Extenda-Brand
Suppose for a moment that you need to replace your power drill. When you visit your local hardware store (or go online to purchase), you discover that Folgers® now manufactures its own line of power drills. Would you consider buying one? Before you answer, say you knew that Folgers spent millions of dollars on research and development to manufacture the best power drill that money can buy. Would you buy one now?YES, I would buy a Folgers power drill.
NO, and I wouldn't buy Black & Decker® coffee either!
This time, suppose that Tupperware® came out with its own line of garage flooring made of recycled plastic bottles. Would you consider purchasing Tupperware garage flooring?
There are infinite stories about companies that have successfully extended their brands into other products and services. Think about Apple®. It has brand extension down to a science. Apple "extended" into and quickly dominated the music player business with the iPod. It did the same thing to the communications business with the iPhone. On the flip side, a brand extension that hasn't enjoyed the same level of success is the Harley-Davidson® Cake Decorating Kit.
It seems natural for a computer company that caters to "creatives" and trendsetters to extend its brand into music, entertainment and communications. It doesn't seem quite as natural for a motorcycle company to extend into the cake decoration business when its customers identify themselves as HOGs (Harley Owners Group®) and stereotypically adorn themselves with tattoos, torn denim and leather boots.
Be sure to research how "stretchable" your brand is before considering an extension of our own. Simply having a strong name is not enough. Can your brand be leveraged into other categories? (Think Philadelphia® cream cheese snack bars versus Coca-Cola® potato chips.) Why should people leave a brand they are loyal to and try yours? Will your brand extension be welcomed with enthusiasm or only merely accepted? Are you in danger of diluting your core brand to the point that people no longer understand your business? (Harley-Davidson is supposed to sell to rugged bikers.) Or will you enhance your brand by offering something new that relates to the brand experience people already know? (The growing popularity of the iPhone could play off the success of the increasingly popular iPod in the electronics category.)
A final thought on this matter: Be sure to pick up that drill from Folgers if it can grind 'n brew a half-pound of Black & Decker coffee beans while making its way through a sheet of Panasonic® drywall.
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Branded Entertainment – It's Not Just for TV Anymore
Branded entertainment's (BE) roots go back to the 1930s when Proctor & Gamble sponsored radio "soap" operas with 30-second commercials, which intensified with the advent of TV in the 1950s. Today, traditional advertising's impact is being drowned by the overabundance of ad content and media channels surrounding consumers, so marketers are turning back the clock and integrating BE into their agendas. Only this time, BE has evolved with the introduction of new media.BE integrates products or brands into entertainment venues to promote brand images and to create positive experiences for audiences through high engagement and interactivity. This can be accomplished through product placement and brand integration. Or brands can actually create the entertainment, either by funding or owning entertainment programs so that target consumers connect with the programs' values.
BE could draw a 13.9 percent spending increase in 2008 to $25.41 billion, after experiencing a 14.7 percent increase in 2007. According to PQ Media, BE marketing may experience double-digit growth through 2012. It's a marketing strategy for capturing today's youth and 18 to 35 year olds scattered across the largest variety of media channels. So, "many marketers…have decided to create their own entertainment content as a vehicle for building their brands," according to imediaconnection.com. No longer confined to TV or film, BE now uses interactivity via on-demand videos and online advergaming and webisodes, as well as event sponsorship/marketing.
Event sponsorship/marketing is the largest BE segment. Of the growth anticipated for BE in 2008, $9 billion of that could be fueled by event sponsorship/marketing. PQ Media reported that sponsorship experienced a spending increase of 12.2 percent to $19.18 billion in 2007. And according to about.com, "sponsorship is the fastest growing form of marketing in the U.S." With this in mind, sponsorship can enhance a company's competitive advantage.
About.com stated that sponsorship offers marketing and competitive advantages not found in other BE forms. It helps marketers reach specifically targeted markets "without any waste. [Plus], it is a powerful complement to other marketing programs." It can create lasting brand impressions among consumers. And, according to pr-inside.com, sponsorship can "attract new customers by using face-to-face engagement, which is lacking in many traditional advertising and marketing strategies[.]" These and other benefits are highlighted in Special Events: Inside and Out, which details how sponsorship achieves several goals at once by:
- Enhancing a company’s image while shaping consumer attitudes.
- Creating positive publicity and heightening visibility for a company.
- Differentiating a company from its competitors.
- Satisfying the goodwill factor.
- Impacting business and consumer relations.
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Tips for Developing a Killer Website That People Will See
All too frequently, websites are developed with little or no regard for securing top billing when your target audience conducts organic searches. These sites may be beautiful, entertaining and packed with information, but they're often invisible to search engine spiders. Below are some tips for developing a website that will achieve great rankings and drive business.Text
Many website designers, especially those who are a part of internal creative departments, take great pride in what they develop. The challenge for graphic designers in creative departments that typically develop print ads, marketing collateral and billboards is to switch from the mindset of print development to online creative development. It is common for designers to get carried away with Adobe® Flash elements (with text included in those elements), essentially creating an online movie, if you will. The drawback here is that no text in a graphic/Flash format will be seen by a search engine spider, regardless how robust and keyword-rich the text. The key is to separate the two elements – graphics can be produced in Flash, but text must be in HTML format to be "seen" and "read" by a spider. Keep this in mind, and you will help your website ranking when people conduct keyword searches. A spider will not see images, with or without Flash.
Flash
If you feel the need to use Flash in website development, you can certainly give visitors a unique, fun experience as they navigate throughout your site. However, there is no reason to use Flash unless you include animations that jump, spin or do something unique that cannot be accomplished with other programming techniques.
Links
Outgoing links on your website are important and, as long as they are text links, can be seen by a spider. These links help give a spider an idea of what your website is about, and the links are then indexed accordingly. Certain links, however, are not easily indexed. For example, if your development team embeds links in a pull-down menu that uses JavaScript or other scripting language, most search engine spiders will not see them.
Tags
There are a variety of tags, but the tags you should focus on for search engine optimization are meta tags, which include keywords or phrases that describe the pages of a site. Meta tags can also be in the form of descriptions. Description tags tend to be a couple of sentences long and describe webpages. Also, title tags have significant importance and are usually seen in a blue bar at the top of webpages.
This list is just a start of what you should know; there are many items to consider when developing a properly optimized site. The key is to do homework before investing time and money in developing a website. Just be sure you are never sacrificing your search engine rankings for something that could be very unimportant. After all, who cares how fancy your website is if nobody sees it?
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Get out of Your Rut at Trade Shows
'Tis the season for trade shows, and you're probably knee-deep in them if you're like most companies. Are you going to the same show for the umpteenth time? Does setting up your unchanged booth and distributing cute company pens (you know, the ones that light up and have your logo on them) make you feel in a rut?Here are a few ideas to get you out of the rut at trade shows and, most importantly, help you see a greater return on investment. After all, that's the main purpose of trade shows.
- Pre-schedule meetings with prospects. It's amazing how many clients don't do this. A few weeks before a show, be sure to purchase the attendee list. Doing this is worth every penny. Hire a telemarketer or use your existing staff to call all the people with whom you would like to meet. That way you're not left hoping trade show attendees will stop by your booth – you're actually making it happen.
- Talk with the media. Call the media beforehand to schedule a meeting. Say something that is newsworthy. Don't just tell the media you have the best product in the world because that's every company's claim. Show how great your product is and how it makes life easier for the purchaser. Give the media a release and send an electronic version after the show. Providing an electronic file helps to ensure your release will be included in media outlets.
- Dress your people appropriately. Are your salespeople planning to wear polo or long-sleeve shirts that include your logo, just like the representatives in the next booth will probably be wearing? Do something different this year. More than likely, your advertising has a theme. Try having your salespeople dress according to that theme. Make sure everyone is comfortable and that the attire doesn't look cheap. You don't need to go all out with costumes, but look for something that is going to stand out as your sales team walks across the show floor.
- Use creative booth graphics. Are you still stuck with a booth displaying the "handshake" photograph? Act now. Call your agency. Ask for a standout creative element – something that evokes who you are and presents a consistent brand image.
- Incorporate better booth handouts. Is your booth cluttered with trinkets and trash? Are people stopping by to fill their bags with your latest gizmos? Give them something they can use at home or in the office, rather than an item they are going to pass along to their kids or grandkids as a play toy.
- Create booth appeal. Have you tagged all of your pre-show ads with "Stop by and see us in booth #"? If so, are you convinced that's enough to flood your booth with interested people? If you don't have an ideal booth location, then you have to give people a reason to visit. Offer them a chance to win something. Or provide something to eat. One of the busiest booths at a trade show gave away liquor-filled chocolates. This doesn't mean you should line up the tequila shots, but give your prospects a reason to stop by your booth. At the same time, don't let them "rob" your booth. Encourage visitors to fill out something and qualify them as a potential prospect.
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