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To create a brand is to create a movement, a lifestyle under a name or even a slogan. Good PR campaigns create experiences just by thinking about the name of the brand. And it is this bonding that leads to greater consumer engagement and loyalty to the brand.
Brand PR is about getting them to choose you, not your competition. And not your competition. Why? That’s where the differential value lies.
The importance of branding
The whole process through which the brand identity is built generates the values associated with the brand, thus developing a unique personality that will be worked on through public relations, advertising and marketing.
A well-worked brand is a company, but a company that does not work on its identity will never be recognised as a brand. The day to day coherently builds the entire brand consideration, reflected in every communication and dealings with the client. This includes everything from the logo to the corporate colours.
For this reason, small companies decide not to spend effort and money on communication tools because they think it is not necessary. This is a mistake.
The brand defines the value
To come across a logo and recognise which brand it belongs to, even without the name, is what must be pursued at all times. At the slightest visual impact, your brand appears in the consumer’s mind and, together with it, a series of values and emotions that are not transmitted by any other brand.
It is this connection that really provides the significant value of the brand.
The brand communicates a clear message
You see “Coca-Cola” and you immediately think of happiness, fun, freshness. Passion driven by the culture that encompasses the brand together with the identifying corporate colour. This is what Coca-Cola has achieved with its consumers and almost with the whole world. Through effort and a commitment to communication.
Being clear about what you want to transmit with the brand in every action, however small it may be, in every word or presence, is what will move the public’s mind.
The brand provokes an emotional connection
The bond is born out of emotion as a result of experience. And it is then that the link is constantly nurtured to create a healthy, almost dependent relationship thanks to the emotion that flows with the brands.
The brand sets expectations
A campaign always comes in with a bang. Another thing is the result it receives. And that is where brand expectations come in, especially when promises are made that the customer feels, a posteriori, deceived. Because they were already going in with a mentality and an idea that has nothing to do with reality.
The opposite happens in the same way: when high expectations are generated around a brand, an event or even a launch, the public immediately rushes to consume and try the new product. Because the message has really resonated with them.
How to choose a brand name
When choosing a brand name, it is of vital importance to be able to verify that there is no other like it. This is when creativity, wordplay and the ingenuity of each professional come into play in order to find the solution.
With the name, a brand governs its principles and its way of being, always seeking coherence. The attractiveness of the naming must also be based on the target audience in order to establish an initial attraction. However, consistency must be maintained with respect to the type of product or service offered.
The personification of a brand will be the clearest and most direct example of what the brand is, how it relates and what it wants to become.
The brand alone can attract with the name.
Setting objectives
Knowing what the company wants to achieve and how to achieve it is fundamental for the establishment and future of the brand name, because this will be the starting point. Just by knowing the name, you can intuit where you want to go or what you want to transmit.
Defining the target customer
Giving a name and surname to your audience is a task that, although it may seem simple, few companies do it. Putting a face, family and even a car model to your target customer helps to identify the audience that is most similar to the brand.
Establish some basic characteristics that define the lifestyle you want the person associated with your brand to lead. The ideal customer who, just by looking at them, you know could consume your products or purchase your services.
Thus, it will also be linked to the brand values in order to attract the desired audience.
Creating a brand model
Creating a brand, to the point of making it almost tangible, allows you to develop a personification that will make known what the brand will be. It is then when all the emotions and feelings that come from the brand come into action, what you want the customer to feel.
With the name, together with the corporate colours, an image and a series of values associated with the typographic or even corporate style are already being given.
Choosing a brand development strategy
Data is the main starting point for any strategy and in the case of a brand strategy this collection is of even greater value. The basis of the strategy is to ensure long-term customer loyalty and engagement.
Being able to move from being a simple brand name to a strong brand is one of the results of an effective public relations strategy. Always looking to the future and working every day with long-term objectives.
Developing a new brand
Starting from scratch is the most costly process in terms of work time and money invested. It is about paying attention to a novel appearance never seen before in the market. Offer differentiation to gain an initial reputation and decide to tell your friends about it.
Extending the brand’s product line
A modification or adaptation of an existing brand results in a change in the message to be conveyed, improving the perception of the brand within the sector in which it is already known.
In this case, the brand is recognised and has an already established community of customers and consumers. Strategies with which to launch new products with the aim of causing new sensations among the public that already knew the base product.
Multi-branding
Competitiveness governs the success of any company or brand that fights for itself and sometimes has to fight against itself even when it has different products that work in the same way or are complementary.
Each product will have its own value proposition, focus and clear message in order to attract the customer by providing differential value. The aim is also to be able to reach a larger market and dethrone other competing brands.
Brand extension
Strengthening the corporate culture and brand identity is a way to extend the brand in the market through advertising campaigns that reflect the values and meaning of your products or services.
In order to extend effectively, it is important to know the market and know how it is, who is better valued and what can change everything.
Key questions of brand strategy
The brand is the feeling of its audience. The graphic representation of images and the experience of the shared moment.
How should the brand be positioned?
A well-positioned brand has a clear, simple and direct message to avoid confusion among consumers. New customers must immediately grasp what the brand is conveying, without being tied down and without stopping to think about what it is saying.
In this way, trust is increased by the certainty of the clear and convincing message to attract new audiences and keep existing ones. With this, a position in the market is achieved that will have repercussions on the brand’s business relations, since with a good image and position it will be easier to commit to events and sponsorships in which the values are shared.
What should the brand name be?
An attractive name always penetrates the consumer’s mind, like those catchy ads that you may not know the ultimate goal but you go to sleep with the song. An example could be the ‘With X for Mixta’ campaign.
Each name carries a value, a reaction that can be positive, negative or even indifferent. Before assigning a name, market research should be carried out to find out which names exist, which ones are in trend and try to understand why they are so well positioned. Even on a global level, since one aspect to take into account is the possible translation of the naming when it comes to crossing borders.
The name is often the key.
How will the brand develop?
Once the brand has been created, the development and expansion of the brand beyond a simple product is always present. In this sense, the brand is reinforced with new products or services, with the appearance of sub-brands or even collaborations with other brands.
Diversity is the spice of life and being able to cover different aspects of the same market opens the door to brand development with the launch of new flavours, new colours, sizes, sizes… or with complementary products to those that already exist in the brand line in order to have everything you need without having to look for it in another brand.
The brand and public relations
Public relations is in charge of generating intrigue and almost necessity in the consumer or client in the advertising of a brand. Who doesn’t wait every year for the Christmas Lottery advert? In this case, it has managed to generate interest in an advertising campaign beyond the product or brand.
The aim is to drive sales through emotions. If the advert or advertisement has succeeded in making an impression on the customer, they are sure to consume the product in a short period of time.
PR professionals also seek to capture and attract the attention of the media so that they talk naturally and organically about the brand and its products. This is achieved with campaigns in which the expectations generated are high and end up being effective in the target’s mind.
Example of recent PR campaigns
Creativity is in high demand and more and more companies are taking the step to go for campaigns that make history, so to speak. Reinventing themselves and betting on novelty is the daily routine of brands and communication professionals in order to promote themselves in a different, notorious and effective way.
Some brands do this to perfection, and it is their campaigns that are practically unobtrusive to the consumer.
Netflix
Netflix is a powerful brand that has already emerged strongly and whose image and culture is recognised worldwide. In 2020 it developed a public relations campaign in which it invaded the streets with spoilers in order to keep its audience safe and quiet at home in the middle of the Covid quarantine.
If there’s one thing a moviegoer hates, it’s spoilers, so Netflix didn’t abandon the street billboards and wanted to give its audience nice spoilers for the most watched series of the moment.
Ikea
Ikea means inexpensive furniture and assembly… easy? The brand is known for the instructions that accompany its products so that you can assemble them at home with ease, but ‘ease’ can be a bit of an odyssey.
So, from instructions to recipes, Ikea launched a campaign to prepare Swedish meatballs with the design and appearance of the assembly instructions for its products.
This campaign was launched in the pandemic, an action in which it revealed its biggest secret: the recipe for its meatballs. Because, as well as being a multinational company dedicated to the retail sale of furniture and household goods, Ikea is also known for having a restaurant area in its centres with its own menus to make the most of the day on its premises.
If you go to Ikea you know when you enter, but not when you leave… The fault, the meatballs.
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