What is a brand? And how important is the mojo behind it?

Andy Hunt, Managing Director of marketing agency, Quick Thinking aims to find out...

What is a brand?

Ask a sample of the average-Joes and most will reach for one of today’s star brand icons. They’ll probably google a Coca Cola logo. Or point to a Nike trainer flash. Or show you the shiny Apple adorning their i-phone. Of course, these are all correct answers, but only partly right. As any brand marketer will tell you, brands are really a subtle mix of ‘10% logo and 90% mojo’. The lion’s share of any brand sits not in its physical identity, but in the much fluffier and less tangible attributes that surround it. Its real value lies not in its appearance, but the associations and behaviours it excites in people.

That’s why a branding agency will invest so much time (and charge so much money) to understand the ‘mojo’ of a brand before crafting its brand bible. Without knowing the essential back-story it’s impossible to engineer an identity that fits the bill.

Are you one of the advertising or marketing agencies whose Adwords dashboard has been cluttered with notifications of the impending Google update?

Perhaps some of the 6 million already upgraded legacy campaigns (equating to almost 75% of all active campaigns) belonged to your advertising or marketing agency.

This blog was penned by the team at Gutenberg, an international advertising production business specialising in decoupling advertising production

Is decoupling advertising production right for you?

There are a number of factors which influence whether decoupling production is right for your business. Before you embark on decoupling advertising production there are a number of factors to take into account. If you fall into one of the following structures you can almost certainly benefit.

Julia Start is the Marketing Director at events agency Bray Leino Events, Part Of Marketing Agency Bray Leino.

Event Marketing Strategy: How to leverage conference marketing and exhibitions for your brand: Part TWO

Julia Start is the Marketing Director at events agency Bray Leino Events, part of the marketing agency group Bray Leino.

 

How to leverage conference marketing and exhibition strategy for your brand: Part ONE

Need to give your new-business strategy a kick? Got some budget for event marketing? Ironed your networking trousers and polished your comfortable shoes? Sounds like you’re ready to take on an industry exhibition.

Event marketing trends show large and small brands across B2B and B2C sectors, from oil and gas to fashion and retail, expending increasing amounts of time and effort on these large-scale networking jamborees; building stands, strategy, and industry profile.

In my last blog, 'What is decoupling in marketing and advertising?' I dealt with the history and context of decoupling in marketing and advertising. I now want to focus on some of the benefits.

Content marketing is the creation and publication of interesting content (such as blog articles, comment pieces or multimedia shares) with the objective of driving traffic to your site and promoting your brand. Having a good content marketing strategy is essential for anyone looking to keep up with their competitors, foster consumer relationships and get the attention of potential consumers.

Key types of marketing content:

1. Viral: Content that is designed to spread and be shared across social platforms. This content marketing strategy has a short lifespan and is predominately designed as a quick-fix, that is, to entertain, provoke (often emotional) reactions and to provide the 'wow' factor. It's great for growth and getting your name out there but doesn't offer the reader much in terms of substance. Examples of viral content marketing include infographics, videos, stats and picture galleries.
2. Lead gen: Marketing content that aims to point out a problem or gap in the reader's knowledge and to then provide a solution (solved by opting in or signing up). This is a popular content marketing strategy encompassing all aspects of marketing, PR and brand journalism. It is designed to spark some kind of call to action.
3. Sales gen: As above but with the objective of triggering a sale rather than a sign up.
4. Discussion: As you would expect, this type of content is designed to create conversation and promote interaction between not only the reader and publisher but the readers themselves. This kind of community-focused thought-leadership is best characterised by comment or reaction pieces, industry overviews, insider/insight articles or instructional pieces, for example Do's and Don'ts (just like this!).

One of these content marketing strategies should always be applied when creating any new piece of content. Content is, after all, a marketing tool and should ultimately aim to drive users to the site and boost brand awareness and consumer interaction. Without an objective, as above, it's helping nobody.

So, with that out the way, here are our very own Do's and Don'ts, to help you develop your content marketing strategy.

DO: Offer the reader something

Viral content marketing aside, each piece of content should help the reader in some way. This could be through educating, advising, entertaining or offering some kind of solution. Yes, at the end of the day Content Marketing is just that, marketing, but it should ultimately lead the reader to some kind of goal rather than just be self-serving. It should aim to encourage contribution and engagement while positioning your brand as a go-to thought leader or expert.

DON'T: Regurgitate old content

In the real world recycling may be great, but online there's nothing worse. Your content marketing strategy should be inventive and reactionary, incorporating developments in the industry, the latest viral trends and consistently offer your readers something new, fresh and engaging.

DO: Make it search-friendly

All marketing content strategies should be SEO (or Search Engine Optimisation)-friendly. That means when generating your content you need to take into account what your audience is looking for and what is likely to draw attention. With Google's updated algorthyms now kicking in it can be hard to stay ahead of the system, but SEO Moz is a great place to start. Also make sure you are monitoring your social footprint and the traffic your content generates. This way you'll know what is working and what isn't, as well as identifying room for growth.

The definition of decoupling in advertising and marketing is the splitting of the origination of the creative idea and the production of that idea.

Many marketers are tasked with doing more with static or shrinking budgets. The answer to this, is often ‘ to decouple’ production.

Despite the potential benefits, many marketers only have a limited understanding of what decoupling in advertising and marketing actually is, how to decouple and who it is suitable for.

This post, from Gutenberg CEO Simon Steel, the first in a series, looks at the history of decoupling in advertising and marketing and provides a clear explanation of what decoupling is.


The history of decoupling and advertising and marketing

The full service advertising agency had a privileged relationship with advertisers. They often acted as consultant, procurement department, media buying agency, promotional and direct marketing agency rolled into one. Production was craft and many specialists were employed to realise the creative idea, such as specialist typesetters. Production was expensive, time consuming and arms-length from the advertiser. Suppliers such as printers and re-pro houses were managed by the agency and prices marked up.

Gradually this model split and fragmented. Media buying went into specialists, as did direct marketing, promotional marketing and web, all splintering again into the fragmented market we see today, leaving creative agencies with the creative idea and the execution and production of that creative idea. At the same time technology made the execution, delivery and production of campaign material easier and clients, led by specialist procurers started to look at their agency invoices and wonder if things couldn’t be done a bit more efficiently.

This set the scene for decoupling.

Single integrated or specialist agencies tend to make significant margin on the production of marketing material. They are often high overhead businesses, with large fixed operating costs. By decoupling the production of marketing assets and centralising the procurement of printed material, clients tend to save upward of 20% from their overall marketing budget.