How the brand experience is changing the relationship between the company and the agency – ClickZ

The relationship with the brand is more and more like a personal relationship. Customers want to befriend brands that meet their needs and engage with them consistently. Fun is the most important thing and disappointment can ruin what would otherwise be a beautiful relationship.

In today’s fast and furious world of ubiquitous advertising, one thing is certain: the opportunities to experience and interact with brands are exponentially greater than ever before.

Here’s what we know:

• User experience is critical and occurs with extreme frequency.
• Advertisers must plan and control marketing to ensure alignment with the overall brand strategy and experience.
• Marketing budgets should be adjusted to take into account the high impact and importance of all interactive components and execution.
• Trademark agencies have a unique opportunity to act as an agency of record

Consumers now see the average 10,000 ads per day. Talk about media bombardment! Getting your ad message through the clutter is harder than ever.

This presents a challenge for businesses and brands who are desperate to capture just a few seconds of interest with the hope that a potential customer will touch, scroll, click, read, sign up or download and ultimately make a purchase.

Brand experiences are everywhere

The brand is everywhere. Agencies have to deal with the projected images and messages as well as the interactive responses and reactions of the target audience. Again, the analogy of forming a relationship between two people resonates. If the first impression is good enough to cut through the clutter, subsequent communication and interaction can deepen the relationship, just like a friendship.

Trust is key. Inconsistencies and brand failures to deliver results at any touchpoint can lead to distrust and absenteeism. Brands and their creative agencies must avoid this at the risk of losing customers, market share, sales and even profits, sales and customers. There’s a lot at stake.

All channels are ubiquitous

Of course, this is nothing new. “360 Branding” has been around for quite some time, as agencies are always “planning” how the brand should look in print, TV, radio, collateral and all traditional media.

“Overall brand goals and strategies” must be consistent across all media. From time to time there were differences in the way media were used. For example, television tends to focus on branding/image, while print is used for more elaborate and detailed information. However, they did not contradict each other, and when executed correctly, both supported the overall brand experience.

The customer experience is now broader and deeper than ever before. Once it meant just a website, but today marketers are looking to tools like landing pages, email ads, native apps and social media to drive better brand understanding and opportunity for response and action. Ensuring that the brand communicates optimally is called touchpoint mapping.

The scale and complexity of touchpoints has created an unprecedented opportunity for brands to present themselves to consumers in a multitude of ways new and emerging formats. For example, brands that are anchored in paid social networks could identify new opportunities in podcast advertising. They may also find new ways to present themselves on new devices that offer larger screen sizes with different resolutions or with alternative creative approaches such as animation.

Brand mapping is now multi-dimensional

Agencies and clients, now armed with unlimited data to assess and predict customer behavior, are incorporating experiences into their map.

For example, a customer scanning an ad for a car with a QR reader will hopefully take the information and set up a test drive or learn more about the car’s features when interacting with the selected touchpoint.

Pleasant brand experiences inevitably lead to positive and fruitful word of mouth. Consumers are now not just potential buyers: they are potential promotional connectors. They collect information as they continue along the digital buyer journey. At any time, they can provide positive or negative opinions and information to the advertiser or friends with similar interests.

Someone reading about a new drug on a social network is likely to want to learn more through available media channels. B2B companies need to ensure that the page that appears when an employee uses a link in their bio is a positive reflection of the company and can lead to more interest and interest in products or career opportunities.

These are examples of how brand relationships are built and deepened in today’s marketing world.

Consumers can text if they have a better experience using Resy vs. OpenTable, Coinbase vs. Binance, Uber vs. Lyft, or Tesla vs. Ford. As a result, the brand experience turns into the most powerful form of marketing: word of mouth.

Brand experience at every touchpoint

Brands that do an outstanding job of this relationship building have figured out how to communicate with the customer at every touch point.

The better the map, the more thorough the execution. The better you understand the most likely response groups of potential customers, the better your chance of bringing in new customers and increasing sales. Successful clients, together with their branding agencies, have already resorted to this model. Failure to do so can make it increasingly difficult to compete.

Brand agencies have become champions and experts in brand experience. To be successful, they must look beyond the brand they support and have a strong understanding of the competitive landscape. This competency means having the same multidimensional interactive understanding and respect for the competition as they have for the brand they support.

All of this means more responsibility and, in turn, an opportunity to make money for brands. Clients are reallocating budgets and reducing funding for advertising and promotional areas that are either difficult or do not support overall marketing goals for an optimal brand experience.

Change your agency’s expectations

Companies that once outsourced all their marketing needs to a traditional advertising agency are finding that brand marketing agencies have a better understanding of how to use research, data and strategy to deliver the optimal brand experience.

Advertising agencies still dominate creative execution, but more and more marketing firms are taking the marketing helm.

Branding agencies see the brand as a whole. They can do most of the advertising and promotional elements, but they can rely on outside partnerships to do some of the creative work. Once upon a time, the client/brand manager had the role of brand expert.

However, as interactive capabilities have added complexity to this role, clients have come to rely on a branding agency to understand and execute a cohesive and compelling brand story.

Aligning brand strategy with business strategy

While creating and executing brand experiences is the future of marketing and cannot be overstated, it is important to note that there is something even more critical: aligning brand strategy with business strategy.

One thing that hasn’t changed is that brand strategy must support business strategy. Business strategies deal with growthprofit, market share, sales or customer base.

A well-designed brand will not do its job if the company has not first figured out its business strategy, i.e. how to make money.

Case study: Uber

For example, Uber knew that its business was to connect drivers with drivers and collect a fee for that service. Its business strategy was earlier aimed at creating new users and gaining followers, even at the expense of lower profitability or even loss. The brand strategy was to create recognition and much greater ease of use than a taxi or other form of transportation.

Essential to the model was that customers establish a payment method for all transactions. This saved the customer time and proved to be very convenient.

The logo was simple and clear. Advertising was consistent with a simultaneous strategy of ease of use and payment. After about ten years, competition intensified and the pressure on profitability began to make management and shareholders uncomfortable. The goals have changed, as has the branding and execution.

Research can influence branding or business strategy in the same way that business results need to be adjusted in more mature markets. Uber must contend not only with pressure on profits, but also with competition from Lyft and regional companies. Uber is now strategically focused on a global transportation alternative.

Brand agencies are leading businesses small and large, old and new, into today’s market climate with guidance once provided almost exclusively by advertising agencies.

Brand experience is the future of marketing

All of this makes perfect evolutionary sense. When businesses first got into internet marketing nearly 30 years ago, the only people who knew how to do anything were the people with the technology. Most advertisers were late to the dance floor, doubting that a banner ad, promotional copy or email would ever make an impact on the everyday customer.

Times have changed. Everything is supported or implemented with interactive components. Advertising agencies have developed expertise in designing and nurturing brand experiences through traditional, one-way channels. Enter a brand agency and the opportunity to create a fully integrated, fully interactive brand experience.

For business leaders, the importance of a consistent and engaging brand experience is the best opportunity to penetrate and control vital markets. Creating a positive brand experience is what branding agencies have been trained to do to ensure a competitive advantage and a positive relationship between the product or service and the customer. This is truly the future of marketing.

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Todd Irwin is the Chief Strategy Officer and Founder of Fazer. Fazer is a strategic and creative brand agency offering over 30 years of experience helping companies to compete. Some of these brand campaigns have helped companies such as Nikon, Coca-Cola, Verizon, Walmart, Pepsi, Ann Taylor, Macy’s and The New York Times (to name a few) increase their relevance in our competitive and rapidly changing business environment.