Any businessman or entrepreneur knows that the best way to ensure the long term survival of a business is through brand activation. This is basically giving life to your brand. It entails creating brand loyalty by developing emotional and personal attachment between the customer and the product. However, the success of brand engagement varies from one company to another. In order to understand why this is so, it is important to have a look at one of the world’s most popular brands, “Coca-Cola”.
1. Brand Activation Is a Gradual Process
Entrepreneurs dream of turning a brand into a success story overnight. Sorry to say, but this only exists in the ideal and not in the real world. Brand engagement is a journey with the many ups, downs, and uncertainties.
2. Profits Are Not Immediate
The fruits of a good brand may take a long time to be realized. Brand engagement is purely driven at creating brand loyalty. It may take a company a long time to convince the market that indeed the brand can be trusted.
3. Embrace Failure with Open Arms
Brand activation requires a person embracing failures. Letdown should be viewed as stepping stones for bigger things to come rather than drawbacks. Although Coca-Cola makes approximately $15 million a day, the company made losses in its first year of production.
4. Change Is Inevitable
Brand engagement is never a static idea, but an open idea that at times will be by passed by time or a new idea. A successful entrepreneur always looks for the opportunities that may be hidden in an unfavorable situation. Coca-Cola drink was supposed to be syrup for bad diseases such as Melancholia, Neuralgia, as well as hysteria. If Pemberton stuck to the brain tonic idea instead of a soft drink, Coke would not be what it is today.
5. Go All Out
Branding should be applied holistically and not sparingly. To “Brand big, “, one has to cover all aspects that affect a product socially, politically, economically, as well as culturally. It is also important to apply the idea to other unrelated products. This idea is not only seen in Coca-Cola, but also in other leading brands such as Apple, and Nike.
6. Start Branding Early
Brand activation should begin as soon as the product is launched. There is no time that can be said to be perfect for a brand. A product may perform quite well during recession, yet another does poorly in a thriving market. This can be seen by how often Coca-Cola keep changing their logo and slogans in order to breathe new life to the brand.
7. Debranding
There is no guarantee that the first idea which seems right will work out. In fact, there is a chance that it may negatively affect other products in the same line. Coca- cola de-branded during the “Share a Coke campaign”. However, this may not work for just any company.
Being in touch with the latest trends is the only way to make sure brand activation remains effective. For instance, The Coke brand is undoubtedly the most successful brands globally. Nonetheless, the brand always has to keep up with latest technology. This is the only way of ensuring it remains ahead of the pack. With brands such Google, Apple, or Microsoft, its position as the leading brand is always under threat.
