MAKE YOUR EFFORTS COUNT, THE PARADIGMS OF BRAND ACTIVATION

Imagine you want to bring attention to a social cause, say, safe driving. You are an automobile brand. How would you do it? One of the best ways is to collaborate with various other brands, so you can show that safety is your priority and not just profit.

Bring marketing agencies and build a whole campaign for it and fetch attention to safe driving. Not only will it get people talking about you but would build a perception around safety. When they would buy a vehicle for themselves or their family, it is more likely they would go for your brand.

Hence, when we get to the crux of the matter, brand activation is a technique that aims to generate buzz, drive customer attention, increase brand awareness and build the foundation of long-lasting relationships with the target audience, enabling the customer to engage with the customer directly. All in all, brand activation is a brand-building exercise. It aims to provide an experience to the customers that keeps them coming back. This same effect is in question, on a much more elementary level when a brand collaborates with the right signage vendor to create that momentary buzz.

Now moving back to the broader scale. Traditionally, when the brand introduces new products in the market they get the word out and ask the customers to try out the product. But things are changing and it is well understood that half-baked efforts won't get the brand anywhere. Brands are getting creative and looking for interesting ways to reach customers. Now brand activation is more than spreading the word about new products. It is about brand building a relationship, great one at that, with its customers, not just to try out products and services but also to build a brand for the better.

While lots of strategizing and planning involves, how the activation is executed matters a lot. Just like any marketing, brand activation needs to be well executed. Sometimes they are one-time things, sometimes they go a long way. But in both scenarios, the work of the brand doesn't end that the end of the purchase. Hence it is important that brands keep on looking at how they can continue to engage with the audience. Here are a few elements that make brand activations more effective at an engaging audience and help initiate good conversations around the initiatives and the brand.

CHAMP AT THE BIT BUT STAY TRUE TO YOUR PROMISES

Get your audience excited about your product. When it comes to generating excitement and adding to the adrenaline, the world could be your oyster. You can start with simple activities such as treasure hunts or hashtag content. If you want to dig deep and go above and beyond. Think in terms that can have a high impact and can influence your audience to participate. Adding a social cause to your activities can trigger participation and inspire you to become a part of a social cause.

Not only would this help the brand create a buzz around itself but also contribute to a greater cause overall. However, make sure you stay true to the motivations because your customer is smart enough to see through hollow initiatives. The fast fashion industry is already being accused of greenwashing––while they boast about their environmental efforts on their websites and social media, nothing constructive has come out of it. People all over the world have criticized brands and sought out environmentally friendly alternatives.

MOTIVATE PEOPLE TO COME TO YOU

If the consumer has a reason to come to you, they would come to you. They want you to give them a good experience, or an experience that is worth their while. Remember your customers are busy and they don't have all the time in the world. Get yourself in their shoes and understand what they might want from you. What can you do to motivate them to come to you?

If the event is at the waterpark. Take a good look at what kind of people come to these places. What they demand and what you can do differently so that they engage with you. Sometimes, having a deep dive into the environment of your audience can inspire you to think of how you can create something that can engage with your audience.

It may be as easy as placing a shower on a beach where people frequently dabble in the sand. People commonly recognize that they don't need to go all the way to their rooms to wash the sand off of their bodies. Not only a simple short-term installation caused the consumer to interact with the brand but also it created a buzz around so much so that it can influence others to do the same.

MAKE YOUR MESSAGING CONSISTENT

All great branding activations have one thing in common––their messaging across all channels such as your website, social media platforms, emails, etc is uniform. If you want people to remember you, you need to be consistent about the communication you have in place on different channels. Imagine you are introducing discount coupons on your eCommerce website; your social media should also reflect the same.

People's interaction with a brand is not uniform and brands cannot always know what touchpoint caused the conversion to happen. A person might go to your eCommerce website when they see a billboard and one could receive a WhatsApp message that makes them browse your website. Hence, whatever you communicate through these channels must say the same thing so that when people interact with people they are not confused about what you are saying or trying to communicate.

UNDERSTAND YOUR CUSTOMER ENVIRONMENT

This is where most of the intricate details come in. Here every small addition count. One of the most crucial steps to creating engagement opportunities for your audience is to understand what kind of engagement would make sense to them. If you sell coffee, how can you make them engage with your brand? In the morning people are usually extremely sleepy. Getting a shot of caffeine might cheer them up a bit and give them a boost to have a good start to the day.

A coffee brand created a similar activity to boost the buzz around the brand. They installed digital screens on almost all metro stations. The person on the digital screen would yawn every two to three minutes, which caused people nearby to yawn as well. Folks with coffee plates eventually approach people who are yawning and provide them with coffee. Not only it made people talk about the brand, but it also increased its sales. All in all, understand your audience's behavior and take those insights and build engagement opportunities that would get the most out of your efforts but are effortless for your audience.

PEOPLE ALWAYS SHARE A LAUGH

When you think of connecting with your brand. Be attentive to your audience but don't think too seriously. People take themselves too seriously. Naturally, people running these brands also going to take things way too hard. But, more and more businesses nowadays are embracing the power of humor and making it a part of their brand. What brands have realized about humor? People always share a laugh.

Multiple studies have shown, people prefer witty brands. Why so? Not only it makes them laugh (obviously). It also makes them they are part of the joke. Humor not only makes the customer relate to the brand but also makes it trustworthy. And why would not anyone subscribe to something that makes them laugh? Memes are often far more shared and saved than anything else on Instagram.

If brands integrate that very thing into their branding, they would reach more people and ultimately be preferred over their competitors. Think of the largest food delivery in India. How their Instagram feed is filled with relatable content that drives their engagement across channels and boosts their sales and gets their business to new pinnacles.