is very different from just a few years ago. The integration of mobile into the retail experience has expanded, and the relationship between consumers and brands happens as much through the physical environments inside retail stores as it does in a consumer’s hand through a mobile device.

As a customer stands in a retail store, he is faced with a myriad of brands. That hasn’t changed. However, price checking, coupon searching, and finding better deals at other stores are mobile activities that happen at the shelf today. These mobile activities give consumers more control in the retail setting. In other words, it takes more than foot traffic to generate sales.

In fact, many consumers today visit stores to check out products in person with no intention to actually make purchases in those retail stores. They’ll wait to buy until they search for the best deal on the internet using their mobile device (sometimes while they’re still in the store) or on their computer when they get back home. It’s called showrooming, and back in 2012, 43% of U.S. adults were already doing it. You can bet that percentage is much higher in 2014.

Furthermore, consumers are far less likely to “settle” on a specific selection or price offered in a brick-and-mortar store. Why settle when a few taps on your smartphone or clicks on your computer can find exactly what you want in seconds? The days of capturing “convenience” sales from consumers who don’t have the time or energy to search multiple stores to find what they’re looking for are over.

The trick for brand marketers is connecting with consumers while they’re in stores, but it starts long before consumers ever set foot into a physical store. It starts by being the brand that consumers are already connected to on their mobile devices. Deals, coupons, and price comparisons are all short-term, transactional mobile activities, but if a brand can transcend the short-term and connect with consumers for the long-haul, the entire retail experience will improve for consumers. Retailers have been tracking in-store customers by their cell phones for some time because the opportunities to analyze and learn from consumers’ in-store behaviors, coupled with the potential to deliver the right offers to them via their mobile devices while they’re in specific parts of the store, represents a huge opportunity.

With mobile payments and wearable technology making mobile brand marketing prioritization even more important, savvy brand marketers are already entrenched in a “mobile-always” strategy. Are you?

Image: Johan Larsson

How Brands Can Use the New Twitter Layout for Marketing

The new Twitter layout offers even more opportunities for brands to use the profile header image for marketing purposes. While filling your brand’s Twitter header image with marketing messages isn’t a good idea, using the space for creative marketing can be very effective.

There are a few tricks to leveraging this new visual space to drive improved marketing results. First, this space is big and bold, so make sure the content you put in that space is timely. Second, tie the content in this space to the Twitter audience by integrating Twitter activities into your offer or message. Third, create special offers that can only be accessed via Twitter and promote them in this new space.

Examples of each of these tricks can already be found on brand Twitter profiles. To get your creative juices flowing, here are some great examples to benchmark. Notice that these brands come from different categories and market to different audiences, which demonstrates that any brand can leverage Twitter, particularly the new Twitter profile layout, for brand marketing.

An Exclusive Twitter Offer from Amazon

Amazon Twitter

Take a look at the Twitter profile header image for Amazon. There are a bunch of great brand marketing things going on here. First, the header image provides very simple instructions to use Twitter to shop on Amazon.

Next, take a look at the first tweet in the Amazon Twitter stream. It is a tweet that has been pinned to the top of the Amazon Twitter stream promoting a specific product (a banana slicer at the time of this article’s writing). As the instructions in the profile header explain, all you have to do is send a reply to that tweet, including the Twitter hashtag #AmazonCart, and the item will be added instantly to your shopping cart in your Amazon profile. You can visit Amazon at anytime in the future to finish your transaction. As the instructions in the header image explain, you can do this with any tweet from Amazon that includes a specific product link. Shopping on Amazon just got easier!

Timely Content from Axe

Axe Twitter

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, keeping your brand’s Twitter profile header image current with timely content and offers is very important, and AXE does this very well. At the time of this article’s writing, AXE was offering products with special X-Men-themed packaging and a free movie poster, so in the days leading up to the movie’s premiere, the AXE Twitter header was also X-Men-themed. It’s current, attention-getting, and very smart.

Timely Content Integrated with Twitter Activities from Coca-Cola

CocaCola Twitter

In the days leading up to the 2014 Word Cup Tournament, which will be held in Brazil, Coca-Cola launched a promotion inviting people to submit photos via the HappinessFlag.com website to be included in what would become the world’s largest photo mosaic flag. Inviting people to participate in the project via the Coca-Cola Twitter header image piqued visitors’ curiosity about the project and provided an excellent example of promoting a brand experience through the Twitter header image rather than promoting a product. It’s very creative and works perfectly.

Twitter Activity Integration from Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton Twitter

Luxury brands can leverage the new Twitter profile layout, too. For Louis Vuitton, the larger header image allows the brand to showcase its new web show with a vibrant and intriguing image paired with a hashtag that was created for all Twitter communications related to the show. Rather than promoting a specific product, Louis Vuitton is promoting its show, which provides another way to experience the brand.

As you can see from the examples above, how you use the new Twitter profile layout for brand marketing can vary depending on your goals, audience, and strategies, but no matter the category or target audience you’re trying to connect with via Twitter, you’re missing an opportunity if you’re not leveraging the new layout.

Women Dominate Pinterest – What Does It Mean for Brands?

pinterest pushpinsSince its launch, Pinterest has been dominated by female users. A new study by RjMetrics found that Pinterest is still dominated by women today. Just 20% of Pinterest users are men. Not only are more Pinterest users women, but women are also significantly more active on the site than men are. RJMetrics found that 92% of pins are published by women. In total, there are 15 times more pins published by women than men on Pinterest.

Looking at trend data, the number of pins published by men has been on decline since RJMetrics began tracking Pinterest data in 2011. However, the story is quite different for women. Total activity for women on Pinterest has grown in the past three years from 87% to 94%.

Not only are women more active then men, but their activity level on Pinterest actually increases over time. The study data reveals that during their first year with a Pinterest account, women publish approximately 42 pins, but by the fourth year with a Pinterest account, women publish 152 pins during the year. After four years, 84% of women Pinterest users are still active in some way.

Just as Pinterest is used by more women than men, it’s also used to pin content related to some categories much more than others. For example, 20% of pins are about food and drink, 12% about crafts and do-it-yourself projects, and 11% are about home decor. Brands that can relate their image or products and services to these categories will perform well on Pinterest and should exploit the opportunity. However, even brands that are not in those categories have the potential to perform well on Pinterest. RJMetrics reports that the most followed brand board on Pinterest is owned by Lowes.

One of the most interesting parts of this report from a branding perspective is the breakdown of the most repins by domain. RJMetrics found that Etsy.com is in a class all its own in terms of the number of pins that link to its domain. Every other site is far behind. Looking at all of those other sites, the leaders in terms of the number of repins leading to specific brand domains are UrbanOutfitters.com, Williams-Sonoma.com, Westelm.com, ReykjavikCornerStore.com, Poketo.com, and Brides.com. Follow the link at the beginning of the article to see the full list of brand domains.

There is no doubt that women spend more time on Pinterest than men, and there is no doubt that some categories perform better on Pinterest than others. However, seeing the data puts these facts into perspective. If your brand is related to food and drink and your target audience is women, then Pinterest should be a priority in your brand marketing plan.

Image: theilr

The Evolution of Brand Red

red paint brand identityEarly in my marketing career, I worked for a large financial company that had a red and green logo. It was at that time that I learned two very important things. First, a red and green logo and brand color palette were extremely limiting creatively. Back in the day, the vast majority of marketing materials were printed. Digital marketing didn’t really exist yet, so most creative marketing initiatives had at least one component that required offset printing. To keep costs down, printing was often limited to one or two colors. When you’re limited to printing marketing materials using only the primary colors in the brand color palette, and those two colors are red and green, it’s very difficult to design a piece that doesn’t look like it fell out of a box of Christmas decorations.

The second thing I learned all those years ago was to avoid red in brand color palettes and logo design. Remember, at the time, most marketing materials were printed. To keep costs down, one or two color printing required the use of halftones. There are many very nice halftones available when you’re working with a bright, Christmas red, but they quickly shift from red to pink. Suffice it to say, pink didn’t communicate the brand image that the financial executives wanted.

Today, creative marketers think differently about the color red. There is far less offset printing being done as print advertising comes a bit closer to death each year. Printed brochures have been replaced with digital versions, and a large amount of direct mail has been replaced with email marketing. In other words, my aversion to red in brand identity color palettes is not as strong as it was 20 years ago. However, it’s still a color that should be used carefully.

The psychology of color plays an important role in brand and marketing communications. Colors evokes feelings in people both consciously and subconsciously. Red is a hot color often associated with anger. In fact, researchers have found that anxiety and aggression increases in test subjects when they’re exposed to the color red.  However, depending on the shade of red used, the meaning of the color could change. Its meaning and the emotions it elicits from people also changes depending on what part of the world they’re from.  In the United States and most of Europe, red is most often associated with aggression, energy, and danger, but in Turkey and the Ivory Coast, red is associated with death and morning.

Bottom-line, my aversion to red for brand color palettes has decreased significantly over the years, but it’s still a color that I recommend marketers use with caution. Choose the right red to match your brand image while giving you creative flexibility across all media.

For more information about the psychology of the color red in branding, take a look at the infographic from Imagibrand below. I laughed out loud when I saw the reference to red and green in the infographic since I’ve been stuck in that situation before.

brand red color psychology marketing infographic

Image: Jayesh Nair

3 Ways to Structure Brand CSR in Your Company

CSR wind farmCorporate social responsibility (CSR) is becoming a larger focus for corporations every day, but actually integrating CSR into your brand strategy (i.e., brand CSR) is something that more companies still need to do. While small companies typically have one person who leads the CSR effort and is responsible for everything CSR-related for the entire organization, larger corporations have a lot more people to consider. The list of stakeholders for a major corporation is very long, and keeping everyone happy is challenging.

Most companies recognize the importance of CSR and pursue initiatives to be perceived as more socially responsible, However, those initiatives come up short because they’re not fully integrated with the brand. Once you take the time to merge brand and CSR, the benefits to your brand image will increase significantly.

Following are three ways that most large companies structure resources to support brand CSR. Evaluate your company, your brand, and your resources to determine which structure will work best for your company. Choosing the wrong structure will yield limited results for your brand and company.

1. Centralized Brand CSR

Centralized brand CSR is a functional structure where CSR responsibilities are performed by a specific team within the corporate marketing department. The CSR team is tasked with developing the entire company’s CSR strategy, developing campaigns to support the strategy, monitoring results, and retooling as needed. These CSR intiatives all tie back to the brand promise, position, and image, and the centralized CSR team instructs other functional departments about requirements and timelines.

2. Decentralized Brand CSR

Decentralized brand CSR is a matrix structure where CSR responsibilities are performed by specific individuals within each brand family (e.g., the brand manager). The CSR brand team members from each brand family report to their department leader as well as to a common CSR executive. They collaborate closely to identify cross-department CSR opportunities, achieve synergies, and drive maximum results. Most importantly, they collaborate to ensure the brand is represented consistently across all CSR initiatives.

3. Integrated Brand CSR

Fully-integrated brand CSR is a flat structure where CSR responsibilities are part of every employee’s job description. This structure is most common in companies that exist for a CSR-related purpose. For example, a company that produces sustainable building materials or organic food should have a fully-integrated brand CSR structure because CSR is an integral part of the company’s mission, vision, and core values. These companies will often have a leader or small team in charge of managing and monitoring CSR activities, but the daily brand CSR focus is pushed down to the lowest possible level so each employee is empowered to make decisions that support the company’s core values and CSR focus.

Which structure does your company use? Which structure do you prefer? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

Image: Jesper Baerentzen

1 in 2 Americans Read Brand Blogs

blog with mouseBrand blogs are more popular than you might think. According to research from managed WordPress hosting provider WP Engine, 46% of Americans read their favorite brands’ blogs and those brand blogs are influencing consumers’ perceptions of brands and their purchase decisions.

WP Engine found that one in two Americans say that it’s important for brands to publish blog content with one in five saying they’re satisfied with any branded content that isn’t overly self-promotional with the intent to sell products or services. Even more respondents to the WP Engine survey (two in five Americans) say they actually prefer reading content on a brand blog rather than via a third party magazine or website.

In fact, the majority of Americans say they want to read brand content, including brand blogs. They’re primarily looking for brand content that focuses on important issues (27%). On the flip side, nearly everyone (96% of survey respondents) claimed they do not want to read or view content that shows celebrities using branded products. They want useful information from brands. In fact, 32% of respondents identified the top benefit of brand blogs as enabling them to keep up with current information.

To add more evidence that brand blogs are essential parts of an integrated marketing plan today, two out of five respondents to the WP Engine survey agreed that brands that don’t publish blogs are negatively impacted. In all, 19% of respondents believe that brands that don’t publish blogs lose an important tool to communicate with consumers while 12% believe that not having a blog makes the brand look lazy. One in 10 respondents believe that a missing brand blog means the brand is less relevant to consumers.

Of course, publishing a brand blog is only the first step in leveraging a blog as a brand building tool that indirectly drives purchases, loyalty, and advocacy. Think about what your blog says about your brand. Remember, the research shows that consumers want useful information from brand blogs. They actually use that information when making purchase decisions. However, they do not want content that directly sells products and services. Direct marketing on your brand blog is a guaranteed path to failure in consumers’ minds. For consumers, failure also comes when a brand doesn’t have a blog at all, so you can’t get out of this one. Your brand needs to be present. It needs to publish useful original content, and it needs to leave the sales pitches out.

Can you do it?

Image: Svilen Milev