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UNIT 7 Digital Brands Are Established and Have Clear and Attractive Imagery

The unique attributes of digital media not only contribute to digital branding’s ability to familiarize consumers and other important stakeholders with the brand, but also establish the one-of-a-kind, attractive brand imagery which is sustainable over the long term. How does the discipline manage this? EXPERIENCES IN DIGITAL BRAND ENVIRONMENTS Direct experiences and interactions substantially influence brand awareness and imagery. Digital brand environments offer these interactions. But only if the brand can be truly experienced and interacted with in digital spaces so that the impressions are consistent and clear memory structures can be built.

(Foto: Herbst)

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STAGES OF AWARENESS The strong digital brand must have presence, only then can it become like and develop an imagery:

I can only make a picture in my head of what I know

Awareness and attention alone are not enough. Many start-ups experience this first-hand when they advertise on the cheap and for shock value like showing rabbits cut in half, a person’s butt covered in mosquito bites or the beginning letters of a company spelled out in lines of cocaine. This kind of advertising tends to frighten rather than endear. Awareness is established to different degrees:

No awareness: people do not recognize the brand even when prompted.

Passive awareness: people recognize the brand when they are prompted (assisted awareness).

Active awareness: people mention the brand unprompted (unassisted awareness).

Intense active awareness: the brand is one of the first that comes to mind in the category. This mental presence is also referred to as actualized. The brand first mentioned is considered “top of mind“.

Exclusive awareness: awareness of only one brand in the category.

The latter three stages are important in digital media because the user actively searches for pages and hereby submit their name in the form of an internet address. Building awareness works best offline, especially when the consumer is not interested enough to actively search for the brand online.

Images = knowledge and judgment

Images consist of everything we know about a brand und how we evaluate that information: whether we consider it valuable and positive, irrelevant or negative. Images determine the success of a brand above and beyond product or technological superiority – if the consumer does not see it that way, then product superiority is unimportant:

Consumers select the product they subjectively find superior, not necessarily the objectively superior product

Therefore it is imperative for digital branding to find out what the brand imagery of our consumers looks like and then to build on it in a focused way: our consumers should evaluate the knowledge and rewarding feelings they connect with our brand as positive. Most optimal is if our consumers think of our brand in connection with certain characteristics – and vice versa, of certain characteristics in connection with the brand. The image of our brand can be content-driven, visual or both. Brands without such an image in the mind of the consumer or with an unclear one produce no distinct effect. IMAGES ARE COMPLICATED AND DYNAMIC The more that is known about the brand, the broader and more reliable the brand image –numerous facets surround the brand. If too little is known about the brand, only a plain, over-simplified picture of the brand exists.

Images are built quickly: a single piece of new information is often all that is required to change brand image in the beginning. A new internet company is considered a successful challenger until the first bad reports come in.

Images are slow to take: it takes time until an image solidifies since our consumers must learn what our brand stands for and what feelings it evokes through ever new experiences.

Images are never fixed: images may be stable but they are never set in stone. A company’s long-standing, open and trustworthy reputation can be quickly turned around as soon as rumors of deceit begin going around.

Images function selectively: if a brand makes a positive mark with consumers, they are willing to accept less-positively evaluated brand characteristics along with (halo effect). Therefore the focus must be on conveying those most important characteristics.

Images are a composite: they are the result of manifold information and impressions. Images come from colors and shapes, from symbols like the apple, from brand stories and language.

Images come from different sources: brand imagery does not only stem from our experiences but can come from other brands. In addition, imagery is influenced by family, friends, social groups (e.g. sports club), mass media, institutions (banks, insurance companies), organizations and interest groups.

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We need to consider this and incorporate yet other sources into our digital branding

Other users in social networks are especially valuable to brand images: when some one has a bad experience with a brand, they can immediately spread the word en masse. STRONG DIGITAL BRANDS CREATE VIVID IMAGES Strong digital brands are connected to pictures and stories inside us. Consider Apple, BMW and Disney. Such inner pictures and stories dramatically effect our behavior because they are at once the language of our unconscious. And the unconscious, in turn, guides behavior (see above). Visual imagery is incredibly important to us. We take in 80% of what’s around us visually. 60% of our brain’s work is dedicated to the perceptions, processing and storing of visual data. Pictures and stories speak directly to the visual center of our brain with no need for decoding. This is most true during times of information overload. Connections between the visual- and other centers of the brain contribute to the efficacy of pictures: it’s how a YouTube video can cause us to imagine the smell of fresh cut hay in a spring field. If a visual image successfully activates all our senses, the effects on our 5 senses are multiplied by a factor of 10; termed “multi-sensory enhancement“. We will return to this in Chapter 4. Stories speak to all the senses. Working with symbols and linguistic narratives, they easily anchor themselves in memory.

A picture is worth a thousand words. But a story is worth more than a thousand pictures.

STRONG BRANDS IN DIGITAL MEDIA Digital Brand Management is brand management in digital media and with digital technologies. Their unique attributes contribute in a particular way to brand management. They make incredible experience possible and by that virtue, increase brand value. That said, a look at reality is sobering: click-through is missing. Visitors are bored, irritated or even angered. How does it come to that? In order to capitalize on the opportunities digital brand management offers, organization, planning and execution must be in tune. A successful brand showing in digital media must consider the unique attributes and put them to directed use. DIGITAL MEDIA CAN CHANGE IMAGES Digital branding can contribute to brand imagery in a number of ways:

new memory structures can be created online. This is required of new brands which lack existing communication.

the internet can strengthen or deepen existing memory structures if it’s used to make content experiential that already exists in the memory.

the internet can rewrite or erase old memory structures by letting consumers experience the brand in a new way.

the internet can evolve memory structure by introducing new brand characteristics to the target group, e.g. dialogue capacity.

CONCLUSION Digital media is able to contribute in a one-of-a-kind way to shaping brand awareness and to developing brand image over the long term. To do this we must capitalize on the unique aspects of digital media. We will discuss what this looks like in Chapter 2. Brands must tell powerful, one-of-a-kind and emotional stories. More in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4 we will look at how to build digital brand environments via effective emotional brand coding. WHAT YOU LEARNED IN THIS CHAPTER Strong Brands

are products and services with a powerful, one-of-a-kind, rewarding feeling at purchase

operate to a large degree unconsciously

are known and leave behind a clear and appealing image

build clear pictures and stories in the mind

have formulated a brand reward promise as the basis for brand’s management