BRAND ACTIVATION MODEL© Author: Dr. Shehzad Amin

Marketing, Management & Research Consultant

Brand activation is a natural step in the evolution of brands. When all the necessary brand strategies are implemented, companies just need to execute them across the organization and in the total offer towards the customer. Brand activation is looking deeper into the possibilities within the brand, its strategy and position to find assets that have relevant long-term consequences for the whole company. Brand Activation can be defined as “A marketing interaction between consumers and the brand, where consumers can understand the brand better and accept it as a part of their lives.”

Brand Activation Principles

• To activate brand demand, we have to ignite the passion of the consumer with the power of a big idea.

• There is a need to emotionally connect the brand with the consumer at

the right time, in the right place and in the right way, thus motivating consumer commitment.

• By turning insight into action, the brand’s reason to believe becomes

more acceptable and understanding, and the opportunity to purchase becomes more promising.

Example… Activating Demand for Shell VPower

• Strategy: Partnership with Ferrari Cars • Values:

o Extrinsic: Ferrari partnership o Intrinsic: Cleaning properties of the brand.

• Result: Brand experience worked to educate and build deep, meaningful relationships between the Shell VPower and the Consumer.

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Example… Activating Demand for Domestos

• Strategy: Brand activation in ‘hygienic’ venues (Clinics followed by homes of targeted communities)

• Elements: o In-home presentation (for spontaneous awareness) o Clinic presentation (to drive purchase intention)

• Result: Research showed that the clinic and in-home presentations were more effective when recalling the message of cleaning and germ killing (versus that of television).

Marketing to Activation Successful companies evolved with peoples’ changing needs. They listen to their consumers and perceive them as individuals with specific preferences and needs. They see persons with individual values, not a mass of manipulated consumers. Achieving a sale or persuading a person to act in a desired manner is the ultimate purpose of all promotions. A pull strategy is recommended when the manufacturer assumes the primarily responsibility for generating demand for the product or service. The manufacturer must target advertising and sales promotion efforts primarily at the ultimate consumer to stimulate the demand at that level. The expectation is that consumers will demand the product from the retailer who, in turn, will demand that the wholesaler make it available. It is important to understands the consumer decision making process in the targeted segment. One has to monitor each stage of the Hierarchy Of Effects Model, i.e. Awareness: The ability of the consumer to recall the brand… Knowledge: The ability of consumer to recall the important attributes of brand… Liking: The attitude of the consumer towards the product…

Preference: The degree to which a consumer feels more positive about the product…

Conviction: The likelihood that the consumer will purchase the product… Purchase: The acquisition of a product or service…

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Role of Brands Companies are increasingly getting dependent on their brands as competitive weapons. Brands have become the carrier of the emotional value proposition towards the consumers. They symbolize specific competence that builds up the company’s competitive advantage. Thus, brands must rise up to the challenge of giving meaning to the company’s whole relationship with its consumers. It has been noticed that brand works fine when they;

• They simplify everyday choices (for basic necessities) • They reduce risk of complicated buying decisions (for Technology

based products) • They provide emotional benefits (for personal care products) • They offer a sense of community (for image related products) • They create a relationship (for long-term trust products) • They create accessibility (for convenience products)

Effective Activation Starts with a Defined Brand… Brand positioning describes the marketing opportunities of conquering a specific position in the mind of the target audience. This position must have strategic advantages towards competitors in order to be profitable. Example… Avis’ “We try harder” By positioning the brand as the second brand in the car rental market, Avis gave meaning to why they had to work harder than its’ worst competitor to please their customers. Apple Computer’s “Think different” Gave meaning to the bite in the apple; to a different operative system and, later on, a different approach to product design.

DSA Brand Activation Model In today’s postmodern society, merely offering supreme product features on a functional or emotional level is not sufficient. While the basic idea about active brands is to execute the brand in other terms than marketing, the real value lies in the opportunities it creates. Most fundamentally, brand activation contributes in creating trust between the customer, the society and the brand (i.e. company). And trust is one of the key factors to create loyalty between consumers and brands.

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The following DSA Brand Activation Model explains the complete activation process. It explains the complete activation process from manufacturer to trial generation followed by experience, resulting in customer loyalty. The model explains, customer loyalty can be established once the product trail is generated and added with the brand experience which customer is exposed to by getting involved in various brand activation programs.

Product

Awareness

Information

Message

Knowledge

Advertising

Product

Trial

Interest

Incentive

Motivation

Decision

Brand

Experience

Association

Consumer Linkage

Involvement

Interactive channels

Direct Consumer Connection

Consumption Purchasing Behavior

Brand Loyalty Customer Retention

Brand Equity

Manufacturer

DSA Brand Activation Model

Interactive channels

Brand Positioning

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Activation Measurement It becomes very difficult for marketer to gauge the performance of various brand activations due to their subjective nature. One of the frequently asked question asked by marketers how can I quantify the benefits of brand activation. DSA Brand Activation model provides a measuring formula to measure the effect of brand activation. The formula is written in a most simplistic manner to be used. It explains, that the product trial is a result of number of exposures or contacts created by different means multiplying it by the percentage of acceptance level of exposed population.

It further elaborates that each trial has to experience the product atleast three times and then shall be multiplied by the sum of percentage level recall of brand activation and/or association. To illustrate lets assume that a company runs a sales promotion through couponing, leaflets, kiosk operation and door to door contacts (n1 + n2 + n3 + n4). Altogether they created 10,000 contacts. The level of acceptance of customers for these efforts were 20 percent. Therefore;

P(n1+n2+n3…) x A = T P(2,000 + 2,000 + 1,000 + 5,000) X 0.2 = 2,000 Trials

P(n1+n2+n3…) x A = T

3T x (bE1 + bE2 + bE3…) = E Pn = Number of exposure or contacts through product awareness, information & knowledge A = Acceptance level of exposed population (Percentage) T = Trial generation / Productivity bE = Association level with brand (percentage)

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In addition to that company wish to create brand loyalty and conducted two activation program where brand experience and association was developed. It was noticed that the first activation program left a recall value of only 5 percent whereas, the later program had an amazing result of 25 percent recall.

3T x (bE1 + bE2 + bE3…) = E 3(2,000) x (0.05 + 0.25) = 1800 loyal customers

Elements of a Successful Activation Plan

• Situation analysis. Identify key issues, key opportunities, key shareholders and any important trends.

• Identification of resources. Staff, time, budget, etc. Create a

marketing team that is representative of all stakeholders.

• Competitive analysis. Identify any competition, such as another major event that will also be of interest to the target audience.

• Goals. Identify attendance and awareness level goals.

• Identification of target markets. Identify groups of individuals to

whom the activity could be successfully promoted.

• Development of plans for reaching each target market. Develop a strategic plan for promoting the activity to each identified target audience.

• Development of evaluation tools. Measure the success of your

program during and after the activity. Include short-term and long-term measurable outcomes.

What Brand Activation Can Do It Enhance the effectiveness of the traditional modes of communications as they can be more focused to a particular target market. Brand activation is a versatile tool that can be customized to cater to the communications needs of specific industries. It can act as a logical and impactful end to an advertising campaign when there is a need to shift to a new campaign involving a different promotional mix.