On DigitalDistributed Branding Online: Extending Your Brand Outside of Your Home Site
Irfan Kamal July 7th, 2008
Marketing messages that are delivered across multiple (overlapping) media are often more effective than those delivered across just one or two media – even if the reach and frequency in those one or two media is high.
It’s worth exploring extending this marketing campaign notion to the creation of “distributed branding” through a web strategy that creates brand presence wherever target consumers “live” on the web. This strategy effectively maintains brand awareness over time at a relatively low cost.
In implementing a distributed interactive branding strategy, it’s helpful to know both what your target users are doing online and by whom they might be influenced (friends, children and colleagues)*. While you’ll probably want (or already have) more detailed use data for your target audience, below is a helpful overview graphic from Forrester Research / Businessweek (main article) that summarizes online activity by age segment. In a nutshell, for people age 18-40:
- 30-70% use social networking sites
- 40-60% read blogs, watch videos, listen to podcasts
- 25-35% comment/rate/read/write reviews
- 15-20% subscribe to RSS feeds, tag web pages
Even the best home sites typically engage consumers for only a limited time, often in connection with a specific activity. A distributed and pervasive presence can engage consumers through:
- widgets
- desktop apps
- screensavers or wallpaper
- podcasts
- blogs
- video
- games
- rss
- microblogging
- social networks (white label)
- social networks
*Even if your target segment isn’t using a particular type of tool, reading blogs or engaging in a particular social site online, it doesn’t mean they won’t be influenced by passionate users of these tools and sites (e.g. you might find my blog post on word of mouth influence relevant).
- Social Media , Strategy
- Comments(1)
While I think this is, in many ways, legitimate, the criteria they use – age ranges – is illegitimate. Maybe young teens is fine. Maybe some others.
But it doesn’t take into account factors that weigh heavy enough to make much of this info meaningless. Married vs. single is one. Have children vs. having no children. Attitudes, leisure time, financial priorities are quite different for both.
A 30 year old suburban mother/father of two is likely to be quite different from that of a single, childless urban based hipster, regardless of gender. And that 30 year old suburban mother of two may have more in common with a 42 mother of two.
These companies break down demographics poorly. The web, being so decentralized, now has bred a whole new framework for this microtargeting. Maybe it ‘s not based on strict individualism, but it’s closer.