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May I be respectfully provocative?
Please allow me to ask a second question then: Is there a wall between people and brands?
People / clients who do not recognise themselves in a brand, who cannot feel like embracing a brand, who do not recognise the brand itself, they simply do not see the brand, do not consider it a brand, do not choose it.
Any brand becomes a brand when somebody feels it like a brand, otherwise it remains "something" external, distant, minor, irrelevant, not a brand. I would say there is no wall between people and brands: should a wall appear between a brand and a person, the Company/Product/Service represented by that brand has failed.
Am I too far from your perspective?
Said that - I would like to add that I agree with most of the comments and suggestions posted by the other people in this page!
Thanks for sharing with me your opinion on my view...
Best regards,
Paolo Casciato
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a) Good description about who you are (brand and marketer) and what you aim to be.
b) Include some fun stuff in the content
c) Introducing yourselves as a brand and as endorsers
d) Interacting with fans, followers and commenters
e) Admitting your mistakes
Humanize brands by:
1) Personalalised content
2) Speak in plain language
3) Use acceptable humour
4) Consumer Benefits
best way to preach the wall is - personalize the brand so people will get more attached to it
The "wall" between people and brands is not the Berlin Wall:)-. It can be razed down through humanising the brands in a number of ways like.............
1. Talk like a real person, not the big brand corporation. Jargon and really long words don’t impress anyone. People who promote themselves all the time become boring quickly - the same is true for brands. So be brief.2. If you’re going to open your mouth, say something interesting. Be witty if it comes naturally. We can’t do stand-up comedy, so we don’t try. Saying something interesting is the foundation for all marketing communication. If this part isn’t right, stop what you’re doing and have a lie downJ-.3. Be honest, we all make mistakes. Admitting mistakes is endearing. Making fun of yourself shows you’re well.... and human. Brands can struggle with this, the evidence may be overwhelming, but they still stick to the ‘official story’.
4. Converse, don’t lecture. Twitter, facebook, etc., are the places for conversations with customers, but it needs real people (with real names) to represent the brand.5. Authenticity is the new duplicity. If your brand has something to hide, you will be found out. Brands that only care about profit, will be soon exposed. The only brands that will be valued in future are friendly and honest ones - see, just like real humans again. Be who you really are!6. Be confident. Brands sometimes behave nervously, too worried what people (usually the boss) may think. A brand can’t live like that. Humans are naturally intuitive, it’s OK to trust your intuition in this regard.
7. Be a generous brand. We like generous friends. Try to help people, they’ll thank you for it. Think about purpose rather than just product. Share stuff, give stuff away - it will all come back to you.8. Listen. Brands that keep their ear to the ground and hear the signals in social media first, can react faster.9. Brands can become media companies. The most loved brands will capture attention by being entertaining or useful. 10. Support creative work. This point is last for a reason. It’s dear to our hearts, and often overlooked by the media industry gurus. Support brave creative work that builds emotional connections. Emotional work beats the rational product points.
Personalize your brand and be very active on social media as by help of them you can directly connect with the people. Also, try to find out ways to have direct interaction with the people yu do business with.
Any business might encounter some barriers that could affect the business such as the brand/audience relationship; When in comes to the inhuman brand, it delivers an incomplete image about the brand and conveys a message that this brand is made mainly to create profit to the firm; However, we could overcome this by making the brand more friendly, more customer-focused (Ex. as in the You-view approach) to deliver the complete concept of the brand to the audience
Using Social media to connect to people
Have conversation with your followers
Allowing the customer to have a personal touch
Consumer Benefits
Admit your mistaks and add some humour while interacting
I believe the best way would be to
1) Starts with the actual product itself, for instance, asking yourself, is this product really necessary for such and such a market. The Japanese car market really hit the ground running for Africa because their low prices were in sync with what we wanted here, low prices albeit comprising quality.
2) Perception, which focuses on presentation. Language barriers. Selling is difficult if you cannot present the product and its uses and functions in line with the markets' needs. Its like communicating in two different languages. PR should then always try present things in the targeted markets language. Here, I am not only talking about language only but cultures and traditions. Here in Zimbabwe we had a perfect peanut butter which effectively failed to gain in foothold simply because it was named Black Cat. Black cats are associated with witchcraft here. A need to be sensitive to the peoples views, cultures and such.
Basically, I think its about the product (aligning to peoples need) and presentation ( communicating in their language, culture, views).
The role of PR is to create a good relationship between an organization and its publics and maintaining a good,clear and excellent perception about the firms offer to its markets.when then is there a wall?when competitors brands over shadows your brand,not necessarily because their offer is better than yours but due to your inability to withstand competition.No matter the product life cycle stage of the offer,all the4 Ps and if necessary the extended marketing mix elements should be strategically implemented to ensure that customers are not just satisfied,but are delighted to enable PR fly on these attributes.
