Power Brand Experience: 6 steps to successful event marketing plans

On the occasion of my 8th year of "BRAND INNOVATION," I'm reflecting back on some of the important concepts that helped shaped my approach.

At an experiential marketing conference I participated in a few years back, Christopher Kappes, executive vice president of sales at Sparks, offered six key characteristics of an effective event plans. 

They are actionable keys to the brand team’s direction and the agency’s execution of the event.

The new imperative of the shifting market, as well as buyer behaviors, changes everything – and requires brand managers who want to thrive in this new world to innovate their Experiential Marketing from the ground up.

Once the art and science of the TV spot or print campaign or outdoor creative held priority. 

Today, investing marketing dollars effectively means not only understanding the new environment and developing an understanding of how to effectively engage the evolving buyer, but also learning how to apply that knowledge through a new vision of how to architect a marketing plan when your highest opportunity prospect is less likely to see your advertisement, has more choices, and has a louder voice than ever before. 

Enabling the customer to ‘look the brand in the eye’ has become the biggest task.

Power Brand Experience: create greater value for product research with earlier brand innovation

On the occasion of my 8th year of "BRAND INNOVATION," I'm reflecting back on the convergence of advancements both in science and technology, and in the science of branding.

Over these years, we’ve seen medical breakthroughs in biotech research, as well as more sophisticated marketing discipline. It is because of this convergence that we now stress the value to research companies of branding earlier in the developmental cycle.

Earlier branding of science and technology products accomplishes two important financial objectives:  one, it can significantly move the product adoption curve to the left, which means a measurable acceleration of pre-launch awareness and launch sales uptake; and two, it can create greater value for future potential transactions, including co-promotion rights, licensing royalties, or even acquisition.

In a six-month series of interviews in 2004, I documented five BALANCING factors faced by executives of research-based companies.

1. Because so many discoveries are being made by small and start-up firms, they face the daunting scale of a blockbuster launch. This is true even in traditional “specialty” markets that now have billion-dollar potential.

2. When it comes to managing investor expectations, the discovery company is often pressured to grow or build its brands alone. On the other hand, if a larger company licenses or acquires a product, stock analysts expect to see rapid indicators of highly likely returns.

3. Timing the shift of resources from product R&D to brand marketing can be quite difficult. The typical research company CEO has spent years seeking capital resources to fund development, but knows a product launch will require a new level of human resources — particularly for a sales and marketing organization that researchers have less experience in building.

4. Most independent research companies find themselves walking an autonomy tightrope. There is an intense desire for self-reliance by product inventors, but the involvement of new funders or licensors inevitably leads to some shared control.

5. Perhaps the most surprising is that many discovery company executives still think a breakthrough can literally “sell itself.” They usually imagine unquestionable trial results in every phase of commercialization, an indisputable ability to publish in the best-reviewed journals, and an incontestable groundswell of support leading to an almost universal change in behaviors.

There has been even more evidence in the years since — and too many examples of disappointment when the old approach fails to achieve success. It is now commonly believed among the most successful brand marketers that “blockbusters are made.”

It is within this environment of convergence that I began offering product managers at science and technology companies a process called BRAND INNOVATION.

I called it Brand Innovation in order to connect to the scientific product innovation that drives the company’s efforts. And we demonstrate how to extend the innovation into brand positioning, packaging, put-ups, user programs, public relations, and more.

A creative innovation model that leverages the science of branding

This BRAND INNOVATION model has been developed using a thorough review of academic journals, trade publications, and branding books. It also draws from the conclusions of market research conducted in more than 36 U.S. and global launch programs. Moreover, it capitalizes on my experience with about 100 different medical, science, and technology brands developed and/or supported by my consultancy.

The model has been shown to be effective in both large multinational corporations and in small biotech start-ups.

The first step in the complete innovation process is called “C.H.E.M.®” — a verbal and visual nomenclature created to communicate a product’s performance and promise. It represents an expression of the product’s strategic direction and a blueprint for brand building (graphic above).

In this creative innovation model, a manager can reach the goal of captivating customers in ways that go beyond traditional “interruptive assumptions” of advertising. By applying the tool, brand marketers can truly create brand CHEMistry with customers.

Consider these areas of application for Brand Innovation

In my experience, there are a number of potential areas of brand construction during the early phases of research and development. These include creating the branded names, copy, graphics, and symbols for the product’s:

• Molecule/generic

• Methodology of research

• Manufacturing process

• Mechanism of action

• Medicinal class or category

• Mode of delivery

• Market segment

• Medical promise

How to begin now increasing the value of your research

For the research company executive interested in exploring this approach, begin now to add branding experts to your circle of advisors.

Invite science and technology brand consultancies to present to your management team and board early in the developmental cycle. You may also find that companies with whom you’re already collaborating (such as material suppliers, industrial designers, and testing organizations) have brand resources they could share with you.

Finally, if you are planning a co-marketing arrangement, assess the partner company’s Brand Innovation experience, key evaluation criteria beyond market experience and sales force size.

In conclusion, the convergence of technology and branding advancement creates an atmosphere well suited for increasing value of product research through earlier branding. Brand Innovation is an approach than can significantly move the product adoption curve to the left and can create greater value for future potential transactions.

 

1 touchpoint at a time: building a Power Brand Experience like Glacéau vitaminwater

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On the occasion of my 8th year of "BRAND INNOVATION," I'm looking back at the key concepts that influenced my perspective on power branding.

The Glacéau story is a tale of how a small beverage start-up literally invented an entire new category – “enhanced water” – and then mixed an interesting marketing cocktail that helped vitaminwater became a powerhouse brand… seemingly overnight.

Driving it all was Rohan Oza, Senior VP, and his Glacéau marketing team, the quarterbacks of a unique marketing mix connecting a growing brand portfolio with millions of consumers through a number of experiential channels, including the groundbreaking “try-it” campaign, all of which are helping to cement vitaminwater and now smartwater as the hottest brands around. 

I had a chance to meet Rohan at an experiential summit conference in Chicago.

His road to success had been truly unique, and here are the insights which can be learned from Glacéau.

To become the all-day brand – morning, noon, and night –  Glacéau created a “Fifth Degree Wheel” to illustrate the touchpoints on which it would focus brand experiences.

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With this wheel, the team studied the industry and researched what iconic brands have made it through the years and why. They built a foundational belief that their brand could be as big as those other big, well-known brands. 

In general, they focused on what people want and created customer loyalty by having a brand personality with a purpose.

Specifically, Oza and his team developed a recipe for successful brand experiences with three key ingredients:

• Product – Grassroots vehicles of promotion focused on product trial
• Partners – Attract the right partners, even engaging the high-profile celebrity endorsers in revenue sharing contracts
• People - Hire passionate people in every discipline and passionate agency teams who will reflect the brand

To see a sampling of the vitaminwater brand campaign, go to http://www.glaceau.com/

Building brands one touchpoint at a time: Applications for other power brands

I have a philosophy in planning groups, events, and media that you should somehow, somewhere, dominate something. So you can begin at almost any touchpoint to make an impact with a more meaningful, more relevant brand experience than your competition.

I created this template to list some of the touchpoints you have in interacting with your most important customers – then capture what’s working well at that point and what could make the experience extraordinary.

7 articles submitted to POWER BRANDS book of India’s most powerful brands

I was honored to be selected to contribute to POWER BRANDS: From Evolution To Revolution, a book that profiles 200 of India’s most powerful brands and the process that created them.

POWER BRANDS is being promoted as “a memoir of cult brands which would act as a strategic tool in reinforcing the leadership, legacy, sustainability and credibility of brands. POWER BRANDS promises to give Indian marketers a never before-experienced interpretation about the brands.”

I was asked to write seven articles for the POWER BRANDS book, covering a wide range of topics:

• How to Create Greater Value for Health Science and Technology Research With Earlier Brand Innovation
• Creating a Quality Brand Experience Through Event Marketing
• Building brands one touchpoint at a time: The Cinderella brand story of Glacéau Vitamin water
• Creating high-touch, high-volume events: How Starbucks creates and manages millions of personal brand engagements
• Transforming the trade show portfolio: How Xerox created “the conversation” objective
• Rewriting the rules of event marketing 2.0: How Microsoft is transforming its events into turbocharged experiences 
• How to Move Your Brand Forward Fast: A tool for moving a bio-pharma brand from memorability to loyalty
  

POWER BRANDS of India will be launched as a coffee table book by Planman Media Pvt. Ltd. in association with the Indian Council for Market Research (ICMR).

You can also read more about STINSON Brand Innovation and our international branding assignments in the “Global Issue” of our Accelerate newsletter.