Brand content, the guarantor of long-term brand recognition
No brand today can be satisfied with developing its reputation without worrying about its brand recognition. Brand content strategies are therefore essential allies for these brands in search of recognition.
Brand content is defined as all content created by brands to convey their values, convictions, commitments, history or know-how. Brand content can take many forms (written, digital, video, spoken…).
Brand content means making your values known
With a lot of advertising, brands can achieve high levels of brand awareness. Their target customers will say they know the brand, but why do they know them? Because their name is visible everywhere or because of what the brands do and what they are?
We can only guarantee loyalty to a brand by conveying values and commitments around its name, which are increasingly demanded by consumers. They will judge a brand’s products and services on their quality, of course, but they will also demand that the brand that offers them respect the values they share. Consumers are increasingly looking for purpose and societal engagement.
Brands must therefore constantly write stories that reflect their experience, their commitment, and that prove the values they convey, beyond the marketing arguments making the quality of their offering.
How can you develop an efficient brand content?
It is indeed very easy to fall into the usual clichés, without substance, without proof and to be called fake.
First step of a brand content strategy: determine your fields of engagement.
The first step is to identify the causes that the company is ready to commit to. Every company is a living actor in society in general and in its ecosystem in particular. This ecosystem can be regional, national or international.
Indeed, its voice is very influential and it is important that it participates in the debate on the issues that concern this ecosystem. Without taking part in this debate, it will be irreparably downgraded. Depending on the activity of each company, it is therefore necessary to identify the legitimate subjects on which it can and must intervene. A food company will be legitimate on health and wellness issues, while a financial company may talk about the future, responsibility or education.
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Second step: Speak up regularly
First, you have to select the topics that correspond to you and establish an editorial calendar in order to talk about them regularly.
To ensure a unity of tone, a limited number of spokespersons are also preferred. Then, study with them the themes of engagement that correspond to the company’s values. The spokespersons will be able to embody the message by integrating elements of their personality and their occupation.
In order to affirm the legitimacy of the company and its full investment in these subjects, it must speak out regularly. It is because the company will multiply its statements on the chosen themes e.g. education, innovation, responsibility, or health, that it will gradually be acknowledged as a committed expert.
This courage to adopt a position allows for the development of brand recognition. Also, it will ensure a greater loyalty of its customer targets.
The number of spokespersons may then be increased, as well as the choice of themes. However, these topics must always remain in line with the company’s values.
The brand content agency that is accompanying the firm will strive to anticipate the pitfalls that these speeches will generate. It will help to list the evidence of the company’s action in relation to the chosen themes. It will thus be necessary to carry out prior research into the interests of the company’s main stakeholders (press, NGOs, candidates, customers, etc.) and their expectations or doubts about the chosen themes.
Third step : Provide a communication shield against unforeseeable accidents.
Let’s take the example of an investment company that markets funds on the theme of health technologies. Traditional marketing would simply explain the performance potential of this sector and the securities that comprise its portfolio. But the only defence against capital flight in the event of a temporary performance crisis will be the legitimacy acquired by the managers. They would have had to regularly prove their commitment to this sector. They would have put forward their knowledge of the healthcare challenges for the world, to make people want to invest in a sector that makes sense beyond its mere performance potential.
A company selling food products, which is naturally very closely monitored on issues of hygiene or environmental responsibility, will be well advised to state the importance of these matters, and the way in which it integrates them into its industrial and commercial process. This transparency will be beneficial if an accident should occur. The examples of Nestlé and Danone are representative in this area.
Let’s conclude with a few other keys to a successful brand content strategy that we have developed elsewhere honesty, commitment to the debate, humility, responsiveness.
You now know more about the keys to building an effective brand content strategy! For more information or to be accompanied in this field, contact us.
