Growth and change define evolution. Refine and redefine your company’s marketing, branding, and presentations for the maximum audience impact. This comes with the perk of keeping you amused and delighted.
In the Beginning
We have always had marketing. An early cave person pounded two rocks together to share the news of a surplus of venison or a ripe berry stash. The evolution of marketing began with products being branded, a mark that let people know how to differentiate everything from livestock to silver tea services. Then regions become known as epicenters for quality goods, and soon we have French cheeses, the Nashville sound, and Silicon Valley software.
As Patrick Hanlon noted in “Exceptional Reasons Why Brands Must Radically Evolve,” where once a brand was a claim to quality, nowadays, there are many quality products on the market. It’s pretty much a given. So what else do you have that differentiates your product, goods, or service? The goal for brands has evolved from simply creating awareness to creating something deeper: meaning. Customers want a superior product or service, and yet they also value experiences, feelings, and association with a larger cause.
Today, the best branding has evolved to include presentations, in a variety of media, based on strong, authentic, immersive content that inspires and invites viewers to become members of a community. This is powerful because of our desire, as individuals, to connect with others in a worthy endeavor. Jason Miller posits that “Content marketing will always involve the carefully considered exchange of valuable content for valuable engagement, with a commitment to measuring that value.” Branding encourages us to join with others in our tribe, whether scoring tickets to Burning Man or bringing Peet’s Coffee to the office and making jokes about skinny iced lattes and expecting — and receiving — a perfect understanding at the punchline.
Content Marketing is about getting old-school marketers so delighted that they organically create communities centered on your brand. To do this, offer consumer experiences that are meaningful. One way is to leave a call for action. Another is to invite feedback and submissions. Or you could evolve your marketing to incorporate humor and wit to showcase your mission. For even more ideas to make your own, indulge in “Let Them Eat Cake: Layering Content to Entice Your Audience,” by Jennifer G.
It All Comes Out in The Wash: Take-Away Lessons from the High-Flying Dove Campaign
Let’s examine a real-world case study to explore how effective marketing evolution is executed. Let us unwrap and explore The Dove Campaign For Real Beauty, an iconic brand that flew above the competition with its innovative approach. Dove, in the early days, had a marketing style based on demonstrative attributes and product differentiation. A typical ad for Pink Dove from 1962 is straight outta Mad Men. A glamorous brunet talks into a pink phone as she reclines in a bathtub. “Yes darling, Pink Dove! New pink color, heavenly new fragrance — same creamy Dove formula!” Nothing wrong with the facts. It’s soap, it smells good. So will you. Nice, but not uplifting. Then came the evolution. The genesis for Dove’s Campaign For Real Beauty was based on nothing as ephemeral as a soap bubble. No, it was founded on solid research. Namely, as a response to a major global study, The Real Truth About Beauty: A Global Report, which told the dirty secret that only 2% of women self-describe as beautiful.
The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty has a readily recognizable presentation style and a marketing message infused with cheeky-yet-thoughtful wit that celebrates women’s individual beauty. Dove uses social and participatory marketing experiences and a buoyant presentation style, then adds a helping of empowered sensuality/feminism as the main ingredients in their brand. Their presentations generate buzz and inspire women to form an identity around the product. So in essence, the company creates brand awareness and fangirls create community.
The Campaign includes video, multi-media presentations, calls to action via surveys, workshops, sleepover events, and philanthropic endeavors. In 2006, Dove created a phenomenon with their “Evolution” video (which happens to be the theme of our topic. Wheels upon wheels!). Open on a black screen. Then a model sits down, she is made-up and coiffed in fast-forward motion, the resulting photos digitally enhanced. The ad ends with the words, “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted.” Call to action: “Take part in the Dove Real Beauty Workshop for Girls. Visit campaignforrealbeauty.ca.” This 1:14-minute video was viewed, in its first year without running on television, by over 3 million people.
#Brilliant
A high-flying community inspires influencers. We see this in the case of The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, which evolved by moving beyond stating that soap is a good thing to presentations based on solid knowledge of their fans, fulfilling a need for experience and identity with a marketing design that is a rich and soothing mixture of feminist/women-empowered energy and quality beauty and bath products that get fangirls in a lather. This is how to get a marketing campaign to evolve and clean up its act!
Evolve your business vision, style, and mission. Experiences, feelings, and associations are all part of your story. Take control of your story and its presentation. WriterAccess is here to help!
For articles, blog posts, marketing material, reviews, and product descriptions that excite the reader’s interest by using clear, concise language and incorporating research and expert resources, London R. helps you to present your best media presence to the world. It is a busy Web out there; stand out with the excellence of your content. Client satisfaction is her number one priority, and she is committed to successfully communicating your message by informing, educating, and entertaining the reader.
