“Brands that offer a larger vision of the world create a kind of ‘ideological glue’ that invites customers and prospects to express their solidarity by identifying and engaging with the brand. The most powerful brands create communities with their customers based on shared values, culture and sense of identity.”

Oreo has successfully engaged audiences globally with its bite sized content approach with Ads and Facebook Content Stream.

To create an  Identity for your Brand on Digital Channels it is important to create a framework that will help understand the dimensions that the brand operates in and create a unique way of interacting with the Brand Community.

It is not the Brand Positioning but a unique connect that the Brand forges with it’s customers with the Content Stream.

Although Brand Positioning is comparative and requires products to be differentiated for consumers to believe in the product which is very often a rational or emotional product benefit. Brand Identity requires the Brand to forge a unique connect that could stem from a need to belong to a certain community or a culture that forges connections on an on-going basis with relevant content. Compared to the traditional marketing approach where brand recall at the point of purchase is considered critical, the digital age marketing requires brands to create a buzz through digital channels with engaging content.

An example of creating a Brand Identity as shared in Branding Strategy Insider by Carol Phillips and Judy Hopelain of Brand Amplitude for Zappos.

The relevance of your content in the consumers life and how they are connecting with the same and the buzz for your brand determines the success of Brand Identity and how it translates into your Digital Marketing Objectives.

Digital Marketing Framework  for Goal Setting 

To be able to create a Brand Identity it is important to recreate the Marketing funnel for your  brand with a new framework where you can define the role your Brand plays in the consumers life with newer devices and the multi-channel digital journey. It is important to look at the value-exchange that you seek to offer with the brand’s content stream and what your consumers are looking for to enhance their digital brand experience.

Attention and Evaluation

While awareness has been de-emphasized in the digital age, it’s still extremely important, especially during a launch or when there is a particular brand attribute that needs to be communicated.

Recency and Proximity

Marketers have long known that to drive sales, you need to reach people at the point of purchase. Digital retail solutions, however, are taking the concept to a whole new level as Tesco showed with their virtual stores at Korean subway stations. Rather than trying to drive consumers into their stores, Tesco was able to insert the shopping experience into their daily commute. The strategy helped catapult Tesco to a leadership position in the Korean market.

Value Exchange and Community

While building awareness and driving sales are objectives that most firms are familiar with and know how to manage successfully, advocacy is a relatively new area and one in which many marketers falter. Brands that seek to increase advocacy need to create product, social and content experiences that increase the perceived value.

Source: Branding Strategy Insider, Video Courtesy of YouTube and Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono, freedigitalphotos.net