Web Branding

Branding is often thought of as a marketing strategy reserved for major consumer product companies, but the fact is all businesses are brands that are either cultivated so they blossom, or let go-to-seed like a garden full of weeds. Most people often think of branding only in terms of some physical manifestation, like a logo, but a brand is the full complement of residual impressions resulting from all the experiences associated with a product, service or company. And today, the online experience is a vital venue for creating those experiences. By using video you have the opportunity to tap into the audiences’ subconscious mind, the buried remnants of both remembered and forgotten experiences; the kind of experiences that form attitudes, prejudices, and preferences that inform our decisions, most importantly our buying decisions. Where businesses go wrong is settling for only the obvious, the logical, and the rational. Brands are formed in the subconscious, so if your marketing communication doesn’t reach the subconscious mind then it is not establishing or enhancing the brand in any meaningful effective long-term way. Video is a powerful marketing tool that, when done right, it communicates on both the obvious and subconscious levels, making it the ideal Web-communication vehicle for creating a powerful brand experience, but only if you use it as a persuasive motivating presentation to communicate on multiple levels. Jerry Bader of MRPwebmedia refers to developing, delivering, enhancing, and managing a Web-based brand as the brand story process. A story has a plot, a hero, a villain, a format, and is an agent for change. At the heart of the story is the marketing message that invokes change: a transformation from dissatisfaction to satisfaction, and not just a presentation of features and benefits. Take the ‘Multi Grain Cheerios’ commercial featuring a husband and wife discussing the ingredients listed on the cereal box: while the overt message is buy this product because it tastes good, the underlying message is that it helps control your weight thus making you more attractive to your spouse, not a subject that any sensitive spouse would suggest. The cereal is presented as the agent of change: overweight and unattractive, to slim and beautiful, while at the same time removing the stigma of dieting by providing the taste excuse to justify the purchase. This commercial creates a conflict that delivers multiple messages through the familiar husband-wife scenario; one that is familiar to anyone who has ever dared suggest their significant other should lose some weight. Unlike television advertising that is restricted to only those that can afford it, the Web is available to all. The problem is easy and affordable access to the tools and venues to deliver your brand story does not mean that you are 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 basis upon which you build your brand story.