A current and popular trend in advertising and strategic communications has been branding initiatives and their ability to create the “brand experience”. These initiatives objectify a brand’s promise, identity, personality, and cultural relevance. Brands who don’t deliver on any or all fronts die a messy death, murdered by bad “strategery” and management. Very few brands can be brought back to life, revitalized and returned to the minds of the consumers. Nintendo just brought themselves back from the edge of video game obscurity with the Wii. Macintosh's Apple was nowhere to be found in the mid ‘90‘s. It’s not easy and doesn’t happen without a dynamic effort by everyone involved. For a brand to be successfully revitalized, there are five steps that will need to be taken.
1. Refocus The Brand
Most likely, the brand collapse was due in part by an internal issue. A company-wide refocus should start by redefining the brand and its purpose and goals. This should be something aspirational and inspirational.
2. Restore Its Relevance
This is the decision of where you want the brand to be inside the consumer’s minds. Then you look at where you are at in reality. Redefine the brand promise with a relevant, dynamic experience that supports the new purpose and goals, and gives the brand action to get to its new experiential destination.
3. Reinvent the Experience
Larry Light of Arcature, former global CMO of McDonald’s, has continued success with reinventing the brand experience using the five P’s: people, product, place, price, and promotion. The people who work for the brand are most important and need to commit to the new organizational and brand refinement. Once they are confident and onboard, the other five fall into place. The brand products need to back up the entire revitalization efforts and fulfill the new brand promise. Place may be the actual store or online website, either way it must be consistent with the new branding initiatives and deliver consistently. Hit the consumers with a new price, ideally lower than they are accustomed to paying without a sale going on. Promotions should tie in at all brand touch points, driving home the new brand experience with every interaction.
4. Rebuild Trust
Rebuilding trust after a near brand collapse is difficult, but also extremely important. In a spam-numbing world of over-saturated messages, trust should be built on transparency, social responsibility and integrity. Go green, build a home for the needy, sponsor a worthy, global charity or start one of your own.
5. Remember Your Place
Once your brand gets back in the game, take the time to sit back, take a deep breath and look around. It’s a highly global market, driven by constant innovation and competition. Sometimes a team can get so caught up in their revitalization, they forget to stay on the same page. Sometimes that page turns and people lose their place. A constant, humbling reminder of perspective can go along way in keeping a brand on the right track for revitalization and renewed success.
Author Resource:-
Ethan Luke. search engine optimization - Volacci is a Drupal SEO company providing marketing services to your Drupal website ranging from Search Engine Optimization, PPC Management, and SEM consultation.
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