Feature Stories - June 2007

Getting Your Message Across

Creating an Interactive Brand Experience

by Stephanie Beck Herrera

So what came first, the company’s brand or the technology to promote it? With technology changing at an almost moment-by-moment pace – just watch the different cell phone ads that seem to be created on a weekly basis – one would assume a marketer’s job in promoting a client would need to reflect that pace.

Gone are the days of relying solely on the traditional avenues of brand promotion. Rather, these traditional media are further developed not only to get the message delivered, but to create a more interactive experience for the target audience.

Take cable television, for example. Norm Pytel, general sales manager for Charter Media in Northern Nevada, shares how cable television advertising opportunities define more clearly where target markets exist and how to reach them. Whereas network television programming may have a program that appeals to a massive audience, cable television programming, by its very nature, defines specific markets. By counseling companies to focus on specific channels such as HGTV or the History Channel, a target can be accessed more definitively based on personal taste, instead of having to wade through the masses to find that specific percentage. You may say, that’s not a new marketing strategy … but wait, there’s more.

Advertisers usually only get their message delivered in a 30-second or 60-second commercial spot, but what if a company has more to say? A relatively new advertising product called “I Want More” is available at Charter On Demand. Companies can create longer segments that further describes their products or services. Interested viewers can access these spots at-will from Charter’s “I Want More” menu. Each regular commercial is tagged at the end, directing interested viewers to visit this expanded menu to learn more about the client’s offering.

The cable affiliate in Los Angeles has been experimenting with offering an in-depth informational option for golf courses, restaurants, gaming opportunities and a program called New Home Tour. This affords potential homebuyers the opportunity to visit a variety of homes in various markets without leaving their own living room. Consumers can narrow down the search until they’re ready to start visiting available homes in person.

The upside to not only getting the message across is tracking its success. While Charter Media can’t obtain personal information, the company can let an advertiser know how many people opted to watch additional information and for how long. And when it comes to crossover, Pytel compared On Demand interactive offerings as a cross between the Internet, television and direct mail. The people who actively seek out this information are in the market to buy.

Of course, as the technology changes, so does the opportunity for more interactive media. Currently, plans are in place for an expansion of the On Demand advertising product. The company is experimenting with tools that allow viewers to use their remote control, when prompted to seek additional information. Consumers will no longer have to specifically search out a menu item, but rather, when asked if they desire more in-depth options, they can be telescoped straight to the expanded informational piece. “One cable company in Hawaii is currently experimenting with a program that, for example, allows the viewer to see a pizza restaurant advertisement,” said Pytel. “At the end of the commercial, a prompt comes up asking if the consumer wants to go ahead and order a pizza. By hitting a button on the remote control, a signal is sent to the pizza company and the viewer can expect a phone call shortly thereafter with customer service offering to take his or her order.”

Not all new branding options are in the form of commercials, however. Creative marketers see branding not just as a specific campaign, but as an opportunity to hit their target market every chance possible. Branding is an ongoing process, rather than a one-time ramped-up campaign designed to introduce a new product or develop recognition, and technology is creating more opportunities.

Paula Yakubik, managing partner of MassMedia PR in Las Vegas, said her philosophy is really founded on helping clients understand the power of their own web sites. “We talk to our clients about their web sites being the most important thing they have,” said Yakubik. A company’s web site is a conduit to not only provide in-depth information, but also feature it in different ways.

One recent marketing innovation, the podcast, is a great tool for advertising clients who provide training services to their own clients. Rather than have participants actually leave their offices, find parking and spend extra time in the process, they can log on to the podcast during lunch from the comfort of their offices. “Our clients can consistently drive traffic to their web sites while still serving their customers by using podcasts,” said Yakubik.

Mary Ann Melee, president and chief strategic officer for R&R Partners in Las Vegas, agrees with the importance of thoroughly utilizing a web site and taking it a step further for clients. “LasVegas.com has continued to build a brand while creating an interactive experience,” said Melee. “A web site like this can speak to millions of people on a one-on-one basis to help future visitors create a trip that’s personalized to their desires.” It also helps marketers with the push/pull process. Marketing professionals are often tasked with pushing the target audience to a venue that will provide information. With interactive sites such as LasVegas.com, it actually pulls the visitor through to the buying process so an actual financial transaction takes place. Additionally, a company can have a site created and build a database that actually allows the company to own the transaction data. At the end of the day, the more information a company has about how and why a consumer makes a purchase, the better that company can deliver future messages and strengthen the brand recognition.

According to Melee, mass-reach media on a local level, such as Television and radio, are still the most utilized. However, the power comes through building the database that is more specific to the individual potential consumer. “We are constantly engaging customers, developing a relationship and learning to utilize it,” said Melee. “Technology has helped narrow down the target audience.”

For example, direct mail pieces can be designed in a manner to grab the consumer’s attention on a more personal level. By researching information such as how future customers make a purchase, how much they purchase, what kind of cars they drive and what types of restaurants they prefer, the audience is narrowed down and the message made more specific. “Perhaps through your research, you discover that the top 20 percent of your target audience enjoys fine dining,” said Melee. “You then have learned that to reach that audience, you should be buying ad space on the Food Network.” By utilizing technology to narrow down the audience’s interests, savvy marketers know where and how to find the best reflection of the target audience. This allows marketing professionals to make sure the brand message is being received by the people who actually want that brand, as opposed to shotgun marketing the masses, where you shoot and hope in the process that you hit your target audience in there somewhere.

Flip Wright, director of brand strategy and account planning for the Rose-Glenn Group in Reno, said that advertisers are really trying to develop a relationship with customers through the brand experience. It’s not just a passive relationship, with one member delivering a message and the other receiving it. Rather, the brand experience is designed to give the audience something memorable, that stays with them and makes each individual feel special.

Technology can be utilized in surprising ways to further strengthen a brand. One unique example is Second Life – an online society where real people create fictional online personas who exist in virtual reality. People can travel, go dancing, shopping or just hang out at a bar, visiting with the regulars in the Second Life world. “If a company such as Chili’s wants to launch new product ideas, they can put them on the Second Life menu and see who orders what,” said Wright. Second Life creates an enormous virtual test market that can essentially help guide companies through the decision-making process when adding new products and services.

Similarly, MySpace and YouTube have also provided useful marketing vehicles, particularly since the Internet has changed the way people interact with each other. Marketers can take advantage of the rapid-fire communications that occur on sites such as MySpace and YouTube to create “buzz” about new products and services. “Movies have huge followings before they are released in theaters because of the brand awareness created by these web sites,” said Wright. Blogs are also very useful tools that can help increase third party endorsements of a brand. “Many trendy sites generate publicity – both positive and negative – for a wide range of products and services,” said Wright. The challenge is in getting positive buzz for your brand without bloggers feeling like they’re being used or manipulated to get a message across.

The emerging changes and trends in technology have not become so advanced that traditional media such as print and electronic can be disregarded. “Print is still a great medium that offers business plenty of advertising opportunities. It is still used very creatively to produce a strong, tangible brand experience,” said Wright. With print, however, advertisers can tell a story with text or with a powerful image. Many consumers go back and look at magazines more than just once. Advertisers do not have to keep their message in a specific time allotment and can create an emotional experience with a photo or a few words. “Grabbing the consumer’s attention is not done only through the medium, but by how you communicate that message,” said Wright.

There is a new concept on the rise in the industry called brand utility, according to Wright. The goal of brand utility is to get consumers to interact and identify with the brand. The process attaches additional value to owning and identifying with the brand and doesn’t require a huge number of commercial spots to deliver the message. “Traditional advertising is still needed but creating brand utility simply adds to the overall package,” he said. It allows marketers to get away from a passive setting and really make an emotional connection.

Apple is an example of a company that has a thorough understanding of the importance in creating an emotional connection for a brand. While Apple was not always a mainstream product, it still enjoyed strong brand loyalty among those consumers who owned an Apple computer.

However, the company didn’t have a crossover to mass appeal. “The iPod was the gateway ‘drug’ for Apple,” Wright said. “It enabled consumers to experience what Apple was all about. Now the Apple brand is perceived as cool, and there’s a lot of value being placed on cool these days.” The company purposely designed their headphones to be white – a color that is now synonymous with the Apple brand. “When one person sees another person wearing white headphones an immediate connection is made to iPod – Apple – that’s cool,” he said.

Technology is always changing, which means the way people use it is also changing. Technology can provide that interactive component that brings the client full circle to the purchasing process. “When it’s all said and done, branding isn’t easy and it needs to be researched first with a strategy developed second,” Wright said. When technology is added to the traditional forms of branding with an increase in the frequency of how often a target audience is reached, changes start to take place. While the recipe for success sounds simple enough, proceeding without the right research and data development may leave a branding campaign flat.

It’s hard to tell if technology is changing to better provide a venue for companies to place their brands squarely in front of the target audience, or if the technology is simply changing and creative marketers are learning how to better utilize these tools. In this case, it doesn’t matter whether the chicken or the egg came first. It’s more important for companies to understand that more tools exist for getting the message across, and to clearly understand how to make these tools work to reach their clients.

Stephanie Beck Herrera
Stephanie Beck Herrera is a freelance writer based in Northern Nevada.