Category Archives: Case Study

Your brand identity is about more than the visual elements associated with your brand. A brand identity consists of what your company says, what your values are, and how you communicate those values. Amazon is an example of a company with a strong brand identity: customers instantly recognize the services when they encounter various elements of the amazon brand, from the name Amazon that means “Massive,”. They sell everything from A to Z. The “Smile” also goes from the A to the Z and represents the smile that Amazon puts on their customer's faces thus staying super focused on positive customer experiences.

An Ultimate Guide To Align Your Product With Brand Identity

March 8, 2022

What Is a Brand Identity?

Your brand identity is about more than the visual elements associated with your brand. A brand identity consists of what your company says, what your values are, and how you communicate those values. Amazon is an example of a company with a strong brand identity: customers instantly recognize the services when they encounter various elements of the amazon brand, from the name Amazon that means “Massive,”. They sell everything from A to Z. The “Smile” also goes from the A to the Z and represents the smile that Amazon puts on their customer’s faces thus staying super focused on positive customer experiences.

 

Why Is Brand Identity Important?

Your brand identity is a collection of all of the elements your company has created to portray your brand to customers. Because a strong brand identity has a powerful impact on your marketing messages, your visual identity, and the way you interact with your customers, your brand identity plays an essential role in shaping the overall perceptions of both your existing and potential customers.

To understand the impact of a strong brand identity, consider the way Apple uses marketing. Apple’s brand message focuses on simplicity and the user experience, and this message is reflected consistently through all of its marketing and branding, from its simple but distinctive logo to the elegance of its retail shopping experience and user-friendly product interfaces.

 

How Do You Create Brand Identity?

Given the importance of branding in your marketing strategy — and the long-term impact of a strong brand identity — it’s not surprising that developing a brand identity is a time-consuming and ongoing process that requires a lot of planning and thought.

An effective brand identity design process, while involved, can be simplified by breaking the process down into the following seven steps:

  1. Outline your brand’s purpose
  2. Research competitor brands
  3. Decide on your target audience
  4. Determine your brand personality
  5. Develop your brand story and brand messages
  6. Create a visual identity
  7. Integrate your brand into your business

And while the process itself requires you to think deeply about your business and your brand, it’s also helpful to consider what isn’t a part of your message. By being authentic to your core values, you can avoid falling into the trap of sending mixed messages about your brand.

The steps outlined provide a comprehensive blueprint of the brand development process. You will find that certain steps may be more easily accomplished by enlisting the help of individuals outside of your core team. For example, talking with existing customers can help you to determine your target audience. And a good graphic design professional is often essential in helping you to create a powerful visual identity.

1. Outline Your Brand’s Purpose

This first step in the brand development process might look like the most simple of all the steps, but it’s a good idea to take some time to consider your brand’s purpose. Ask yourself:

  • What problems do my products or services solve?
  • What makes my brand unique?
  • Why should my customers care about my brand?
  • How is my mission statement reflected in my brand’s purpose?
  • Does my brand’s purpose support the specific brand promises I’m making?

Diving deeply into the purpose underlying your brand will give you the insights necessary to better define the ways your brand can connect with your customers and provide invaluable guidance during the process of developing your brand.

2. Research Competitor Brands

Why spend time researching your competitors’ brands? Researching the competition will show you how your competitors are positioning their brands and the kinds of branding strategies they’re using. You will also obtain more information about their target audience and how it responds to your competitors’ branding and communication initiatives. This will give you an increased understanding of how to better differentiate your own products or services, which can have a significant impact on the development of your own messaging strategies.

3. Decide on Your Target Audience

You can’t develop strong branding until you know who you want your brand to speak to. And when it comes to target audiences, bigger is not better. In fact, the more you can narrow down your target audience, the more effective your branding strategies will be. Some things that can help you be more specific and find your niche, include:

  • Demographic factors such as age, gender, and occupation
  • The target audience of similar or competing brands
  • Sales and market statistics
  • Discussions and surveys of existing customers

Being more specific about your audience provides you with a narrower area of focus, which enables you to craft compelling messages that are capable of speaking directly to the customers who would benefit most from your brand.

4. Determine Your Brand Personality

Your brand has a personality — for example, it may be playful or serious, traditional or adventurous. It’s important to consider what your brand personality is, as it has a significant impact on your branding strategies.

Whether it’s the visual language that defines your logo or business card, the customer service you provide, or your social media interactions, knowing your brand personality will enable you to provide a consistent and authentic message across all of your business.

5. Develop a Brand Story and Messaging

It’s true what they say: behind every good brand, there’s a story and consistent messaging. By telling the story of your brand’s journey from conception to market, you can connect emotionally with your target customers. And knowing what your brand messages are lets you develop consistency in your brand voice across all your marketing and operational channels.

Questions you can ask yourself about both story and messaging include:

  • What motivated me to create this business?
  • What are the highlights of the journey I have taken to build my business?
  • What philosophies guide me and the direction of my business?
  • In what ways do my products and services reflect my business’s core values?

6. Create a Visual Identity

For most people, creating a visual identity is the most familiar part of the brand development process, but in order to create an effective visual identity, it’s a step that needs to come later in the process. Whether it’s your logo, your business card, or your website, the right visual identity for your brand is the one that best reflects your brand’s purpose, your brand personality, and your brand story. Without completing the previous steps first, it would be challenging to know what these various intangibles are and how they might affect your brand’s visual look.

It’s also a good idea to enlist the services of a design professional. A professional can help do more than just design the specific visual elements of your brand: they can also coordinate your brand’s color palette and develop the visual language required for your brand guidelines or style guide, enabling you to be consistent in your brand messaging across all marketing and communication channels.

7. Integrate Your Brand Into Your Business

The brand development process doesn’t end once you’ve completed all the previous steps. You now need to integrate your brand into your business. This integration results in consistent messaging, and over time this consistency translates not only into brand recognition but also consumer trust. With 81% of consumers indicating trust is one of their top deciding factors when making brand buying decisions, building this trust is an essential component of a strong brand identity.

Integrating your brand into your business means every aspect of your business needs to reflect your brand, whether it’s your online presence, your retail store, your customer service, or your email communications. Your staff will also play an integral role in your brand marketing, and it’s a good idea to provide brand training to current employees and incorporate such training into your new employee orientation and training sessions.

Branding plays too important a role in the future success of a small business to be put off for later. Taking the steps now to create a strong brand identity will help you to build a solid foundation for your brand marketing strategies.

What is Branding?

The Power Of Branding

February 27, 2022

What is Branding?

Branding is what defines your product, business, or platform. Branding is the platform that gives shape to your idea to make it stand out in the clutter of the digital era and grabs the attention of your end customer. Branding is the wand of magic that converts first-time customers into lifetime loyal customers. Branding is the thing you want to make an impact in the market as everyone is in the market is trying to overcome you.

Branding is not just the company name, address, logo, or campaigns, but it goes far beyond those things when it comes to taking a brand name to heights of the market.

Most people automatically think of a company’s logo when it comes to branding. But while your logo is an important component of your business brand, branding encompasses far more than the visual elements of your brand. Branding includes not only your company’s visual identity but also your customers’ overall perception of your brand. These perceptions are based on a number of elements, including intangibles such as:

  • Brand promises
  • Brand personality
  • Brand reputation
  • Customer experiences and expectations

Why Is Branding Important?

The importance of branding in your marketing strategy can’t be underestimated — even for small businesses. Your brand influences every aspect of your customer’s perceptions of your company. Branding builds trust, recognition, loyalty, and reputation and can help you to create an ever-lasting impact on your customers.

According to studies, about 70% of consumers say that a brand’s culture and transparency attract them to buy from a certain brand, and about 60% want companies to stand up for the issues they are passionate about. This illustrates the impact of strong branding. Your brand has the potential to say so much about your company:

  • Products or services
  • Customer relations
  • Employee relations
  • Promises
  • Values
  • Societal goals

Consider LG, a brand that leverages its strong brand identity across all its marketing strategies. LG’s brand recognition extends beyond the iconic red logo. Even its short and powerful slogan “Life’s Good” is immediately identifiable to the majority of consumers as it related to products that improve your standard of living, aids your day to activities or relates to leisure time. In every way the tagline relates to the products that brings comfort to your life.

Brand Marketing: What Is the Relationship Between Brand and Marketing?

First, we need to understand the difference between branding and marketing. It’s not uncommon to see people and companies using the two terms interchangeably, but they are actually two very distinct concepts.

Branding is about who your company is, its brand personality, its voice, its purpose. As the driving force behind customer loyalty and recognition, branding speaks to the long term. Marketing, on the other hand, is about achieving more tactical goals through more short-term marketing objectives such as sales and revenue growth, new customer acquisition, and expanded market dominance.

But despite the differences, a successful brand marketing strategy understands the interplay between the two concepts. Branding serves as a guide for your marketing plan, while marketing promotes your business, products, and services by building and leveraging the power of your brand.

To conclude, we can say Regardless of what industry you’re in, competition is always fierce. Whether we open a small bike repair shop, sell a technology-based product, or become a social media consultant—branding allows us to differentiate ourselves from our competitors, by highlighting and distinguishing what you have to offer, and why it is a better choice.

Suresh Narayanan said, “We will connect digitally with our target audience with our target group, and carry out a lot of events for branding.” The company is engaging actively in social media and is building a strong digital presence to strengthen the Maggi brand. Along with TV and print campaigns, the company is engaging with customers via Facebook and Twitter. “Digital and social media is central to our brand-building process. We believe that big things happen for brands when these two are in synergy,” he said. The company has a digital acceleration team, which was responsible for the ‘We Miss You Too’ Maggi campaign and has also set up 24×7 toll-free consumer services to address consumer concerns.” For us, the concept is not just digital media, but of competing in a digitally-connected age,” he added. Maggi also had a tie-up with a famous e-commerce website ‘Snapdeal.com’ and came up with the idea of selling a Maggi welcome kit which was a box containing around 12 packets of Maggi, 2016 Maggi calendar, a Maggi fridge magnet, and a Maggi welcome back letter.

Case Study – Maggi comeback!

August 3, 2020

MAGGI – a name so common to Indians, whether from metro cities or remote towns that it has almost become synonymous with instant food options for people of any age. It is noteworthy how Maggi has built this whole empire with unfailing brand loyalty and engagement with the consumers at a micro-level. A subject of brand studies at top B-schools, Maggi set the tone right during its 150-year-old journey and is reaping the benefits today after a great comeback from a massive crisis.
It was invented during the Industrial Revolution in Europe as a cheap legume meal option for workers, who needed something that can be prepared and consumed quickly. It still does serve the same purpose in more than one way. The product became widely popular in Switzerland and gradually entered other countries having similar needs for an instant meal.
Making its way up the popularity ladder, Maggi GmBH – the initially registered company was acquired by the Nestle group in 1947. Soon after, it started making its way to India, only to create another example of extraordinary brand loyalty. It took almost 40 years to complete the journey and Maggi reached India in 1983. What happened after is an exciting story!
In a mere 20 years, Maggi became the market leader in the instant noodles category, finding itself in almost every home, every small Kirana shop to supermarkets. Starting with a campaign to target homemakers, Maggi shifted its strategy to avert the allegations of being an unhealthy snack. Soon a new campaign was drawn out to position Maggi as a health product and targeted kids.
Successful marketing campaigns have been Maggi’s plus point and they have always scored high with their simple yet effective campaigns. Until 2009, Maggi had not actively engaged celebrities to endorse the brand. After celebrating 25 successful years of the “Me and Meri Maggi” campaign, the instant noodle maker brought in big names like Amitabh Bachchan, Preity Zinta, and Madhuri Dixit to uplift the brand’s existing homely image.
The competition was not sitting idle during all this time. While Maggi enjoyed the market leader position and managed to introduce product variants and extensions to capture an even bigger chunk of the pie, brands like Nissin and ITC ramped up product innovation and marketing. In 2013 Maggi saw a dip in its sales due to strong strategy and competition from other local and global players. Another household name Horlicks launched a new product Foodles to capture the existing market, similarly there are many other local brands which currently compete in the same segment of instant food and noodles.
2015 was a bad year for Maggi and parent company Nestle. After allegations of containing above acceptable levels of Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), raised by a testing lab in Uttar Pradesh, the whole nation witnessed an extraordinary episode of unfolding events. Gradually Maggi was removed from shelves following an order issued by the honorable Supreme Court while FSSAI testings were done with samples from various regions and results were awaited. A heartbreak for millions of ardent Maggi fans, the product faced a complete shut-out from the market across states in India. It was only after five long dreary months that the SC cleared Maggi for consumption again and the brand resurfaced with all its might.
Leveraging the nostalgia associated with Maggi and its users – pools of people who have had Maggi since their school and college hostel days, in between classes and job interviews, a strategic marketing campaign was launched in November 2015. The company recuperated from its tremendous losses with the love of people. After abating all allegations, Maggi is back in the market with approximately 57% share currently and continues to build its way into homes, hostels, canteens, tea shops and cafes. Innovation with recipe worked brilliantly for Maggi as part of an old campaign, and it is working again to restore the faith in the brand.

Digital Marketing Strategy adopted by Maggi:

Suresh Narayanan said, “We will connect digitally with our target audience with our target group, and carry out a lot of events for branding.” The company is engaging actively in social media and is building a strong digital presence to strengthen the Maggi brand. Along with TV and print campaigns, the company is engaging with customers via Facebook and Twitter. “Digital and social media is central to our brand-building process. We believe that big things happen for brands when these two are in synergy,” he said. The company has a digital acceleration team, which was responsible for the ‘We Miss You Too’ Maggi campaign and has also set up 24×7 toll-free consumer services to address consumer concerns.” For us, the concept is not just digital media, but of competing in a digitally-connected age,” he added. Maggi also had a tie-up with a famous e-commerce website ‘Snapdeal.com’ and came up with the idea of selling a Maggi welcome kit which was a box containing around 12 packets of Maggi, 2016 Maggi calendar, a Maggi fridge magnet, and a Maggi welcome back letter.

Results achieved by Maggi:

“Snapdeal sold out the first batch of 60,000 Maggi Welcome Kits within 5 minutes of Maggi Flash Sale going live today. There has been much anticipation for the return of one of India’s favorite brands and we have witnessed a phenomenal response to this sale from customers across the country,” Snapdeal Senior Vice President (Partnerships and Strategic initiatives) Tony Navin said. Nestle India sold 3.3 crore units of Maggi in the first 10 days of its relaunch. The Snapdeal offer is christened ‘Dil ki Deal’ and the hashtag ‘DILKIDEALWITHMAGGI’ started trending on Twitter after the sale was resumed.

Where on one hand snapdeal sale got sold out Maggi conducted various online competitions asking its consumers to express their favorite moments and asking them what Maggi brought back with its comeback and consumers participated with full enthusiasm. Twitter page of Maggi, Facebook page, and youtube page were crowded with its fan followers expressing their trust in Maggi.

Learning :

Choosing a digital market and digitally getting connected to the consumers is one of the most effective and intelligent ways to reach out to a large audience. Getting a tie-up with an e-commerce website for the sales of the welcome kit proved to be successful as the flash sale immediately got sold out and the company could anticipate the consumer’s want for the product. A company’s presence in different social media sites builds trust in the hearts of the consumer and displays the authenticity of its brand.

It is an extraordinary study to learn how Maggi created its own universe within a sub-segment in the instant food category. A largely sold and cherished product, Maggi continues to inspire us to do better and do more.

We at MDM find the story of Maggi worth telling and would love to hear from you about your experience with Maggi. In your startup journey, how does the story of Maggi inspire you?

Mamaearth, the natural and toxin-free skincare products provider, has grown rapidly with its mastering of influencer marketing. Mamaearth is known for its marketing campaigns over different social media platforms. Noted YouTube Vlogger, Instagram Influencers, and other social media known personalities are the backbones of Mamaearth.

MamaEarth-Case Study

August 3, 2015

Mamaearth, the natural and toxin-free skincare products provider, has grown rapidly with its mastering of influencer marketing. Mamaearth is known for its marketing campaigns over different social media platforms. Noted YouTube Vlogger, Instagram Influencers, and other social media known personalities are the backbones of Mamaearth.

Mamaearth is the only Asian startup with ‘MADE SAFE’ certification. Varun Alagh, the founder of Mamaearth, has worked in the FMCG industry. He also worked with top-rated companies like Coca Cola and Hindustan Lever. He is including those reach experiences in his startup. His wife Ghazal Alagh earlier worked as a corporate trainer in IT sector.

Mamaearth raised a total of $23.3 million in five rounds of funding. Sequoia Capital is the main investor in Mamaearth. With its last round of funding, Mamaearth valuation stands at Rs 700 crore in January 2020.

Mamaearth won “one of the best brands” in India award by ET brand festival in 2019. As per the latest reports through different media portals, Sequoia may invest $20-30 million more that will make the Mamaearth valuation worth Rs 2000 crore.

Mamaearth uses Direct to consumer platforms like Amazon, Flipkart to reach its targeted audience. The company also sells products through its own website. The company claims that 90% of the spends has been allocated to digital platforms including influencer marketing and 10% on traditional media.

Atmanirbhar Bharat is what everyone seems to be following as the mantra for growth and development. As a result, the market in the last few months has witnessed a rise in home-grown direct-to-consumer brands. Home-grown skincare brand Mamaearth, which claims to have seized this as an opportunity has increased its marketing spends by three times in the current fiscal. “We will continue to invest in the brand as we believe it is a very large opportunity. Brand building requires investments rather than holding back,” Varun Alagh, co-founder and CEO, Mamaearth told BrandWagon Online. The company claims that 90% of the spend has been allocated to digital platforms including influencer marketing and about 10% has been spent on traditional media, primarily television. The D2C firm further claims that its continuous marketing investments have resulted in month-on-month growth in sales. According to Alagh, in June sales doubled when compared to the pre-Covid period.

Moreover, as per the firm tier 2 and smaller markets amount to more than 50% of its business. “One of the reasons why TV is a good advertising medium is because of its reach beyond the metros. On digital too, we plan to go vernacular and drive local language communications to reach out to these markets,” Alagh added. The company launched its first television commercial recently. As per Alagh, the primary objective is to get new consumers and drive brand awareness. The company recently partnered with Viacom18’s Hindi general entertainment channel Colors for its reality show — Bigg Boss as an associate sponsor.

The company has tied-up with modern trade retail outlets such as Wellness Forever, Health & Glow, Dabur NewU, Guardian, 98.4 chemists, Mother care, Shoppers Stop, among others, as part of its expansion plan. Moreover, it claims to have over 3,000 stores across the country. “We have also expanded our warehouse and supply chain to ensure that we are able to service more consumers from tier 3 and beyond,” he added. Even as a larger part of its sales come from online channels, offline sales’ contribution has increased to 15%.

As a new-age company, it claims to have invested in sustainability to further consolidate the brand’s image. For instance, its ‘Plastic Positivity’ initiative is aimed at recycling plastic while with its ‘Plant Goodness’ initiative it has committed to plant trees for every order received. For Alagh, consumers of today buy into a brand rather than buying into products. “We have been talking about what the brand stands for and we will continue to talk about what we do as a brand beyond creating natural products,” he stated.

Brands, organizations, and institutions use social media platforms every single day to connect with their audiences, raise awareness, and drive leads and business.

9 Tips to grow your social media audience

August 3, 2015

Brands, organizations, and institutions use social media platforms every single day to connect with their audiences, raise awareness, and drive leads and business.

With an engaged following on one or more of the major social networks, brands can effectively spread the word about campaigns, new initiatives, and new products and services. However, simply having 1,000 Facebook fans or 200 Twitter followers is not the best indicator of social media success.

It’s possible to have lots of followers who never read your posts or click on your links. The key is to build a thriving online community of your ideal fans, the ones who’ll actively engage with your content, share it with their networks, and ultimately, become paying customers.

It takes work to establish such, but that effort can pay off, big time.

Looking to grow your social media audience? In this post, we’ll look at eleven simple ways in which you can grow your social media following.

Hold contests

Contests can be a great way to get new people to Like and follow your accounts, while also keeping your current fans engaged with your Page.
It’s worth experimenting with contests on every social network on which you are active. Some examples of social media contests include:
Comment to win – Participants leave a comment or answer a question
Caption contest – Either the best caption (you choose) or the one with the most likes wins
Fill-in-the-blank Contest – Ask participants to answer a trivia question
Photo contest – Either the best photo (you choose) or the one with the most likes wins
Multiple choice contest
Tips for a successful social media contest:
Promote it everywhere – Use your website, email list, and other social networks to drum up participation.
Do not give away prizes completely unrelated to your brand – For example, if you give away a new iPad, you might drive a lot of engagement and participation, but not necessarily from people who will eventually become customers or lifelong fans.
Follow the platform rules – Each social platform has its own rules and regulations around contests – here’s an overview of the key details.
Follow up with entrants who don’t win – Send them a thank you for participating, along with something about your brand/organization’s work.

Include a visual with every post

The visuals are high-performers on social media, so be sure to include an eye-catching, colorful image or graphic with each post.
Consider these visual marketing statistics, compiled by HubSpot:
Content with relevant images rack up 94% more views than content without images.
Compared to other types of content, visual content is more than 40x more likely to get shared on social media.
Instagram photos showing faces get 38% more likes than photos without faces.
You can use free graphic design tools like Canva to add graphics to your blog entries and social media posts.

Share more video

Video is the most engaging content type on every social media platform, so if you can, it’s a good idea to create at least some form of video content to maximize engagement.
Be sure to upload your video directly to your platform of choice, rather than posting a link to an outside website (like YouTube). This way, your video will autoplay as people land on it while scrolling through their feeds, grabbing more attention.
Lots of views can lead to increased reach, engagement, and exposure for your brand.

Be proactive in listening to and responding to your online community

Did you know that 83% of your Facebook fans, and 71% of your Twitter followers, now expect a response from you on the same day that they pose a question on each respective platform?
In fact, 32% of Twitter users now expect a response within just 30 minutes.
Give your followers a fantastic user experience on social by being exceptionally responsive. Listen to their needs, and respond accordingly.
You should also look to publicly recognize people who retweet, favorite, and mention your organization on Twitter, and thank users who comment on Instagram and YouTube.
When you make your online community feel heard and acknowledged, they’re more likely to become raving fans, and your most loyal social media ambassadors.

Change your Page profile photos and cover photos

Your profile photos and banners are some of your best and most-viewed social profile elements. Use these visual tools to showcase the impact of your work, and the stories of those who benefit from your services.
On Facebook, consider changing up your cover photo at least once per month, and remember to write a great caption.
On Twitter, use your profile picture and banner photo to highlight your great work.
Don’t just stretch out and pixelate a horizontal version of your logo – no one wants to connect with just a logo on social media. Personalize, humanize, and customize every channel you can, with a visual image that speaks volumes.
Also, make sure you use the right social media image sizes for each platform.

Give people a reason to follow you

Give both prospective and current fans reason to follow you on multiple platforms.
Don’t simply “set it and forget it” with generic, automated links blasted across all of your social media channels. Tailor your content for each channel’s users.
For example, you should use Twitter to share latest news and real-time alerts, while you can use Facebook to tell more compelling, longer stories about the people who benefit from your work.
You should look to strategically use each social media channel based on its strengths and demographics, and give your target audience a good reason to connect with you on that specific network.
What value are you providing? What are you offering that will entice them to stay tuned in?
Think about the reasons people use each network, then formulate a plan to consistently post and share content that will resonate with your specific audience, wherever they congregate online.

Encourage tagging

An effective strategy to engage your followers is to encourage them to tag other people who may benefit from, or enjoy a specific post.
If you post an inspiring quote, write “Tag a friend who needs this today”; If you share a video about Mother’s Day, encourage your online community to tag a friend (or better, friends) who means a lot to them, and with whom they would like to share your message.
Ideally, these new people can be drawn into the fold, and join your online social media followers.
But a word of caution – ensure you employ this method sparingly and only where it makes sense, or it can look spammy.

Use hashtags to get found

There are two great ways to use hashtags to increase your social media followers:

Use popular hashtags strategically and sparingly

I suggest using one popular tag per tweet or Instagram post, such as #OOTD (outfit of the day), #TBT (throw-back Thursday), #fail (self-explanatory), #FOMO (fear of missing out), etc.
There are thousands of hashtags out there – check out Hashtags.org and Hashtagify.me to find ones that are relevant to your audience and your content.

Participate in relevant trending topics and current events.

I check my Twitter feed regularly to see what’s trending for the day. If it’s something that I think would be of interest to my followers, I share a tweet with the relevant hashtag.
For example, on Monday you could use the trending hashtag #MondayMotivation to share a quote or an inspiring story with your followers.
People searching that particular hashtag might come across your post, and will hopefully check you out and even follow you.

Be entertaining, and use humor to engage

Brands that show a bit of humanity and humor do well on social media – but that said, you should always ensure that any content that you do share makes sense for your particular audience and your brand voice.
There’s no point in sharing cat memes for the sheer sake of sharing cat memes. Even if such posts do get a few likes, it can confuse your messaging, which won’t help in your broader brand-building effort (i.e. connecting with the right people for your organization).

Many people spend more time on social media today than they do watching television. This means that for a brand to stand out amidst an ocean of other brands it needs a clever and catchy meme marketing strategy. Memes resonate especially well with younger audiences but also make an impact on middle-aged and older audiences. What makes meme’s especially useful to brands is that meme’s enable brands to visually associate their brand with a clever video or image that is humorous and catchy and which helps enhance the brand’s image. A successful meme may even say out loud something about a brand that has as yet been left unsaid.

Power of Meme Marketing

July 31, 2015

Many people spend more time on social media today than they do watching television. This means that for a brand to stand out amidst an ocean of other brands it needs a clever and catchy meme marketing strategy. Memes resonate especially well with younger audiences but also make an impact on middle-aged and older audiences. What makes meme’s especially useful to brands is that meme’s enable brands to visually associate their brand with a clever video or image that is humorous and catchy and which helps enhance the brand’s image. A successful meme may even say out loud something about a brand that has as yet been left unsaid.

It is imperative that a meme that is associated with a brand be relevant to the brand. When a meme goes viral, meaning it is shared by thousands of people on social media, it is usually good for the brand associated with the meme. However, there are also certain risks for brands that come with creating memes and so brands must learn how to best navigate while promoting their brands using memes.

A Wholesome Balancing Act

Much of what is available on the internet today is distasteful. Brands have to recognize that being provocative may not always be the best way to make an impact on an audience. A meme is not supposed to be an advertisement and is not supposed to promote a brand; it is instead expected to engage users with a brand by being funny, clever or irrelevant. The best way a brand can do this is by creating meme’s that are clean and can be enjoyed by an entire family. Meme’s that are provocative may not be appropriate when engaging with ordinary viewers.

Taking a Niche Message to the Masses

A meme for a niche luxury brand will find it challenging to create a meme that a wide audience can relate to. Remember that for a meme to be successful many people must find it relatable and share it with others. For a niche and premier brand to wisely use meme’s, it must learn to cleverly create meme’s that meet its requirements and that make an impact on a wide audience.

Create a Thin Line between Promotion and Engagement

Many brands have to learn to walk the thin line between engagement and promotion. For instance, brands that want to reach out to Millennials should know that many millennials don’t trust advertisements that promote directly. So brand must follow a nuanced approach if it wants to add its logo to a meme or if it decides to mention an attractive discount offer in the first 10 seconds of a video. Often a meme that seems overtly promotional is far less likely to be shared than one that is more engaging. A brand must keep this in mind before it decides to create a meme.

Successful memes have been created around popular movies such as Bahubali or Sanju and even around famous personalities.

Be Quick on Your Feet

Remaining fresh and relevant is crucial to success in making memes. A brand should have access to a creative team that is able to quickly create content on the most topical happenings. This means that the content team responsible for creating memes should be able to assess what images or happenings viewers are most likely to recognize and then build memes around the same. An advantage of creating meme’s on the most topical issues is that they are more likely to be the latest salvo of meme’s that are shared across social media. For instance, creating a meme about a recently concluded sporting event or the newest unexpected business news requires an astute team that knows how to what kind of news its audience is likely to follow. Building a successful meme around such topical news is a clever way for brands to engage audiences and to tell a story about the brand.

The use of memes is likely to continue to play a key role in marketing especially as the younger generation is less moved by direct marketing and instead is responsive to engaging content that challenges and entertains.

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