Digital brand management: making the most of special features

The digital presence of brands like Migros is becoming increasingly important. First of all: Digital media are not comparable with classic media such as a brochure or an image ad. Instead, they offer a platform on which we can create experiences through the brand and use four special features for this purpose.A few years ago, digital brand management primarily meant brand management on the Internet, specifically on one's own brand website. Then came digital devices such as cell phones, smartphones, and tablets. In the meantime, digital media also includes digital showrooms, three-dimensional posters, other interactive offerings in urban spaces such as digital advertising pillars and digital shop windows. Digital technologies include 3D holograms, augmented reality, virtual reality and Neer Field Communication (NFC). All these digital media and digital technologies form the brand's habitat, the digital cosmos, the Digital Brand Environments.Brand Habitat in Digital Media: Digital Brand EnvironmentsWith the advent of new media, people first tried to copy existing practices into the new media. On the Internet, this was the text from the customer magazine copied onto the website. Then, over time, a specific way of communicating developed for each medium.The "Big FourDigital brand management uses the special features of digital media to help make the brand known to customers and other important reference groups and to develop the image of the uniquely attractive brand in the long term. These special features are the "Big Four":1. integration,2. availability,3. networking,4. interactivity.

1. integration

Digital brand management is characterized by high-level integration of building blocks. Such building blocks are:► DevicesIntegration is possible with laptops, mobile phones, smartphones, tablets and other devices. Each of these devices is a platform. These platforms can be networked and different services can be integrated. It can take on the function of a showroom, be a virtual, interactive advisor. It can take on the function of a department store, travel agency or grocery store. Of course, it can also combine all these functions at the same time.► Services and technologies: Mail, telephony, chats, forums, and even augmented reality can be integrated into the platforms. Thanks to enormous developments in computer technology, the games industry is already applying technologies such as real-time graphics, digital speech processing, and artificial intelligence in many cases.► Media objects, such as a webpage, a blog post, a tweet on Twitter, and a video on YouTube. A photo on Facebook can be supplemented with a short narrative text.► Communication tools: From the point of view of digital brand management, it is important that previously mostly separate disciplines can be integrated, such as advertising with VideoAds, a digital public relations press kit, and sales promotion in the eShop.► Multimedia: Texts, photos, graphics, videos, animations and sounds can be integrated. Difficult products and services can be explained clearly using language, images and text. In the automotive industry, buyers can individually assemble vehicle models, colors and equipment on the screen (www.bmw.com). Prospective buyers can walk around the car, check it out from angles and take a look inside. 3D product presentations show how the product turns. Glass, metal, wood, and other materials look real.Three more examples:► Difficult products and services can be explained vividly using language, images, and text.► In the automotive industry, multimedia applications allow buyers to customize vehicle models, colors, and features on screen (bmw.com). Visitors to General Motors' website years ago were able to walk around the car, examine it from different angles, and take a look inside using appropriate camera guidance.► 3D product presentations allow customers to rotate and scale the brand. Glass, metal, wood, and other materials look real.Theme platformsInformation and service around a topic: Topic platforms are a unique forum that only exists in digital media due to its hypermediality. Profile yourself in a topic and make yourself an expert: platforms offer parents a lot of information and contact opportunities with other parents. The central idea is no longer to focus solely on a single brand (product view), but to bring the customer and his or her wishes closer to a holistic problem solution (problem view). Such desires are often tied to life events, such as the birth of a child. Procter & Gamble picks up on this and provides information on diapers, optimum diaper size, infectious diseases, opportunities to talk to experts. Young mothers and fathers will find information, entertainment and services for everything to do with babies.Brand platformsDigital brand management can use platforms for services around customer needs. Example: Someone wants to buy a birthday present. This consists of a book, a birthday card, and a bouquet of flowers. Normally, the customer would have to put together his own birthday package from site to site, but there would still be the problem of sending it all together. They'd rather go to the stores and buy from traditional retailers. So how does your brand fit into your customers' lifestyles?

2. availability

Brands can be available at any time, worldwide and in unlimited quantities:► Time: Independence from time enables round-the-clock (24/7) retrieval.► Space: In principle, every brand can be accessed anywhere in the world, provided that the necessary technology is available.► Memory: Unlimited memory enables digital brand storytelling in any width and depth. Material can be provided and downloaded by the user as desired (ringtones, videos, etc.)Brand management takes place anytime and anywhereThe rapid growth of smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices will increase location- and time-based communication - users can communicate at any time and in any place. Digital media such as the smartphone accompany users throughout their day - in contrast to laptops and PCs, smartphones are present in almost all situations of everyday life and are usually switched on and connected to the Internet during this time.For companies and organizations, this brings with it the challenge of generating knowledge about the needs, moods and behaviors of customers and other important reference groups in specific situations. We will come back to this in more detail later on the topic of availability.Digital media enable personalized addressing of the user, for example via smartphones in combination with the mobile Internet: Built-in sensors can be used to automatically monitor the user's situation factors, such as his or her current mood. Content and services, such as advertising, can be tailored to this.TopicalityYour website is accessible at any time - every visitor can download information and ask you questions in any way. On the Internet, you are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (24×7 rule).Since your visitors decide for themselves when they use your offer, you must be able to meet all individual requirements at all times. You also need to adapt your online presence quickly and at short notice to keep it up to date in terms of content and design. Product range inventory and prices, for example, must be right.Constant access to your website means that you must update content - outdated information annoys visitors and damages your brand image.Up-to-dateness also means responding quickly to inquiries - within a few hours if possible. In the case of difficult and extensive questions, the sender will surely understand that it will take more than a day to receive an answer. In this case, you should communicate that you have received the request and make every effort to respond quickly. Your visitor should realize that you want to communicate with them. Timeliness refers to the content of the website and the speed of your responses.

3. networking

In digital media, information can be linked together no matter where it is located. The user jumps through hyperlinks to the content that interests him: He starts reading a text, in between he looks at a photo, listens to an audio file at the same time and returns to the text. In this way, each visitor follows his or her own personal information path - jumping and navigating is the principle on the Internet.The principle of networking can be used for viral spots, i.e. small video sequences. These spots tell brand stories. Internet users pass them on in their social networks, which can create enormous multiplier effects. The video can lead through a link to the eCommerce platform, where the user can order the brand.One challenge from networking is that without a linear structure, your visitor loses his orientation: With the book, he knows where it begins, that one chapter follows another, and when the book ends. On the Internet, he does not know this. Users can only ever see a small section of an extensive dossier on the screen and must constantly decide how deeply or broadly they want to inform themselves, which path through the offer they choose.Good orientation is therefore essential for successful digital brand management. Goal: Your user always has a clear picture of what information your website offers and where he can find it, where he has already been and what he has not yet seen.

4. interactivity

Interactivity means responding to each other - either as selective, by clicking on a link, or productive, by participating in a narrative action via dialogue or gestures.► Human-Machine Interaction: Users largely determine the type, content, timing, duration, sequence and frequency of their information retrieval themselves. They can adapt the digital offering to their interests, wishes and needs by selecting building blocks (devices, technologies, services, media objects, etc.). Technical interactivity includes, for example, the slider that users can operate themselves while watching a video to control the speed and select any points. Three further examples of human-machine interaction are:Short text gallery: The user clicks from one short text module to the next, as in an image gallerySlideshow with audio elements: It runs like a video in a player and tells stories in images, but is also underpinned with original sounds from the protagonists, suitable sounds or music. Sometimes it also contains video elements, more rarely written text or graphics.360-degree panorama/3D photos: The user can manually change the perspective and zoom and navigate through the panoramic imagesDigital brand management thus requires a very active user. The user does not have to wait for something to happen, but can let something happen. Example: The user could choose a role on a brand website, e.g. customer, journalist, applicant, investor; then he determines the stage, e.g. research and development, production or administration. He could also choose the actor, i.e., the researcher, developer, production employee, or product manager.Interactivity in digital branding can mean that the computer learns from the user and tailors the branding to him. Developments in the games industry have already made it possible to register users' reactions in facial expressions and gestures and to adapt the story accordingly. Human-human interaction: This type of interaction involves complete exchanges between people. Face-to-face interaction allows brand managers to build a personal relationship with the user. This is essential for building trust and emotionally charges the brand. Personal interactivity enables new forms of communication in brand management. But it also poses challenges: Consumers exchange information about the brand: The Internet and social media are growing every minute with the exchange of experiences, opinions and self-generated content from millions of users worldwide. Users can thus constantly find out about brands and services regardless of time and place. In this way, a critical, well-informed user develops in a very natural way, who no longer bases his purchase decision solely on the company's brand messages, but decides for himself which brands he wants to surround himself with, which ones he wants to communicate with and which messages he takes in.Consumers can evaluate brands directly and publicly: In digital media, this happens with very high reach and impact quality. Word-of-mouth has always played an important role in building trust in a brand: If a friend highly recommends a product to us, we tend to at least test that product. Rumors spread in a similar way.Consumers can receive, distribute and create brand content themselves: What's also new is that users can create, archive and share branded content themselves around the world without the need for the brand owner to be involved. Let's take advantage of this unique opportunity: Let's engage with users. Let's exchange ideas with them about our brand and convince them that we offer the unique brand experience.- Brand Consulting: Satisfied customers are a prerequisite for long-term customer relationships. Problems that a customer has must be actively sought, solved and obstacles removed. A clear added value of the network can represent in the advice before, during and after a purchase. High-quality advice also underlines the high price level of the brand. Advice is one of the most common wishes and expectations of online shoppers, especially in sectors such as tourism, financial services and insurance, computers, cars and wellness. Specifically, two-thirds of online shoppers want advice by email, with personal advice on the phone and a callback from the company coming in second and third. Why don't you offer interactive Q&A sessions? They are an excellent way to get in direct contact with your users and learn about their problems, wishes and needs. By answering questions in a targeted manner, you demonstrate competence and retain your customers in the long term. Q&A sessions are suitable for a wide range of topics, such as insurance, financial services, travel, and more. Human-content interaction: Content interactivity means that users can add to brand content and even tell other stories. The user becomes active by determining the story or participating himself. The design therefore moves between the two poles of the storytelling company on the one hand and the storytelling user on the other. The user can influence the content of the brand communication: He can intervene in the plot and help shape it - nothing else happens in video games. So the question is: Does the user choose his story (human-machine interaction) or does he tell it himself as user-generated content? (human-content interaction). Practical experience shows that generating content from users (user-generated content) must not be an end in itself. It should be emotionally rewarding for the user to participate in the story. The content should contribute to the storyline. This can be, for example, the user's own experiences and own stories with the brand. Digital brand management therefore also requires active users. These do not have to wait for something to happen, but can make something happen. Digital brand management should involve the user and offer brand stories for action and not just for reading. Content where the user can sit back (for example, playing a video) can alternate with content where the user has to actively control their reception (for example, an interactive graphic with multiple layers). What's more, the user can even influence the content of the story.Conclusion: Great potential for brand managementSmall and medium-sized enterprises can use four special features of digital media for their brand management. In combination, these special features contribute uniquely to making the brand better known and building a uniquely attractive image. The special features come with challenges. Companies should therefore carefully examine which special features are being exploited in order to increase brand value.Advantages of digital media for brand management

In the upcoming post, read how to create immersive shopping experiences in your eCommerce. Read more about the series on Digital Brand Management hereMore information is available on the authors' website: www.dietergeorgherbst.de as well as in the eBook "Digital Brand Management - How to Build and Develop Strong Brands in Digital Media."

Authors: Prof. Dr. Dieter Georg Herbst and Thomas Heinrich Musiolik