Who is Managing your Brand Image?
Recently two partnering media companies, Vizu and Digiday, conducted a survey of approximately 450 brands, agencies, and publishers to assess the trends in online brand advertising. The results have just been published in a report entitled “Industry Survey: 2012 Brand Advertising Outlook and Best Practice Benchmarks.” Here are some of the findings:
• 64% of marketers intend to increase spending for online brand advertising in 2012.
• 22% plan to raise their budgets by more than 20%.
• 60% of marketers intend to divert funds away from direct response advertising to brand advertising.Marketers and sales people alike typically prefer that ads or advertising campaigns solicit a direct response from the customer. So why such a shift from direct response advertising to brand advertising, and why now?More and more customers, both consumer and business, are gathering on social media networks where they share likes, dislikes, interests, and opinions—hence, creating and shaping brand images. Moreover, with icons like “share this,” “tweet this,” “like this,” and “+1 this,” customers are increasingly being influenced by the preferences of their peers, friends, families, and co-workers, who, in turn, are creating and managing brand images.While it is only natural to want to grab for the low lying fruit and get a direct response from a single shot advertising effort, as marketers we must come to grips with the changing realities. And we can do so only by investing more in an ongoing strategy to create and manage our brand image.Earlier this week, I met with Ken Marino, CEO of EMI shielding company, Orbel ( www.orbel.com), and he conveyed how his company devoted time to associating high quality service with the company name rather than simply with the products alone. “When engineers think of high quality board shields, I want them to think of the Orbel company and brand, not just our products,” says Ken.So I ask the question: What is your brand advertising strategy? If you do not have one, contact me at [email protected] so that we can help you establish the right mix of marketing efforts to manage your brand image and, ultimately, increase your sales.
