Designing Holistic Marketing Activities
Customers come to know a brand through a range of contacts and touch points: personal observation and use, word of mouth, interactions with company personnel, online or telephone experiences, and payment transactions. A brand contact is any information-bearing experience, whether positive or negative, a customer or prospect has with the brand, its product category,
TABLE 8.2 Criteria for Choosing Brand Elements
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For Building the Brand |
For Defending the Brand |
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Memorable: Is the element easily recalled and recognized at purchase and consumption? Example: Tide |
Transferable: Can the element introduce new products in the same or different categories? Does it add to brand equity across geographic boundaries and market segments? Example: Amazon.com |
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Meaningful: Is the element credible and suggestive of the category? Does it suggest something about a product ingredient or a brand user? Example: DieHard |
Adaptable: Can the element be adapted and updated? Example: Shell logo |
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Likable: Is the element appealing or playful? Example: Pinterest |
Protectable: Is the element legally and competitively protectable? Can the firm retain trademark rights? Example: Yahoo! |
or its market.25 The company must put as much effort into managing these experiences as into producing its ads because any brand contact can affect consumers’ brand knowledge and the way they think, feel, or act toward the brand.
Integrated marketing is about mixing and matching marketing activities to maximize their individual and collective effects.26 Marketers need a variety of different marketing activities that consistently reinforce the brand promise, working singularly and in combination. We can evaluate integrated marketing activities in terms of the effectiveness and efficiency with which they affect brand awareness and create, maintain, or strengthen brand associations and image.
