The golden arches, the swoosh, the apple – Keeven White will tell you these recognizable icons are not brands. He knows that it goes much deeper than logos, taglines or even products – it comes down to consumer perceptions.
As the president and CEO of Whitespace Creative, an Akron-based integrated marketing communications agency and project resource that has averaged 25 percent annual growth over the past decade, White has made branding his business.
White spoke at the Smart Business Akron Live Luncheon at InfoCision Stadium last year about keeping your brand relevant in the face of social media, boredom and busyness.
What is a brand?
A brand is really the perceptions that are held in the mind of your customers. It’s that gut feeling they have about your company and the promise that your company puts out to them, what to expect when working with your brand or company. The brand completely lives within the minds of your customers.
How is branding different today?
The tactical landscape has changed radically. Social media has really taken the control away from you as the company and put it back in the hands of the consumers. It used to be that companies could outspend consumers to take control of that perception by putting a better image out there and saturating the market place with it. Well, now consumers have the voice and they have the ability to get that rapid distribution of their perceptions of what your brand is, and that has really changed the approach that a lot of people have to have in branding.
You still have to have all the advertising and marketing functions, but companies really need to embrace the fact that (social media is) going on because that conversation’s happening whether you’re taking part in it or not. Companies have to find a way to get involved and still influence that discussion, but they can’t do it from the bully pulpit anymore. They have to do it from controlling their products and brands and the way things are going out to the community.
What’s the biggest challenge of branding?
The biggest challenge of branding is boredom, and that comes from inside. Companies tend to get bored with their own brands way before your consumers get bored with it, and that’s from the visual presentation standpoint. They’ve seen it internally for so long, but to the consumers, it’s a small piece of what they see.
It used to be, back in the 70s, the consumer might get 500 pieces of advertising thrown at them per day. Today, it’s more like 3-6,000 thousand pieces per day, so they have tons of clutter coming at them. If you’re lucky enough to create connections with the consumer that they come to expect certain stylistic things coming out of your company and all of a sudden you change those things, you lost a connection that you had. Now you have to fight the 3 to 6,000 other impressions that are coming at them to reconnect those pieces.
What’s the biggest branding mistake leaders make?
They underestimate it. A lot of people want to do it once and just forget about it instead of making it a priority. Brands, if done right, can create long-term value and can drive premium pricing. Just because you have a logo and a couple ads that are consistent doesn’t mean that that’s a brand. You have to constantly focus on enhancing it and expanding it, and too often there’s other things that come up that take priorities, like sales are off this month. But branding has to be a priority at the top level of the company. Keep the focus on making sure that that brand is consistent. … The perceptions are always changing and you have to make sure that you’re trying to influence that.
Talk to your consumers. Find out what they think you are because it probably is going to be a lot different from who you think you are. The brand is not about what you say you are, it’s about what they say you are. You’ve got to get the consumer input and then go about delivering on things and creating more pieces that enhance that expectation.
How to reach: Whitespace Creative, (330) 762-9320 or www.whitespace-creative.com
