What's up brand builders Stephen Houraghan here at BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this video
you're going to learn six of the best and most unique branding strategies that you can leverage
so you can not only differentiate yourself from the competition
but give your audience a compelling meaning to choose your brand
now if you're new to the channel and you want to build brands that go beyond the visual and
the logo using strategy psychology and creative thinking then you're in the right place hit that
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now there are many brand strategies that a brand can use to engage its audience and resonate with
who they are now some of those strategies are innovative and groundbreaking other strategies are
a little bit more simplistic and resounding but at the end of the day the role of the brand is to
get the audience to remember the business that's the role that the brand plays and the best way to
do that is to give them a meaning as to why they should remember the brand so that's what strategy
is all about and in this video i want to give you six unique strategies that you can use to
give your audience meaning strategy number one is experiential branding now there is brand
experience and experiential branding and they're often confused but they are distinctly different
every brand has a brand experience or better put every brand provides a brand experience
to the audience now whether or not they take the time to design that brand experience
is irrelevant the audience will engage the brand or have an experience with the brand
and depending on what that experience is like and the associations they have through that experience
will depend on how they remember that brand so every single brand provides a brand experience
whether they design it or not experiential branding on the other hand is all about
actively designing sensory engagements with the audience and these sensory engagements are usually
very unique and the benefit and the advantage of these sensory experiences is that they're easily
remembered they're easily stored in the memory and therefore it's easier for the audience to recall
the brand now a study by mood media found that 9 out of 10 sensory experiences drive consumers
back to the store so in other words if you are providing sensory experiences if you're
providing experiences that engage the senses sight sound smell touch these are the senses that
really engage the brain and engage those memory structures and create those memory structures and
they provide us with a means to get back to that brand experience and remember that brand now of
course not every single touch point needs to be an actively designed sensory experience but the more
sensory experiences that you can provide within your overall brand experience so sight sound
touch smell the more likely that your audience is going to store that experience to memory and
recall your brand later on so let's have a look at an experiential branding example from wwf
and this was for stopping wildlife trafficking now wwf was on a mission to raise awareness
amongst the public in london around the issue of animal trafficking and to engage the census they
created a life-sized elephant hologram to roam the streets of london for 24 hours and that image of
an elephant walking towards it on the streets of london is not something that you'd forget
in a hurry so this is a really good example of experiential branding really engaging those senses
and helping the audience to store that experience to memory strategy number two is activist branding
now this one is not for the faint of heart because there's very little room for error here now the
reason that i say that is that although consumers have thrown the gauntlet down to brands to
be more vocal about issues within society or political issues there's also a lot of skepticism
within the general public that brands are trying to woke wash which is the term that's been given
to brands who are trying to take advantage of these issues by aligning themselves when there's
no real substantial action behind it so if this is a strategy that you are considering if there's
strong belief behind a cause that you want to get behind and really think long and hard about using
this strategy because as I said there's not a lot of room for error with this one so let's
take a look at brand activism or activist branding with ben and jerry's now while many brands tiptoe
around sensitive issues or like to dip a toe in to gauge the temperature ben and jerry's don't
subscribe to doing things by halves quite clearly without fear of losing business to customers that
take an opposing view or anything other than what they believe they took a firm position
on how they saw the murder of george floyd and this is what they put on their social media page
the murder of george floyd was the result of inhumane police brutality
that is perpetuated by a culture of white supremacy again not doing any things
not doing anything half baked here they really went all in on this and they don't really care
that other people might have an opposing viewer other people might view things differently they
aren't afraid of losing customers they're more committed to really putting a flag in the ground
for what they believe is right moving on to strategy number three and we have a look at
personality branding now this strategy is a lot more palatable than the previous strategy of
brand activism and it's a lot more applicable to most brands as well there's nothing technical
about this approach it's really about defining who the audience is really understanding them on an
intimate level and the type of communication that they would respond to and then giving them that
communication engaging with them on that level and really meeting them where they are meeting them
with what appeals to them what type of characteristics and traits appeal to them and
really giving them that personality engaging with them with that personality so this strategy is a
lot more simplistic and a lot more resounding and it's really about connecting with who the
audience is on a personal level now the beauty about this strategy is that it's not complicated
it's effective it's efficient and it's economical as well and if it's done right it can really
engage the audience with who they are and what they want and really connect with them
on an emotional level and capture their hearts as well so let's have a look at a personality
branding example from old spice now allspice was considered an old man's brand that most men below
40 wouldn't ever consider and even if they did they probably wouldn't tell anybody then in 2010
realizing the aging brand image that they had in the market and the declining market share that
went with that procter and gamble engaged global agency wyden and kennedy to reposition the brand
to appeal to the younger generation and the result was a viral campaign oozing humor and personality
that reshaped the image of old spice in the mind of that younger segment and the result was a 125
increase in sales and the coveted top spot for brands in the men's body wash category now again
although this campaign was super successful we can attribute the success of this campaign down to a
single element of their repositioning strategy which was based largely around their personality
and how they engage their audience so again this is not complex stuff here but very very
effective strategy number four is distinctive asset branding now many branding experts really
push the idea that differentiation is king and you have to differentiate or die now byron sharp
who is a marketing professor in australia and a well-renowned marketing professor at that takes
a completely opposing view and doesn't believe that differentiation is possible at all instead
he promotes the idea that brands need to be distinctive so that the audience can remember
that brand during the buying decision now i don't really take the same view as byron sharp although
i don't have that kind of background and that kind of reputation to be able to question his logic but
really i believe that there is a balance here and you can differentiate but i also believe
that distinctive branding assets are absolutely critical when it comes to being remembered now
the reason these distinctive brand assets are effective is that they create memory structures
and the more memory structures that we have of a brand the more chance we have of finding our
way back to that brand experience or remembering that brand during the buying decision so create as
many distinctive brand assets as possible put them out into the marketplace use them on your social
media pages on your website on your brochures or any single touch point that your brand has create
those unique visual cues and give your audience the best possible chance of remembering your brand
let's take a look at a distinctive asset branding example from burberry now the burberry brand is an
iconic british brand created by thomas burberry in 1856 now although the brand is known for its
high street fashion one of the most distinctive brand assets which has supported its success has
been its iconic czech pattern now this scottish tartan design was created in the 1920s and it
was initially only sewn into the inset of coats but 40 years later the pattern emerged from the
inset of coats to become a fashion trend in and of itself that's synonymous with quality to this day
this pattern is a distinctive asset that marketing professor mark written refers to
as a brand code which he suggests leads to brand salience strategy number five is heritage branding
now heritage branding leverages the history and deep roots of a brand and sometimes these brands
are decades or even centuries old so this strategy is not for every brand it really has to have
that deep history and that's what this strategy aims to leverage it aims to take advantage
of that deep history now the idea here is that we tend to trust brands that have been around for a
long time and that's because they've gone through generations of people who have obviously trusted
and supported this brand over time and those deep roots and that deep history gives us a tangible
connection to the past so we do have this really innate trust for brands that have been around for
such a long time and do have that history and that's what heritage branding is all about so
let's take a look at a heritage branding example with hermes now hermes is a french luxury goods
manufacturer and it's actually the oldest fashion brand in the world it was founded in 1837 in paris
and thierry yerma has originally created saddles and other leather riding gear which provides us a
bit of a window into what the world looked like back then the main strength of the hermes brand
has remained intact throughout generations and that's their love affair with craftsmanship
although the brand boasts an unshakable reputation and image in the market the image hasn't been
created by the branding department but by the production department as former ceo jean luis
dumas stated we don't have a policy of image we have a policy of product strategy number six
is lifestyle branding now lifestyle branding takes the focus away from the products and services
that the brand sells and shines a light on the lifestyle that the audience desires now this is
a much more passive strategy than other aggressive sales strategies and it's much more welcome by the
audience as well because this strategy involves shining a light or bringing to life the idea
of the perfect life of that audience so in order to do this effectively you really need to know
exactly who that audience is and the type of lifestyle that they desire and then go all in
on bringing that lifestyle to life and then use your products or services as a means to get them
to that lifestyle so that is the premise of the strategy that is the real cornerstone of this
strategy is bringing that lifestyle to life and then using the products and services that your
brand offers as a way to get there now i can't think of a better example of a lifestyle brand or
lifestyle branding than red bull now remember this is a company that's been built on a single product
which is a can of sugary water now it's energy boosting sugary water of course but it's still
sugary water now rebels entire marketing strategy is based not around promoting the features or
benefits of their sugar water but an aligned idea with a very very specific lifestyle this brand
has not only aligned itself with the word extreme it's produced a production media house to support
extreme sports athletes and they've ingrained themselves in the culture of that lifestyle and
they've become synonymous with the culture they've really become part of the culture
of extreme sports and when you think of extreme sports you think of red bull so that is lifestyle
branding in action it's really painting a picture of this ideal life of this extreme sports life
and ingraining the brand in the culture of that lifestyle now branding is nothing if not a way
to provide meaning to the audience as to why they should choose our brand now what that means is and
the way we provide that meaning to our audience is what the strategy is all about so as we sit down
to develop our brands and develop out our strategies we need to ask the question
what is the meaning that we want our audience to have with our brand now the answer to that
question should be the driver of absolutely everything that the brand does from that point
and then that over time is what your audience will come to associate with your brand that is
the meaning that they will store in their minds and that is the reason that they will choose your
brand over your competitors now once you define what that meaning is it's all about communicating
it if you want to learn how to develop the method and the manner to communicate your meaning then
this video will help you out until next time brand like a master and i'll see you in the next video