Wednesday, November 21, 2007

South Africa: Creating Market Equity Through Reverse Branding - AllAfrica.com

Gregory SerandosCape Town

As consumers go increasingly savvy, traditional branding attempts that get with the trade name (e.g. BMW) and make an association (safe, cautious drivers) go more than than and more dubious.

This is why, in the U.S., we are experiencing the rise of contrary branding, which turns traditional trade name selling on its head. In the contrary branding scenario, clients begin with the class like a hunt engine or a pizza, and from there they do one trade name (Google or Debonairs) the obvious choice.

With so many trade names cluttering the market, we believe rearward branding is an effectual manner to separate your company and products. To acquire your head around contrary branding, you can begin with these steps.

Make a connection

The human race is loaded with companies who consistently settle down for the bare minimum. You can put yourself apart by make an emotional necktie with your clients through handwritten notes, telephone calls, gifts, golf game days, and most importantly through effectual populace relations, delivering utile information that volition aid clients in their concern or personal capacities.

Connect your messages with the market

We pay far more than attending to remarks in the mass media and recommendations from friends and than we make to from advertising. Are your company up to the challenge?

Start with apprehension who do the purchasing determinations on your products, then profile how, where, and why they desire to have information. That volition aid you work out 'key messages' that your company consistently acquires out to the market. Those cardinal messages, if delivered through the right mass media or medium, will heavily act upon purchases over the short and long-term.

Tell your story

Human beingnesses latch on to stories, not adroit advertisement that wins industry awards. To acquire your narrative out there, you can utilize traditional promotion or praseodymium activities to acquire write-ups in the press. You necessitate to state your narrative with a compelling message with an oculus on your place in the market. The narrative must stand up out in the marketplace, excite interest, and most importantly turn involvement into action.

Choose the right media/medium

There is a batch of traditional mass media out there starving for good quality, relevant content. Why not your story? Think about connecting your marketplace with your media, including traditional TV, radio, and print, and of increasing importance in South African, online. If you are communicating to any portion of the selling community, Bizcommunity.com is terrific. For the ICT sector, there is ITWeb. For finance, Moneyweb.

Better yet, believe creatively. If you are targeting 20-something consumers, believe about how you can present your message cleverly through MySpace or Facebook or even Internet dating sites. You have got no thought how much clip this demographic passes online communicating with 'friends'.

Relevant Links

The underside line

People believe about the material they desire before they believe of the brand. If I'm tired and hot and thirsty, I purchase a Coke. If I desire a consistently bad hamburger, I travel to McDonalds. If I desire to affect my friends with wealthiness and sophistication, I order a insurance premium suds like Pilsner rather than a Castle. Customers believe about what they want. Then they make up one's mind who can ran into that need. This is the underside line of contrary branding.

Gregory Serandos is mendelevium of PURE Communications, a praseodymium and digital selling agency.

No comments: