Know-How Exchange : Branding

Good and interesting topic. Because the digital techniques are relatively new, there isn't nearly enough research on them yet.

A few suggestions: First, limit the scope of your work to a single industry or sector. If you try to consider all brands, all forms of digital marketing, all regions of the world, and all possible impacts, you'll never get to the end of your rainbow.

Second, be sure to include the possibility that the impact of digital techniques is negligible and/or not measurable just yet. Remember that brands exist in customers' minds, and as they use different media to learn things, it doesn't necessarily change what they think.

Said another way, it's possible that the medium doesn't really affect the message all that much. At least consider that possibility and allow for a result that confirms this (or not).

Finally, you might want to limit the scope of "digital techniques" because they are not all the same. For example, email and Twitter are both digital. So are blogs and online forums, search advertising, SEO, etc. But they may not all have the same effect on brand-building or reinforcing a brand's image. Pick one of them and use that for your research. Otherwise you may be tempted to mix apples and oranges and get a fruit-salad result.

Hope this helps.

Dear Riah,

To follow on from Michael's first rate points above you need to also be crystal clear what you mean when you tell people you want to investigate how new digital techniques are affecting branding and brand building.

It's imperative here that you be clear and that you break your message down by explaining what you mean by the terms "new digital techniques", "affect branding", and "brand building".

A great deal of crap is peddled as "truth" when it comes to branding, so one of your goals must be to be extremely clear on one vital element: branding has little if anything to do with logos, colours, typefaces, and all the other visual clutter that so many brand experts would have us believe make up the fabric of a brand.

Personally, I'm SICK TO DEATH of talentless, moronic half wits that have backgrounds in fields so far removed from marketing as to be beyond belief making judgments and proclamations about branding. How these people get into these positions is beyond me, really it is. Their tinkering, meddling, and clueless directions belittle the true meaning of brand integrity, dilute the value of the message and the product benefit for the customer, and their meddling destroys relationships that have great potential for success and growth (not that I have any strong feelings on this you understand).

Brands are about making, keeping, and over delivering on promises to the customer. Brands are NOT about farting around with bland headlines that generate no attention and that offer the customer no benefit for taking action.

There was a time (long forgotten now, alas) when a gentleman's word was his bond, and when a handshake sealed a deal in such a way that no signature was required. A promise made in this way was never gone back on.

Ever. This kind of agreement is the thing that built banks, corporations, and empires; this kind of agreement was made of steel and stone. It would stand forever.

A real brand then—one that's worth a damn—is NOT its delivery system, it's a powerfully forged chain, the strength of which is unyielding, no matter what the strain, no matter what the pressure.

I echo and applaud Michael's comment about the medium. So true. Screw the medium! The medium is the envelope or the box in which the letter or the package is delivered. It is a vehicle—nothing more.

If the promise and, more importantly, the ability of the brand to DELIVER is powerful, compelling, robust, and enticing enough the medium could be a damp napkin on which the message is written in crayon: the medium would be irrelevant.

Brands that are planned and positioned and brands that are able to condition the thinking, choices, decisions, and actions of customers KICK ASS and CRUSH all opposition by virtue of their ability to persuade and deliver on the promise made—whatever that promise is. Brands of this weight could be delivered in any way at all and they'd still trump the newest technology delivering a lack luster, piss poor promise.

The delivery method is not what matters, it's the message and the weight of the promise, or the solution delivered that really weeds out the so so from the gold.

I hope this helps. Good luck with your thesis.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

Q. Firstly, do you think it would be reasonable to approach my dissertation from the perspective that branding is in the customers mind, and that the new hype around digital techniques is merely a new trend marketers are using to appear innovative (I think Gary rubbed off on me). So making a point about vechicles not being as importent [sic] as the message.

A. It's not just reasonable but IMPERATIVE that you approach the dissertation with the perspective that branding is in the customers' minds. Where else could it possibly be?

And "digital techniques" are really just new kinds of media for communication. The concept of establishing a positioning (in consumers' minds) is nothing new. It's just the media that are new. They work faster/slower, are more/less complete, etc., but they don't change the substance of real branding.

Branding is all about establishing an internal "picture" of a product or service -- a feeling, or a sense of what it is -- in the minds of your target audience. It's done through experience with the product as well as through what people say, hear and read about it, and what thoughts occur to them when the product is recalled, how they react emotionally and viscerally, etc.

Whether they get their impressions through traditional media, a phone call from a friend, or some "digital technique" are really of secondary (or even tertiary) importance.

Q. Secondly, if i was to focus on a specific industry, do you have any suggestions. also which digital technique/s would you recommend.

A. It really doesn't matter. You should probably pick an industry, country and technology in which (a) there is a lot of experience already (i.e., lots of observations); and (b) you might want to work one day, so the time and effort you put into this can actually benefit you down the road.

One possibility: Consumer electronics (including smart phones) in the US/Canada, Eastern Europe or China. But it needs to be an industry and a location that is convenient/comfortable for YOU, not for anyone else.

Hope this helps.