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The Brand Story Web Marketing Process

If websites have one overall goal, it is to build trust in what the website is promoting and who is promoting it. It doesn’t matter if it’s about a product, a service, a sales campaign or an idea, if the presentation is not minimally credible or optimally motivational, then it fails as a marketing communication medium.

Communicating with the Subconscious Mind

Branding is often seen as a marketing ploy reserved for major consumer products companies, but the fact is that all companies are brands that are grown to flourish or left to sow like a garden full of weeds.

Marketing neophytes often think of a brand only in terms of some physical manifestation, such as a logo, but a brand is the full complement of residual impressions that result from all experiences associated with a product, service, or company. And today, the online experience is a vital place to create those experiences.

Through the use of video, the marketer has the opportunity to access the audience’s subconscious mind, the buried remnants of remembered and forgotten experiences; the kind of experiences that shape attitudes, biases, and preferences that inform our decisions, especially our purchasing decisions.

where companies go wrong

Where business goes wrong is settling for only the obvious, the logical, and the rational. Brands are formed in the subconscious, so if your marketing communication is not reaching the subconscious mind, then you are not establishing or improving the brand in a meaningful and effective way in the long term.

What video does, when done right, is communicate on both the obvious and the subconscious level, making it the ideal web communication vehicle for creating a powerful brand experience, but only if you understand how to use the elements. of presentation and performance available.

Considering how powerful a web video tool can be, it amazes me that so many normally savvy entrepreneurs can opt for second-rate presentations. Do-it-yourself and user-generated efforts compete for the silly prize with nonsensical corporate nonsense – everyone misses the point: a persuasive motivational presentation must communicate on multiple levels.

How to deliver a brand story

We like to refer to the development, delivery, enhancement, and management of a Web-based brand as The brand story process. By thinking of your brand in terms of a story rather than just a graphic image or nebulous mission statement, you avoid many of the pitfalls associated with ineffective branding.

A story, any story, has certain fundamental elements:

1.A historystoryline or arc that moves the audience from skeptical Web surfers to loyal customers.

2.A herowho indirectly represents the audience and their dilemma to satisfy their subconscious needs or desires.

3.A villainthat represents the problems, obstacles or challenges that the audience faces in satisfying those subconscious needs.

4 years change agent It represents your company’s ability to solve the dilemma by providing a solution to meet those needs.

5. and a Format that structures the presentation into a series of procedural or serial video episodes, establishing and enhancing the brand image, all while delivering literal and subliminal benefits.

Plot – The Arc of Transformation

At the heart of your brand story is your marketing message, and that message should call for change: a transformation from dissatisfaction to satisfaction, and not just a presentation of features and benefits.

Your brand story puts what you offer in context and illustrates the results achievable through on-screen surrogates that represent the audience’s hidden agendas. A competitor can always lower your price or add new features, but no tactic can beat brand loyalty based on satisfying subconscious emotional needs.

Hero as brand messenger

It’s not just the message; is the messenger. There is no substitute for the human being. No avatar, cartoon character, or CGI equivalent will provide the subtlety and nuance necessary to communicate on the verbal, visible, and subconscious levels.

The only caveat is that real people can be ‘too real’ for their own good. We rarely recommend using company executives on camera because the camera picks up all sorts of cues that the inexperienced actor is unaware of, resulting in an impression often contrary to the intended message. An uptight senior executive, no matter how well-intentioned, delivering a reassuring message to the public about some product liability issue can hurt the company’s remediation efforts if the on-screen presenter is deemed unreliable or deceptive.

he will always be cheating dick

There are many examples of this type of marketing faux pas, with Richard Nixon’s 1960 television debate with John Kennedy being one of the most famous. On the radio many people thought that Nixon, the veteran activist, had won the debate, but under the keen scrutiny of the television camera, Nixon’s true personality came to light. He wasn’t just the five o’clock shadow; he was the true self of him buried giving a negative impression to the subconscious mind of the audience. Nixon’s negative record was forever established, one that was never fully recovered.

A brand should never get old, sick or fat.

Even a positive reaction to a real personality can turn out to be negative. Take the example of Steve Jobs. His keynote speeches are treated like rock star performances, but when they’re unavailable to perform for whatever reason, rumors spread and even big corporations like Apple feel the pinch.

What you really want to create is a brand persona, a spokesperson who can be managed, nurtured, and become a long-term brand representative, someone who can deliver your marketing message and brand story in consistent, effective, and controlled campaigns. .

Every brand story needs a villain

When we talk about the villain of the brand, we are not necessarily referring to another character, although it can certainly be a way of illustrating the issue at hand. Alternatively, situations or scenarios can be used to represent the problem or dilemma.

The psychological issues are often not as clear cut as those presented by the villain in the black hat and the hero in the white hat. The compelling heroes are often tainted or damaged in a way the audience can relate to, and the effective villains aren’t so much evil as they are representative of an alternative agenda.

Take for example the recent ‘Oatmeal Crisps’ marketing campaign currently running in the Canadian market. The series of ads features a father who is trying to protect his favorite cereal from being consumed by his teenage son in one commercial and his elderly father in another. This extremely clever campaign delves into the emotional resentments and psychological issues involved in family dynamics, but does so in a humorous and light-hearted way, where the audience can relate to the situation and accept the underlying message. Here is a case of protagonist and antagonist, a more sophisticated approach to the hero-villain relationship.

You are the change agent

When taking the Brand Story approach to marketing, you need to embrace the notion that your brand is a change agent. All the stories are about change: the transformation from one state (dissatisfaction) to another (satisfaction). You build your brand story based on the idea that your brand will transform the audience in some way.

Take for example the ‘Multi Grain Cheerios’ commercial in which a husband and wife discuss the ingredients listed on the cereal box: while the clear message is to buy this product because it tastes good, the underlying message is that it helps control Your weight, which makes you more attractive to your spouse, is not a topic any sensitive spouse would suggest. The cereal is billed as the change agent: gone from overweight and unattractive to slim and beautiful, while removing the stigma of dieting by providing the excuse of taste to justify the purchase.

This commercial, like the previously mentioned ‘Oatmeal Crisps’ commercial, creates a conflict that conveys multiple messages through the family husband-and-wife setting; one that is familiar to anyone who has ever dared to suggest that her partner should lose some weight.

Are you “Law and Order” or “Prison Break”?

Format: Procedural or Serial

The two most commonly used presentation formats are Procedural, think “Law & Order”, or Serial, think “Prison Break”. The proceedings follow a strict formula that continually repeats the basic story arc with the context of each episode emphasizing the consistent attitudes, perspective, and point of view of the franchise or brand. On the other hand, serials move the plot from one episode to another keeping the audience in suspense as to what will happen next and whether the brand’s hero will win the day.

One of the best serial ad campaigns ever implemented was the Nescafe Gold Blend coffee campaign that ran from 1987 to 1992. You can watch the entire campaign from start to finish on YouTube.

One of my favorite procedural style campaigns is the recent Kleenex (Let It Out) campaign which was brilliantly executed. He played with the emotions, memories and experiences of the audience, while associating those deeply held feelings with his brand of facial tissues which is normally considered and sold as a strictly commercial product.

Doing something is not necessarily doing it well

Far from being restrictive, these formats provide a familiar structure within which the company can establish and enhance its brand, but failing to understand the underlying emotional element inherent in its offering will lead to failure. A current Canadian advertiser tried to copy the Kleenex format without understanding what made the Kleenex campaign effective; they copied the physical presentation but without any emotional subtext, relying entirely on cost-to-performance benefit, and the result is a second-rate effort rather than a effectively clever wake homage.

It’s about people, by people, for people

Unlike television advertising, which is restricted to only those who can afford it, the Web is available to everyone. The problem is, easy and affordable access to the tools and places to tell your brand story doesn’t mean you’re telling it effectively. Marketing communication is not about research, technology or statistics; it’s about people and the underlying emotional needs your brand satisfies; therein lies the foundation on which you build your brand story.

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