Thomas Heinrich Musiolik

Annoyance, boredom and disappointment with most brands drives me to look for the perfect brand code. I want to experience and feel brands. I want brands to excite me. I want to feel their passion and contagious energy – I want a mind orgasm.

 

That is how I approach the quest for the perfect brand code as director of the Digital Brand Lab and in my role as post-graduate researcher. Which brand code stands for what? Which feelings and emotions does it evoke? How does it need to look in order to facillitate multisensory brand communication in digital media with the end game being to turn the the brand of the future into a liveable experience in the digital world and ensure an unforgettable mind orgasm.

In addition, I have authored various books and articles in professional marketing & communication journals. My goal has always been to improve lives functionally and emotionally. You can count on my wizardry, a little insanity and a thirst for knowledge: I will make the world a better place and change the future.

Contact: www.digitalbrandlab.de

1            Chapter 1: Strong Digital Brands Evoke Strong Emotions

1.1              Unit 1: Introduction

 

Goals

 

The reader:

 

►     learn what a (digital) brand is

►     learn why emotions play a central role in brand management

►     learn how to formulate a clear and uniquely attractive Brand Reward Promise

 

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Figure 1: Apple is one of the most established brands worldwide (Foto: Herbst)

 

Apple, IKEA, Google – strong brands we know and love. It is no accident that these brands became as strong as they did. Professional brand managers built them in a targeted manner and supported them over the long term. We recognize strong brands right away. We are uniquely attracted to them and readily separate them from other brands. We trust and adore them. The path to a strong brand involves professional brand management.

Strong brands fulfill the needs of the consumer of digital media: orientation, added value and trust. Strong brands in digital media make it possible for the company to establish long-term market advantages. Despite these advantages, a look at real experience is sobering: click through falls off. Visitors are bored, irritated or even angry. The reason is that the demands of professional brand management have gotten lost in the fast-paced rise of digital media and digital technologies. Since the competition is only increasing here, it begs the question of how to manage brands professionally in digital media.

 

Learning and expertise are largely missing from the field: while the body of insight around classical brand management is sizeable, mere assumptions instead of a comprehensive knowledge base still dominate digital branding. This much is for certain: organization, planning and execution must be aligned to harness the potential of digital branding; a successful presence in digital media must pay close attention to and consistently utilize the media’s unique capabilities.

 

Digital branding means brand management in digital media and technologies. Employing its particular capabilities, digital branding seeks to raise the profile of the brand and to systematically shape it over the long term.

 

The added value of digital brand management is in the optimum leveraging of its four unique attributes (the "big four“) of integration, accessibility, connectivity and interactivity. Brand managers must exploit this added value in a targeted and consistent fashion in order to clearly position the brand in the minds of consumers and to develop a competitive advantage over the long term. Many brands are unable to leverage the unique attributes of digital media in order to establish a brand effectively. They fail to create long-term relationships with consumers and to offer them clear, rewarding added value.

 

The opportunities in digital media and technologies are at once also challenges: consistently engaging the consumer is among the biggest; to offer a clear benefit and to develop an ongoing dialogue – opportunities for contact are a must. Successful digital branding aligns itself consistently and continuously with the brand essence (digital brand codes). Healthy digital brands provide consumers with clear orientation – our visitors should find what they are looking for. Best case scenario: consumers approach the offering, see right away what it is and establish contact with the brand.

 

Successful digital branding is not an isolated instance, but rather a piece of holistic brand management: visitors should experience digital offerings in the same way they experience the brand in television, radio and print.

 

Reality in the media = day-to-day reality

The brand should honor its promise in digital offerings and ideally result in direct consumer contact – whether telephone helpline, in cooperation with suppliers and vendors or with the exchange of defective or missing merchandise. This is the only way to create a healthy brand image with the strong mental associations needed for the success of the brand.

Digital branding is a demanding management task, requiring comprehensive attention to detail and the highest levels of expertise.

What are (digital) brands?

What really are brands? What makes a brand a strong one? What does a strong digital brand look and act like?

 

These sound like simple questions, but the closer one looks, the more complicated it gets – neither researchers nor practitioners agree on the answers: is the brand a product? or the image of that product in the minds of consumers? Sometimes a company shapes the brand and sometimes the consumer does. Everyone agrees, however, that strong brands elicit strong sensations – like those around adventure, victory, risk and security.

 

Let us clarify first in this beginning unit what a brand is and what makes it a healthy one so we all have a common understanding of the concept of a brand. We will see why strong emotions are so important to brands. We will take a look at the emotions people experience all over the world and how we might systematize them. Finally, you will learn about a method to formulate the essence of a brand. Then, in chapter 2, we will closely examine the unique attributes of digital brands.

 

Tools introduced

►     Limbic map for classifying emotions

►     Reward Promise

 

1.2              Unit 2: Strong Digital Brands Are of Increasing Importance

 

Brands within digital media are becoming more and more important for brand management as a whole. The corporate website, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are already all standard brand management tools at most companies. The following examples illustrate just how important digital brand management has become:

 

►     Many brands are present in digital media and thus available worldwide.

►     Consumer purchases at eShops and orders by cell phone are steadily on the rise.

►     Consumers recommend their favorite brands to one another on social networks with increased frequency.

►     The internet is growing exponentially via developments in technologies, the opening-up of markets, etc.

►     New applications and access points arise like mobile, smart phones, the iPad, tablets, etc.

►     Social software solutions are popping up at a rapid pace.

 

Many companies are planning increases in their digital marketing budgets over classical channels in the near future.

Despite much potential, many shortcomings

Despite the potential, there are still shortcomings: brands on the internet are boring, consumers interrupt searches, online stores are abandoned. In addition:

 

►     Many brands’ digital media presences do not correspond to their images in the offline world. Consumers become confused.

►     Many consumers do not find the information they are looking for. Many websites are undifferentiated and boring. Result: site visitors stay only briefly. Confusing websites and meager offerings at online stores bother online shoppers.

►     Consumer dialogue does not happen although digital media presents the ideal possibility for it.

►     Real digital brand experiences rarely occur, whereby it is precisely those experiences which distinguish brands and connect to consumers.

►     Many brands fail at cultural difference: how does a company sell chocolate in China or cars in Korea? Why are consumers in Africa so interested in athletic shoes? Companies waste billions of dollars annually because they do not translate their brands into other cultures.

►     Facebook and Twitter are prevalent and well-liked in the west – not so everywhere in the world. There are other networks in those places with different rules of engagement.

►     Companies are helpless once users decide to unite and boycott a brand: Greenpeace attacked Nestlé on social networks to protest the destruction of orangutan habitat from palm oil production for KitKat.

 

Result: wasted potential, mistakes or crises on the internet cost companies a lot of money

Summarizing the mistakes suggests the following focus points:

 

Companies think too much from the standpoint of the brand: they simply shift classical advertising ideas to the internet without considering its unique, digital attributes. Such offerings add no value and are therefore not interesting. They just repeat what we already know. After all, other media like television and radio were only able to assert themselves because they offered something new.

 

Companies think too much from the standpoint of the internet: they push technologies to the limit, but the brand comes up short – the brand image does not correspond to the one the user knows from classical advertising channels.

 

Brand and media expertise is required in digital media

Standard solutions made up of the product side, historical details, tips, gimmicks, greeting cards and contests are no longer viable paths to distinguish brands or to connect with the digital consumer over the long term. Nor does loud, provocative advertising suffice to steer user attention toward a web offering.

We will concentrate on doing it differently

►     We offer website visitors a one-of-a-kind experience. They do not experience anywhere else what they experience with us. They meet people they would not normally meet. They feel things they would not usually feel. They see things they would not normally see.

►     We take our consumers seriously, we greet them warmly and guide them carefully and without tricks and detours to their desired destination.

►     We do not burden them at the front door with disconnected advertising, we do not leave them waiting for minutes before we make them feel welcome as our consumer.

►     We empower them to find what they are looking for.

►     We stimulate their senses and entertain them.

A part of brand management as a whole

Digital branding is a part of brand management as a whole. It contributes to building the brand image by leveraging the attributes particular to digital media and digital technologies. Digital branding addresses the following issues:

 

►     What are the unique attributes of digital media on the internet, on cell phones, smartphones and in other digital media?

►     What do digital technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, Bluetooth or QR codes bring to the table?

►     How does one capitalize fully on the potential of these technologies?

►     What are some differences around the world in digital brand management?

►     How do these digital technologies uniquely contribute to an increase in brand value and thereby to the value of the company?

►     Does digital branding stress certain brand features? Does it forefront new features?

►     How will digital brand management look in the near future?