Learn About Branding From Experts
What makes a marketing creative strategy successful? Messaging concepts that are memorable and address the target audience’s unmet needs and cultural sensibilities.
To avoid confusion in the marketplace, no two competing brands can share the same marketing creative strategy and expect to be successful. Breakthrough creative depends on aligning the unique essence of a brand with buyer expectations in a particular marketplace.
If a company and their marketing agency truly understand their brand, then developing clear, creative messaging is easy. Too often, brands confuse the idea of being different or unique with being effective. Unique creative is not always effective, and being different is not a substitute for being clear.
Experienced marketing professionals know a successful campaign should include creative thinking that will resonate with potential buyers through all channels including: events, print and digital advertising, social media promotion and public relations strategies.
Consider some of the examples below, which reveal clear, creative strategies behind of the world’s biggest brands.
1. Red Bull
Red Bull’s global creative strategy is so successful that many Americans assume the Austrian company is actually a local brand. One of the primary ways it entertains this illusion is by sponsoring high-profile sports events all around the world. If you take the all-American Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix at face value, you’d think that the company is a Midwest brand.
Importantly, Red Bull did this without relying on the promotional toolset of other big-name beverage brands. It never sought to fight Coca Cola or Pepsi on their own turf. It distanced itself entirely from that culture in every way possible, from the shape of the can to the brand’s logo and lettering – all of these details have distinct features compared to competing brands.
2. Volvo Trucks
While Volvo is a well-known consumer auto brand with its own marketing strategy, its B2B truck business needed to operate along different lines. The company’s 2016 Look Who’s Driving campaign did exactly this, producing a supremely creative take on the toughness-test marketing strategy.
Usually, B2B brands are not known for producing wildly creative marketing campaigns, but by putting a heavy-duty truck to a live test remote-piloted by a 4-year old girl, Volvo showed all of the most important strengths of their product line while engaging viewers.
3. Dunkin’ Donuts
Another global brand that successfully gives itself a local appeal is Dunkin’ Donuts. While there are few things more American than the donut, Dunkin’ Donuts operates a franchise empire in more than 30 countries worldwide.
In each country, donut options are localized by franchisees who have a free hand at changing menu items to fit local tastes. Chinese Dunkin’ Donuts serves dry pork and seaweed donuts, while Lebanese stores offer mango-chocolate donuts. In all of these cases, the brand’s messaging and graphic design is suited to fulfill the expectations of the target market and culture.
Need help pivoting your brand messaging to a consumer-oriented framework? Talk to the Vortex Communications team about your digital marketing goals today.